It only takes an hour for my legs to go numb, another for the pain from the unfamiliar position upon horseback to dissipate completely. After that I stop counting. Lei does not relent, pushing the heaving horse faster as we gallop through the trees.

My arms weaken but I don't dare let go, my stomach lurching with each stride. The charcoal sky cloaks us in darkness as Lei comes to a stop, not even the moon piercing through the thick clouds. Killian slows to a trot till he reaches us. Horseback, his hair windswept and cheeks tinged pink from the cold, the sight of it makes my heart skip a beat.

"She's tiring," Lei says, patting the horse's neck. "We should take a break."

Killian nods just as Casimir and Cadence arrive. He elegantly leaps down from the horse, leading it forward with a gentle hand. The horse follows his every direction.

I gaze around the clearing. Tall cliffs climb high into the clouds above, an opening below giving way to the cave we stopped in on our way here when it was just me, Killian and Lei. I clamber down from the horse, much less elegantly than Killian and Lei, and step towards Casimir, who is helping Cadence down.

"You guys okay?"

Cadence says nothing, swatting Casimir's hands away from her the second her feet are on the ground again. Casimir nods, unbothered by her attitude. The Cadence I used to know would've wanted nothing more than to ride horseback with Casimir.

"We should go inside."

"I'm not going anywhere," she huffs.

"Cadence, come on, it isn't safe out in the open."

She turns away, her eyebrows furrowing. If I didn't know exactly how she was feeling, I might get frustrated. I sigh, moving into the cave myself. Lei has already started a fire, the warm glow stretching towards me even before I reach the end where the two of them sit.

Cadence's voice carries down the passage towards us, echoing off the cave walls. "Let go of me, Casimir!"

They appear around the corner, Casimir holding her arm and dragging her forward. She spots us, fear crawling back into her gaze at the sight of Lei. She digs her heels into the ground more, but its no use, Casimir is a lot stronger. She looks to me instead, eyes welling with tears.

"Make them take me home," she begs, "they've kidnapped me."

"It was for your own safety, Cadence," Cas says.

"I want to go home!"

"You think those guards would've let you live if we'd left you there?" Lei says, patience waning. "They would've killed you, or worse, used you as leverage to get Freya. And trust me, that'd be worse than death."

Cadence narrows her eyes, filled to the brim with tears. Eventually, her shoulders slump in resignation and she steps away from Casimir, crawling into the corner of the cave and tugging her knees to her chin.

My heart surges, and I briefly consider joining her. But as soon as I take a step towards her, I see Raven's dented head, Cadence's bloodied dress, and I'm not so sure I can talk to Cadence without blurting something out.

I move over to the fire instead, settling next to Casimir. "What happened?" I ask. "In Veymaw?"

Casimir exchanges a glance with Lei. "We took the horses and then I tried to take Cadence back home. Ereon had already sent his guards to look for you two since the carriage went missing." He shakes his head. "I knew we couldn't leave her there; they'd kill her. I should've known she'd kick up a fuss when we tried to leave with her."

I don't blame her. Unlike us, she doesn't understand the threat Ereon's men pose toward her, even after the attack. She's simply another one brainwashed by the messages we're fed--that Ereon protects us from savage outsiders. That we owe him. I used to believe the same. I would've done the same in her position.

"The guards saw her?"

Lei nods. "Unsurprisingly, they came straight after us. I think we lost them, though, we stole their horses."

I glance over at Cadence. Her body concaves in on itself, shuddering with each inhale. My heart aches for her. She didn't choose this. Ereon chose for her when he plucked her from the village simply for being my friend. A twinge of guilt nags at me.

"So what do we do with her then?" Lei whispers. I smack her leg. "Hey! What was that for?"

"You're talking about her like she's disposable. She's a person."

"And she can hear you, you know," Cas adds.

"And? This isn't really a trip for sight seeing. We can't afford anyone to slow us down. Our camp is for those wanting to fight, we've all earned our place there. It's not a sanctuary. We can't afford it to be." She looks to Killian for support. "Right?"

"You're right, it's not a sanctuary. But Freya's right too, we're not going to leave anybody behind. We'll head back to base to regroup," he says, already having thought it all through. "Sanaa needs to know what's happened. But for now, we need reinforcements before we even think about doing anything."

