Scratch froze. “What about him?” she snarled, bluffing away the fear. James, James, James. She saw him in her mind’s eye, terrified and confused, long eyelashes wet with tears.

“He and Vel are meeting us at the blood gate tomorrow. Are you going to let him go on without you?”

“He’ll know s-something is wrong.” She stumbled over the words. “He’ll look for me.”

“Will he?” Brella’s face clouded over, and Scratch was transported back to that first night, freed from the dungeons and thrown before a woman who wore her distrust as plainly as her dirtied apron. “I could tell him anything. That you’ve run off and died.”

“He won’t believe you.”

“Oh won’t he?” Brella replied frostily. “You believed my lies for this long, Sergeant Major.”

“He knows me. He’s too smart.”

“Does he know you?” Brella hissed, and oh, it was a dagger dipped in poison, sharp first, and then burning, nauseating, eroding the soft bits of her that she had only just remembered, only discovered in these dangerous woods. “Does anyone?”

Scratch blinked the hot tears away and ran.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

Branches scraped her arms, and roots rose up to trip her. Strange noises raked at her ears, weeping, hollow sounds that she could barely discern from her own mangled cries of pain. A bird shrieked nearby. Something chittered, low and hungry. Still she ran, her breaths ripping out of her chest, leaving iron splinters in her throat and mouth. A low branch tangled in her hair, claiming strands and scalp as she tugged herself free. The sting brought tears to her eyes.

Eventually, her body gave out. She crumpled onto the ground, reaching into the grass to steady herself. It was coarse between her fingers.

The wrenching pain she had felt since she had awakened began to dull, leaving behind a swirling mess of fear and regret. What had she done? What did fleeing help? Did she really think she could find a way out of the forest on her own?

Something skittered in the underbrush, sending the hairs on her arms to standing. When it left, she was alone.

The night was dark and thick around her. The only light came from the low-slung moon, which winked behind a canopy of pointed leaves like needles. Tall trees surrounded her, thick-trunked and thorny. She turned slowly, afraid to make a noise, afraid to disturb these empty woods. Leaves crushed under her hands and knees, too loud. She couldn’t see a path back. She was lost.

There was nothing to do but weep, so she wept. She wept for her life, the one she had built from nothing, lying in shambles back at the palace. She wept for James; would she ever see him again? Was Vel lying to him, just as Brella had lied to her? Oh gods, she hoped he wouldn’t find out like she had, once he had fallen too far.