Page 43 of Broken Oath

“Where is she now?” he asked.

The nurse looked at him.

“You woke up.”

“So?”

“She left.”

The answer felt wrong.

Too clean.

Too planned.

“As soon as she learned you were conscious,” the nurse said, “and as soon as the doctors told her all three of you were going to survive, she disappeared.”

Rook stared at the empty chair.

Someone had pulled them from a death trap.

Someone had transported them under false identities.

Someone had guarded their rooms because she expected the enemy to come finish what the mountain had started.

And she had vanished the moment she knew Rook was awake.

“Did she leave anything?” he asked.

The nurse shook her head. “Not that I saw.”

Rook looked down at his hands.

Questions crowded inside his mind.

Who was she?

Why had she risked her life to save them?

How had she known about the ambush?

And why did the fragment of her voice feel strangely familiar?

He shifted against the pillows.

Something hard pressed beneath his left hand.

Rook frowned.

He pulled the pillow aside.

A silver coin lay beneath it.

The metal gleamed in the morning light.

A sword was engraved into one side of the coin.

Silver blade.