No land of the Guardians.

Jon couldn’t shake Jàden’s words, the pain of his family’s loss deep in his gut. His older sister would have been devastated by such news.

At some point Jàden had switched to her own dialect, the softer tongue rolling through her impassioned words.

Kale is everything.

Her revelation stung the deepest part of his soul, and he couldn’t push aside the thought of her with a lover. Jon would give up the bloodflower in a heartbeat to hear any woman say such a thing about him.

He glanced over his shoulder to where Mather and Jàden lay curled in their blankets on either side of the fire pit. But he didn’t want those words spoken from any woman.

Jon wanted to hear them from her.

Clenching his jaw, he squashed down the ridiculous notion. He lit another cigarette and leaned against a tree trunk, scanning the woods for any movement. Normally he kept watch like a hawk, but tonight his thoughts boiled over with memories of his family, the old farm, and the last argument with his father.

Both stubborn to the point of ridiculous, Jon and his father had battled all the time. But those final words between them ate at Jon. “Without a wife, the bloodline is lost, boy. You and your sisters will be the last of the Ayers name.”

Jon became Rakir—soldiers forbidden to have wives—to right a wrong from his past. Except he’d made a mess of his family name and bungled the debt he’d set out to discharge.

Now he had nothing but a broken legacy, an army desperate to possess the heirloom around his neck, and an old enemy who would kidnap Jàden just to enrage Jon.

A whisper of wind alerted him to a presence at his side. As Jon grasped his dagger, Jàden wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. Soft light from the largest of the sister moons glistened against her dark locks.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” she said.

“For what? You said your words, I said mine. Ain’t no harm done.” His little sister would have smacked him for speaking to Jàden like she was one of his soldiers.

Jon released the grip on his weapon and bit back his frustration before he said something worse. The last thing Jàden needed was an earful about how she didn’t need to be chasing a dead man.

Never mind that it made him a hypocrite. If he thought there was any chance his family still lived, Jon would do everything in his power to find them.

She grasped his arm, right over his bloodflower tattoo, and his chest tightened.

“Jon, tell me how to find south. I have no idea what direction to go without a datapad or a sky full of stars.” She’d switched to her own dialect again, but with the soft breath of her magic flowing through his veins, the words seamlessly translated in his head now.

“Give me your hands.” Jon turned her around to face the tree trunk and gripped her hands in his. Their delicate warmth bled into his palms, and he stifled the ache to wrap her in his arms and pull her close. He placed her hands to either side of the trunk, the bark rough against his calloused skin.

“I don’t know what stars are, but the trees will always lead the way.”

“How will this—”

“Just wait,” he whispered, the delicate scent of pine off her hair teasing him. “Every tree has two faces, one to the mountains and one to the sea. Feel the bark across your fingers, how it differs on one side of the trunk.”

Fine hairs rose along the trunk, brushing against his skin. “The mountain face sleeps while the sea calls to the thin fibers, like hair raising along your neck.”

Jàden furrowed her brow and brushed each side of the tree, tracing the trunk’s deep lines with her bony fingers.

Releasing her hands, he gazed across her soft features, so similar to the stone planes of Herana’s statue. Her cheeks weren’t quite so hollow anymore, but the similarities between Jàden and the Guardian couldn’t be doubted.

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“I feel it,” she whispered then pointed away from the valley. “That’s south.”

“Almost.” He shifted her arm a little further. “This is south.”

He traced his fingers along her hand, turning her wrist so her palm faced skyward. Flecks of light and shadow drifted upward.

“Tell me what this means to you,” he said.

She pressed her lips together as if she didn’t want to answer, but Jon needed to know. With one bit of magic, she’d forged a bond between them, made herself his everything.

He’d spent years stifling his ache for a true companion, seeking out the company of both men and women with his need always suppressed in the back of his thoughts. Jàden’s breath on his skin cracked open all those old desires.

“It’s an energy tie, something only Enforcers know about.” She bit her lip, clearly holding something back. “Kale taught me, though he wasn’t supposed to. Soldiers tie their energy in a crisis to help one another stay alive. Its practice is forbidden to outsiders.”

Her eyes lost focus as she caressed her thumb across the lines in Jon’s palm, the same flecks of magic hovering over his hand.

