Roni trembled, her fear as sharp as the first time they’d spoken, but at least there had been a door between them and an army base surrounding them. He’d find her, and oh gods…

  He made that same wet sound as before, his devil’s laugh. “I was born near these woods, rat, raised here. Can find you as easily as I found these. You want proof? A jab for your troubles?” He chuckled again. “I don’t recommend it. Once I start stabbing…”

  With a final shudder, she wriggled out from under the bush and forced herself to stand, leaning awkwardly on the slope while she tried to avoid the ice. Staring at his boots and the corpses was bad enough, but hell, if he was going to kill her, she was going to look at his fucking face when she spit in it.

  He grinned lopsidedly as if impressed or maybe happy to see her. Gods, the thought made her sick. He had a full beard now after a few days in the wilderness, and his small dark eyes gleamed like a predator’s in its element. “That’s better, rat.” He gestured at the two corpses with a bloody knife.

  She had to swallow several times before she managed, “Thank you, Hacha.”

  He put a hand across his waist and bowed. “At your service, serrah.” He sucked his cheeks and bit his lip and made that awful laugh again. The merry look faded as he took a step toward her. “Where’s my merchandise?” He looked fondly at the corpses again. “Not that I ain’t enjoying my vacation in the country.”

  Why did the gods allow such people as this? Devils should have to stay in hell. “I’m trying. I…would have had them last night, but one of the Firellians almost killed me.” She couldn’t seem to speak above a whisper when she wanted to cry for help.

  No, he would kill her squad, too. She had to face him alone.

  “Maybe I should get the glove and bird myself.” He wiped the knife on his trouser leg, adding to an already substantial stain. His heavy leather coat and hood was covered in dark splashes and blobs.

  “I’ll get them.”

  “Slit that commander’s throat—”

  “I said I’ll get them,” she said, taking a step toward him, surprising herself, her idiot self.

  “Oh?” His overhanging brow puckered as if processing new information.

  “She wears the glove at night sometimes,” Roni said hurriedly. “And that means the bird’s awake. They’ll kill you.” Gods, she could just picture his death, but it couldn’t take place in Zara’s tent. No one else should have to come face-to-face with a bogeyman.

  He tilted his head, no doubt wondering how he’d fare against the Vox. Then he pivoted on one foot, far faster than such a large person had a right to, and stopped beside a leaning tree trunk, looking back up the slope as if hiding from someone there.

  Ernesto stepped into view, his saber in hand. “Roni?” With a glance at the bodies, he started down. “Who are you talking to?”

  “No,” she said, her voice catching. She threw herself forward.

  Hacha was faster.

  Ernesto tried to backpedal and raised his saber. Hacha didn’t bother to try him blade to blade. He fell forward and grabbed Ernesto’s leg, yanking him down.

  Roni stumbled and clawed at the frozen ground with her injured hand to try to gain speed. She swung her truncheon, trying to connect with anything, distract Hacha just long enough.

  Too far away, by the gods.

  Hacha pushed up on his knees and dragged Ernesto toward him. Inside Ernesto’s reach, Hacha batted his sword arm away.

  “No,” Roni cried again, lunging.

  The knife flashed, a red fountain erupting close behind it.

  Hacha shifted out of the way so Roni fell onto Ernesto. She dropped her truncheon and pressed her hands to his neck, trying to contain the flood, but it was too much. She sobbed, forcing herself to meet Ernesto’s gaze, to let him know he was not alone. She prayed as the life faded from his light brown eyes, asking for forgiveness from him, from the others, from the universe itself.

  She couldn’t stop her sobs. “You didn’t have to…you didn’t…oh gods.”

  “Don’t be silly, rat. We can’t let the others know who you’re really working for. You’re welcome. Again.”

