Page 118 of The Girl in the Forest

Believe, believe, believe…

Three fronts spread out, groups of men. I recognized Mace by his blonde hair and his voice as he bellowed orders. Fallon’s troops were holding the center. Beside her, Anson’s auburn hair caught my attention—although they were not fighting as a team. Anson’s men were fighting on a hill while Fallon was holding space in the dip.

In the distance, I saw Grayson. His men were in full charge, tearing down a slope, clashing like a wave breaking on the shore.

Breaking, falling back, reforming.

I was screaming. Skidding and falling as I ran down the blackened hill. Levi raced beside me.

“My orders haven’t changed,” he shouted when I glared at him. “Protect Noa. With my life, if necessary.”

“Idiot!” I bared my no-wolf teeth. “You can barely move.”

He flashed his wolf canines, and the gesture clearly said, I’m moving… and I couldn’t argue with him. I didn’t want his wolf to emerge. Instinct warned against it, since men were fighting, not wolves.

Laura was running beside us, with Brin and Julien in the rear.

A man I didn’t recognize dashed past, then paused and came back. “Don’t shift! These creatures are larger, and their tusks—we’ve lost too many wolves.”

I gripped my bow, readied the arrow, while Levi yanked a spear from the ground. Laura was doing the same, wrenching a spear from a mounded wiry pelt.

“Who are you?” I screamed over the din.

“From Carmag.”

I glanced at the small red patch on his shirt sleeve. He sidestepped as two men carried a stretcher past; I recognized the wounded man—he was from Azul.

Laura rushed forward. “I’m a healer,” she hissed when the men glared at her. But her hands were already moving over the bloody bandages, and she demanded, “Where are you taking him?”

“Triage is set up in the trees.”

One man pointed toward the flags. Laura looked at me.

“Go with the wounded,” I told her. “They need you. Go save lives,” I repeated when she hesitated. “I’m more valuable here.”

“But you and Levi—”

“Have Julien to protect us,” I said, breathing hard and in no mood to keep arguing.

“And me,” Brin added.

“No,” I said to her. “Go with Laura.”

“No.” Brin was twisting a spear too deeply embedded in a creature for her to get it loose, and Levi tore it free. She gripped it in both hands.

“Noa.” The concern in Laura’s eyes was another hit to the heart, and I reached out, squeezing her cold hands.

“You aren’t leaving me behind,” I hissed. “This is my choice. I’m standing. Fighting.”

Julien stepped toward me. “My lady—”

“Not you too, Julien.” But they couldn’t know of the prophecy revealed to me. The prophecy that would not come true today.

Damp hair caught in my eyes as I stared at the gods-damned blue sky. The sounds battered me, the pain. Bitter scents tainted the air. Light glittered off metal the way it glitters off moving water. Dizzying, spellbinding.

I would not stand by and do nothing.

Julien became a black smear through the air, ripping apart the grunting pig that charged from behind a hairy carcass. Dirt, red-tinted and heavy, flew and splatted on my jeans, joining the muck already there.

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