Page 63 of When Sisters Collide
Only Apollo roamed free now, slipping through the barracks’ shadows, nose low, hunting San and Kaixo’s scent.
She and Phoebe had agreed: scout first, map the layout, track the guards—thenunleash the wolves.
They crept towards the nearest building, a squat, weathered structure with narrow windows and a sagging roof. The wooden door hung crooked on its hinges, creaking as the wind prodded it. Warm, flickering light seeped through the cracks.
Without warning, the door swung wide, spilling light into the yard. Phoebe yanked Alena into the shadows as a guard stepped out, fastening his belt and adjusting the sword at his hip. He didn’t glance around, just muttered to himself and wandered down the path.
Phoebe’s eyes narrowed, her mouth tightening.
The wind shifted.
Alena froze as the air brought muffled groans, the rhythmiccreakof straw-stuffed beds… and a woman’s stifled sob.
Her stomach turned to ice.
“A pleasure house for the guards,” Phoebe whispered.
Alena’s breath hitched. Rage and nausea surged in the same breath. She stepped forward, ready to tear the door from its hinges, but Phoebe caught her arm, her grip unyielding.
“No.”
“Phoebe—!”
“Remember what you came for,” Phoebe hissed. “San and Kaixo. Them and no one else. Or none of us make it. Choose now.”
The words landed like shackles. Another cry slipped through the wall, and Alena’s fists trembled. Every instinct screamed at her to do something—anything—but Phoebe was right.
Her whisper came out raw. “San and Kaixo.”
It felt like betrayal, but she turned away.
Phoebe gave a single grim nod, tugging her towards the next row of barracks. “Has the wolf found anything?”
Alena shook her head. Her throat was too tight for words.
“Then let’s slip into the closest barrack and?—”
They rounded the corner—and slammed into someone.
Alena’s heart stuttered.
The figure gasped, but Phoebe was faster, shoving the woman against the wall with athud, one hand over her mouth, the other reaching for her blade. The oil lamp tipped sideways, spilling gold light across bronze skin, a grimy tunic, and wide, dark eyes glazed with fear.
Alena’s senses swept the shadows. No one else. Just them.
Phoebe hissed something sharp in Rhaetic. The woman blinked in confusion. Then, in Koine: “Don’t make a sound.”
The woman nodded. Phoebe eased her hand away, but kept her grip firm.
She sucked in air like she’d been holding her breath for hours, chest heaving, gaze caught for a moment on the strange shimmer of Phoebe’s eye, then she turned to Alena.
Her stare caught. Held. Froze.
“… Alena?”
Alena tensed, blood draining from her face. The noise of the quarry dulled to a distant thrum. Her vision tunnelled until there was only the woman’s face in the lamplight.
Bruises stood out in stark relief, scrapes along her chin, a healing split lip, a thin, pale scar carved across her left cheekbone. Her eyes, once so bright with laughter and mischief, were sunken now, shadowed by a bone-deep exhaustion.
