Or maybe… they’d just seen who was headed this way.

I did a double take, my heart pounding, but that was definitely Aeslinn. I could see him with Mircea’s telephoto eyesight, back in his usual body and striding across the burning camp. He was wearing an ill-fitting tunic and leggings that he must have stripped off another unfortunate soldier, which were rumpled and dirty and had a hole in the knee. Yet there was no doubt that he was a king. Every inch said power, fury—and death if we were still here in less than a minute.

So, yeah, time to go.

I got my arms around the guys and tried to shift, but no way in hell. I couldn’t budge us an inch, which meant that I was going to have to take them one at a time—if I could even do that. It honestly didn’t feel like it, but I grabbed Pritkin and tried anyway. But while some power swirled around me that time, it was thin and weak, not the golden ocean of Pythian energy that I was used to. And it wasn’t enough.

We were going to have to fight, but nobody looked remotely up to it.

Mircea was slumped over, almost nose to the ground, beside the tent pole. He had a bloody shirt front, black and sticky, maybe because there was a stake jutting out of it. It was directly over the heart and explained why he’d been unable to communicate with me.

He hadn’t been able to do much else, either, by the look of things. He had blotchy, bruised skin and what appeared to be numerous sword cuts, which he’d been unable to heal. He had rope burns, too, which I saw when I cut him free of the feys’ nasty, bespelled cords, which snapped and burnt my hands where they touched, and he’d been wearing them for how long?

I felt a wave of anger sweep over me, which I ruthlessly tamped down. I didn’t have time for that now. I had to get us out.

“Mircea,” I whispered urgently, cupping his face. “Mircea, I’m going to take out the stake. We’re going to have to fight. Okay?”

No response. Which could have been for a number of reasons, but was probably because he didn’t have the strength. Or maybe there was nothing to say.

This was going to be a bitch.