Ruan Pelasius stood at the edge of the clearing. He’d come from the track in the woods that they’d taken to get to the shrines. Malik recognized him from the first arrival of the Attican party. The shield maiden’s son.

Screams of terror echoed up from the harbor. The Attican boy’s eyes were wide with fear, rage, confusion. His spirit was a maelstrom.

Who was ally? Who was foe? Where was the girl he loved? All of it swirled in Malik’s mind.

Malik extended his hands before him, as he rose from Campos’s unconscious form. “I’ve done what I can for your general, but he needs proper care.”

Ruan took in the gruesome scene. Campos lying in a pool of blood. Baro, in the tree. The dead Attican girl, neck snapped.

“What happened?” Ruan asked, voice tremulous. An unnerving sound coming from someone so tall and powerful.

“Campos’s servant,” Malik said, pointing to the man impaled on the tree. “He was a traitor. And I… I made him pay for it.”

“Y-you did this?” Ruan’s eyes narrowed at Malik.

He did not look away. He would not be shamed for it, anymore than he would for killing a jackal threatening one of his kin. Malik nodded.

“Baro killed Iriana,” said Riese. “Just before the explosion. He came up behind her and just… snapped her neck like it was a twig. Malik did what he had to do. And if he’d hesitated for even a moment, your general would be dead.”

“Why was Iriana out here?” Ruan asked. “Why were any of you?”

Malik sensed fear and jealousy in the boy’s spirit, and thought it best not to aggravate it. “She was hiding in the woods up here. Or following us.”

“She was after the eggs.” Ruan’s eyes traveled to the satchel in Riese’s arms. “And Ava… was she…”

Maliki did not know what the boy had seen. Did he know that Ava had been with them? He had noted the way Ruan looked to Ava earlier that day. The boy’s spirit wavered like a flame in the wind, though his face held a practiced lack of expression.

“She was here…” Malik said. “She did this to Campos.”

Ruan’s face tensed. “That’s not possible. She would never…”

But Malik sensed the boy knew it was very much possible.

Riese picked up the dark cane from the ground, and extended the handle to him. The concealed blade still jutted out from the tip.

Ruan drew in a long breath, taking the cane and inspecting the weapon.

“She fled,” Malik said. “Ava is gone. We don’t know where.”

Ruan hesitated, glancing around, taking in the bloody carnage. “You just let her go?”

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“It was either chase her down or try to save your general,” Riese insisted.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” said Malik. “We need to get him back to your ship.”

The lies came so easily, Malik and Riese both playing off one another, making it up as they went along, subtly bending the truth of what happened to their own end, like children weaving lies about where they’d gone during a festival.

Ruan turned and stared back toward the harbor. “Our ship is… gone.”

Shadows shot overhead. Malik was grateful that they had no torches to give away their location. Surely, Riese held exactly what the attackers wanted.

“We have to go,” said Malik. He and Riese each took one of the general’s shoulders. “Take his legs.”

Ruan snapped back to reality, and did as he was told.

They inched their way down the track. It was slow going. Campos was a large soldier, and with the man unconscious, it was utterly dead weight. Ruan led the way, facing forward, holding one of the general’s legs cradled in each hand.

The chaos in the village grew louder as they neared the harbor. Shouts. Screams. Strange wild screeches. The splinter of rending timber. The roar of flames.

Malik braced himself, longing for his bonespear. Anticipating an attack from above any moment. Expecting Ruan to change his mind, see through the lies, and lunge at him with Ava’s secret weapon.

They pressed on. Riese kept the eggs safely slung over her shoulders.

Ruan gripped the cane-blade with terrifying determination. Anger and pain raged in his spirit, though he said nothing. There had been traitors in his own midst. Lies and deceit always led to pain.

Malik knew that well enough.

The enormous shadows of the runeship loomed in the night skies above the tree tops.

They reached the bottom of the hillside, leading down to the village. One more smaller knoll lay between them and the harbor. Flames illuminated the sky ahead in a fearsome glow, and the forest was cast in long, menacing shadows.

Ruan stopped at the bottom of the hill, and gazed up the path.

“What are you doing?” Riese demanded.

Ruan dropped the general’s legs and held the cane-blade in front of him like a sword. A man appeared at the top of the hill and barreled toward them, clutching a bonespear in front of him.

Malik knew the resonance anywhere.

“Ruan, that’s my—”

Joren waved his arms frantically as he neared. “Get down! All of you!”

A pair of shadows streaked overhead, diving through the trees with a craack!

Malik grabbed Riese’s hand and jerked her to the ground, as a hideous black creature lashed out with long talons. Riese cried out in pain, but the creature lurched back into the sky.

“Help!” Ruan cried.

Malik jumped back up to find the second creature on top of the Attican boy. A spear jutted up through its chest and out its back.

It had fallen right on top of Ruan. In an instant, the monstrous black wings drew back into human flesh.

The creature lurched with one last breath, and Malik’s father drove the cane-blade into the human man’s eye. The creature went still.

“H-holy shit!” Riese said, chest heaving. “Shaman, how did you—”

“Get this thing off me!” Ruan muttered through stifled breaths.

“God’s breath,” Malik said, unable to believe what his peace-loving father had just done. Blood gushed from the Chardonian man’s wounds. Brown face streaked with crimson.

“Help me, son,” Joren said, patting Malik on the shoulder, jolting him back to the present.

Together, the three of them heaved the corpse off of Ruan, and the boy sat up, gasping for breath as though he’d just emerged from the depths of the sea.

Joren scanned the woods behind them, then, back to the skies. “We have to get the general out of here. Ruan and Riese, you too.”

“Me?” said Riese.

Joren nodded. “You are Dragonmount now, it seems, and these rebels seek you and what you carry on your shoulders.”

Joren leveled a fierce gaze on Malik.

“I…I’m sorry, Father.... I—”

“Apologies are nothing but wind. You brought this fate to her, son. Now, you must live according to the bloody path you chose.”

Joren pulled the bonespear from the Chardonian man’s chest with a squelch of flesh and handed it to Malik. His father took the cane-blade for himself.

“The Knight of Caadron,” said Joren, “she is your way off this island. Riese, Ruan, you two must carry the general. My son and I will fight these beasts off as best we can. There will be more as soon as we reach the square. Now, come!”