Freya

Combing my fingers through my hair, I watch as Lei laces up her boots. A benefit of the short length is it doesn't get nearly as matted as it used to.

Only a lantern lights the small corner of the cave we found ourselves in, trying to escape the prying eyes of the deserters as we stripped ourselves of the dresses we were forced to wear in Dadun.

I can't help but feel completely on edge as I wait for her. It's been a few hours since we arrived. Alaric and Harris were both taken somewhere deeper into the cave. Killian and Sanaa were in an intense conversation with each other when Lei dragged me into the cave, unafraid, mumbling something about getting us out of "these damn dresses."

I don't know where Casimir went, but I quelch my concerns. Even if Trina hates him, he has friends here, people he grew up with. He is good. Anybody who truly knows him knows that. They wouldn't hurt him.

"We should go," I tell her. "It must be noon by now."

Lei wears similar to me, dark trousers and a thick fur overthrow Trina was willing to spare.

"You alright?" she asks me, tugging at her belt. I see the glimmer of her knives as she raises her arm. "You've been jumpy since we arrived."

"Why aren't you jumpy?"

She shrugs. "We have bigger enemies to worry about than a rebel human group."

I lean against the wall of the cave, pulling my lip into my mouth. "I don't trust her," I say honestly. Lei looks up at me. "Trina."

"We don't need to trust her. We just need her to listen to us."

I can't help but think about Alaric and where they took him, as much as it annoys me to care. Killian was right; he did lie to me. What he did feels like a gross invasion of my privacy. But unlike Killian, I never fully let myself trust him in the first place. His betrayal stings, but it does not burn.

And I can't stop thinking about his strange behaviour that night he took me into the cave. The fight between him and Hana, his dismissive nature when I asked about her. Something inside of him was changing. Something that meant he didn't raise the forcefield back around Dadun to keep up from escaping.

I can't forget that.

And I can't forget the way the shifter stopped in front of me, the way its eyes fixated on mine, the bloodlust gone, as the marks on my arm glowed and burned.

"Okay, I'm ready," Lei says, nodding towards the narrow passage back through the tunnel. "Let's go."

Picking up the lantern, I follow after her, our shadows casting against the wall. "Don't you think it was weird how she acted out there?" I whisper to Lei. "When Harris was talking to her?"

"Don't think too hard about it, Freya. You'll drive yourself mad."

"It was like something snapped. Like she—"

We round the corner to where the cave widens, bumping into a group of deserters lingering around a stump of wood rolled in. Clamping my mouth shut, I raise my chin as they all turn to look at us.

"We're looking for Trina," I say.

They exchange glances, snickering. One steps forward from the crowd, a man with dirty blonde hair. His broad shoulders shadow over both Lei and I as he steps closer.

"So this is the girl Casimir went soft for?" he snickers. "Almighty Casimir."

"You're in the way," Lei deadpans.

He doesn't move, dragging his eyes up the length of my body, his friends behind him nudging one another. I raise my chin, setting my jaw in place. "Don't see nothin' special to me."

Beside me, Lei twitches. I dart my hand out, catching her arm before she can advance any farther. "Come on, Lei. He's not worth it." The last thing we need is Lei attacking one of them.

"Or is this precious Cloud Piercer magic you've got going on?" he continues. Thankfully, Lei shoves past him, creating a path for me. I follow after her, stumbling back when he catches my wrist to stop me. I swing around to glare at him as his expression twists into a smirk. "Wouldn't mind a piece of that in the bedroom, huh."

My free hand jerks forward and collides with the fleshy part of his throat. He gags, hand releasing my wrist as a result. He chokes. His friend curses. "You'll pay for that."

Lei pulls me away from him before he can grab me again. My heart races as we sprint down the narrow passage, footsteps behind us. Stumbling into the main opening of the cave, the rest of the deserter clan stand around glaring at Sanaa and Killian in the middle.

Their eyes draw towards us. Killian's eyes shift behind our shoulders at the man after us. He marches over in two short steps, eyes meeting mine. Before he can ask, the deserter grabs my arm from behind. "Bitch," he scowls, voice still strained. I reach for a dagger at my waist, but Trina had us stripped of weapons before coming inside.

Killian has the man by the neck within seconds, his face turning red as Killian tightens his hold.

Every deserter in the vicinity turns their weapons to Killian as the man gurgles in his hold. Undeterred by the threat, Killian grips tighter.

"I'd appreciate it if you would release him," Trina says boredly, appearing over his shoulder. Casimir moves to stand beside me, eyes searching me for any harm.

Killian hesitates for a second before dropping him, leaving him gasping on the ground. Turning slowly, his eyes, dead cold, meet Trina's. "Perhaps you could tell your crew not to go grabbing where their hands don't belong."

"She fucking throat punched him," one of the other deserters says, outraged.

Trina observes them with an unfathomable expression. She stares at me with distaste before looking at the man on the ground. After a few moments, her lip curls up. "Clean yourself up and get out of my sight, Darian."

The man scowls at me, clambering off the ground and turning around with a murderous glare directed to Killian.

"Come this way," Trina directs, completely unfazed by the display of aggression on either side. Casimir grabs my wrist, turning it over. I snatch it away from him, irritated by the fuss.

