“I can’t kill both of you before you take me down,” Nesha said. “But the first to move will die.”

Bins and Nedrid gaped at her. Keeping clear of Nesha’s line of sight, West advanced on the guards with ropes. He was helping them now?

“Nesha,” Larkin whispered in despair. Her sister was now in every bit as much danger as Larkin. Perhaps more, for she had no magic and was cumbersome with child.

“Toss Larkin your knife and set your weapons down slowly,” Nesha said.

“If she escapes, Garrot will kill us both,” Nedrid murmured.

Bins’s mouth tightened. As if on cue, both men lunged. Nesha shot Bins through the center of his chest. He dropped wordlessly. West ran Nedrid through. The man gasped and started to yell. West whipped around him, one hand going over the man’s mouth, the second drawing his sword across his neck. West held his hand over Nedrid’s mouth as he kicked and struggled before going limp.

Larkin gaped at the bodies, shocked at how quickly men could go from living, breathing, thinking beings to lumps of cooling meat. Aside from threatening her life the one time, both men had been respectful toward her. They didn’t deserve to die. Larkin turned away.

West’s fingers were bleeding, and a fine sheet of sweat covered his brow. “Hold out your hands.”

She did as he asked. He sawed though her bonds.

“You’re helping me now?” she asked.

“You were right—about the wraiths,” West said without looking at her. “Anyone who thinks they can make an alliance with something that evil is delusional. And besides, instead of trying to run, you saved my life when Garrot couldn’t so much as bother with me. I figure I owe you.”

She’d been surrounded by an army. If running would have done her any good, she would have done it. No point in telling West that.

She turned to Nesha. “What changed your mind?”

Nesha stared at the bodies on the ground, her expression lost. “I followed him two nights ago. And again this evening. I saw the wraith. I saw … I saw Garrot hit you. I interrogated West. His story matched what you told me.” A sob escaped. “Larkin, I’m sorry.”

Pity welled in Larkin. Nesha’s entire world was built on a foundation of lies, and those lies were crumbling around her.

West peered out the tent flap. His gaze went to Nesha. “The tent is watched. You can’t both leave.”

She sighed. “I know.”

Larkin gaped at her. “What do you mean, you know?”

Nesha set down the crossbow and removed her dark green velvet cloak. “You have to go, before night falls and the wraiths find you.”

Larkin’s mouth fell open. “I’m not leaving you behind. Garrot will kill you.”

“No,” Nesha said. “West has fallen for your lies, you see. He lured me here under the pretense that you were sick. I came to find the guards already dead. He bound, gagged, and hid me in your place, where I will be found in the morning.”

“What if Garrot doesn’t believe you?”

Nesha wrapped the cloak around Larkin’s shoulders. “I have wronged you so deeply, sister. Will you not allow me to make it up to you?”

Larkin looked at this woman, the best friend of her youth. She wished they could go back to that—to the joy and innocence of their childhood. But even with all the risks Nesha was taking … it didn’t erase the damage she’d already done.

“If you don’t go,” Nesha said, “there will be no one to warn your prince or his people.”

Larkin’s mouth hardened into a thin line. Nesha nodded once and glanced down at the cut, filthy ropes lying at Larkin’s feet. “Do you have any fresh ones?”

West produced some from a trunk and bound her hands. She winced as he pulled them tight. “Sorry, miss, but they have to be tight enough to be believable. Wouldn’t hurt if you took some of the tonic too, to make it look like I drugged you first.”

She shook her head. “It might hurt the baby.”

He grunted and tied her to the stake that had been pounded into the ground.

Larkin stared down at her sister, helpless and alone. “How can I leave you?”

“Despite all he has done, Garrot has never harmed me,” Nesha said. “Has never shown me the slightest unkindness. He loves me.” She turned away, shame coloring her cheeks.

“You still love him,” Larkin whispered.

“Love doesn’t just go away because someone has done wrong, Larkin. You of all people should know that.”

West gagged her.

“I hope you’re right,” Larkin whispered.

West peeked out the tent. “Stay behind me. Keep your head down.”

Larkin pulled up the cowl. “Where are we going?”

“To free your friend.”

West slipped out. Larkin shot one look back at her sister, who gave a solemn nod, before slipping into the dark after him. She was grateful for the cowl to hide her face and the cloak that hid her smooth belly.

