Page 174 of A Warrior's Fate

But she didn’t want to bring up the pass here. Not the history, not Io, not the hierarchy. “We need to go to the Wall.”

She earned equally confused stares.

“Do you know how far that is from here?” Ameera said. “It would take us all night to get down there and back home. I was going to say we go back and continue in the morning.”

Isla huffed, a restless feeling crawling beneath her skin. “We can run.”

Rhydian spoke next. “And then run back? There’s an early roll call tomorrow.”

“Is there not another train or boat or bus we can take?”

“Not this late.”

“So then, we find another way.” Isla turned to Ameera. “I need you to trust me, and you know you’re going to lie awake all night until you find out what those lines mean. Why not save yourself the misery?”

The seconds before Ameera spoke felt like hours.

“Interesting tactic,” she said with the slightest amusement. “Why so eager?”

“I’ll explain later.”

Ameera hummed. “Alright, Luna.” A look of assessment crossed her face, accompanied by a devilish twinkle in her eye. “Let’s make a quick stop at Talha.”

Isla raised a brow. “The tavern?”

“We don’t have time for cards,” Rhydian argued.

“We’re not going for cards,” Ameera said, shoving the map in her pocket. “We’re finding another way.”

“For fuck’s sake, Meera!”

From where she sat in the passenger seat of the new model town car, Isla looked up at Rhydian through the rearview mirror. He had his arms fully spanned to hold himself steady against the doors to either side of him. Isla wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or yell too as Ameera careened around another line of trees that sent her slamming into her own door.

The young general wasn’t a horrible driver by any means, however, her ambition surely carried through all the walks of her life. Ameera was doing everything in her power to get them to the Wall as quickly as possible, including this questionable “shortcut”.

While Mavec was a city, and Abalys a river town, Surles was comprised of spread-out villages, with plenty of forest in between the areas to sneak through and speed about. As they traveled over makeshift roads and bumps, all they had to illuminate their path were the headlights of the vehicle, the canopies of the trees too tightly woven to allow the moonlight through.

That, and Isla wondered if somehow the Goddess was hiding behind another behemoth, beckoning her from the closing distance.

“Do you want to get there or not?” Ameera called over her shoulder.

“Yes, I’d like to get there—alive,” Rhydian countered. “Are you sure that Charley doesn’t care we took this?”

“Of course,” Ameera drawled, not the least bit convincing. One more turn had light in their path. “He owes me, anyway.”

For what, Isla never learned. They’d all been rendered silent.

Emerging from the forest, no matter what lay before her, all Isla could focus on was the presence that loomed above them. Shrouded by night. Nothing but a dark shadow that seemed to be the end of the world. Absolute oblivion.

“Hello, old friend,” Ameera sighed.

Old friend.

Isla looked at the general. Somehow, she’d forgotten that to hold her position, Ameera had gone behind the structure and faced its horrors, too. She wondered if she felt the same way—like her heart was in her throat and like every inch closer to it made her want to jump out of her skin.

“Goddess, I hate this place.” Rhydian wasn’t looking into the distance at the Wall, but at the set-back homes they passed as the open field they’d been driving on led them to an actual road.

Judging by the frown Ameera wore as she glanced at him in the rearview mirror, Isla felt she shouldn’t question this either.

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