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“I can’t remember.” She jerked her arm away. “I might have been a little dramatic in retelling it, and bringing it up too often, but I won’t do it again. I promise.”

A sudden rustle of leaves and branches made everyone, including Ava, turn to the left.

Her horse stepped through the trees, and Taira blew out a breath in relief. “Avasu’s horse. That’s something.”

“You take it back to the Venyatux, Haslia.” The officer caught hold of its reins and handed it to the woman. “The rest of us, let’s go after the Commander.”

They disappeared into the trees, and Haslia was left standing beside the horse, staring after them.

Her face was blank. She took one last, slow look around the clearing before she led the horse out, her gaze passing over Ava again.

Well.

Ava sat very still for another long beat.

She hadn’t heard the rumors they were talking about—how could she when they’d only just joined the Rising Wave?—but she could hear the voice of her cousin in them.

Oh, yes. There were Kassian spies in the Rising Wave, and they’d been salting the earth in anticipation of her arrival.

It sounded as if a counter-narrative had risen up as well, though, based on Luc’s sword.

She vaguely remembered him grabbing it from the dungeon beside her mother’s tomb.

How frustrating to whoever had started the enspelled-by-a-witch rumor when the magic sword story began to take hold.

And how interesting that Haslia occasionally shared pillows, as the Cervantes put it, with Revek.

That woman needed watching.

Chapter 14

Luc moved as fast as he could.

He didn’t trust the word of the Kassian spies. He would certainly not trust them at their word with Ava’s life at stake.

He could hear them talking in low, urgent tones up ahead, two men, by the sound of it.

He hadn’t heard Ava’s voice once.

From behind him, something crashed through the undergrowth and he went still.

So did the two men he was following.

Someone had come after him, when he’d specifically told them to wait.

He used the fact that the two Kassian up ahead had stopped and kept moving forward, making up ground.

The flick of a horse’s tail through the leaves slowed him, and he edged to the side, looking for a good view of the pair.

“Is it her?” One of them whispered. “Stumbling around? She hit her head hard enough she might be disoriented.”

“Maybe. Or maybe her friends decided not to wait on our word. I wouldn’t have.” The other man’s voice was just as low.

“If it’s her, we could grab her.”

“We can barely get through the bush here with the two of us, Cassak. We just keep moving forward, and be thankful they’ll find it just as hard as we are.”

Was the ‘her’ they were talking about Ava?