“How bad,” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“How bad was your injury,” Rhys said mildly, “or how badly did we have our asses kicked?”

Cassian blinked again. Slowly. As if whatever sedative he’d been given still held sway.

“To answer the second question,” Rhys went on, Mor and Azriel backing away a step or two as something sharpened in my mate’s voice, “we managed. Keir took heavy hits, but … we won. Barely. To answer the first …” Rhys bared his teeth. “Don’t you ever pull that kind of shit again.”

The glaze wore off Cassian’s eyes as he heard the challenge, the anger, and tried to sit up. He hissed, scowling down at the red, angry slice down his chest.

“Your guts were hanging out, you stupid prick,” Rhys snapped. “Az held them in for you.”

Indeed, the shadowsinger’s hands were caked in blood—Cassian’s blood. And his face … cold with—anger.

“I’m a soldier,” Cassian said flatly. “It’s part of the job.”

“I gave you an order to wait,” Rhys growled. “You ignored it.”

I glanced to Mor, to Azriel—a silent question of whether we should remain. They were too busy watching Rhys and Cassian to notice.

“The line was breaking,” Cassian retorted. “Your order was bullshit.”

Rhys braced his hands on either side of Cassian’s legs and snarled in his face, “I am your High Lord. You don’t get to disregard orders you don’t like.”

Cassian sat up this time, swearing at the pain lingering in his body. “Don’t you pull rank because you’re pissed off—”

“You and your damned theatrics on the battlefield nearly got you killed.” And even as Rhys spat the words—that was panic, again, in his eyes. His voice. “I’m not pissed. I’m furious.”

“So you’re allowed to be mad about our choices to protect you—and we’re not allowed to be furious with you for your self-sacrificing bullshit?”

Rhys just stared at him. Cassian stared right back.

“You could have died,” was all Rhys said, his voice raw.

“So could you.”

Another beat of silence—and in its wake, the anger shifted.

Rhys said quietly, “Even after Hybern … I can’t stomach it.”

Seeing him hurt. Any of us hurt.

And the way Rhys spoke, the way Cassian leaned forward, wincing again, and gripped Rhys’s shoulder …

I strode out of the tent. Left them to talk. Azriel and Mor followed behind me.

I squinted at the watery light—the very last before true dark. When my vision adjusted … Nesta stood by the nearest tent, an empty water bucket between her feet. Her hair a damp mess atop her mud-flecked head. Watching us emerge, grim-faced—

“He’s fine. Healed and awake,” I said quickly.

Nesta’s shoulders sagged a bit.

She’d saved me the trouble of hunting her down to ask her about tracking the Cauldron. Better to do it now, with some privacy. Especially before Amren arrived.

But Mor said coldly, “Shouldn’t you be refilling that bucket?”

Nesta went stiff. Sized up Mor. But Mor didn’t flinch from that look.

After a moment, Nesta picked up her bucket, mud caked up to her shins, and continued on, steps squelching.

I turned, finding Azriel striding for the commanders’ tent, but Mor—

Livid. She was absolutely livid as she faced me. “She didn’t bother to tell anyone that you left.”

Hence the anger. “Nesta is many things, but she’s certainly loyal.”

Mor didn’t smile. Not as she said, “You lied.”

She stormed for her own tent, and with that comment … I had no choice but to follow her in.

The space was mostly occupied with her bed and a small desk littered with weapons and maps. “I didn’t lie,” I said, wincing. “I just … didn’t tell you what I planned to do.”

She gaped at me. “You nudged me to leave you, insisting you would be safe at the camp.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Sorry? Sorry?” She splayed her arms. Bits of mud flew off.

I didn’t know what to do with my own—how to even look her in the eye. I’d seen her mad before, but never … never at me. I’d never had a friend to quarrel with—who cared enough.

“I know everything you’re about to say, every excuse for why I couldn’t go with you,” Mor snapped. “But none of it excuses you for lying to me. If you’d explained, I would have let you go—if you’d trusted me, I would have let you go. Or maybe talked you out of an idiotic idea that nearly got you killed. They are hunting for you. They want to get their hands on you and use you. Hurt you. You’ve only seen a taste of what Hybern can do, what they delight in. And to break you to his will, the king will do anything.”

I didn’t know what to say other than, “We needed this information.”

“Of course we did. But do you know what it felt like to look Rhys in the eye and tell him I had no idea where you were? To realize—for myself—that you had vanished, and likely duped me into enabling it?” She scrubbed at her filthy face, smearing the mud and gore further. “I thought you were smarter than that. Better than that sort of thing.”

The words sent a line of fire searing across my vision, burning down my spine. “I’m not going to listen to this.”

I turned to leave, but Mor was already there, gripping my arm. “Oh, yes, you are. Rhys might be all smiles and forgiveness, but you still have us to answer to. You are my High Lady. Do you understand what it means when you imply you don’t trust us to help you? To respect your wishes if you want to do something alone? When you lie to us?”

“You want to talk about lying?” I didn’t even know what came out of my mouth. I wished I’d killed Ianthe myself, if only to get rid of the rage that writhed along my bones. “How about the fact that you lie to yourself and all of us every single day?”

She went still, but didn’t loosen her hold on my arm. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Why haven’t you ever made a move for Azriel, Mor? Why did you invite Helion to your bed? You clearly found no pleasure in it—I saw the way you looked the next day. So before you accuse me of being a liar, I’d suggest you look long and hard at yourself—”

“That’s enough.”

“Is it? Don’t like someone pushing you about it? About your choices? Well, neither do I.”

Mor dropped my arm. “Get out.”

“Fine.”

I didn’t glance back as I left. I wondered if she could hear my thunderous heartbeat with every storming step I took through the muddy camp.

Amren found me within twenty steps, a wrapped bundle in her arms. “Every time you lot leave me at home, someone manages to get gutted.”

CHAPTER

62

I couldn’t bring myself to smile at Amren. I could barely keep my chin high.

She peered behind me, as if she could see the path I’d taken from Mor’s tent, smell the fight on me. “Be careful,” Amren warned as I fell into step beside her, heading for our tent again, “of how you push her. There are some truths that even Morrigan has not herself faced.”