He leans inside his satchel, pulling out the rolled up map. Casimir creeps closer, Lei leaning forward. "Myers gave you this?"

Killian nods, holding it still rolled up. "He gave it to Freya."

They both look at me. "What did he tell you?" Lei wonders.

"He knew my mother," I say. They don't need to know the depth of their relationship, at least not now. It's too painful to recount. "He helped her hide me from the King. He also helped her hide the hyacerite."

"Hyacerite?" Cas repeats.

"It's a stone the King created to hold Nala's power, so he wouldn't need her to control the cloud anymore," Killian explains. "Myers took it to Torinne before the cloud completely took over. He hid it there, so that the King would never take hold of and use its power. They didn't realise the cloud would get worse on its own."

Lei looks down at the ground. "So how are we supposed to stop it?"

"We have a map that supposedly leads to the hyacertie. Myers thinks if we can reach it and destroy it, the cloud will cease to exist." Killian reaches into his bag. Lei leaps forward to snatch it, but his reflexes are too fast. He shakes his head. "There's no pount, Lei."

"Why not? I'm the best navigator out of the two of us," she says.

"It doesn't matter. You can't read it."

"What do you mean I can't read it?"

"He means--" I take the map from Killian and spread it out on the stone "--Only I can see the path on the map."

It's blank to me too at first. The paper stained yellow with age blinks boredly at me, but I don't give in. In my mind, I recall the images scrawled across in black ink, the dotted lines, the way the ink bled into the corner of the circle over the mountain ridge.

"You... you can see something on there?" Casimir asks.

With a blink, the lines start to appear. The novelty of it still makes my chest hum. I lean forward to trace the line leading through jagged shaped mountains.

"Yes," I breathe. "I see it."

Lei glances at me and then back at the map, eyes furrowed in frustration. "Why can't we see anything?"

"Myers put a mask over it, the same one he used to hide Freya from Ereon each read moon. Only Freya can read it. Only those of Nala's bloodline."

"Incredible," Lei murmurs, looking up at me with something other than distaste for the first time in hours. "We have to show Sanaa."

"Where's the hyacerite?" Casimir asks.

I hesitate, glancing up at Killian. His gaze darkens. "Torinne. In the mountains."

Lei expression shifts, all awe seeping away. "So we go to Torinne," Casimir says, a slight waver in his voice.

"We can't," Lei whispers.

I frown. "But we have to."

"You don't understand, Freya. Torinne is... it's been uninhabitable for years. It's dangerous."

"More dangerous than being chased by an entire Kingdom?" I ask, onlyhalf joking.

Killian's response holds no humour. "That does not even compare, Freya."

Raven rises to mind. Jyro. Cadence. My leg. I know the extent of damage the cloud can do in small doses. But spread over an entire country? The thought makes my stomach lurch.

"So we speak to Sanaa," I say, staring back at the map. "And then what?"

Lei nods. "And then we assess our options and go from there."

Killian takes the map from my hands, gently rolling it back up and placing it back inside his bag. "For now, rest. Tomorrow, we'll travel the rest of the way. I'll take first watch."

I glance over to Cadence while the others settle on the ground. Curled in a ball, her sniffling louder, body shaking with more intensity. Every instinct inside of me wants to go to her, but I stay stuck on the cave floor and pull my knees to my chest as Lei settles next to her. Beside me, Casimir lies down, the ends of his hair brushing up against my leg. I shuffle closer, remembering how we used to sleep side by side when we were kids.

His eyes flutter shut. My eyes draw up, towards Killian on the other side of the fire safely stowing the maps. His shadow looms over him, lit by the flicker of the flames between us.

He turns back my way, catching my eye before I can move away. "Go to sleep, Freya," he says softly.

A beat of silence passes between us. Words I cannot decode passed through the void.

You can trust me, he'd said. And as we stare at one another, exchange limited by the lack of privacy, I want so strongly for it to be true. But when Lei shifts, mumbling something in her sleep, I dart my gaze away, lying down and facing the cave wall.

Killian doesn't seem to move for a few moments Eventually, the scuff of his feet moves past me, growing more distant with each step.

When I close my eyes, Cadence's blood-stained dress floats through my mind. Her nails in my skin. Her raw scream.

