Page 146 of Ashes of Honor

A kiss of light against the darkening horizon snapped us all to attention.

“That’s not Amaia,” Moe murmured.

“No,” I agreed, still shaken to the core. “Based on what Asher told us, it’s not the locals either.”

“If we can see them,” Moe said with warning. “They can see us.”

Millie grimaced, clutching her pistol as she pushed herself unsteadily to her feet. “I’m good, you can trust me. I’ll stay quiet. You earned my loyalty a long time ago,” she said, this time, directly to me. “We can head out. We’ve lingered too long already.”

Alexiares

Cutting the bullshit, the night didn’t sit right.

The nightly briefing broke and I couldn’t shake that aggressive feeling of being watched. Our scouts had little information. They’d gotten as close as they could risk in order to ensure their ability to make it back to relay the message. All it was were murmurs of Covert troop movements in our general area—but I’d lived the kind of life that never allowed me to mistake whispers for ‘nothing.’

Amaia was the first to sense it. Her posture shifted the moment we stepped into the open air. She didn’t say a thing. Doe brown eyes scanned the camp, her fingers brushing the hiltof her blade. Her breathing hitched just slightly—something I found myself overly sensitive to. I breathed when she did. My breath hitched when hers caught.

Even if she had shown no signs of awareness, I felt it in my bones.

Something was wrong. Off. She glanced back at me as if reassuring herself I was still there.

“You good, Princess?” I said, trying to sound casual though I was on high alert, same as her.

She shook her head and turned back toward camp. “Yeah. Just … stay close tonight.”

A plea wrapped in steel.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” I teased, reaching for her instinctively, then remembering where we were.

It was no secret we were together. It had been a rumor throughout territories for months and confirmed at the first meeting. Where she went, I went. And if I wasn’t with her, then I was somewhere carrying out her orders—but out here, she was their general, not the woman who owned my heart.

That earned me a short, uneasy laugh. “Eyes forward, soldier.” Her eyes didn’t match her smile.

I followed her without another word. There was this crushing certainty that she wouldn’t survive this war. It went beyond my chest tightening and my stomach dropping. Every organ in my upper body was under the foot of an elephant while someone kicked at the sides.

The first explosion came as we reached the camp’s edge for our night shift check in.

A concussive wave knocked the air out of my lungs, the blast disorienting. I wheezed, searching for Amaia, hands flailing, but I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t hear. My senses were knocked from me, then returned with a slamming force. Thesecond explosion followed in quick succession and the wards around the camp flickered. Then died.

Magic suppression.

Fog rolled in, creeping through our camp in serpentine fashion. It hissed as it ate away at tents and equipment. The first screams pierced the air as it found flesh. Soldiers scrambled. Their orders were forgotten from shock and fear.

“Remember your training! Hold the line!” Amaia’s voice cut through and relief flowed through me, unfreezing me and pushing me into action. “Fall back to the inner perimeter!”

The panic in the camp was a living thing, surging and pulling soldiers apart, swallowing Amaia in the fray. I pushed through it, my focus narrowing to one goal—reaching her. My boots slid in the mud as the fog thickened around me. Choked sobs filled the air, and guttural cries of pain came from every direction.

The wall was there—my power was out of reach. I didn’t waste effort calling on it. I knew better. Only time could bring it back.

“Cover your mouths, you fuckingidiots.”

I recognized the grating voice despite the chorus of wails and gags. Finley.

Her stark blonde hair was a blur in the fog, but her blade flashed as she cut down a Covert soldier, fully masked. She moved with trained grace, carving through him as though the man had never been a threat at all.

Another soldier broke from the fog, charging her blindly, and I was already moving. My blade caught him mid-lunge, slicing through his ribcage and silencing him before his weapon could swing.

Finley didn’t flinch. “I had him,” she said, her tone flat.

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