  Roni grabbed Ernesto’s saber and clambered to her feet, but Hacha was already disappearing into the woods at the bottom of the slope. She wanted to charge after him, but anger deserted her for fear and anguish as someone else softly called her name from above.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cortez stepped onto the slope and looked from Roni to the bodies. She followed his gaze to the corpses and spotted the similarity in three slashed throats. Devils take it, she was doomed.

  But Cortez said, “Oh gods,” and sheathed his saber as he shuffled closer. “Are you all right?”

  “I didn’t kill them.” Roni realized she was still holding Ernesto’s saber and dropped it, unable to stand the feel of it. She had to get her head together.

  “I know that.” He gave her a long-suffering look. “You’ve got scratches on your cheeks and a big hole in one of your gloves. Are you hurt anywhere else? Where’s your cloak and pack?”

  She pointed down the slope and reached for her cheeks. She hadn’t even noticed getting scratched, and the hole had to have been caused by the rock that started this whole mess. Her wrist and stomach still ached, too, and she stopped herself from touching her face when she saw that her arms were covered in Ernesto’s blood. She was shaking even harder than before, feeling colder and emptier than she’d ever felt. “No, I…I…”

  Damn it. She couldn’t fall to pieces, not now. She had to think up a lie about how the Firellians and Ernesto had killed one another, especially now that Cortez had kneeled by Ernesto’s corpse.

  Gods, poor Ernesto. His blood was literally and figuratively all over her hands, freezing but still tacky. She kneeled on the slope to try to wipe them clean with snow.

  “Hacha killed them all, huh?”

  Roni froze, her heart beating like a hammer and threatening to spring from her chest. Could she blame the Hatchet? Would that work?

  But he hadn’t said the Hatchet. He’d admitted he knew the legends were based on a real person, but to know the name…

  She looked up at him slowly, half expecting him to come for her, but he went from Ernesto to the Firellian bodies and started patting them down. Without a word, he clambered down the slope much easier than she ever could and came back with her pack and cloak. When he met her eyes, something in her face seemed to set him back on his heels.

  He sighed and continued holding out her gear until she took it and put it on, having to tie the strings of the cloak as best she could after she’d torn them. The weight helped push back the cold a little.

  “You’re a thief, not a killer,” Cortez said. “So why are you hiding Hacha’s presence from the rest of us?”

  She was afraid to speak, afraid to move. One foot was already sliding a little. Maybe she should follow it, scramble down the hill and run like hell.

  Straight into Hacha’s arms.

  Cortez’s look wasn’t accusing, only calculating. “You don’t seem like someone who’d work willingly with a butcher. Is he threatening you? Bodily harm or blackmail? What’s he doing out here?”

  Gods, was he reading her mind? No, he’d have those answers if he did. “Who are you?” she whispered. “Why were you in prison?”

  He tilted his head. “Are you separating each of us from the pack so he can kill us one at a time?”

  Anger boiled within her, fighting past some of the grief and guilt. She couldn’t stop a snarl, more than ready for a target.

  “Nope,” he said, one lip quirking as if amused. “So this death wasn’t planned.” He glanced at Ernesto again. “And you can’t be responsible for the Firellian presence or for them giving chase.” His expression turned thoughtful. “Unless you’re a spy. But I highly doubt that.”

  She almost laughed at the sheer absurdity, but if she began an outpouring like that, it would quickly shift to sobs, and she couldn’t have that, not without knowing what the hell Cortez thought he was doing. “Are the others coming?”

  “No idea. But if you have something important to say, you’d better say it now. The others might not believe you innocent of Ernesto’s death or Hacha’s presence.” He waved vaguely into the distance. “What should I tell them?”

  Fear and grief still wormed through her gut, but she stared him down. “Do you know so much about blackmail because you’re good at it?”

  He seemed to think for a moment. “Perhaps. But I don’t want money, only answers.”

  “Why? What’s it got to do with you?”

  Cortez glanced at Ernesto again as if saying knowledge might save his life.

  Damn. He was right, but…

  She shook her head and fought down her emotions. “It would be more dangerous if you did know. Count yourself lucky.”

