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The drumming of the rain soothed something in his soul. He breathed in a deep breath before he let it out, slowly, closing his eyes once again. “Yeah, I think I am.”

Chapter

Thirty

Adry hugged Merrik around the waist. Shocked as he was, he didn’t even seem to notice that she was still gritty and smelly since she, Dacha, Uncle Iyrinder, and the elite guard had been ordered home from the front early that morning to attend a meeting with Uncle Julien, Uncle Edmund, and the whole complement of Alliance generals.

The meeting had just wrapped up, and her ears still buzzed with all the information her uncles had revealed. Mongavaria had a secret base where they were experimenting on captured ogres. There were likely captured Alliance soldiers there as well. Dacha, Fieran, and Pip would be heading out on a mission with Uncle Edmund to rescue the captives and, ultimately, end the war.

That meeting had ended with Uncle Julien handing Merrik a promotion to captain of the Half-Breed Squadron since Rothilion, too, was being sent on a secret mission. Merrik held that paper, gaping at it, as if he couldn’t comprehend what he was looking at. While Merrik had been a captain in rank, he hadn’t had sole command of the squadron before.

Leaning closer, she whispered into his ear, “I’m so proud of you.”

“I cannot believe it.” Merrik’s gaze lifted from the paper, but he didn’t look at her. Instead, his gaze strayed to first Fieran and Pip, then Rothilion.

Releasing him, Adry gave Merrik a slight push. “Go on and talk with them.”

Merrik glanced at her before he nodded and joined his friends.

She understood. He needed this moment with his squadron mates before they left on their missions.

She, too, would need a moment with Fieran and Pip before they left. Fieran was her brother, after all, and he was about to leave on a dangerous mission deep into enemy territory. But she could wait her turn.

As everyone drifted away from the table—her uncles still talking quietly, Merrik and Fieran with his squadron mates—Dacha halted next to Adry. After gazing after Fieran for a long moment, Dacha turned to her, a depth of pain in his eyes. “I never wanted either of you to fight alone.”

And now, no matter what he did, one of his children would be alone and without his protection. Either that, or Dacha would have had to go into Mongavaria alone, leaving Fieran and Adry to fight the war here without him.

“I won’t be entirely alone.” Adry forced herself to grin. “There’s Rhohen.”

While Dacha, Fieran, Pip, and Uncle Edmund made their foray into Mongavaria, the Alliance Army planned to make an all-out push. There would be no more spending only a week at the front. Once Adry returned to the front lines, she’d stay there until the war ended. She and Rhohen both.

Dacha gave her a rather unamused look. After all, Rhohen would be fighting along a different section of the front. He wouldn’t be actively protecting Adry’s back. After a moment, Dacha’s gaze drifted back to Fieran’s retreating firn. “I did not intend to choose between the two of you. But I must go, and Fieran was the most logical choice to liberate that hidden base.”

Fieran was needed to fly the airship Uncle Edmund planned to borrow—hijack—from the Mongavarians. Not to mention, he and Pip were a powerful pair when teamed up together.

“But, sena, you are ready for this.” Dacha turned to her and clasped her shoulders, meeting her gaze with his silver-blue eyes. “You have always been so very fierce, and you are strong enough to stand as Laesornysh alone.”

A lump formed in her throat, and she blinked several times before she threw herself forward and hugged him. “Linshi, Dacha. I won’t let you down.”

“I know you will not.” Dacha wrapped her in a hug in return. “I am so very proud of you, sena, and the warrior you have become.”

Her hug tightened around him. Her dacha called her a warrior. He trusted that she could handle being the Laesornysh.

After a moment, Dacha pulled back from the hug, though he rested a hand on her shoulder. He released a long sigh, his gaze swinging away from her to stare into the distance. “Before I leave, I must prepare you for some of the realities of fighting as a Laesornysh alone. Especially if you should be wounded.”

Swallowing, she drew in a deep breath and forced herself to straighten. She wouldn’t let her dacha down.

With an evening breeze stirring her hair where she stood at the edge of the mansion’s airfield, Adry leaned over as she gave Pip a hug. “Look after each other, all right?”

It felt both strange and also strangely right to entrust her brother’s safety to this half-dwarf woman. For years, protecting Fieran had been Adry’s job. Now she could feel it as an almost tangible thing as she handed that duty off to Pip. It was her place now.

The plan was for Uncle Edmund, Dacha, Fieran, and Pip to rescue those held at the Mongavarian secret facility, then for Fieran and Pip to provide magical protection to the rescued prisoners while they escaped to the Escarlish border. Dacha and Uncle Edmund would continue on to the Mongavarian capital to do something to end the war. Uncle Edmund hadn’t exactly been forthcoming on that part, though it would be sneaky, whatever it was.

If all went well, Fieran and Pip would be back in Escarland in a little over a week.

Pip’s smile was shaky, and all she did was nod as she stepped from Adry’s hug. She turned to her brother Mak, the two of them needing a longer farewell.

Adry turned, found Fieran, and gave him a tighter, longer hug than she’d given Pip. “Stay safe, okay?”