“The compound,” she bit out. “Did they survive? Patrik and…？” She could not make herself say Linnet’s name.
Navi sat beside her. “I believe most of the refugees got away, yes. Patrik stayed to help evacuate them to a new site. Hob has come with us to meet a contact in Rinthos who can help with supplies for the survivors. The smoke ruined much of their food. But, Eliana, you saved them. What adatrox you didn’t destroy, Simon picked off easily. What you did… I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Eliana lay very still, her cheek pressed to the blanket. Her vision was beginning to settle in the darkness. Remy lay nearby, curled up at the base of a tree. Even as he slept, his brow creased with worry. Beside him sat Simon, arms crossed over his chest, eyes closed. In sleep, he looked almost peaceful. The silver ribbons of his scars shivered like ghosts in the shifting moonlight.
Then Eliana heard footsteps in the woods and tensed.
“It’s only Hob,” Navi whispered. “He’s on watch. Please, try to rest.”
“That’s unlikely. Where are my knives?” Then she remembered Lord Morbrae confiscating them and groaned. “They’re gone, aren’t they?”
“Actually, Simon retrieved them from the outpost. Now Remy has them. He won’t let any of us touch them.”
Eliana let out a tired, relieved laugh. “And now…we go to Rinthos.”
“Yes. There, we’ll be able to find better medicine for your back than what Hob helped us scrape together.” She paused. “I’m sorry to say I think you’ll be scarred permanently from it. But you will live.”
Eliana closed her eyes. Exhausted tears slid down her cheeks.
“Oh, Eliana.” Navi cupped her face with one soft hand. “How can I help you? I feel useless.”
“You can’t help me. Just leave me be. Please.”
For a time, Navi was blessedly quiet. But even in the silence, broken only by the whisper of wind and Hob’s occasional steady tread, Eliana could not find her way back to sleep.
She opened her eyes, knowing that she must say something, or this dead, black feeling in her chest would rise up and engulf her. “Navi?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know, I…I can’t sleep.”
“Shall I tell you a story?” There was a smile in Navi’s voice.
“You saw things in Lord Arkelion’s palace. Didn’t you?”
A new stillness fell over them. Navi’s voice was careful. “What kind of things?”
Impossible things.
Men with slit throats, somehow walking again.
Men with black eyes, speaking from across a vast ocean.
“Did you ever see…odd behavior from Lord Arkelion?” Eliana asked. “Or from visiting generals?”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean by odd behavior.”
But the slightly stilted quality of Navi’s voice told Eliana that in fact she did know. “Lord Morbrae. I slit his throat, yet there he was, minutes later, walking once more. His neck was whole. No wound.”
“Here,” Navi offered. “Water.”
Eliana allowed Navi to help her take a few greedy sips from Simon’s canteen, then lay back down with a moan.
“And before that,” she added. “I was in his lap. I was prepared to pleasure him in exchange for amnesty. I bent to kiss him, and then…”
Eliana’s voice had grown so quiet Navi had to bend low to hear.
“And then?” she prompted.
“I saw…a vision,” Eliana said. “His eyes locked with mine, and I was taken elsewhere. I was both at the outpost and also across the ocean. I was in Celdaria, in a beautiful city, larger than any I’ve seen. In Elysium.”
Navi’s eyes were wide with astonishment. “The Emperor’s city?”
“He spoke to me.”
“Not the Emperor?”
Eliana nodded once. The pain firing up her legs, back, and skull was so violent it nearly made her sick over Navi’s boots.
“Those prisoners,” Eliana whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. She was losing her grip on the conversation. Her questions scattered and faded. “At the outpost. They were kept in cages. The fire… They couldn’t get out. I heard them screaming.”
“Hush now.” Navi’s hand pressed hers gently. “Think of Crown’s Hollow. You saved many lives there.”
“I’m a murderer, Navi. Tell me I’m not.”
Navi did not reply.