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Florin’s fingers tightened around my hand, stopping my movement a moment before Weylyn stilled in front of us as a low growl issued from his throat. An answering chorus of growls poured out of the trees beyond our position. In the next second, Florin, Ced, and I were surrounded by my champions and Sephiran. Their backs were pressed in close around us. Wey glanced over his shoulder, eyes catching mine as he fell into a stance I’d seen him assume a hundred times on the training yard.
“What’s your business on this road?” A deep, masculine voice called from the trees.
“Road?” Wey scoffed. “It’s not even a path.”
Another rumble rippled out, followed by several hard-looking men. They were all wielding some type of weapon—swords, axes, or bows with their metal-tipped arrows pointed directly at us. One of the men stepped forward. He was lean and carried himself with an air of power from his dirty blond hair to the rough-looking boots on his feet.
“Is that your little lordling hiding behind you now? Maybe you need to know your place, slave.”
Two things happened at once—Wey and Braz both stiffened, their matching growls filling up the empty space between us and our potential attackers, and Nica shifted to human form, quickly lifting a peaceful hand forward.
“We do,” Nica said, still breathless from his shift. “It’s with the goddess hereafter.”
Dirty-blond man eyed Nica’s naked body up and down. I found a huff spilling out of my mouth before I could help it. He smirked. “What’s your name?”
“Nicabar of House Natas in Zyon. Formerly, anyway.”
Nicabar?How had I not known his full name?
Something flashed across the man’s face—surprise? Awe? He raked his eyes over our party again, stopping briefly to hold my gaze, before looking back at Nica. “Well, Nicabar, the goddess will lead us beyond, but I’ll lead you back to our camp.”
A relieved breath rattled out of my lungs, and I squeezed Florin’s hand again as we followed the Resistance warriors farther into the forest.
2
Braz
One minute, we were surrounded by trees, and the next, we were in a huge clearing with hundreds of tents. All these years, I felt like I’d heard about more Resistance failures than successes—maybe that was what the mages wanted—so I definitely wasn’t expecting there to be so many of them here. Or for them to be so well organized.
There was a large area where soldiers were training, and an area for the horses—to train and graze—plus a tent filled to the brim with weapons. As we walked farther into the encampment, we passed a huge tent with a bunch of tables where food was set out for everyone, and beside that tent was a large fire where they were cooking the food—the smells were making me hungry. We even passed a smaller tent that was filled with children, where they were teaching them. That shocked me, but it was something I appreciated. It made me wonder just how long they’d been in this area and whether they’d had to pack up camp and move around like I’d always assumed they did.
I suppose the Resistance had been around for many years, so they’d been figuring out everything they needed, but I’d been expecting only a few people, and certainly not for those people to be actively training. The sight gave me hope, something I’d been sorely lacking for well over a decade.
I was following behind, watching everyone’s backs, and we kept Theon, Florin, and Cedric in the center of our group. These people weren’t being hostile, but we weren’t taking any chances. Weylyn and Sephiran were on either side, and Nica was at the front of the group, only in his breeches. I had a feeling he would’ve confidently strolled into this camp buck naked if Theon hadn’t thrown his breeches at him. I shook my head at the tiger fondly before checking for the hundredth time that Florin was still moving okay.
We were walking faster than we had been, and I could see the strain on Florin’s face whenever he turned to the side. I understood why he wanted to walk himself, even if all I wanted to do was cradle him to my chest so he’d stop hurting and no one could lay a hand on him again. Florin must’ve sensed my eyes on him because he turned slightly and sent me a wink. Of course that move made Theon shoot me a sweet smile that I returned before scanning our surroundings again.
The blond man stopped at a tent toward the center of the camp and called out, “We picked up a group of escapees that I think you’ll want to meet, Kasper.”
There was some noise from inside the tent, and I tensed along with Nica, Weylyn, and Sephiran. The tent flap opened up, and a man ducked out with gray skin, dark hair, and eyes that were nearly black. When he stood, he was around Nica’s height, but the plates on his neck and forearms made my eyes widen. A gargoyle. Other than Weylyn, I’d never met another gargoyle before.
My eyes shot to Weylyn to see his reaction, but unsurprisingly, he was stoic. There was no way he wasn’t feeling something, though. EvenIwas, and I didn’t really like Weylyn, but he was good at masking his feelings.
The other gargoyle assessed our group, his eyes lingering on Weylyn longer than the rest of us before he focused on Nica and said, “I’m Kasper Denholm, and you are?” I recognized the name right away. Kasper Denholm. This man was the leader of the Resistance.
Nica said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir. My name is Nicabar, formerly of House Natas. We escaped five nights ago.”
Kasper’s eyes took us in again. “Nicabar, you’ve been a great help to our cause over the years. Is there a reason you’ve brought a mage to our camp?”
Oh shit.I knew we wouldn’t be able to hide the magic that seemed to be emanating from Theon—like using all that magic the other night had somehow released it—but I’d hoped we’d be able to hide it for a few days to secure our place here first.
The soldiers around us pointed their weapons at our group, and I growled with Weylyn and Sephiran, all of us raising our own weapons, ready to defend each other if we had to. There were a lot of them at this camp, but I was confident that we were better fighters. Not that it would do us much good when the odds were a hundred to one.
“Theon was a slave of House Natas along with us. He’s the one who freed us. I promise you, he’s no threat to the Resistance.” Nica held his hand behind himself toward Theon without taking his eyes off Kasper. Theon put his hand in Nica’s, and Nica pulled him forward to show Kasper his slave’s mark—theNburned into each of our forearms. “He was a slave, and he could be an asset to us now.”
“I want to help,” Theon added when Kasper didn’t immediately reply.
Weylyn grunted to get Kasper’s attention and said, “Theon freed every slave in one of the most notorious Houses in the Zyon Kingdom. If we can’t seek refuge here—all of us—we’ll go elsewhere, but you will lose the best warriors in all of Pelas.”