I don't fall asleep until her sniffling transitions to even breaths.

***

We arrive back at the base at midday, the journary significantly shorter than when we left. Though, as Lei graciously points out, that has to do with the fact that they weren't having to slow their pace to match mine as I walked on foot for the first 10 or so hours.

She earned a rude gesture for that comment.

The horses slow to a walk as the earth flattens out, the vegetation thinning. In the corner of my eye, Cadence gazes around at the trees, her expression caught between fear and awe. I know the feeling. The vegetation by the coast is so different to Veymaw--less uniform, more rugged and mismatched.

As we come to the sand dunes, a line of figures dot the ridge, dark bodies drawing closer as we move. One stands slightly further forward than the rest, a black cape billowing in the wind behind them. It's only once we've completely left the treeline that I can make them out.

Sanaa stands at the front, two guards with raised weapons on either side of her, the rest of the camp dwellers behind. She raises a hand when she spots us, signalling for the guards to lower their weapons.

My stomach tightens as we near closer. All she knows is I escaped beneath her nose, I'm not sure what her welcome will be.

"You're back," is all she says as we come to a stop before her. Killian dismounts his horse, brushing its neck as he steps forward to meet Sanaa. They clasp hands, eyes meeting.

There's a depth to their gaze, like they can communicate without even a wors passed between them.

Sanaa shifts her gaze to me, still atop the horse as Killian steps aside. "Nice to see you alive."

I offer a smile, my cheeks wobbling. "You too."

This time, I might even I mean it.

"And who's this?" She eyes Cadence and Casimir's horse. Cadence cowers, shrinking into Casimir, who only rolls his shoulders back and tilts his chin, proud.

My stomach tightens. Casimir is a deserter. I don't know if Torinnians know truly what that means, but I don't really want to find out.

"We have much to talk about," Killian says, eyeing the crowd. "But first, the horses should be tended to. They have travelled far.."

"Of course. Please, join me in my tent." Sanaa takes the hint. "Lysa, take their horses to the stables, the guests to get cleaned up."

Lei clambers down from the horse, not bothering to offer me a hand. She probably knows I wouldn't take it. I slide down, joining Casimir by his horse. Despite our size difference and the fact that he is certainly more physically capable than me, I feel protective of him. I remember how it felt the first time I walked into this camp, surrounded by those I always believed to be the enemy.

He offers a reassuring nod. Thankfully, Cadence doesn't object to climbing off the horse. And despite her anger or whatever she feels towards us, she hovers behind me slightly, close enough our skin touches. I want to reach out to grab her hand.

A woman, Lysa, steps forward. She offers a hand to Cadence. "Come, I'll help you get cleaned up."

She's an utter mess. Her dress bloodied and torn, golden hair darkened with dirt. And yet, she's still one of the most beautiful beings in the clearing. But, for perhaps the first time in her life, Cadence doesn't care how she looks. She jumps closer to me, grabbing my sleeve. "Get away from me."

"Thanks," I say, offering the woman a nod. "She'll stay with us."

I look back at Sanaa. She doesn't object but I can't read her face. "She knows everything already," I say. "She can't be on her own here."

She nods.

I blink in surprise at the lack of objection, barely registering as she turns around and walks over the sand dune.

I quicken my pace, tuning into Killian and Sanaa's conversation.

"Our trip was... very eventful," Killian says.

"I've heard whispers," Sanaa says. "But we could not afford to send reinforcements. We dealt with our own scare here in your absence. It is a good thing you returned when you did."

"Why?" Lei asks.

Sanaa stops atop the dune. Killian halts immediately, as if some forcefield has kept him from propelling even further.

I scramble over the edge, meeting them atop. The camp below is nothing like we left it. Ransacked. Trampled tents lie flattened on the ground, charred earth from fire lines what once was tall grass. Smoke swirls in the air.

Whatever happened, it happened recently. But that's not what presses on my mind. I scan the landscape, my heart hammering against my chest as each charred tent rises to mind in its prior configuration.

The dining tent. The weapons tent. The tent Killian stayed in.

"What... what happened?" Lei asks, her voice small.

I look back to them to find Sanaa's eyes already on me, my mind screaming in panic. The tent Samu was in lies flattened in a pile of ash.

She presses her lips together. "Ereon happened."