A small voice forged from years of training commanded him to get up. Get up and walk and get these wounds cleaned before they fester any worse. And yet he didn’t want to; he battled an overwhelming urge to remain hidden and safe. Nothing would come near a thistle patch. Nothing save for Adaira and damselflies and bees. He found a little humor in the sad thought.

So he lay there, among the thistles, blanketed by the morning fog.

It wasn’t long before he heard his name, carried on the wind.

“Captain Tamerlaine!”

He heard the call over and over, like a herd of cows. Torin pulled himself along the ground, deeper into the thistles, oblivious to the needles because more than anything, he didn’t want his guard to find him like this. Like a coward who had run, who couldn’t even rise to his feet and clean his wounds and recover his sword, which he had dropped like a novice.

He lay there and prayed they would all go away. He pressed his face into the ground and gritted his teeth against the pain in his arm and tried to calm his mind, but he wondered how long the enchantment would fetter him. A day? Several days?

He needed to get up. Get up!

And then he saw her. She walked past the thistle patch, her dark hair catching his eye in the fog.

Sidra.

At once, he began to crawl to her, through the thistles. She hadn’t seen him. She was walking away, but her black hair was his marker in the mist—she was his refuge—and Torin dragged himself free from the thistles and up to his feet.

He swayed for a moment. The world spun and the fog was deceptive. He lost sight of her and felt the sting of his wounds again, the panic and the fear that had made him run. But that fear was nothing compared to what he felt when he parted his lips to call her name.

Sidra!

It rang in his mind, but no sound emerged from his mouth. Only a roaring silence.

He tried again, but his voice was lost. He couldn’t speak, and he realized what the first enchanted blade had done when it nicked his forearm.

He stumbled over a pile of loose stones. The sound of the falling rocks brought Sidra back around, and Torin watched as she reemerged from the fog. He watched her eyes widen the moment she saw him, ragged and desperate.

“Torin,” she breathed and stretched out her hand.

He couldn’t hold himself up. He leaned into her, a woman who didn’t reach his shoulder in height, and yet she steadied him.

And even as he pressed his face into her hair and wept, he could make no sound.

Chapter 19