El gently rolled her shoulder, testing the range of motion and the stiches. Not bad. Most of the pain had faded in the hours since Tas had sewn the four slashes back together. He hadn’t been able to do much about her jacket, but that wasn’t the end of the world. And, thankfully, her frosty Spark seemed to have at least the same recuperative effect as a normal Spark.

  Even without the medical attention—as helpful as it was—she’d be back to normal within a few days at most. Actually, by the way her shoulder already felt, it might not even be that long.

  “And how’s the patient?” Tas asked, coming over to join the four Firestorm around their small fire. After patching El up, and giving everybody a short rest, they’d hiked a few more hours before finding a place for everybody to collapse in complete exhaustion. Many hadn’t even bothered eating before passing out on the nearest flat surface.

  El, Nidina, Laze, and Dayne, though, still weren’t quite comfortable enough with the group to completely let their guard down. While Nidina and Dayne slept, El and Laze had opted to keep a two-person watch.

  “Not bad,” El replied to Tas, noting the metal cup he carried in one hand. “I’m no expert, but it feels like you did a good job.”

  “I’ve had an unfortunate amount of practice,” Tas said, taking a sip from his cup.

  “Lot of run-ins with those bears?” El asked him.

  “Ah, where are my manners? You’ve stayed up to keep watch, and here I haven’t even offered you coffee.” He ignored her question and instead lifted his cup. “Would you like some?”

  As tempting as it was, El shook her head. She’d spoken of trust, but it’d still be easy to slip something into food or drink. And that wasn’t even considering the others… keeping an eye on the Firestorm. An eye, and several guns.

  Tas put his hand to his chest as if it pained him. “You worry I’d spike your drink? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get coffee around here? No way I’d ruin it just to… to what? Make you drowsy? Your Spark would burn off anything I could put in here.” He stopped for a moment, looking at her shoulder like he saw something there. “Then again, your wings weren’t quite like the stories said.”

  Ignoring his comment about her wings just like he’d ignored her comment about the bears, El pointedly looked at the cup. “Let’s be honest here,” she said, lifting a finger to point at the six other Pilish soldiers who had their guns drawn and generally pointed at the Firestorm. “It wouldn’t really surprise me.”

  Tas looked around like he was seeing the bare weapons for the first time. “Can you really blame them, given our history…?”

  “Our history?” El interrupted. “The history where me and my friends saved you and yours? Cause, that’s the only history we have here.”

  The man with the coffee took another sip and then nodded. “Fair point. How about ‘the history between our nations’ then?”

  El leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “Doesn’t look like a lot of nations here. Just some soldiers trying to survive a changed world.”

  Tas tapped the side of his metal cup, the ting, ting, tinging mixing with the popping of the fire between them. “A changed world, you say?”

  “Quite changed, in fact, where it’s better to make friends than enemies,” El said.

  “Could you two stop speaking in riddles?” Laze interrupted. “Tas, really, thank you for patching up El’s shoulder. What she’s trying to say is we know about what our nation did to yours, but we’re not those people. A lot’s happened in Pycrin, and part of why we’re here is trying to set some of those old wrongs right. We’re not here to fight.”

  “What are you here for, then?” Tas asked, taking another sip from his cup. “Don’t get me wrong, if your whole reason for being here was to save our sorry asses, no way I’m complaining. Still, I’m not quite so conceited to think that’s the case.”

  One of the men in the shadows with his gun pointed at the Firestorm barked a sharp laugh.

  Face going completely flat, Tas pressed his lips together. “Ignore him. He’s an idiot.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The laughing man stood and sauntered over to the group. “This idiot could use some coffee.”

  “Go get it yourself,” Tas said without looking at the man.

  “Your little bulldog of a second will shoot my hand off if I go anywhere near your stash without you beside me.” The man chuckled.

  “Kind of my plan,” Tas admitted, taking another sip, then stopped and looked into the cup. “Would you look at that? Empty. I’m sure my little bulldog of a second wouldn’t suspect anything if you were just getting me a refill.” Still without looking, Tas held the cup out to the side, where the other man stared at it for a second, then took it in one hand.

  “If this is a trap, my ghost will haunt you,” the man said, but turned and wandered off into the darkness.

  “Sorry for the interruption,” Tas said. “I think you were about to tell me why four Firestorm—That is what you’re called, isn’t it?—are doing in my neck of the woods.”

  “We’re here to…” Laze started, but cut off when El held up a hand.

  “We’ll tell you why we’re here if you’ll tell us what you were running from. And don’t say the bears. You’ve been on the road for days, at least. If the bears were after you that long, we wouldn’t have found anything but small brown piles.”