“How do you intend to free Tam?”

“He has two guards. We’ll have to kill them both, quickly and quietly.”

Larkin had killed before, but it had always been in a fair fight, never an ambush. And even then, she’d been haunted by nightmares. Her steps faltered.

As if sensing her hesitation, West reached back and tugged her forward. “If you can’t do this, we’ll have to leave him behind.”

Which meant Tam would face Garrot’s wrath alone. She had a feeling he would not survive, no matter what the druid had promised Denan. She took a deep breath and nodded.

West hurried on. “Keep your head down and your cowl up. I’ll get us in the tent and the men to turn to the prisoner. When I say ‘filthy pipers,’ we strike as one. Go for an instant kill so he doesn’t make any noise. I’ll pass any noise off as the prisoner protesting.”

Filthy pipers. Strike. Kill. She sent up a prayer to the ancestors that she wouldn’t mess it up. The tent was about half a mile from her own. West paused before the flap and shot her a look over his shoulder. She nodded.

“Miss Nesha to see the prisoner on behalf of Garrot.”

“West? Is that you?” An older man with white hair pulled back the tent flap. Larkin felt the man’s gaze slide over her. She kept her gaze fixed on her hands. He clapped West on the shoulder. “Boy, I haven’t seen you since I boarded with your family last winter. How is your mother? Still making that apple pie?”

“Hanover?” West slid a look to her, his expression defeated. This man meant something to West. But she wasn’t leaving without Tam.

“Sir,” she murmured. “I would like to see the prisoner now.”

Hanover bowed. “Of course, miss.” He backed into the tent.

West grabbed her shoulder and whispered, “Hanover is my friend, Larkin. I can’t—”

“Get him in a choke hold. Something. We’ll tie him up.”

“It’s too risky.”

“I’ll flare my shield.” She pushed into the tent and instantly locked eyes with Tam.

There were two guards, Hanover included. The second stood, his brow furrowed. It was the man who’d tried to spit on her the other day. He looked her over. “That’s not—”

She stepped in front of West. “Down,” she commanded.

Tam flattened himself as she flared her shield, throwing the guards back a step—she dared not use more lest she shake the tent. Then she was running toward Spitter.

She held her sword inches above his throat. “Don’t move.”

To her right, Tam locked his arms around Hanover’s neck as he bucked and fought.

“Don’t hurt him.” West drew his own sword and glared at Tam.

Larkin’s sword jerked as Spitter grabbed it with his bare hands and wrenched it to the side. It cut straight through his fingers, which rained to the floor. He stared at his ruined hands and opened his mouth to scream. She shoved her sword into his throat. His lips opened and closed, gaping like a fish. She wrenched her gaze from him.

“Tam, don’t kill that one!” she hissed.

“Just putting him to bed, gentle as his mama,” Tam said.

West shifted on his feet. “Garrot will kill him for failing. Larkin, he’s my friend.”

Larkin felt the man struggling on the other end of her sword like a fish on a line. Her skin crawled, and her gorge rose. She forced herself to face him, to shove her sword deeper, into his spine. He dropped, and his legs flailed against hers even though he was dead.

She let her magic fade as she turned to face Hanover. “I am Princess Larkin of the Alamant. I give you a choice, Hanover. Come with us or die.”

Hanover pulled at Tam’s arm, but his hold was unbreakable.

“Hanover, if the druids have their way, all of the Idelmarch will be lost,” West said. “How many times have you told me the druids shouldn’t run the kingdom and the army? Can you trust me, old friend?”

Hanover stared at West, his eyes bugging. He gave a slight nod.

Tam hesitated. “If you betray us, you’ll die for it. As will many hundreds more.”

Hanover nodded again, which she took to mean he wouldn’t betray them.

Tam eased his hold. The man gasped in a breath. Then another. When he didn’t scream, Tam released him. Hanover backed away and stared at West. “What would make you betray your own, boy?”

Larkin flared her sword and touched the edge carefully to Tam’s bonds. They frayed, loosening so he could shake them off. Color immediately returned to his nails.

“Garrot has made an alliance with—” West’s voice choked off. He looked at Larkin in confusion.

“You can’t say it,” Larkin said. “He has to see it for himself.”

