“What’s he doing here?” she demanded.
Jas smiled nervously, looking to Torwin for rescue.
“He’s here to help,” Torwin said, tucking the knife back into his boot on the side farthest from Asha. “Jas, meet Asha.”
At her name, Jas’s eyes went wide. He glanced at her scar. “The Iskari,” he whispered. Her reputation apparently preceded her, because Torwin didn’t say anything more. “I’ve heard... a great many things about you.” He lifted his fist to his heart, and then—as if addressing Asha a moment more might make her reach for the knife again—he turned to Torwin.
“You haven’t seen my sister, have you?”
Torwin shook his head. “We only just arrived.”
Jas worried his lip with his teeth. “She and Dax quarreled, and now she’s disappeared.”
Asha frowned in confusion.
Dax was here? WithRoa?
Asha looked to Torwin. “What’s going on?”
“There’s... a lot you don’t know,” he said. “Come on. I’ll show you.” He looked to Jas. “Coming?”
The boy shook his head. “I need to find my sister.” Glancing to the Iskari, he said, “It was nice to meet you, Asha.”
She nodded, then followed Torwin through the trees.
When the woods grew sparse, voices mingled with the sound of the wind in the leaves. When the trees disappeared completely, Asha found herself standing atop a hill covered in pinecones, looking down over a camp of thousands. Dozens of bonfires burned, surrounded by groups of people sitting and drinking. Canvas tents of all sizes were pitched around them.
“Welcome to New Haven,” said Torwin, motioning to the bowled-out valley below. “The name was your brother’s idea. This is where he’s assembling his army.”
My brother,she thought, her heart racing,is plotting a war.
Was Dax even capable of such a thing?
Suddenly, two forms approached. When they stopped, Asha saw they were draksors. Draksors studying Asha with the same wary look she directed at them. They nodded to Torwin, then stepped back.
Torwin held his hand out to her, but Asha—all too aware of the patrols watching—didn’t take it. Instead, she headed down the hill, toward the tents and the bonfires.
The moment she set foot in the camp, hundreds of eyes looked up, first to the Iskari, then to the slave at her side. Ashacouldn’t help staring back. Around every fire were not just draksors and skral but scrublanders too.
Enemies... united.
Dax did this?
“Asha,” Torwin said from behind her. The moment he did, a hushed silence descended. Asha halted on the trodden-down path and looked back. Torwin clearly wanted her to follow.
Asha looked past Torwin, to the faces lit up by firelight. Draksor and skral. They sat side by side, sharing jugs of wine. But collars still hung around skral necks. And skral eyes didn’t quite meet draksor ones. And every gaze narrowed on one young man. The slave who said the Iskari’s name. Out loud. As if he had a right.
The hair on Asha’s arms rose. She went to Torwin’s side, her fingers moving to an axe that wasn’t there. She stayed close as he led her to a tent guarded by two scrublanders, their double-edged sickle-like swords sheathed in leather scabbards. They nodded to Torwin, who stepped inside the tent.
Asha followed him in.
Thirty-Four
A map lay unrolled across a roughly made table, and over it leaned Dax, his finger tracing some boundary Asha couldn’t see. Next to him, looking where he looked with her arms crossed over her chest, stood Safire, the bruises on her face receding. Around them stood a hastily pitched tent, the fawn canvas kept aloft by roughly hewn columns made of thick branches.
Asha’s heart jolted at the sight of them.
When Torwin cleared his throat, Dax and Safire looked up, their mouths opening at the same time.