Jon clenched his jaw. She saw him as a soldier, someone who could keep her alive. Nothing more. Not that it should have been surprising. Most women only saw him for his sword arm.

One day he’d find a way to tell her what the bond meant to him, but he suspected that revelation would only trap her between a dead lover and a bodyguard she’d discard the moment she found Kale.

“Jon.” Mather’s voice sliced through his thoughts, an urgency to his tone. “Fire, next ridge.”

As Mather pointed to the flickering lights across the valley, Jon laid a hand on Jàden’s shoulder. “To the horses, quick.”

Jon saddled his black and tied everything down, keeping one eye on the ridge and one ear to the woods for any change in sound patterns. He would rather have one more night of peace, even if it meant keeping the secret of their bond close to his heart, but he couldn’t afford to be caught by the Rakir. He’d be in chains, but Jàden’s fate would be a lot worse.

“More soldiers?” She pressed close to a tree, searching the sky as if expecting something to be there.

He lifted Jàden onto his horse. “Likely scouts. Still haven’t seen the bulk of the army.”

Clouds gathered in the east beyond the high peaks.

“If we can get ahead of the storm, the snow will cover our tracks.” The black tattoo across Mather’s forehead crinkled, telling Jon his best friend’s thoughts were on Sharie, his wife. Mather had bonded her in secret and kept her safe in a small home deep in the Flower District so the Rakir would never discover their connection.

Jon always knew his friend had a lover, but he’d never known the full truth until he met Sharie, her stomach swollen with Mather’s child. Forced to leave her behind when they’d deserted their posts, Mather’s gaze often held a deep longing to return to his family.

A sentiment Jon understood all too well.

Mather held the same stare now, his gaze piercing the hilly landscape to a memory of the past. Probably because he’d never made peace with his decision to leave Sharie.

“You don’t have to follow, brother.” Jon laid a hand on Mather’s shoulder. “Go back for your wife and head north. Sharie will want to know you’re alive, and Rakir won’t follow you into wolf country.”

They’d had this conversation dozens of times. Mather clenched his jaw. “I made you a promise, Captain. What kind of man would I be if I didn’t honor it? Besides, I need to say goodbye to the others first.”

Jon considered ordering him to turn back, even if he preferred Mather at his side, but once Mather made up his mind, no man could change it. A trait they often shared. “If we push the horses, we can find the others in a few days and get you on your way.”

After clearing away all signs of their presence from the small campsite, they trotted along narrow roads and through snow-bound valleys, their tracks a beacon to any Rakir. He and Mather stayed sharp, always searching the terrain for anything out of the ordinary while Jàden nestled at his back.

He relished her heat and the softness of her breath under his skin. Maybe she wasn’t really his to have, but Jon wasn’t going to hand her back to some asshole who’d left her to suffer. Jàden had him as a husband now, at least according to northern law, and Jon refused to take the duty lightly.

Even if she didn’t hail from the north.

The next day broke with another storm, snowfall so thick it practically covered their trail as they rode.

Jon scanned both directions at a crossing. Narrow ruts under a thin layer of powder showed the wider road still in use. Mountain folk with smaller, surefooted horses, but no northern mounts like he and Mather rode. “Let’s keep pushing. Maybe another day.”

Exhaustion from the rough terrain kept the stallions’ heads hanging low, but they trudged on with their ears forward, as if they sensed the rest of their brother-herd nearby.

Jàden eased her grip on his waist and pointed to a jagged rock formation. “There’s something buried there.”

As she squinted toward the cliffs further along the road, snow blanketed the land under dark clouds, a weathered sign pointing the way ahead.

“There should be a village close by.” Yet he followed her finger to smooth, dark metal painted with a white zankata. He glanced at Mather as if to ask if he recognized the structure, but he shook his head.

Jon didn’t have any clue either, but something about the sharp lines buried beneath rock set him on edge. He lit a cigarette, the bitter shadeleaf smoke filling his lungs. But as he doused the glow on his lighter, the same sharp lines of the small block were a striking similarity as those from the cliff.

“What is that?” Surely it couldn’t be a lighter hundreds of spans tall.

“It’s a ship,” Jàden whispered. “And that’s my zankata.”