Helion’s flame was a pure, blinding white.

It burned the Suriel into ashes within a heartbeat.

“Come,” Helion said again, extending a hand. “Let’s get you to the camp.”

It was the kindness in his voice that cracked my chest. But I took Helion’s hand.

As warm light whisked us away, I could have sworn that the pile of ashes was stirred by a phantom wind.

CHAPTER

61

Helion winnowed me into the camp. Right into Rhys’s war-tent.

My mate was pale. Blood-splattered and filthy, from his skin to his armor to his hair.

I opened my mouth—to ask how the battle had gone, to say what had happened, I don’t know.

But Rhys just reached for me, folding me into his chest.

And at the smell and warmth and solidity of him … I began weeping again.

I didn’t know who was in the tent. Who had survived the battle. But they all left.

Left, while my mate held me, rocking me gently, as I cried and cried.

He only told me what had happened when my tears had quieted. When he’d washed the Suriel’s black blood from my hands, my face.

I was out of the tent a heartbeat later, charging through the mud, dodging exhausted and weary soldiers. Rhys was a step behind me, but said nothing as I shoved through flaps of another tent and took stock of what and who was before me.

Mor and Azriel were standing before the cot, monitoring every move the healer sitting beside it made.

As she held her glowing hands over Cassian.

I understood then—the quiet Cassian had once mentioned to me.

It was now in my head as I looked at his muddy, pained face—pained, even in unconsciousness. As I heard his labored, wet breathing.

As I beheld the slice curving up from his navel to the bottom of his sternum. The split flesh. The blood—mostly just a trickle.

I swayed—only for Rhys to grip me beneath the elbows.

The healer didn’t turn to look at me as her brow bunched in concentration, hands flaring with white light. Beneath them—slowly, the lips of the wound reached toward each other.

If it was this bad now—

“How,” I rasped. Rhys had told me three things a moment ago:

We’d won—barely. Tarquin had again decided what to do with any survivors. And Cassian had been gravely injured.

“Where were you,” was all Mor said to me. She was soaked, bloody, and coated in mud. Azriel was, too. No sign of injuries beyond minor cuts, mercifully.

I shook my head. I’d let Rhys into my mind while he held me. Showed him everything—explained Ianthe and the Suriel and the Weaver. What it had told me. Rhys’s eyes had gone distant for a moment, and I knew Amren was on her way, the Book in tow. To help Nesta track that Cauldron—or try to. He could explain to Mor.

He’d only known I was gone after the battle stopped—when he realized Mor had been fighting. And that I was not at the camp anymore. He’d just reached Elain’s tent when Helion sent word he’d found me. Using whatever gift he possessed that allowed him to sense such things. And was bringing me back. Vague, brief details.

“Is he—is he going to—” I couldn’t finish the rest. Words had become as foreign and hard to reach as the stars.

“No,” the healer said without looking at me. “He’ll be sore for a few days, though.”

Indeed, she’d gotten either side of the wound to touch—to now start weaving together.

Bile surged up my throat at the sight of that raw flesh—

“How,” I asked again.

“He wouldn’t wait for us,” Mor said flatly. “He kept charging—trying to re-form the line. One of their commanders engaged him. He wouldn’t turn away. By the time Az got there, he was down.”

Azriel’s face was stone-cold, even as his hazel eyes fixed unrelentingly upon that knitting wound.

Mor said again, “Where did you go?”

“If you’re about to fight,” the healer said sharply, “take it outside. My patient doesn’t need to hear this.”

None of us moved.

Rhys brushed a hand down my arm. “You are, as always, free to go wherever and whenever you wish. But what I think Mor is saying is … try to leave a note the next time.”

The words were casual, but that was panic in his eyes. Not—not the controlling fear Tamlin had once succumbed to, but … genuine terror of not knowing where I was, if I needed help. Just as I would want to know where he was, if he needed help, if he vanished when our enemies surrounded us. “I’m sorry,” I said. To him, to the others.

Mor didn’t so much as look at me.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Rhys replied, hand sliding to cup my cheek. “You decided to take things into your own hands, and got us valuable information in the process. But …” His thumb stroked over my cheekbone. “We have been lucky,” he breathed. “Keeping a step ahead—keeping out of Hybern’s claws. Even if today … today wasn’t so fortunate on the battlefield. But the cynic in me wonders if our luck is about to expire. And I would rather it not end with you.”

They all had to think me young and reckless.

No, Rhys said through the bond, and I realized I’d left my shields open. Believe me, if you knew half of the shit Cassian and Mor have pulled, you’d get why we don’t. I just … Leave a note. Or tell me the next time.

Would you have let me go if I had?

I do not let you do anything. He tilted my face up, Mor and Azriel looking away. You are your own person, you make your own choices. But we are mates—I am yours, and you are mine. We do not let each other do things, as if we dictate the movements of each other. But … I might have insisted I go with you. More for my own mental well-being, just to know you were safe.

You were occupied.

A slash of a smile. If you were hell-bent on going into the Middle, I would have unoccupied myself from battle.

I waited for him to chide me about not waiting until they were done, about all of it, but … he angled his head. “I wonder if the Weaver forgives you now,” he mused aloud.

Even the healer seemed to start at the name—the words.

A shiver ran down my spine. “I don’t want to know.”

Rhys let out a low laugh. “Then let’s never find out.”

But the amusement faded as he again surveyed Cassian. The wound that was now sealed over.

The Suriel wasn’t your fault.

I loosed a breath as Cassian’s eyelids began to shift and flutter. I know.

I’d already added its death to my ever-growing list of things I’d soon make Hybern pay for.

Long minutes passed, and we stood in silence. I did not ask where Nesta was. Mor barely acknowledged me. And Rhys …

He perched on the foot of the cot as Cassian’s eyes at last opened, and the general let out a groan of pain.

“That’s what you get,” the healer chided, gathering her supplies, “for stepping in front of a sword.” She frowned at him. “Rest tonight and tomorrow. I know better than to insist on a third day after that, but try not to leap in front of blades anytime soon.”

Cassian just blinked rather dazedly at her before she bowed to Rhys and me and left.