First was the sunlight. So soft and warm against his face, Alex didn’t fight it when sleep claimed him again.

  Some time later, he didn’t know when, there were footsteps along with a rhythmic clicking sound over squeaky floorboards. A moment of quiet, a chair scraping, then a soothing warmth spreading all throughout his body. The throbbing aches faded and the discomfort that had invaded even his dreams disappeared. He was out before he could muster another thought.

  Raised voices coming from another room finally awoke him for good. He couldn’t make sense of what they were saying, so he just laid there while he let feeling return to his limbs. Awareness brought pain. His limbs hurt. He let out a grunt when he shifted in place. God they hurt. His whole body did. And why did his left arm feel twice as heavy as it should?

  His eyes were reluctant to blink open. Light streamed softly over him, and the idea of having to actually see things felt like such a headache. A gentle breeze sighed through the room. The mattress was lumpy but so incredibly cozy against his sensitive back.

  Over the voices, hurried footsteps pounded up a set of stairs. There was more hectic talking, and a few moments later, the door to his room swung open with a creak. It took all the effort in the world to turn his head toward it and open his eyes. Diana appeared at the doorway.

  It was seeing her that brought it all back. Where he was. How he got here. The Kruwal and the water mage. Cedric.

  Alex shot up in bed, heart thumping madly on his chest. The sudden movement sent a jolt of pain across his torso, but he stomped it all down. “Diana,” he croaked. His throat felt so dry.

  She crossed the room toward a stand by his bed where a full jar of water sat. Filling up the cup beside it, she passed it to him. He nodded his thanks and drank hastily until the cup ran out and water was running down his chin. Wiping it away with his sleeve, he sighed and put the cup down.

  “How long?” His voice no longer sounded like two stone rasping against each other.

  “Two days,” she said. She pulled a chair closer and sat down beside him. “They sent someone to let me know one of you had woken up.”

  He thought the words through in his mind. “Valerian?” The last Alex remembered of him he was flying to the air toward a not so gentle landing in the forest.

  She nodded. “He’s awake too. When I got here he was already getting dressed. Thought I might as well come and check on you.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that. He’d come to check on her too, even if Daven had dragged him here for it, so she was just returning the favor.

  “I just woke up,” he said dumbly.

  She leaned forward then, face pleading. “I need to know if you remember anything about Daven? About what happened to him?”

  The question startled him. He turned to look at her then. Really look. Her eyes were puffy red, with dark moons underneath them like she hadn’t slept for days. Nails bitten down until pink skin showed. Hair dull and hastily braided. She seemed worse than when she almost died the week before.

  “Why?” he asked, already fearing the answer. “Is he not here too?”

  She shook her head, dejected, and told him what she knew. Celia had come back the same night they left, two days ago, with the bodies of three dead guards, two chasers passed out, and one missing.

  Apparently, after Alex had managed to knock out the water mage, the Kruwal stopped fighting the guards and focused on getting out with the unconscious mage. After carrying Alex and the passed out Valerian to the wagons, Celia and the others waited for any sign of Daven until the sun started going down and it became too dangerous to stay there.

  The next day, the town woke up to an attempted breach at their western gate. The Kruwal had attacked with a small force at dawn and only retreated after the Reaper joined the fight. Three guards had died for it against only one Kruwal dead on the field, and Diana herself had joined in the defense when the Kruwal attacked again yesterday.

  The room was silent for a minute as he processed everything. Daven was missing, and the Kruwal had finally begun attacking the town itself. It made sense. Now that all the villages and hamlets around them had fallen, they were the last domino.

  Seeing the expectant look on Diana’s face, he forced himself to focus on Daven and what he remembered.

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  “Um, he’d gone into the forest, I think,” he told her. “Not sure why. He captured the first Kruwal like we planned and I know he took down a few others too.” He frowned for a moment, unsure. “Then we couldn’t find him until just before we got attacked again. Yeah, that’s right. He screamed out for us to run, but that’s it.”

  Diana seemed to sag within herself. “That’s all Celia knows too,” she said, bottom lip trembling.

  His eyes went down to the bedding. “I’m sorry,” he told her, and meant it too. It was his plan that got them in this mess, after all. He looked back at her. “Listen, I don’t know what happened to him, but I know how we can find him.”

  She shook her head. “Bernier’s had the guards trying to get something out of the Kruwal you captured for two days now. They beat him and beat him but he only laughs. I… I tried too. Nothing. They moved him down to the cells now.”

