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That sounded so much like Creon that I almost burst out crying on the spot.

They walked me to my tent together, the two of them, so patently chatting about everything except Creon that I knew they'd heard the story of his disappearance, had discussed it, and had decided that I needed distraction more than I needed edifying advice right now. Instead, Agenor asked if I was hungry. Rosalind enquired whether I had enough blankets for the cold night. Agenor muttered something about stealing extras, and her laughter made my heart feel too large for my ribcage for an inhalation or two – that unmistakable sound of quiet happiness.

It was wonderful and terrible in equal measures. Wonderful, because something about having both my parents by my side made me feel complete in ways I had never quite imagined, an answer to parts of me I’d never even realised were questions. And yet ... terrible, because that was how my whole life should have been. Terrible, because I could think of nothing but Creon and those hollow, hollow eyes. Terrible, most of all, because I had only just found them, and tomorrow I might lose them all over again.

I didn’t want to think about tomorrow.

They made me promise I would go to sleep, repeated five more times that I should try not to worry about anything, then left me alone at my empty tent. I watched them walk off together in the fire-lit dark, his arm around her narrow shoulders, the sound of her laughter breaking through the background murmur of the camp … and gods help me, how was it possible for satisfaction to hurt so much?

If only we could skip this entire bloody battle. If only we could just have a decent grown-up chat with the Mother, talk sense into her twisted brain, and all live happily ever after.

Fae wars don't end in surrender.

He’d know, presumably.

I waited until the two of them were well out of sight, pulled a warm sweater and a scarf from my tent, and went on my way again.

I passed praying humans, crying humans, small groups sitting around fires and sharing bottles of drink. Particular sounds emerging from a handful of tents suggested the nymphs had indeed found their way into this part of the camp. Here and there I ran into alves or fae, but no one recognised me with my scarf wrapped around my head, and no one tried to stop me as I slowly but steadily made my way to the edge of the camp.

Alyra found me there, as if she sensed I would need her. In all likeliness, she had.

‘Do you know where he is?’ I whispered.

With a small trill, she launched herself from my shoulder and flew westwards.

It was a clear, windless night. As soon as we left the camp behind, the sound of voices died away to a faint murmur in the distance. With nothing but a pale moon to illuminate the landscape around us, I was walking through a world of silhouettes, the outlines of hills and trees my only guides. The air smelled fresher here, no fire and human sweat, but rather pine needles and autumn cold – a precursor to the frost that would soon settle into the grassy earth and not leave until spring.

I thought of the stark white hills of the battlefield on Sevrith. Of the sticky, iron smell of blood, the buzzing of flies, and couldn't help but shiver.

Looking down at the camp from this hillslope, far enough removed to no longer be able to distinguish the separate voices and faces, it looked like a force I could scoop up in the palm of my hand. A laughable, pitiable band against the full might of an empire, doomed to be swallowed whole by the Mother’s wrath and never be seen again.

If Creon didn’t show up ...

But Alyra flew onwards ahead of me, farther into the hills, and so I followed her until the camp was so far behind us that the glow of the fires was no longer visible. Over a fallen tree, reminding me uncomfortably of the forest I'd mowed down that morning. Through a thorny bush I hadn't seen in the darkness, leaving scrapes on my shins and knees. Soon I'd lost all sense of direction in the maze of shadows; it was just a tiny white falcon and me, walking deeper and deeper into the night.

Finally, after what felt like hours, a small valley opened up before us, the hills covered in pine trees, the rugged earth strewn with large boulders and weathered stones. And there, at the bottom of the slope …

In the dim moonlight, a lonely silhouette was sitting on a moss-draped rock – his back towards me, his head bent, his wings a shard of night even darker than the starry sky above us.

Chapter 32

‘Creon!’

I almost broke my neck rushing down the uneven slope, pits and clumps of grass obscured by the pale moonlight.

He must have heard my voice, must have heard the racket of my unsubtle descent, must have felt the swell of my worry and anger and relief washing over him – and yet he didn’t turn or even lift his slumping wings a fraction, a statue but for his hair fluttering softly on the breeze. For one blood-curdling moment, I wondered if it evenwashim, if Alyra hadn’t mixed up pairs of wings in her impatience … but no, I’d recognise that slender silhouette anywhere, and besides, who else would be sitting here in silence in the depths of night?

‘Creon?’ I slowed down, having reached the last, more level stretch of grass. Alyra chose that moment to decide she was no longer needed here, soaring off into the night sky. ‘Are you alright?Creon.’

Only then did he move, as I half-tripped to a standstill a few steps behind him – a slow, stilted turn, as if it took every crumb of his self-restraint not to jump up and flee me again.

In the moonlight, his face could have been hewn from stone.

But his eyes … they were alive with something wild, something dark and jagged, glittering feverishly in the shadows as if lit by their own inner fire. The look of a man possessed. A single glimpse and he turned away again – yet that short glance was alarming enough, sinking into my stomach with a boulder’s weight. Ifthiswas what he’d been trying to hide this afternoon …

I should not have left him alone today.

I had been a gods-damned idiot to leave him alone today.