  He sighed again and rubbed his face. “Okay, I can see we’re going to have to do a give and take. I know something that you don’t want getting out. If I share something I don’t want getting out, can we work together?”

  “If one goes down, we all go down?” She’d worked that way often enough. And gods knew she needed an ally. “Okay.”

  His smile seemed genuine enough. “To answer your question, my name is really Cortez, and I’ve never actually been inside a prison. I was inserted into the prison recruitment scheme by a Sarrasian intelligence agency that wants firsthand knowledge of events happening at the border.”

  Roni barked a laugh this time. Of all the crazy shit she’d heard in life, that took the biscuit. But was it the truth? It couldn’t be. When he kept his simple smile, she gawked. “But…the government is going to get a report from the army already. Isn’t that how it works?”

  He gave another of those enigmatic little head tilts. “This is how firsthand knowledge works.”

  “So you don’t trust the army?”

  He shrugged.

  “Or you don’t trust Zara’s reporting skills?” Insane as that sounded.

  Another shrug.

  Gods and devils, everything he said was way above her level. She just wanted to get out of Hacha’s clutches. “And why would you help me hide the fact that Hacha is out here because of me?”

  “Isn’t it better to have allies?”

  She’d had the same thought. And answering a question with a question seemed like a government thing to do. The only Sarrasian agents she was used to working with were guards and magistrates, and she’d loathed almost all of them. But Cortez had saved her life. And he wasn’t running to tell the others.

  But he hadn’t balked at Ernesto’s death, which made him efficient but damn creepy.

  Who to trust? She’d never felt pulled in so many directions at once.

  “Come on,” Cortez said as he kneeled by Ernesto’s shoulders. “Grab his feet.” When she hesitated, he sighed. “Look, I don’t like covering up a death, particularly not of someone I actually liked, but you’ve got to put sentiment aside right now.”

  She frowned and didn’t know if she could do that. “So you’re going to dissolve into a puddle of tears when you have a free moment?”

  He shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  He said it as matter-of-fact as everything else, and she couldn’t tell if he was using whatever words would get her to cooperate or what. Or maybe he’d lost enough comrades that he had learned how to mourn only when he wanted to.

  “We’ve got to take him back to the others and spin a story about how he died,” Cortez said, not unsympathetically. “And we’ve got to do it before we’re discovered. I will look suitably sad, believe me.”

  She obeyed, wincing when she had to touch the body. Her hand ached, but the pain was nothing to Ernesto’s death. “Some of us won’t have to fake our sadness.”

  “Good for you.” He only sounded a little snarky when he said it. “And later, you’re going to tell me what’s going on with Hacha.”

  He didn’t have to add what would happen if she didn’t. She could well imagine. He’d spill her secret, she’d spill his, and Zara would kill them both.

  Gods, Zara was going to be so sad and angry about Ernesto. She might want Firellian blood, might forget her orders to observe and report and tear off on a quest for vengeance.

  No, not calm Zara, even with all the ways this particular mission would hurt her. At least she’d be spared one kind of pain: Roni was not going to turn the Vox over to that pig-faced bastard. She’d use them to kill him, and maybe Cortez would help. Then maybe someday, Roni could tell Zara that she’d claimed vengeance for all of them when the Vox had torn Ernesto’s murderer apart.

  * * *

  As Zara crouched behind a deadfall with Ana and the Vox, she racked her brain for reasons why the Firellians were in this forest in such numbers. And why in the devils’ names did they have a magical tripwire so far from their camp?

  At least ten had come after her and Ana. That was a good sign, really. It left fewer Firellians to chase the others. The Firellians had to have laid tripwires along any part of the forest that even resembled a trail, which meant there were more than she had thought. And they were using more magic than anyone had ever considered.

  Gods, she had to get back to Sarras with this news.

  But not until she saw what the devil they were guarding out here.

  “Any sign?” the nearest Firellian called to his fellows.