  A moment of confusion showed on his face. “What? Diana, no. Forget about the Kruwal for a moment.” He sat further up on the bed, ignoring the quick spasm that shot down from his neck all the way to his toes. “It’s Cedric. He knows. Everything.” Anger seeped into his voice until he was almost hissing. “He’s been working with the Kruwal this whole time. He’ll know where their camp is.”

  Something clicked in his mind then.

  “That piece of shit,” he swore, almost laughing at how obvious everything was. “He probably let them know we were coming too. That we had chasers dressed like merchant guards. That’s why they had more Kruwal waiting to ambush us along with the water mage.”

  And to think that he had believed Cedric’s whole charade back at Riverbend, how he looked horrified at what had happened. Did he only pretend to fight the Kruwal so they would believe him? So everyone would trust him and he could get into Holdensfor with all the refugees?

  Diana looked at him like he’d gone crazy. He realized he might sound like it too. She didn’t know about his other suspicions from before that all added up to this. She opened her mouth to say something, but he stopped her, putting one hand on her shoulder.

  “Listen to me,” he said gravely. “The water mage told me, Diana. The person who destroyed Riverbend’s bridge wasn’t a Matriarch like we all thought. It was just a man. He’s Cedric’s friend, I think. Maybe one of his former crewmates. He said Cedric asked him to bring the horde to the village. He’s the one behind everything. He must be.”

  She hesitated, still skeptical. “Alex, I don’t know what happened with this water mage, but I don’t think Cedric let the Kruwal know about the plan.” She shook her head. “He couldn’t have. He didn’t even know about it. He wasn’t at the meeting when we planned it.”

  This time, she was the one to stop him before he could interrupt her.

  “It’s Kavi,” she said before he could protest. “He’s the traitor.”

  It took a second for that to register with him. “The explorer?” he said, doubt clear in his tone.

  Diana nodded. “There’s something else you don’t know,” she said. “Someone murdered Captain Lian the same day you all left. It happened in the alley behind our inn. The innkeeper had gone to collect some water and saw it on his way back. Kavi was the only one there, and it was horrible. The captain’s body looked like he’d been turned inside out. His skin was all that was left. If he murdered the captain, then it’s likely he’s also the one who told the Kruwal about your plan.”

  “But.. he wasn’t at the meeting either. He didn’t know.”

  “He was there just a few minutes before,” she insisted. “Who knows if he didn’t turn around and snuck back in after the guards took him out? He said it himself, didn’t he? When Valerian pointed out he didn’t see any treks leading out of the Mill, Kavi said he had his ways. He must have some sort of stealth skill.”

  He frowned. “What about Cedric, he—”

  “Was with me the whole time,” she cut in. “Well, he was drinking at the bar and I was there too, in the common room. We had been there since you guys left. There’s no way he could’ve gone out in the state he was in, or without me seeing him leaving.”

  Leaning back against the headboard, Alex fell silent. He felt stumped. Captain Lian was dead. The words rang inside his head, almost without making sense. Murdered by Kavi, apparently. And how the hell did that fit into everything else he knew?

  Maybe it doesn’t, he thought. Yes, maybe Kavi really did kill the captain, but that didn’t discount what he’d learned about Cedric. The explorer might have killed Lian for any number of reasons. Didn’t he complain about being manhandled into the meeting? And the captain had sent guards to follow him. Men like Kavi tended to have big egos, big and fragile.

  “Look,” he said, trying to organize his thoughts, “it doesn’t matter if he killed the captain or not. The water mage told me what happened. How Cedric planned the whole thing.”

  Diana looked at him for a moment. “What if he was just saying that to turn us against each other?” she pointed out. “Make us fight amongst ourselves.”

  “No, no. You don’t get it. The way he said it,” he trailed off, shaking his head.

  It was like she said. She wasn’t there, and he couldn’t fault her for not believing the person who’d been their crew leader until recently had turned on them. If he wanted to know the truth, he’d have to ask the only person who knew it.

  “Where is he now?” he asked, and she sent him a questioning look. “Cedric, where is he? Daven looked up to him a lot. Maybe he still has a shred of humanity in him and he’ll tell us where they’re keeping him.”

  At the mention of her brother, Diana didn’t give him a reflexive answer. She stared down at her lap for a moment, chewing on her nails. Then, nodding to herself, she finally told him, “We’ll go see him together.”

  She still looked doubtful, but even the remote possibility of getting her brother back wouldn’t let her dismiss anything. After that, she let him know a bit more about what happened while he was out and left him alone in the room to dress up.

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