She attracts her knife. “You’re not?—”

Her mouth opens to gulp the air and holler a warning again to the camp. I snatch at one of many knives at my hips?—

And Rheave is there first, leaping from the underbrush along with his arms outstretched.

He tackles her, energy bursting from his arms. The lightning bolt of vitality sears by means of the girl’s physique with a delicate sizzle, so shortly that she’s disintegrating into cinders earlier than her physique can thump towards the bottom.

Her charred stays patter throughout the forest ground. All that’s left is a sickening scent like burnt meat that washes away with the following gust of breeze.

Rheave stares down on the scattered chunks of ash and blackened bone. He appears a bit queasy himself.

As I hurry to affix him, he lifts his head to satisfy my eyes.

“I didn’t like doing it,” he says quietly. “However both she died, or she’d have known as the remainder of them to kill you and me and our pals too.”

I do know that twisted feeling, certain that you just did the best factor however wishing you hadn’t wanted to. Like once I needed to stab Esmae earlier than she may do the identical to me.

The daimon-man didn’t save me solely from the attackers the scout would have known as our means but in addition from having yet another heap of guilt on my conscience, if I’d been the one to kill her.

I grasp his hand. “There wasn’t actually any selection. She’d already made hers. However I do know it’s an terrible feeling anyway. Right here, I’d higher unfold across the ashes so it’s much less apparent what occurred.”

Grimacing, I shove on the ashen stays with my boots, mixing them with leaves and grime. Rheave follows go well with till the spot the place the girl fell may simply be a darker streak of soil amid the remaining.

As we hustle away from each her and the camp, the daimon-man smiles. “You tricked her at first. You bought her to inform you issues.”

The enjoyment of that small victory returns. I discover myself smiling again at my new lover.

“I did. With out utilizing a single scrap of magic. Now we’d higher get again to the others so we are able to work out cease their new plan as soon as and for all.”

Thirty-Eight

Casimir

Ivy lets out just a little hiss and raises her hand from the stick she’s holding. A drop of blood wells up on the tip of 1 finger. “I scratched myself.”

Rheave leans over from the place he’s sitting subsequent to her, his eyes widening with concern. “Are you all proper?”

“It’s only a tiny prick. However these are fiddly.”

“Stavros mentioned it could be simpler if we slide the bits of fletching solely half means down till they’re all in, after which push them the remainder of the best way.”

Ivy research the arrow she’s been making beneath Rheave’s steering after Stavros instructed him final night time. The daimon misplaced all his earlier projectiles in yesterday’s chaotic assault on the march.

“I may see that serving to,” she says. “I’ll strive it with the following one.”

As she tugs the final piece of the leaves they’re utilizing for fletching into place and units the brand new arrow on the small pile they’ve been constructing, Rheave suggestions his head to brush his lips towards her hair.

I’ve seen our latest companion present bodily affection to Ivy prior to now. There’s nothing in regards to the gesture that’s inherently extra intimate than earlier than.

However the ardent gleam in his eyes when he eases away and the trace of a blush that colours Ivy’s cheeks inform me one thing extra handed between them throughout their foray this morning. They shift their our bodies subsequent to one another with a newfound sense of coordination I’ve usually solely seen between lovers.

Good. She wanted one thing ecstatic amid all of the anguish she’s been coping with.

I haven’t been certain supply that type of launch myself, not in a means she’ll settle for.

For now, I stroll throughout the messy ground of the deserted outpost and sit at her different aspect. “Present me, so I can pitch in too? I don’t assume we are able to have too many arrows if we’re going to be on the entrance strains of tomorrow’s battle.”

A small shiver passes by means of Ivy’s slim body, however she smiles at me and arms over one of many sticks she and Rheave have carved right into a straight rod from a small department. “We’ve already put the notches in them. You simply want to slot in the fletching and one in all these items for the pinnacle.”

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