Lei’s voice rang in her head.
How many more murders will you commit in the name of justice until you realize you’re as bad as those we’re meant to be fighting against?
Wren moved away before the spreading pool of the Commander’s blood reached her boots.
Across the terrace, Merrin and Khuen had almost finished with the guards. An alarm rang within the palace—the same one Wren had set off half a year ago. The sound spilled from every archway and window to mix with the howl of the wind, so it seemed as though the whole mountain was alive.
Merrin cut down the last of the guards. He waved Wren over, feathers splashed in blood, before disappearing with Khuen inside the palace. After a beat, Wren followed, stepping around the pile of bodies they’d left in their wake. Her blades dripped red.
She didn’t bother wiping them. They’d only be dirtied again all too soon.
“Let me help you with that.”
Wren flinched as Lady Dunya knelt on the rocks beside her, taking the bloodied scrap of cloth Wren had been washing the gash on her arm with. “You don’t have to do that, my Lady,” she protested, but the swan-woman didn’t stop.
“I always tended to my children’s bumps and bruises.” She laid Wren’s arm in her lap and dipped the cloth into the cool river water before dabbing it carefully along the ragged edge of her wound. “It frustrated their nurses no end, and Hidei never understood why I’d waste my time doing something they were paid to do. But as much as I am a Clan Lady, I am also a mother.” A pause. “Not that my children are around to take care of, now.”
Guilt turned Wren’s stomach. One of those children had died at her hands—and now, on her father’s orders, she had to pretend to the Clan Lady’s face she was innocent.
As if her shame wasn’t enough already.
Hours earlier, Wren, Merrin, and Khuen had fought their way through the Cloud Palace. They’d spilled blood all the way down to the building’s bowels where they found the thirty clan members who’d refused to join Qanna’s coup—and not been killed in the ensuing struggle—crammed together in a few small cells. Even drenched in blood, Wren was almost overcome by the odor of demons trapped in such cramped quarters for so long.
Given their condition, she’d been impressed how not one of them wavered when she’d ordered they leave immediately in case a guard had managed to slip away for reinforcements. The secure location Ketai had picked for them to spend the night was a couple of hours’ flight away in the forested foothills of the mountains southeast of the White Wing’s palace. They set up camp, and over a dinner of stale roti, Wren explained all that had happened since Qanna’s coup.
It was late now. Most of the wearied bird demons had fallen asleep, huddled together against the crisp night air. A few were still up. A couple of older birds were deep in conversation with Merrin. Where Khuen was perched on a tree stump near the back of the camp on lookout duty, a pretty Steel hawk-girl sat with him. The pair of them were comparing bows.
Wren had gone to the rocky banks of the stream to clean the nasty cut in her arm one of the guards had given her. Lady Dunya was the last person she’d have wanted to be alone with, yet as the regal swan-woman tended to her wound, Wren found her presence comforting.
“There.” Lady Dunya finished tying a strip of cloth around Wren’s arm.
Wren murmured a thanks, dipping her head respectfully.
Even in the grimy dark of the Cloud Palace prison, it had been clear how cruelly three months of captivity had treated the formerly opulent Clan Lady. Up close, though, it was etched upon every inch of her. Her feathers, once pearl-white, were ragged and dirty. Where diamonds and opals used to adorn her neck and wrists, there were cuts and chafes and oozing scabs. In place of a crown and silver-white robes, she wore a tattered hanfu turned brown-black with grime. And where her husband once sat at her side, now there was only empty space.
Lord Hidei had died early on into their imprisonment. No one was quite sure what of—an infection, perhaps, or a weak heart. His body had been disposed of by the guards because it had started to smell.
Wren was about to offer her condolences when Lady Dunya said, “I’m surprised you didn’t heal it already.” She motioned at Wren’s freshly bandaged arm. “The Sickness, I suppose?”
Wren dipped her hands into the water, scrubbing at the blood under her nails. “It’s worse than ever,” she admitted. “I could have done it, but I’d prefer to save my energy.” She didn’t add that before she’d left on the rescue mission, her father had expressly forbidden her to use magic unless it was absolutely essential.
In fact, she’d been surprised he’d even assigned her the mission, given how much he’d insisted on her resting after Jana. Knowing her father, there were probably a multitude of motivations. She didn’t have care to untangle them.
“A good idea,” Lady Dunya said. “We still aren’t in the clear yet.”
“Will we ever be?”
The words slipped out. Wren was embarrassed by her own candor. She was a Clan Lord’s daughter. Leaders were supposed to be confident and optimistic… or should at least present themselves so.
Yet Lady Dunya nodded. “A Clan Lady’s life isn’t easy,” she said.
I don’t want an easy life. I want a meaningful one.
The words rushed at Wren with such force it shocked tears to her eyes. Had she really once spoken them?
Did she believe them still?
“Thank you,” she said. “For agreeing to help us in the rest of the war.”
“Of course. We made a pact with your clan. I do not intend to renege on it now. Especially not after you saved our lives.”
The shame. Wren thought she’d burst into flames from it.
She hurried to stand. As she brushed down her clothes, she saw how bloodstained they were—blood that belonged to Lady Dunya’s kin. Wren cursed herself that she hadn’t thought of washing when they landed. She’d gotten so used to the feel of blood on her skin.
“Are we meeting any of your clan or allies here?” the Clan Lady asked suddenly.
“No. We’re to join them once they’ve made camp outside of Marazi in four days’ time.”
“Then who are they?”
Everything in Wren went tense. She followed Lady Dunya’s stare across the stream. At first, there was only forest, tangled shadows. Glints of moonlight winked like beetle shells. Then she made out the silhouettes of three human figures. They stood so still they’d melted into the darkness.
Wren blocked Lady Dunya, boots splashing in the shallows as she sank into a defensive stance and raised her fists. “Show yourselves,” she growled, “or I will attack.”
To her surprise, one of the figures laughed. It was an old, wheezing laugh. “Your kind always were so sure of themselves. Lower your fists, Wren Hanno. We are not here to harm you, nor your friends.”