Ellian’s desperate voice sounds from my right. “Rowan, I couldn’t … I can’t lose her. I was nearly dead. So I agreed. They showed pictures, and I told them the words. I have for years now. I was so afraid they’d kill her. I couldn’t stop. Once, I tried to run, and when they caught us, they took Isla from me for days. Gave her back to me starving. It was the most horrible … my poor Islaine. I vowed to never, ever do anything to put her in danger again.”

Islaine. In hearing the name, my mind is whisked back to the Heroes’ Path, the statue of Scholar Islaine and her golden hand before me. A child named for a scholar who ensured the longevity of our culture. It’s all so backward, and my body reacts on instinct—kicking and screaming, howling curses at the humans until all eyes are on me and my struggle.

One of the soldiers pushes Ellian back, but her words keep spilling from her in a rushed avalanche of pain. “The humans heard of the attack at the coast. They sent lookouts everywhere. I promised long ago to turn in any Leonodai I met. Isla—she didn’t know that I was going to turn you in. She doesn’t know what the humans did to me when she was born. I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

A rough cloth bag is shoved over my head, and I’m carried away as Ellian continues to beg for my forgiveness. Then her voice is gone.

I can’t stop the tears from forming at my eyes and streaming down my cheeks. Ellian lied to me. She betrayed her fellow warriors, her own race, for the life of one. Is that selfishness? Is that weakness?

It’s human, I think bitterly.

The human holding me tightens his grip as we go, and when I protest, he feels me up, roughly, hands lingering in places where only a lover’s should go. Fear slices through me. I know what humans do to Leonodai women. I have heard the stories.

But in irons, and trapped in a city I don’t know, I have no idea how to get out of this. I can’t think of any options, any observations that would save me. There is a clang of metal, and I flinch. My mother’s earring catches on the rough cloth of the bag as it bunches at my neck. Something triggers at the back of my mind.

I’m scared.

I’m scared, and I want Callen.

I want him here with me, comforting me as he has for years. Between the bad sparring matches and the lost competitions, from my father’s death to having my dream of being a warrior put on hold—it was always Callen. He was there at my side because he cared. Because he loves me.

And skies be damned. I love him, too.