The first breath of the Varunan jungle eased muscles that Wren hadn’t even realized were tense. Coral Bay had been warmer than the north, and Lendh ka Dakruim had almost – almost – felt like home. But even in the east, the smells had been all wrong.

For a long moment, she simply stood on the waystone, allowing her eyes to remain closed as she filled her lungs with the air of the jungle, redolent with the scents of flowers, damp earth, fruit, the markings of predators, and the long river itself.

Of course, there were other smells at a more immediate distance. Woodsmoke from cook-fires, along with sweat, oiled leather and steel, and when the wind blew the right way, the stink of a latrine dug into the earth. The encampment was quiet in the dark of evening, and Wren frowned. When she’d left Al’Fenthia, it had been near to dawn. Was there something faulty with the waystone?

“You are not one of our warriors,” an Elden guard said, interrupting Wren’s thoughts. He approached her with the clump of boots over the waystone, one hand on the hilt of the sword hanging from his belt. “Who are you?”

Wren turned to face the man straight on, keeping her hands at her sides so as not to present a threat. She responded in the same Vakansan dialect the Eld used, though she knew that her accent gave her away as an outsider. “I am here at the command of Livara Tär Valtteri,” she said. “And if you take me to your commander, you will find I am known to him.”

The man frowned. By the light of the ring above, Wren could see that hair was lighter than the Eld of Al’Fenthia - more like Inkeris. It would have been better if she’d been challenged by one of the soldiers from Liv’s family.

“You will hand over your weapons until after you’ve spoken with our commander,” the soldier said. It was clearly not a suggestion or a request.

Wren unslung her bow from across her back and passed it over. When she put her hands to the two daggers at her belt, however, she was struck by a feeling of unease in her belly. “These were made for me by an archmage,” Wren said. “A friend who is gone now. They can’t be replaced.”

“I will treat them with respect,” the Elden warrior promised.

With a grimace, Wren drew both knives and flipped them around by the hilts to extend both pommels to the man. The sigils etched into the blades gleamed in the light of the ring overhead. She had to force her fingers to let go, so that the soldier could take the daggers and tuck them under his arm.

“Follow me.” The guard led her through the encampment, which Wren saw sprawled out from the waystone in nearly every direction. She could pick out the shadows of walls, erected around the tents of the Eld, and she was surprised at how quickly they were fortifying the area. Walls, of course, would not keep out her people – but they would help against the Antrians, and however many Eld remained of those warriors who had followed the slain Calevis.

It did not surprise Wren that she was led to a tent, nor that she was made to stand outside and wait while Liv’s father was woken. She hadn’t seen the man since the day Liv had left Whitehill for Coral Bay – over a year. When Inkeris had come to bring Liv north, Wren had remained behind. She hadn’t forgotten that Valtteri had not been welcoming at the time.

The man who finally emerged from the tent was far less put-together then what Wren recalled from Whitehill. She’d made the trip across the ocean by ship herself, not to mention the long pilgrimage through the jungles to the western mountains. As a result, Wren recognized the signs of a man who’d been without the comforts of civilization for long months of travel, and had gradually discarded most luxuries as unnecessary.

Valtteri Ka Auris still wore his hair in dozens of tightly bound white braids, each with a piece of stone, etched metal, or some other charm attached to the end. Rather than hanging loose, the braids were bound back at the nape of his neck, to keep them out of his way. He wore breeches tucked into boots, but only a loose, open shirt of unbleached linen, having not bothered to put on any armor.

“I know her,” he said, simply. “You may leave her weapons with me.”

The Elden guard who had greeted Wren upon her arrival simply inclined his head. Then, he set Wren’s things down on top of a log that had been dragged over to the nearest cookfire, presumably to serve as a bench. Without another word, he departed – presumably back to keep watch over the waystone.

Liv’s father walked over to the log, glanced at the etchings on Wren’s daggers, and sat down. “These are beautiful work,” he observed, lifting one by the hilt and examining it.

“They were made by an archmage.” Wren did not sit, and she did not like someone else holding presents that had been given to her by Jurian.

“I presume my daughter sent you.” Valtteri set the dagger back down, but Wren noticed that he had not yet offered to return it to her.

“You know the rift outside Al’Fenthia is erupting?” Wren waited for the man to nod, and then continued. “Liv and her friends are going to try and stop it. But we’ve seen this pattern over and over again – Ractia causes eruptions to draw attention from her true target. We think they’re going to try to push you back here, retake the waystone.”

“All of that lines up with the conversation I had with her earlier tonight,” Valtteri said. “I’m going to assume that means she’s found the key. Good. When Ractia attacks through this rift, she will find us ready, have no concern about that. But why are you here, specifically?”