  Another called an answer, the words too garbled by distance for Zara to translate. They yelled something else, and the nearest one frowned and shook his head. “No one wants that…out here. She would…us, too.”

  Zara bit her lip, trying to translate the two words she wasn’t as familiar with. She wanted to cast her mind back to her Firellian lessons, but she had to remain alert right now. They were coming closer, searching methodically, and the time would soon come to flee again or fight. But even the Vox couldn’t handle this many.

  Not in any of their usual shapes.

  The Vox tilted their head up from where she’d hidden them against her chest. “Are you sure?”

  “What choice do we have?” she whispered.

  Ana glanced at her.

  Zara leaned closer. “The Vox is going to use a mythic shape.”

  “Commander…” Ana’s brows pulled together, her face full of doubt. “You’ll pass out. You didn’t wake for a day last time.”

  “I’ll be more careful,” Zara said, though her stomach roiled a bit. The mythic shapes had no counterparts except in legend. And they used all her energy in one go. “We won’t hold it so long.”

  “Seconds,” the Vox said. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  “After I pass out,” Zara said. “Cover me and the Vox with branches and head for the others.”

  Ana gripped her arm. “You’ve been using the Vox for days, boss.” She licked her lips. “If I use the glove now, I can take the strain. Maybe I won’t pass out.”

  She had no idea what she was volunteering for, no idea of the toll this would take. Still, Zara considered. It was possible for other people to use the glove and speak with the Vox. How else would they make their choice for a new wielder after the old one died? But this was Zara’s burden to bear. She had been chosen.

  “No,” Zara said. “You have your orders, Corporal.”

  “What shall I be?” the Vox asked. “Phoenix?”

  Zara shook her head. They didn’t want to light the forest on fire. “Roc.”

  They clambered onto her hands. “Throw me right in the heart of them.”

  With her heart thundering in her ears, Zara watched the Firellians, waiting for those in the rear to come closer. She tried to clear her mind. Once the Vox took a mythic shape, she would try to hold on to consciousness for as long as she could. Best not to expend energy with even stray thoughts.

  But her mind kept turning over.

  Kill, that was what that second word in Firellian had been. “She would kill us, too,” he’d said.

  Who? A soldier? A commander? The mage who’d laid the traps?

  The Firellian searchers were moving closer, almost in a clump.

  “Get ready,” Zara whispered.

  Why would a Firellian attack her own people?

  Ana tensed, one hand on Zara’s arm. “Boss—”

  “Steady,” Zara said.

  Unless these weren’t her people, whoever she was. Maybe a captive, someone the Firellians had threatened or cajoled into compliance.

  Ana shifted slightly, but the Vox was a still weight in her arms. “Now?” Ana asked.

  “Wait.” The Firellians were pulling in tighter, but they needed to be as close as possible if Zara didn’t want to spend the rest of this mission out cold.

  A captive mage, someone alone, frightened, and injured. A mage like Gisele.

  Zara’s worry boiled into rage, and she flung the Vox into the clearing where the Firellians had gathered.

  The Vox shimmered, bits of metal turning over one another until they filled the clearing with a wingspan of over forty feet. Zara sagged, feeling as if she’d been punched in the gut or bled dry. She barely heard the screams in the clearing as the Vox lashed out with seven-inch claws and snapped with an even longer beak. The golden wings buffeted the Firellians into the trees or slammed them into the ground.

  Zara fell to her knees, losing sight of the battlefield. Her vision swam in and out of focus, and Ana seemed to be calling her from a great height. The sound of a clanging bell filled her ears. She couldn’t hold on, clutching the frozen ground as she sagged lower, her eyelids like weights. Were the Firellians dead? It didn’t matter. She had to…she had to…

  Her cheek pressed to the cold ground, and her eyes fluttered open once more. Monster, that was the other word the Firellian soldier had said: “No one wants that monster out here. She would kill us, too.”