His voice is sharper now, like shattered bone. I glance up at him and find him glowering, barely holding himself together.
“You think I care about coups and rebels and cities full of corpses?” he says. “I care aboutyou. And I’m not letting you go back in just to bleed out again.”
“I’m not asking your permission.”
“I know,” he snarls. “That’s what scares me.”
I stand slowly. My leg still aches like it remembers the arrow lodged in it, but I force my spine straight.
“Then come with me.”
Kragna blinks.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“River—”
“I’m not doing this alone. But I’m not backing out either. So if you’re scared, stay here. If you’re tired, stay here. But if you meant it—if you’re with me, thencome.”
His eyes blaze with something I don’t dare name—something heavy, ancient, terrible and beautiful.
“Always,” he says.
The word lands like a promise carved in stone.
18
KRAGNA
The woods behind us are quiet. Too quiet.
Every step toward Rizzo’s camp is a gamble, and not just because we’re bringing a fucking monster parade with us. No—this is about trust. About what humans see when they look at me, and the ones I’ve brought. They’re going to think it’s an attack. They might shoot first. And honestly, I wouldn’t blame ’em.
“Stay close,” I growl low to River as the old stone path thins out. “Let me do the talking.”
She nods, jaw tight, lips pale. She knows what we’re walking into.
Veeto’s to my left, chewing on a hunk of dried fish with his usual slouched swagger. Harriet slinks behind us, five heads sniffing the air, nostrils flaring with each uncertain breeze. Bruce—sweet, behemoth Bruce—keeps swaying like he thinks he’s being subtle, even though every tree he brushes drops half its needles in surrender. Charen buzzes above, wings glittering, drunk off pine sap and bad decisions.
It ain’t exactly subtle.
We reach the tree line.
Beyond it, the clearing that houses Rizzo’s stronghold—half scavenged military base, half fortified ruin—comes into view. Makeshift watchtowers, rusted gun nests, ragged flags snapping in the wind. Figures on the battlements spot us, and in seconds, the alarms start howling.
“Well,” River mutters, “they noticed.”
Guns rise. Dozens. Laser-sighted rifles, cobbled-together muskets, rail slingers. We’re walking into a porcupine with its back up.
“Easy now,” I call out, raising both hands. “No sudden moves.”
“Sudden moves?” Charen slurs, spiraling downward. “You brought me to a firing squad, you bastard!”
“Shut it,” I hiss through my teeth.
A woman with a shorn scalp and a sniper’s eye squints down at me from a perch. “That Kragna?”