“Ractia uses my people to scout,” Wren explained. “Liv suspects – and I honestly think she’s probably right – that there will be bats in the trees around this rift. Red Shield hunters watching you, ready to give the signal the moment there’s an opening. And that’s when an attack comes. She sent me to deal with the scouts.”

Valtteri frowned. “Are you truly prepared to fight your own people?” he asked. “A suspicious man might point out that this would be an excellent opportunity for you to flee back to the service of our enemy.”

The insinuation caused Wren to have to make an active effort to restrain a frown. She reminded herself that while she and Liv had fought their way through four rifts together, this man hadn’t been present for any of that. “Is that what you think?” she asked.

“You’re still with my daughter after a year,” he said slowly. “I cannot imagine that would still be the case if she did not trust you. I will choose to have faith in Livara, if not necessarily in you. However, do not assume that I speak for the elders. Now that you have entered our lands, it would not surprise me if they called you to stand accountable for your part in the attack on Soltheris.”

Wren held his gaze without looking away, as difficult as it was. For a moment, she allowed herself to wonder what would have happened if she had told the truth about that day. A single arrow loosed, a single life. Would the duchess still have sent her with Liv? If her lie was exposed now, would the trust she’d built hold, or shatter?

Valtteri passed Wren’s pile of weapons back to her, and she lost no time in replacing her enchanted daggers in their sheaths, in slinging the bow across her back once again.

Stolen novel; please report.

“How do you intend to handle this?” Liv’s father asked her.

“It’s a good time to be out as a bat,” Wren said. “I’ll fly a spiral out from your camp and see what I can find.”

“And if you do come across a scout?”

“I’ll try talking to them, first,” Wren said. “Some of my people have already abandoned Ractia. I might be able to convince more.”

“Soaring Eagle and your cousin.” Valtteri nodded. “Another reason to extend my trust to you, I suppose. Your name went a long way with your people, and our trip upriver would have been much more difficult without their help. If you can’t convince these scouts to turn?”

“Then I’ll drive them off,” Wren promised.

“All by yourself?” Valtteri raised his eyebrows.

Wren wanted to simply say yes, but she hesitated. “If there are too many of them,” she decided, “I’ll make it look like I’m fleeing, and I’ll lead them back toward the camp. If I can get them focused on me, they might lose track of where they are and pursue. At that point, you can have archers waiting. If they break off, then I’ll still be safe here, and we haven’t lost anything. Just make sure your people don’t shoot the leading bat.”

“A simple plan, but often those are the best.” Valtteri nodded. “I’ll remain awake to ensure nothing goes wrong here.”

Wren allowed her body to collapse in on itself, shifting through her blood form and then taking a new shape, with wings already beating to catch the warm updrafts of the jungle night. She let out a pulse of sound as she rose above the camp, mapping the surrounding forest in her mind.

As she rose, she spiralled out from the camp in a widening gyre, and sent out another call: this time, a greeting to any other bats in the area. Two responses came, quickly, and Wren banked to the west. The other bats had the ring of familiarity to them, and she only hoped for hunters that she could reason with.

Little Crow and Wildcat waited at the base of a tree on the southern banks of the great reservoir that had been formed by the ancient Vædic dam. They were so still that the tree frogs did not cease their singing: two hunters in sturdy leathers. Wildcat carried a spear in addition to his bow, while Little Crow would have, Wren knew, the same purple streak in her hair that Wren herself had allowed to gradually fade since she’d left the jungle.

Wren shifted and landed on her boots.

“At first, we thought you’d died at Soltheris,” Wildcat said. “Then when Manfred and Aariv returned from the raid on Coral Bay, the old man said you’d fought against him. If some of our own people hadn’t been there to see you, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“We lost friends there,” Little Crow practically snarled.

“If you choose to attack someone, you can’t blame anyone but yourself when they punch you back,” Wren pointed out. She realized, with some surprise, that it was a comfort to speak the language of her own people again, even for an argument. “Our hunters flew through a waystone to Coral Bay. Some of them were never going to come back, whether I was there or not.”

“So what, you’ve turned your back on us for the Eld?” Little Crow continued, taking a step forward in challenge. “What’d they offer you?”

Wren held her ground, not retreating an inch. “I’ve turned my back on Ractia, not on you,” she argued. “And only because the bitch betrayed us first.”

“That’s no way to speak about the Great Mother,” Wildcat shot back. “So you aren’t simply a traitor now, but a blasphemer, as well?”

“She was supposed to save our people,” Wren responded. “Not grind us up fight after fight, until there’s nothing left. Soltheris. Coral Bay. You’re going to fight here too, aren’t you? How many do you think you’ll lose attacking Elden warriors who’ve had time to fortify that bridge? How many hunters can you afford to lose before there’s no one left?”