"I'm fine, Cas," I say, looking at Killian. He merely tilts his head in acknowledgment before turning to follow Trina. Sanaa follows after him.

I release a shaky breath as she turns away, hyper-aware of the eyes trained on me. Lei nudges me in the side with her elbow. "Not worth it, huh?" When I glance up at her, a smirk tugs at her lips. "I wish you'd do that more often."

"Shut up," I mutter as she hooks her arm through mine to pull me down the passage where the others disappeared.

~

The cave twists and turns in various directions as we venture deeper. It's funny, I remember the first time I ventured below ground in Veymaw when the deserters kidnapped me. I'd been so unsettled by the crumbling ceiling above my head.

Now, it barely registers in my mind. I can't see the others ahead, merely the bob of Trina's lantern guiding us to go left at the split in the path. Lei holds her lantern low to the ground, making any risen rocks or dips in the earth easy to spot.

The lantern ahead comes to a stop. As Lei and I approach, the passage widens into another globe section of the cave. Unlike the previous, Trina's belongings are scattered around, along with a makeshift bench fashioned out of a flattened rock in the centre. A map sprawls over its surface.

I glance up at the faces around the map, relieved to see that they too can read it, unlike the map that led us to the hyacerite in Torinne.

"We're here." Trina points to a spot on the map located just beyond the Veymaw forge. I orient myself on the map, taking note of Dadun on the far west and Portson on the north coast. On the map, the Elel mountains seem freakishly close to Veymaw.

It makes me shudder. The Palace is marked as a large X beyond the mountain peaks.

"We've been tracking Ereon's patrols. They're dwindling in size, but reports of shifter attacks have been increasing in the area. Unheard of outside of the Red Moon."

"The infected," Killian explains. "Shifters caught in the cloud succumb to the disease of the evocian. It traps them in wolf form, robs them of their humanity. They mostly travel alone. But they're called to the cloud whenever it materialises."

I watch Trina's face as she takes the information, trying to peer through her mask. It's impossible to tell if she believes us or not.

"And this cloud," Trina says, shifting her gaze to Sanaa, "when you came to me, you said we needed to help you find the girl. In order to end the cloud." She shifts her gaze to me, lip curling up. "Was this true?"

I press my lips together. "The King doesn't have control of the cloud," I confirm. "Not anymore."

She raises a brow. "Then you are to blame for the cloud that rolled through our lands last week?"

I falter. "No... no I don't think—"

"She can summon the cloud," Lei cuts me off. "The people who took us to Dadun were trying to train her to gain full control of it."

"And?" Trina's question is directed to me. "What did you learn?"

Remnants of the shooting pain along my arm reverberate through me. I can feel the warmth of the cave in Dadun, the glow of my arm, the breath of the shifter as it halted in its attack.

"I don't have full control of the cloud," I say instead. "The times I have 'summoned' it have been by accident. But..." I think of Alaric, the warmth in his eyes, the encouraging words. "Before he could teach me to control it, Alaric was training me to protect myself from it. To eventually extend that protection to others."

Her gaze dissects me, as does Sanaa's. I imagine this is the first time she's heard this, too.

"Alaric is the prisoner you brought with you," Trina assumes. I nod. "The one you say can help us kill the king."

"He can help Freya kill the King." Sanaa steps in. "It sounds as though he has made great progress training her thus far, but with a little more time..." Her expression tightens. "Think of the weapon she could be against Ereon."

"Sanaa," Killian interjects.

"You know I'm right, Killian. The cloud destroyed our entire country. If Freya has the ability to control that, to set it upon those mountains and recall it before it spreads too far... if she can protect us from it, imagine what we could do."

"You want to put her into battle?" Casimir demands. "She's untrained."

"She survived Torinne," Lei defends me. "And abduction."

"I agree with Casimir," Killian says. "It's too dangerous for her."

"I'm right here," I say, frustrated. "Stop talking about me as if I'm not."

Killian meets my eye, expression unreadable. I wonder if he can read the hurt in my eyes, the way his words burn. Casimir has always been overly protective of me. But Killian, no matter how much I wanted to hate him, never doubted me.

Trina looks me up and down. I lift my chin, unwilling to let her see how much she intimates me. "Then speak, child," she demands. "Would you go into battle against Ereon?"

A chill crawls down my spine as a war wages in my head. When Lei had suggested I set the cloud upon Dadun to escape, I'd been more than resistant. And Hana's whole entire plan hinged on using the cloud to take Ereon down. But something inside of me has changed. Samu's voice had guided me through the cloud each and every time it ravaged our land, my anchor.

Death in war is a necessary evil.

"Ereon killed my mother," I say, "he kidnapped and tortured my brother. He destroyed an entire country. I want him dead just as much as you do, Trina."

For a moment, I think I see a twitch of a smile tug at her face. "We have been planning a raid on the Palace," she says eventually. "Three weeks from now. Will you be ready then?"

Sanaa answers before I can. "She will be."

I don't miss the looks exchanged between Casimir and Killian at her response.

The words settle the dust around us.

"Very well," Trina says eventually. "Then it's settled. We will release your kinjri prisoner to you. Prepare for battle. Do what you must. But in three weeks' time, we will raid the Palace with or without you." Her gaze meets mine, bitterly cold. "And I am going to kill Ereon."