When Brio’s breathing becomes deep and even, Evie allows her eyes to close and her body to go slack. She soon finds that restful, sunken place in her sleep.

Evie told Brio she’s let go of her anger, if not the past. That much is true. Her thoughts of the past are no longer angry ones, but she does still dwell there in her mind, particularly in her dreams. When Evie dreams of Brio, as she does now, she sees him as the boy he was. She sees them playing as children in those small towers that seemed at the time like the whole world to her. She feels the way she did as a girl, and the piece of that girl which remains with her even now wants back what she lost, and what she never allowed herself to feel again after she was put out of Gen Stalbraid.

Perhaps it was that more than anything that moved Evie to answer Lexi’s call and accept her current mission. Perhaps it had something to do with how bored and restless Evie was with guarding well-to-do children who didn’t need guarding.

However, she did truly sympathize with Lexi. Evie could plainly see the genuine love and concern Lexi had for Brio, and it stirred all the feelings she hadn’t let go. She never asked why Lexi chose her, or what made the woman think of Evie for this task. Evie supposed it was because Lexi wanted to appeal to someone she knew loved Brio as much as she did, even if it had been long ago.

The hollering of the Savages wakes her. They sound like angry dogs being taunted through a fence, barking somewhere very far away. Evie crawls over Brio’s snoring, motionless body and a moment later her head is birthed through the flaps of their tent. The first things she sees are the backs of several dozen Savages running toward dots of light in the distance. Evie has to squint to see clearly through the dark of night between her and those lights. It takes her only a moment to realize they are small fires on top of tent roofs, where small fires very definitely do not belong.

Then Evie hears the first screams, not of warning or panic or orders being called out, but the wholly unique and singular screams of pain and death-fear.

Her mouth opens to yell for Brio to wake when a warning issued from the corner of her eye causes Evie to drop low defensively. The arrow has struck the ground half a dozen feet in front of her, its tip aflame and scorching the already-dead grass trampled sparsely there. Several other fiery arrows follow, falling closer and closer to where she crouches. She sees others piercing the tops of tents in the distant, the flames they ferry spreading quickly.

Evie retreats within the tent and grabs Brio by his shoulders, shaking him none-too-gently.

“Wake up!”