“What I don’t understand,” Little Crow said, “is that you were the most committed to this, Wren. You’re the one who went across the ocean and brought back the blood of the goddess. You were down in that rift, clearing mana beasts so the bloodletters could work. You were right at your father’s side, every step of the way, and now you’re just – what, you changed your mind? After years of work?”

“Because she’s not giving us what she promised,” Wren said. “You know there’s more of our people at Godsgrave? Did she tell you that? All sealed away and dreaming, waiting to be sent out just like those Antrian war-machines. We’re just soldiers to her. That’s all we ever were - built to fight, and then abandoned to wither away without the ones who made us. Don’t you want to be something more than just her servants?”

“What do you mean there’s more of us?” Wildcat asked, putting a hand on Little Crow’s shoulder to pull her back. “We haven’t heard from the Painted Sands tribe in fifty years or more. Did you find them?”

“No tribe you’ve ever heard of,” Wren insisted. Perhaps this was the key, this was what would make him listen. “They’ve been dreaming away beneath Godsgrave for over a thousand years. We know where they are, we can go wake them up. We could double the size of the tribe – maybe even find enough to have two or three tribes again, in different hunting grounds.”

“Tell it to your father, then,” Little Crow said.

“Yes,” Wildcat said, after a moment’s thought. “Hand over your weapons, and remain here with Little Crow until after the battle. Once the bridge has been retaken, we will bring you to Nighthawk. He can decide whether to send a scouting party to investigate Godsgrave. It may be that he already knows – the goddess may have told him. That place is dangerous, and it would require much preparation to go there. Perhaps that is why she has left our people to sleep.”

“She likely thinks they were all killed when the sky fell,” Wren argued. “If she knew there were more soldiers waiting for her to collect, she would have done it already.” That thought brought another: one way or another, she couldn’t allow Little Crow and Wildcat to tell Ractia.

“Whatever the truth is, your father is our chief,” Wildcat argued. “The decision is his.”

Wren couldn’t help but shift her weight to the balls of her feet. They’d begun the conversation on guard, but gradually relaxed over the course of the conversation. After all, they had her outnumbered two to one, and she’d shown no sign of violence yet. She could take advantage of that.

“I don’t think that thing is even my father anymore,” Wren said. It was her last argument. “You’ve seen the red eyes. You’ve seen how it follows Ractia around like a Lucanian trained hound. My father hasn’t been the same since the goddess rose.”

“He’s a holy man,” Little Crow chided her. “He witnessed the rebirth of a goddess. Of course that changes someone. But it isn’t the place of a traitor to question him.”

The other woman was a lost cause then. Wren focused entirely on Wildcat. “You must remember what he was like before,” she practically begged. “My father was a kind man. He laughed, he carried children on his shoulders. Has he done anything like that since the goddess claimed him?”

“No,” the other hunter admitted with a frown. “But he carries the weight of our entire people on his shoulders, Wren. He is the most favored servant of our goddess –”

“Her bed-toy, you mean,” Wren broke in. “Her slave.”

Little Crow shook her head. “She won’t come in back on her own,” the other woman decided. Wren didn’t wait for her to reach for a hunting knife – instead, she drew her own blades, flipped the right hand dagger around, and smashed the pommel into the huntress’ face, breaking her jaw with a sickening crack that threw her to the ground.

A whistle of air gave Wren just enough time to dissolve into blood before the butt of Wildcat’s spear swung through the place where her skull had been just an instant before. Wren reformed as soon as the weapon had passed, kicked Little Crow right between her legs, and then turned to face Wildcat with an enchanted dagger in each hand.

“So you’re determined to be a traitor, then,” the man said, circling carefully with his spear held out before him. A year ago, it would have made Wren cautious. She’d always been a hunter, not a warrior. But a year ago she hadn’t yet spent every morning sparring with an archmage.

“Call it whatever you want,” Wren said. “I’ve always wanted the same thing. To save our people.” She dashed forward, feinting with the dagger in her left hand to draw the parry. When Wildcat brought his spear to where she wanted it, Wren sliced with an enchanted dagger on either side of the wood haft. As easily as chopping a carrot, the spear was cut into two pieces.

“What-” Wildcat stared down at the spear for half a heartbeat in shock, leaving himself open.

Wren took advantage by kicking out Wildcat’s leg with her boot, riding him down to the ground, and punching him in the face with the pommel of her knife until he stopped moving. Then, she rolled off his body and walked back over to Little Crow.

“You can stop with a broken jaw,” Wren said, panting. “Or we can keep going until I break your face worse. Nod if you’re done.”

The other huntress moaned and nodded.

“That’s two,” Wren muttered to herself. Two of her people captured but still alive. There were a lot more to go, but it was a beginning. She spun about, looking back across the dark jungle, and the waters of the reservoir that shone a pale silver under the light of the ring.

Now she just had to walk her prisoners all the way back to the camp.