Freya

Killian.

His eyes, dark and narrowed, rest on me. Blood stains his arm, leading to a long, thin knife. His chest rises and falls in rapid movements.

The cloud, my mind reminds me. The cloud.

I try to open my mouth, to ask him if he's real, or if it's a trick of my mind. But nothing comes out. Alaric's grip on me tightens, drawing Killian's attention.

"Let her go."

"She's too weak."

His eyes turn murderous. "What did you do?"

Alaric's body goes rigid. "It's not what you think—"

"Get your hands off her." He charges forward, reaching for me. The betrayal, the lies, the uncertainty, they all slip away in the relief of his presence. Alive. I try to reach out for him, but my arms won't move.

Alaric's tone is defensive as he draws me away from Killian, protective. "Killian—"

Somebody appears behind Killian, chest rising and falling as if they've been sprinting. Warm, wide eyes meet mine, flooding with the same emotion filling my chest.

Relief.

"Oh, Frey."

Casimir shoves past Killian, ignoring Alaric as he approaches me. He takes me from his arms, gathers me off the floor. My body feels limp, my eyes an effort to keep open. But I don't allow them to close, desperately trying to speak, to open my mouth.

"What's wrong with you?" Casimir demands, alarmed. "Why can't you move?"

I rest against his chest, his arm around my waist holding me up. When I don't respond, he shifts so that I'm in his arms and he can see my face. His warmth, the familiar scent, though tainted with blood and dirt, rings through. My eyes prick with tears of relief, of grief.

They're here. Alive. Both of them.

Is this the cloud? Is it lingering outside, poisoning the air we breathe down in the cave? Does the cloud torture us with good hallucinations, too?

"We have to get moving," Lei emerges behind Killian. "We'll have to take Harris with us or he'll tell Hana what happened. The forcefield is down, but we can't know for how long—" She cuts off, noticing Alaric still kneeling on the ground behind where Casimir holds me. Her expression turns grave.

I look at him from the corner of my eye, but his eyes remain on me. "She stopped the infected," he breathes, "it was charging at her but she stopped it."

"It looked like it was charging when I got here," Killian asserts.

"Because you distracted her." Alaric stands, accusatory. "She had stopped it and—"

"And now she seems half alive," Casimir says, voice sharp as he holds me tighter. He exchanges a look with Killian, both of their expressions darkening. Lei catches it too, her eyes narrowing at the exchange. But Alaric's the one who seems to read it.

"No," he breathes, looking between the two of them. "No, that's not right. I..."

"Get the fuck out of my head," Killian all but snarls.

"I didn't know," he says, rising and staring at Killian. "I swear, I didn't know. If I had..."

"If you had known then what, Alaric? What?"

History seethes between them. An added bite to their words, their stares.

Alaric presses his lips together, looking at me. He was always difficult to read, but his emotions are displayed clearly across his face as he meets my eye, takes me in.

Guilt.

"Lei's right, the forcefield is down," he says eventually. "You have an hour before Hana comes looking for us."

Killian turns to Lei. "Take Sanaa. Find two more horses, quickly. Bring them back to the cave." She nods, turning and heading back through the cave. Killian's eyes rest on my briefly, his lips thinning into a straight line, before he looks at Casimir. "Let's go."

Alaric raises his voice. "I'm coming with you."

"No you're not."

"You want to leave me here? Where I can tell Hana exactly who took the cloud piercer? Exactly what they know? Where to find them?"

A tense silence passes between them.

"Fine," Killian says, voice bitterly cold. "But until she's back to normal and can attest to that fact that you kept your grimy self away from her, you'll stay away from Freya."

~

Casimir

The next few hours pass by like a shifting wind.

After we left the cave and gathered the horses, Freya fell into a restless sleep, shifting and groaning in my arms. I move her carefully onto the ground as we wait for Lei, but even then, she doesn't wake.

There's no sign of Hana or any of her guards, but that doesn't ease the anxiousness in my stomach as we load the horses. I glance at Alaric, ignoring the guardsman Harris as he grumbles through a gagged mouth as Jaycee secures his wrists. Alaric's eyes remain on Freya.

After we'd left the cave and she was still awake, Alaric tried to speak to her. I hadn't even had a chance to warn him away before Killian all but bit his head off. Since Killian threatened him with the same knife he'd massacred the shifters, he hasn't tried to approach her again.

