The men already laid out stones marking the four corners of the future building. The site is flat and open, visible, yet close to woods that provide water and herbs for cases that don’t require magic for healing. Placing the healing center outside the city walls declares its neutrality and availability to all. It’s risky, though, and leaves the establishment vulnerable. Not that Ios offers much protection. Like too many Sintan cities, it’s barely fortified.
I turn to the woods, squinting into the shadows while Griffin argues with Egeria. She wants another wing. He says they’ll add it if necessary.
He looks up sharply, following my gaze. I heard it, too. A rustling. He shoves Egeria toward the healers and draws his sword. Tarvans with blue tribal swirls erupt from the trees. Southern Tarvans in northern Sinta? It doesn’t make any sense. There are at least sixty of them, their swords drawn, their rhythmic battle chant pounding the air like drums of war.
I feel no fear. I have powerful, deadly magic simmering in my veins. I breathe; they die. In a moment, I’ll show them. I’ll give them a chance to change their minds.
The adrenaline of imminent combat surges through my body. I reach for my knives and don’t feel anything—not even myself.
Horror fills me.
“Griffin!” He doesn’t hear my shout. He doesn’t hear me yelling at him to run, to get behind the walls. He doesn’t hear me because I’m not there!
He stands firm, buying the fleeing people time. They all do. Kato, Flynn, Carver. Griffin.
They watch the Tarvans come, their legs braced for attack, bellows on their lips, and my heart plummets. They don’t stand a chance.
My eyes snap open, and my whole world implodes.
“Wake up!” I sit up. Kaia is next to me, Jocasta on her right. “Get Piers. Now!”
Jocasta jumps off the bed, hastily throws a wrap around her shoulders, and then runs from the room. In less than a minute, I’m dressed. Then Piers is in front of me. Nerissa and Anatole, too.
“A Tarvan tribe is going to attack the building site. Sixty men. It hasn’t happened yet, but it will by sometime this afternoon. We have to get to Ios, or they’re all dead.”
They stay rooted to the spot, pale, with too-wide eyes. Only Anatole holds himself together. “To Ios!” he barks. “Now!”
His voice is like a whip. Everyone flies into action. I’m the first one out, sword strapped on, four daggers in my belt. I raise the alarm at the barracks. Soldiers tumble out of their rooms and into the dawn-cool courtyard, the white marble pearlescent in first light.
Piers jogs over. The hilt of a full-sized sword pokes up over his shoulder, and there’s a shorter blade attached to his belt. He’s wearing leather armor. “We have forty horses in the stable,” he says, stopping next to me.
Forty is a decent number. Armies travel mostly on foot. “Have fifteen horses carry women, and they double up. The twenty-five others carry your best men. Sixty more follow on foot. And they run. I’ve run for a day. So can they.”
I finish adjusting Panotii’s saddle and then reach for the stirrup. He’s prancing, reacting to the stress in the air.
Piers lays a hand on my arm. “You’re not supposed to leave.”
I shake him off. “This is a dire emergency.”
“Griffin won’t want you in danger.”
“I don’t give an Olympian damn what Griffin wants!”
“You’ve made that abundantly clear,” Piers snaps, grabbing Panotii’s reins. “But I do.”
“Let go,” I snarl.
“Why? From what I’ve seen, you’d abandon him in a heartbeat if you could.”
It’s all I can do not to kick Piers in the face. I hold up my hands instead, backing off. “You’re right. Go get killed.”
Piers throws me a contemptuous look before turning to the gathering soldiers and calling out orders as they form ranks.
With a running leap, I land on Panotii’s back, grab his mane for balance, and throw my right leg over his other side. Before I’m even upright, we’re thundering across the courtyard, under the raised portcullis, and out into the sleeping streets of Sinta City.
Urgency explodes inside me. Panotii feels it and stretches his legs. Waiting for the army doesn’t occur to me. I have no food and no water. I don’t even have a bloody sense of direction, and I have to slow down at the east gate, shouting to the guards for the road to Ios.
As the sun climbs the sky in front of me, I’m forced to stop in two villages so Panotii can drink and rest. It’ll kill him to run flat out in the heat. I drink, too, and then ask him to carry me again. When he’s lathered with sweat and breathing impossibly hard, I get off and jog beside him, telling him how brave and strong he is while I scream inside with the need to gallop.