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“I thought I had almost no power when I made that,” she whispered. “I felt so weak.”

“What did they do to you?” Luc sounded cold, but she could see from the expression on his face he was anything but.

“They used a rope, like the one they used in the camp when they tried to take me before. Something that sucks the energy out of you, makes you too weak to fight. It sucked everything out of me. My magic, my energy, my will to keep going. I managed to destroy it, to substitute it with a fake, but it still took me a long time to regain enough strength to escape, and at times, I thought I’d never be the same.”

“Ava.” He pulled her back into his arms and she realized she was shivering. “It’s all right,” he crooned. “I will kill them all.”

Chapter 31

There was nothing to do but wait for Baclar and at least some of the councillors to recover.

Hurst had disappeared, according to Bartholomew, and Luc believed him. Unless the captain had murdered Hurst and pretended he couldn’t find him.

Either way, the lieutenant was gone, and he was Baclar’s problem now.

Luc wanted to be done with the Jatan. He was sick of them and their pathetic excuses, but the time to strike a deal with them was now, while they were weak, on the defensive, and very much aware of the rapport between the Skäddar and the Rising Wave.

It would be foolish to leave without a treaty, and he was no fool, even though General Ru was holding the fort in Fernwell, no doubt on the razor’s edge between truce and war, and Grimwalt sat, a day’s ride away, deserving of all his wrath.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt Ava to have a good night’s rest. She said very little about her time in her captor’s care, but he could see from the gaunt hollows in her cheeks that she had not been well-treated.

He had to push the thought from his mind, because it nearly overwhelmed him with rage each time he glimpsed the painful thinness of her wrists, or the dark smudges beneath her eyes.

She sat by the fire beside him now, finishing the last of her evening meal, chatting happily with old friends and drawing the warriors from Cervantes who she didn’t know, and some of Kikir’s Skäddar unit, into the conversation as well. She seemed not to notice the worry in the eyes of everyone around her, but he saw it.

More than one person flicked a look at him, searching for an answer as to her condition, and he had given a tiny shake of his head in response.

Massi emerged near the end of the meal, having been persuaded earlier to sleep for a few hours, and she took a bowl of stew and sat on his other side, yawning, content to eat and listen to the conversation swirling around her.

She hadn’t said anything more to him about Ava since this morning, but he sensed her focus sharpening when she’d scraped her bowl clean and slid off the log they were sitting on to lean back against it, listening to the chatter.

The conversation turned to Fernwell, to what was going on there, and Ava kept her answers vague, getting quieter and quieter, until Luc stood and she lifted a hand for him to pull her up without saying anything.

“Time to rest.”

“I’ll come with you,” Massi said, pushing herself to her feet. “There’re a few things I need to discuss.”

They walked to where the tents were set up, and Luc led the way to his one, which was indistinguishable from the others.

“What do I need to know?” Massi asked when they got there, keeping her voice low.

Luc thought about it. It was better if someone other than just Deni, Taira and him knew the situation. “The Speaker of Grimwalt finally succeeded in abducting Ava.”

Massi’s sharp inhalation was audible.

“Ava managed to get away. General Ru sent Deni after her.” Luc thought about it, and turned to Ava. “She didn’t just send Deni and Taira, did she?”

Ava shook her head. “There was a whole team. But the abductors left a false trail in Bartolo, and Deni split the team up there. Then they reached a fork in the road, and split again. By the time I found them in Illoa, it was just him and Taira. Oscar and two others shouldn’t be far from us, actually, if they stayed on the route Deni thinks they did.”

“General Ru didn’t think to send a message to us?” Massi asked.

Luc had wondered about that, but on reflection, he didn’t think anyone could have caught them, the speed they had been going since meeting up with the Jatan force.

Massi must have come to that conclusion herself, because she let it go with a lifted shoulder.

“So will they come looking for you?” Massi asked.

Ava was silent for a long beat. “Hard to say. Of the two transporting me from Fernwell, one is dead, the other on the run home to Cattha.”