Page 48 of The Turncoat King

“They slipped passed you?” Rafe sounded disbelieving.

“No. Ava managed to escape them. They don’t have her.” He inclined his head the way he’d come. “Revek’s gone after them, I’m looking for Ava.”

“Where did Revek come from?” Rafe asked, surprised.

Luc frowned. “I don’t know.”

“If you want to split up, some can help me, some can help Revek.”

“Taira and I will help you look for Avasu,” Deni said.

Rafe met Luc’s eyes and nodded, then he and the young soldier with him moved on, following the path the Kassian scouts had forged through the undergrowth.

“Spread out,” Luc told the two Venyatux. “She’s injured, so she may be unresponsive. Call out when you find her.”

They nodded, and Deni went right, Taira left, and Luc moved back the way he’d come, to see if he could pick up a trail from the clearing where they’d held her.

As he stepped into the tiny space, the hairs on his neck began to prickle, and a feeling swept over him that he’d known before, from the Chosen camps.

Someone was watching him. Even though he couldn’t see them, he felt their eyes on him.

He turned slowly, pulling out his sword, although the vegetation was so dense, he wouldn’t be able to get in a full swing.

The feeling slowly faded, but that didn’t comfort him.

His heart sped up, and he fought back the memories of sitting for hours, never sure who was behind him.

That the Kassian guards running the camps meant him harm was a given. The timing of when that harm would come to him, though, that he could never predict.

He had long ago worked out it hadn’t mattered what he did.

Comply. Rebel. Pretend respect, or show his true contempt.

They’d already decided what they were going to do. And they deliberately kept it inconsistent, to mess with everyone’s heads.

They’d thought it would break the Cervantes children they had stolen. That they would end up needing order and consistency, and cling to it when it was finally offered to them.

Become good little soldiers for the Kassian cause.

It hadn’t worked on Luc. And he had made sure it hadn’t worked on as many fellow camp prisoners as he could reach.

He had wondered if it was someone with magic who had watched him all those years ago. Made invisible by a spell.

He wasn’t the only one who had felt it, but most had convinced themselves they had imagined the watcher. And perhaps it truly had been a figment of their imaginations. A shadow monster born of exhaustion and fear.

But he would swear it was the same sensation he’d felt moments ago.

And if he was right, that meant there was a magic user in these trees, watching all over again.

He forced himself to let it go.

That wasn’t important right now. Ava was.

He could think about this later. Not that he would have any way to truly know, one way or the other. Which was all the more reason to let it go.

He took one last look around, but the sensation had passed and he sheathed his sword. The moment it slid home in its scabbard, Ava rose up from the shadows, out of nowhere.

As if she had stepped from the Otherworld itself.

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