Page 92 of Daughter of the Dark Sea

“Doran,” Theron repeated, and Doran glared at Mags with his one good, hazel eye. His thinning hair slicked across his shining dark head and he rubbed his crooked nose, wiping dirt across his squared cheeks.

“How’d you manage to track us?” Blake pressed.

Doran sighed, lowering his head as Mags’ slender fingers tightened on his thick arm. Kora tracked the movement—the slight curl of her fingers, the intense stare of her brown eyes as she fixated on Doran’s scarred face.

“We . . . couldn’t track ye,” he admitted slowly. “We knew there was a convoy passing through, but whatever route ye took across the dunes . . . it was impossible to find.”

Kora and Blake glanced at each other, and she suppressed the small smirk threatening to bubble to the surface. Samuel’s lips curled as he caressed the rolled map parchment peeking from his knapsack.

“Thenhowdid you find us this close to the border? Yourkindnever venture this close.” Blake’s lips pulled back in disgust.

Doran’s jaw clenched as he worked hard to hold the truth in. After a moment of silence, Theron revealed a hatchet axe, levelling it with Doran’s head. He unwaveringly stared up the length of Theron’s arm, his eye pinning on the stag and four-pointed star on his chest, and his face filled with hatred as he lifted his head to meet Theron’s gaze.

Mags whimpered, her hands tightly curling around his arm, as Doran readied for an execution. She whispered erraticallyinto his ear but Doran did not move, did not speak, did not even blink. Mags sobbed, begging Theron for mercy once again between wrenching, wet breaths.

“So be it.” Theron’s cold words echoed around them as he raised his axe.

“It was Callan!” Mags squeaked, and they all froze as she trembled, tears flowing down her cheeks. Pure shock bloomed on Theron’s face as he halted the axe mid-swing. “He told us where your camp was . . . where you were heading . . . how to best intercept you.”

“No fucking way,” Samuel seethed.

Mags’ head bobbed on her thin neck. “He told us to challenge the border. That you’d least expect us then—” Doran nudged her, ordering her to be quiet.

Something within Kora violently twisted and knotted at the mention of Callan, scratching at the walls to either escape or attack, she couldn’t tell. She tried to shut out the memories of the previous evening. But his blood he’d smeared over her, and the blood coating her now, became suffocating. She felt disgusting, she had to flee. To run until her lungs burned, to find the ocean, and wash away all the filth.

“How . . . did he find you?” Kora choked on the words.

With the cold darkness of the nightfall in the desert, she assumed Callan would have frozen to death, or been attacked by wild animals, potentially even die of thirst in the scorching day if he survived the night. But instead, banishing Callan had led the exiles right to her.

Doran’s eye flashed at Kora, as if remembering she was there. Thatshewas their prize. The Skytors’ prize.

“We found him crying in the desert like a babe. Apparently . . . someone played a littletrickon him.” Doran bared his teeth.

Her mind and heart raced.He knew. He knew what she was and would tell her secret. She’d end up an exile like them, or a prisoner of the convoy, dragged to her death. There would be no imprisonment, not for a mage masquerading with a royal sentinel, especially with the new decree.

“He got what he deserved,” she snarled, stepping forward, finding her voice.

“Where. Is. He.” Theron’s jaw worked with each word.

“He’s not here,” Doran muttered. “Said he couldn’t bear the fight.”

“Coward,” Ivar’s cool voice floated from behind, and Kora nearly jumped to hear him speak.

“There’s no need to shout,” Samuel whispered under his breath with a wry smile.

“He could be near,” Blake commented. “Watching to see if we die.”

“No,” Theron shook his head. “This is a retaliation to last night. He’s always been petty. He is banished, and he will be long gone by now, seeking a new life. It’s his style to cut his losses and run.”

“Why’d you attack us?” Blake diverted the conversation. “Are you after the sentinel?”

He glanced at Theron, who grew more agitated by the second, his hands fisted around the leather-and-silver wrapped handles of his hatchet axes. Even his eyes darkened with shadows wreathed around them.

Doran’s single eye widened, his body rigid. “No. We’re not fools. We all know the continent has no control here.” Theron’s tensity increased at the insult. “There’s a bigger prize among ye.”

In that instant, Doran hurtled forward, and Kora crashed against Samuel as he gripped under her arms, dragging her away from the attack, her wound gushing blood onto his hands.

Blake and Theron lunged for Doran, their weapons drawn and cutting the air. Doran evaded their weapons with unnerving speed, his body a blur against the sand. With a growl she’d never heard before, Blake leapt, his gleaming golden cutlass sword thrusted before him.