I lie under a canopy of swaying branches, the wind threading through the leaves in soft, rhythmic whispers, like the forest’s trying to sing me to sleep. But my thoughts are louder. Ugly. Relentless.
“You should’ve dragged her out,” I mutter to no one. “You should’ve noticed the setup. You should’ve?—”
“Blaming yourself won’t change shit,” Kragna says behind me, voice low and raw.
I don’t turn to face him. I know the look he’s giving me—half pity, half fury.
“She knew what she was doing,” he goes on. “She walked into that fire with her eyes wide open.”
“She walked in because I asked her to,” I shoot back, finally twisting to face him. “I made the deal. I brought her that crate. She trusted me.”
“She’s a captain of the goddamn guard, River. Not some wide-eyed street rat. You think she didn’t know what kind of game this was?”
I bite my lip hard enough to taste copper. “Still feels like I lit the match.”
Kragna’s crouched beside me, his shadow stretched long in the firelight. He’s cleaned up since the city—fresh bandages around his forearm, hair pulled back from his face—but his eyesare wild, still stained with the echoes of battle. The rage hasn’t left him. Just gone quiet.
“She was ready to burn,” he says, softer now. “You think she’d flinch from the consequences?”
“No,” I admit. “But I still have to do something.”
He sighs, long and slow. “Figured you’d say that.”
“I can’t sit here while they gut the rebellion,” I whisper, voice cracking. “While they turn her into an example.”
“I know.”
“And you can’t stop me.”
His mouth quirks. “I didn’t say I would.”
We stare at each other a long moment, tension coiling in the silence between us. Then I push myself up onto my good leg and limp toward the fire, where Toad Knight is furiously scribbling something on a stained sheet of hide with what looks like charcoal and ambition.
“I need a map,” I say, dropping beside him.
Toad Knight doesn’t even blink. “Of Kyrdonis?”
“Of the underlevels. Catacombs. Old servant tunnels. Anything not on the noble records.”
He nods, flipping the hide over. “They call me mad, you know.”
“I’m aware.”
“But in my madness, I remember. I drew them once. When I was still Sir Valthros of the Sewer Guard, Third Rank.”
I blink. “You were a guard?”
“Briefly. Before the war. Before the toad.”
I don’t ask. He starts sketching with trembling fingers, lines snaking like veins across the parchment, marking exits, watchtowers, possible bolt-holes. I peer over his shoulder, correcting where I can, adding names of dead nobles and collapsed corridors. It feels good—horrible and necessary and good—to focus on something I can control.
Kragna looms behind me, arms crossed, face tight.
“You almost died,” he growls.
I don’t look up. “That’s how war works.”
“You think I give a shit about the war?”
