Johnis had brought Karas, daughter of the Horde high priest, out of the desert with him. Her painful conversion from Scab to Forest Dweller had been her doing, when she’d washed herself in lake water and had watched her skin heal before her eyes.

Johnis had risked his own life for a Scab, and in so doing delivered much more to the forests than he had anticipated. The ten-year-old girl was a gold mine of information on the Horde’s political and religious machinery, and Thomas intended to hear it all.

But at the moment his mind was on her humanity, her wit, her charm, not simply her use to them. She speaks with the intelligence of a girl much older than ten, he thought.

Before being cleansed by the lake water, her skin had been gray and cracked, her hair matted and dark, her eyes nearly white.

Now she looked across the lake with blue eyes that peered through soft bangs lifting on angel’s breath. Her skin was newborn, flawless.

“So you know her?” Karas asked in a sweet voice.

“Who?”

“The one in trouble. Darsal.”

He glanced up and saw that the riders behind—Johnis and Silvie, if he wasn’t mistaken—were catching Darsal. Karas was right; there was trouble.

“She’s from the Southern Forest. A victim of difficult circumstance. Why do you ask?”

The girl shrugged. “I think she’s a pretty woman.”

“No shortage of those. You’ve seen Rachelle, my wife. There’s a looker.”

“My mother, Grace, was pretty.”

“Oh? Killed by the high priest . . .” He stopped and chided himself for mentioning her mother’s death so casually. “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be.” Karas kept her eyes fixed on the riders, who were now rounding the lake. “We’ve all faced a lot of death.”

True indeed. “Darsal reminds you of your mother?”

“She could be her.”

“Darsal, your mother? Then she would have had you when she was seven years old, because Darsal’s only seventeen.”

“Of course.”

Thomas squatted next to the girl—this angel who’d come to them from the Horde.

Johnis was right; she was a gift from Elyon. Though Thomas wasn’t ready to extend the same sentiment to the Horde warriors who swung mallets at his men’s heads.

“Johnis’s father, Ramos, insists that you should live with him, but my wife and I—”

“Your wife’s a very intelligent woman,” Karas said

“Yes. Yes, she is. And she joins me in extending an invitation for you to live with us if you’d like.”

Karas shifted her eyes and stared into his. “We’ll see. But you are very kind, Commander.”

Thomas playfully brushed her chin with his forefinger. “Where’d you get such a bright mind?”

“My father isn’t exactly an idiot. He’s deceived.”