“What?” Hanover asked.

“Evil incarnate,” Larkin answered. “Garrot has made a deal with evil incarnate.”

“Why—” Hanover began.

“Power,” she said. “Do you swear to assist us, to not give us away?”

He cut a glance at West, who nodded. “Very well,” Hanover said.

Larkin turned to West. “Is this tent watched?”

Hanover rubbed his throat. “Yes.”

West bent down to the dead man and began stripping his armor. Mouth in a grim line, Tam helped. He splashed water from a nearby bowl onto the breastplate.

Trying to help, Larkin grabbed one of the straps and jerked back from the sticky blood—the blood of another man she’d killed. She could still feel him wriggling at the end of her sword, his legs thrashing against hers as his body had fought death.

She ran her fingertips down her skirt repeatedly. Get it off get it off get it off.

Tam splashed the corner of a blanket and held it out to her. “It was him or us, Larkin.”

She scrubbed every trace from her skin and made no move to help with the straps again. “If we want to reach Denan before Garrot, we need horses.”

“I hate horses,” Tam muttered as he hauled the man’s armor on.

“The druids keep the herd not far from here,” West said.

“You’ll never make it past the sentinels,” Hanover said.

“We will if we tell them we’re escorting Miss Nesha to the safety of Landra,” Tam said.

“They’d never believe such a small group would risk the forest,” Hanover said.

“They would if she was in need of a midwife,” West said. He and Nesha must have already figured this out. “Besides,” he continued, “the druids are aligned with the—” His mouth worked, coming up empty.

“You can’t say it,” Larkin said. “Not in front of Hanover.”

“Say what?” Hanover asked.

“The curse binds our tongues,” Tam said.

“The druids are aligned with the shadow,” West said.

The four of them studied each other. One by one, the men all turned to her.

“It’s the best plan we have,” she said.

Hanover bent down and began shoving blankets in a satchel. “They’ll never believe you’re going anywhere without supplies.”

West handed one of the blankets to Larkin with a meaningful look at her stomach. She stuffed the blanket under her shirt, praying it stayed put, praying West and Hanover wouldn’t betray her. West’s bandaged hand dripped blood.

“How’s your hand?” Larkin asked West.

“Ask me again when the healer’s medicine wears off,” West answered.

Tam tied the dead man’s sword around his waist. “Let’s go.”

They spread out around Larkin, Tam on one side, Hanover the other, West in the lead. She kept her cowl up, grateful that the dye in her hair hadn’t completely washed out. They left the tent and crossed the mostly abandoned encampment, though a few men glanced at them as they passed.

A soldier approached as they reached the rope corral. “What’s your business?”

“We’re to escort Miss Nesha back to Landra,” West answered.

“Papers?”

Papers? What papers? Larkin wondered.

“Anyone who could sign any papers has gone on to the battle,” Hanover said.

Larkin could feel the soldier’s gaze on her. “Without papers, I’m afraid—”

“Miss Nesha has need of a midwife.” Tam gave her a pointed look. “Her time has come. Early.”

Growing up with a midwife for a mother, she knew how squeamish men became about such things. She hunched over and moaned. “My waters have broken.”

The man frowned. “Surely the healers—”

“They tried,” Larkin panted. “The baby needs turned. They don’t know how to do it.”

“A ride through the forest at night is no—”

Hoping beyond hope the man had never seen her sister up close, Larkin marched to him. “I may not live through this night, soldier, but my babe still might. If I can get to a midwife who can save him.” She let her voice waver. “Please.”

He looked from her to the men with her. Finally, he growled. “I knew it was a bad idea to let women march with us. Especially pregnant women.” He lowered one side of the rope.

“Your fastest mounts,” Tam said, already pushing the bridle into the mouth of a muscled gelding.

“That one’s lame,” the man said. He pointed out four horses. “Those are the best I have left.”

Larkin leaned against a tree to “rest” while the men saddled the horses and the soldier cleared their departure with the sentries. Holding the blanket firmly to keep it from slipping, Larkin mounted a black gelding. The four of them rode from the encampment. Larkin looked back once, toward the tent where she’d left her sister bound hand to foot.

She sent up a silent prayer to their ancestors, specifically to Eiryss, to watch over her and protect her from Garrot.