“This is no joke, Hob,” said Zahra.

Hob’s arm shot out to shield both Eliana and Remy. “Who’s there? Who said that?”

“Who are you?” Remy looked around wonderingly. “Can you show me what you look like?”

“My name is Zahra, little one.” Zahra swooped down to Remy’s eye level, her chin in her hands. “What a darling thing you are. Your mind is as wide open as the sky.”

Remy cautiously waved his hand around. “You’re very close, aren’t you?”

“Indeed.”

“Eliana,” Hob muttered, “what is this?”

Remy hugged his knees to his chest. “Are you a wraith?”

Zahra blinked in surprise. “What is this child, who knows so much of the world?” Her expression turned tender. “Oh, sweet one. You are a dreamer, a teller of tales. I see that now. You ache for magic and for all those golden giants of the past.”

Remy flushed with pleasure. “Before the invasion,” he said eagerly, “people stole books from the temples, so they wouldn’t be destroyed. I buy them whenever I can and read them all.”

“Hang on.” Eliana pulled back to frown at him. “You mean you used to sneak around Orline buying books in the underground market?”

“Do you think I learned everything I know just from rolling dough at the bakery?”

“Well, I—” She shook her head, astonished.

“Oh, I do like you.” Zahra draped an arm across Remy’s shoulders with a smile. “A curious mind and a pure heart both in one.”

Hob flung his gloves to the ground. “Can someone tell me what a wraith is?”

“Don’t move,” a male voice warned from the shadows before them. “Or I’ll tell my archers to let their arrows fly.”

Eliana froze as shapes shifted in the undergrowth—five soldiers, ten, gathering close with bows raised and arrows nocked.

Zahra shot up to her full height, dark eyes flashing. “Eliana, forgive me. I was distracted; I didn’t hear them!”

One of the archers jerked their arrow to the side, seeking Zahra—and of course finding nothing.

“You’ve a fifth in your party?” asked the first man. He approached Eliana, no bow in his hand but a long curved sword at his hip. His hood hid his face from view.

“Do you see five people here?” Eliana glared up at him. “Your eyes fail you, I’m afraid.”

“But my ears do not.” The man stopped, considering Navi’s shorn head. “You escaped from Fidelia.”

Eliana tensed. “Perhaps.”

“Malik?” Navi moaned, struggling to push herself up. “Is that you?”

“Navi?” The man flung off his hood and fell to his knees at her feet. “Sweet saints.” He gathered Navi against his chest before Eliana could stop him, pressed a tender kiss to her head. “Simon said you were alive, but I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t let myself.”

Navi clung to him, her gaunt face free of pain for the first time since they’d escaped the laboratories. “Eliana,” she murmured, “please don’t be afraid. We’re safe now.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Eliana moved in front of Remy and reached under her singed jacket for Arabeth. “Who are you?”

Malik turned, his brown cheeks wet with tears, his eyes large and dark, his jaw strong. The resemblance, now that Eliana knew to look for it, was obvious.

“I am Malik Amaruk,” he said, wiping his face. “I am Navi’s brother—and a prince of Astavar.”

• • •

Later that afternoon, after Malik and his scouts had shared a proper meal with them, Eliana stood with Malik on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Narrow Sea. Across the black channel lay a line of white cliffs: Astavar—and freedom.

Eliana made herself look at it and imagine the fresh green country beyond the border, even though doing so opened old wounds in her heart.

Harkan, she thought, you should be here.

“So there are monsters on those boats,” Malik murmured. On the far horizon, black specks moved steadily west against the darkening sky. The Empire fleet.

“They’re called crawlers,” Eliana told him.

Down the coast, a small flotilla of Empire warships waited at the port of Skoszia. The faint shapes of adatrox bustled back and forth along the docks, moving supplies and weapons. Hanging high on the warships’ masts, the Emperor’s colors of black, red, and gold snapped in the wind.

The Emperor. Corien, Zahra had called him.

Eliana’s mouth thinned. That was not something she would allow herself to think about just yet. “So we have to make it across the sea without anyone on those ships seeing us.”

“Yes.” Malik pointed behind them, farther west along the coast. “There’s a small smuggler’s ship two miles away, in a small cove abandoned by the Empire. The ship crosses at nightfall, and its crew will take us with them. Simon and I arranged it before…” Again Malik glanced at her. “Well.”

“Before I abandoned him to save my own ass?”

“I wasn’t going to say it quite like that.”

“No need to hold your tongue around me, prince.” Eliana stared out at the water, trying not to remember Simon’s cries of pain. “I know what I’ve done.”

“I would’ve done the same, you know.”

“No need to comfort me either.”

Malik inclined his head. “Once we’re across, you’ll be taken to the capital. There are tunnels below the palace. My fathers will hide all of you there, and I’ll join the army at the beach.”

“To fight?” Eliana couldn’t hide the scorn in her voice.

Malik said mildly, “You think we can’t win.”

“I know you can’t.”

“And what should we do? Sit on the shores of our country and let the Empire slaughter us without raising a single sword?”

“Your people excel at sitting and not raising a single sword.”

Malik regarded Eliana calmly. “All of Astavar grieved with you the day Ventera fell.”

“Your grief means nothing to me.”

“We saved our own asses. Isn’t that how you said it? How are we so different, then?”

“Simon is a murderer. A soldier. He knew what he was getting into when he joined Red Crown. A country, though, is full of innocents.” Eliana glared at the sea. “Don’t try to compare yourself to me or your country to mine. You’ll come up short.”