Years of training rush back like a river let run wild. With one last look at Exin, I join my commander. Ox appears out of the smoke, face shiny with sweat and marred with dark droplets of blood.

“We retreat now,” our commander says. “We have to get out of here.”

I follow after him, and that’s when a pang of pain jolts my chest. I surrender to it—the last of my magic leaving me. The three of us make a break for it, staying low as we head directly away from the closest watchtower. At the rear, Ox slings arrow after arrow into the fires and chaos behind us.

Guilt weighs in my gut like a stone over leaving the battle so quickly, but Sethran is right. Our orders are to find the cure and save the city’s children. And to do that, we need to stay alive.

We race through the underbrush, the roars of our comrades fading to screams and more gunfire. Sethran takes us due south, and with a startling suddenness, the rage of the battle disappears. I focus hard on the feel of the ground beneath my feet, putting one foot in front of the other like it’s the only thing I’ve ever known how to do.

A truth burns brighter in my chest than the fires we leave in our wake: now that the humans know we are here, there is no turning back.

12

CALLEN

When the land around us has been silent for an hour, Sethran lets us slow our pace. I sip at my waterskin carefully, conserving it as best I can without passing out.

We walk in silence for a few miles, until the underbrush starts to reemerge and green peeks through the otherwise barren soil. Sethran spots a rocky outcropping in the distance with decent camouflage from surrounding trees and brush. My legs grow heavy with fatigue as the adrenaline of the battle dissipates. We finally reach the outcropping, and our commander calls for a rest.

Sethran leans against a boulder, pounding his fist idly into the rock behind him. “What happened to Exin?”

“He took a bullet to the leg,” I reply. “It all happened so fast.”

The blood pulsing out of my friend’s leg is an image I won’t soon forget. In the battles against the humans, I’ve seen my fair share of cuts and gaping wounds. The sight or scent of blood doesn’t scare me—rather, like a blacksmith’s tools, it sharpens my senses. I have learned which wounds can be mended and which can not. Exin was bleeding too much, too fast …

“It would not have healed, not without a healer’s attention right away,” I say.

Sethran takes my meaning. “Skies keep him and everyone else who may have been lost. The humans were ready for us.”

“They came from underground,” Ox says. “Are there tunnels that we know of?”