  “Graphic… but true,” Tas said. He lifted his hand up like he was going to take another sip from his cup, only to notice he didn’t have it anymore, then rolled his eyes. “I’m never going to get that back,” he mumbled. “And, you’re right, we weren’t running from the bears. Well, not just from the bears. They were only the latest thing.”

  “Care to elaborate?” El prompted.

  “I guess it can’t hurt to tell…” Tas started.

  “Don’t,” another man growled from the shadows. He had a gun in each hand as he stood and stalked up to stare down at the seated Tas. “They could be working together.”

  Tas craned his head to look up at the standing man. Then he shook his head. “Think about it, Boldir. If they were working together, they’d already know who we are. We wouldn’t be sitting here talking. This nice lady, or one of her friends, would have us all herded up and heading back.”

  “Maybe they already sent somebody back to bring word, and now they’re just stalling for time,” Boldir said.

  “You think they’re the ones stalling for time?” Tas asked, eyebrows up. “Have you looked at our people? The ones flopped down anywhere flat? We couldn’t go another mile even if we wanted to, and you know it.

  “Look, Boldir, and everybody else prowling around,” Tas said the last part loud enough to be heard across half the camp, “if they wanted to hurt us, they would’ve already. And, you saw it as well as I did. There wouldn’t be much we could do about it. So go to bed. Get some rest while you can. We’ll be moving again as soon as the sun comes up.”

  “Somebody needs to watch them,” Boldir said, turning a look on El suggesting he’d rather shoot than watch her.

  “I’m literally sitting right here with them,” Tas pointed out.

  “But if they…”

  “Boldir,” Tas said, his voice taking on a sharp edge, and the other man snapped into military straightness. “Go to bed. Take the others with you. Yes, that’s an order.”

  Boldir’s mouth clenched, but he nodded and sheathed his guns. “Yes, sir,” the man said, then gave a salute by tapping the tips of his fingers on the center of his chest. With that done, he turned and practically marched away, waving at the others keeping watch on the Firestorm to follow.

  “Sorry about them,” Tas said when the others were gone. “They mean well.”

  “Not just the field surgeon then, huh?” El asked.

  “You caught me. I was also their commanding officer in a former life,” Tas said, spreading his arms to his sides and taking a half-bow from his seated position.

  “Ah,” El said, the pieces clicking at his words. “That’s why you’re running, then?”

  “You’re deserters?” Laze asked, catching on quickly.

  “Deserters has such a harsh ring to it,” Tas said. “We’re more like… like… okay, deserters is probably the best word for it after all. But, probably not the kind you’re thinking. And, yes, we’re running from the army that’s looking for us even as we speak.”

  “You’re not all soldiers,” Nidina said, sitting up from where she lay on the ground. “What? It’s not like you’re being quiet at all.”

  “Dayne’s still asleep,” El pointed out.

  “Man could sleep through a thousand groundies marching past his pillow. Not a fair comparison. Back to my point?” Nidina said.

  “You’re right, only…” Tas stopped, his eyes drifting up like he was thinking about something. “Only seventeen of us are ex-soldiers. The rest are civilians.”

  “Only seventeen?” Laze asked. “There has to be more than a hundred civvies. How were you planning to protect that many with so few?”

  “There were more than twice as many of us when we started. Soldiers and civilians both,” Tas said. “That was almost two weeks ago, though. It’s been… a rough go of it.”

  A pang of empathized pain stirred in El’s gut. She knew just how he felt. When she thought she’d lost her wing to Sol’s—to the Stormbearer’s—march on the capital, it’d been… hard. And if they’d been on the run for two weeks, it was amazing they were still going as strong as they had been.

  “How have you been surviving? What have you been eating?” Nidina asked. “I didn’t see people carrying much…”

  “Mostly just what we could scrounge up…” Tas said.

  “You can scrounge coffee?” El asked flatly.

  “Well, except for that. I made sure to grab some of that on the way out—coffee is life—but I’m almost out. Then it’s going to be really rough,” Tas said.

  “So, the army? They…” El said, gesturing towards the group of passed-out people.

  “Some,” Tas said. “Bears got some. I think we lost the most to the seawyrms, though. Ironic, I know.”

  “Seaworms?” Laze asked.

  “Ironic?” El asked at the same time.

  “Yeah, the same enemy the army was drafting us to fight,” Tas said.

  “Doesn’t explain what seaworms are, though,” Laze pointed out.

  “Wyrms, with a ‘y,’ not an ‘o’,” Tas said.

  “Wyrms? Wyrms… as in dragons?” Laze asked, her eyes widening.