I adjust the saddle of the horse just as Killian approaches me, nudging my shoulder. Blood stains his arm like a sleeve, but it doesn't seem to bother him. He nods towards Alaric.

"He'll get in your head," he warns me. "You can block him out, but it requires a lot of intentional focus."

"I can hear you," Alaric calls.

Killian ignores him.

I eye him. "You mean—"

"Mind reader," Killian confirms.

The thought unnerves me. Something about it is so intrusive, unlike other Kinjri gifts. I wonder, as I look down at Freya's still form, if she knew what he could do.

I think back to the cave, to the look on his face when he'd realised what was happening to Freya, what Myers had told us about her fate if she continued to summon her gifts. I'd been so concentrated on Freya I hadn't wondered how he read Killian's mind from just a look. But it wasn't from a look at all.

"He knows," I breathe, staring at Killian. His hard expression mirrors my feeling of fear. "That means..."

Killian didn't even trust Sanaa with the knowledge. Because anyone who knows the truth, knows how to destroy the cloud. But Alaric knows.

"It means you're going to have to kill me," Alaric says, looking at Killian. Killian's mouth twitches. "That's a bad idea. You need me."

Killian laughs. "And why's that?"

"I can help you. If you want to somehow reverse this, you can't do it without a kinjri."

"And why should we think you have any reason to want to help?" I ask.

"You'll just have to trust me."

Killian scoffs. "Over my dead body."

"You've cuffed my hands, treated me like a prisoner. I could trap you all here, right this very second. But I haven't."

Neither Killian nor I respond. "When Freya wakes up, neither of you can tell her what you know."

"I'm not lying to her," I say.

"He's right," Killian says. "We can't keep this from her."

"What do you think will happen?" he asks. "If you tell Freya that she has the ability to end the terror of the cloud, prevent more people from falling into its grasp, and prevent so many deaths. What would you do? If it was you?"

His words deliver straight to my heart. Pressing my lips together, I glance at Freya. Her skin is pale, her hair cut short to her shoulders, shorter than its ever been since I knew her.

"That's a terrible weight for a person to carry, don't you think?" Alaric presses.

"Freya wouldn't..." I trail off, not able to say the word.

"Is that a risk you're willing to take?"

Killian takes several steps forward, measured and calculated. "What do you want?"

Alaric raises his hands. "You can start by not treating me like a prisoner."

They stare at one another, neither one relenting. Before either of them can speak, Sanaa emerges through the trees, Lei a fraction behind with two horses.

Lei takes in the standoff with narrowed eyes.

"Let's go," Sanaa announces. "Ride till dawn. We need to cover as much ground as possible before they notice we're gone."

The tension between Killian and Alaric dissipate when Killian steps away, leaving his hands bound, and meets Lei by the horse. I gather Freya in my arms, lifting her up onto the horse. She still doesn't stir, sinking into my hold further as I jump up behind her.

We run through the night and into the morning.

Freya wakes sometime around midday, shifting uncomfortably. I'm glad to see her regain control of her limbs. I tighten my grip as she comes to consciousness, tensing when she notices she's on horseback, cantering through the trees.

"Hey," I murmur into her ear. "You okay?"

She sinks into me, letting out a breath of air.

"I thought you could've been dead, Cas," she says.

"I know." Squeezing my arms once more, I bask in the familiarity of her voice. "We'll explain everything when we stop. How are you feeling?"

She seems to think it over. "Tired."

I glance at her arms. Alaric had pointed out the marks after she'd fallen asleep. Thick black lines snake up the length of it. He's said they started on her palm. Now, they stretched all the way to her shoulder and beneath her clothing further than we could see.

The sight of it made my stomach sink, remembering Myers warning of her fate.

"Is Killian..." she trails off, seems to rethink her choice of words.

"He's fine," I assure her. "We both are."

"Have you been with him?"

I nod, humming in confirmation. She seems comforted by this piece of information, settling deeper into my hold. I don't say anything further, even as her eyes draw to Killian riding slightly ahead to the left of us.

Freya's concern for Killian's wellbeing, however much she tried to hide it, used to irritate the hell out of me. But now, I'm surprised that I feel... nothing at her question.

Killian and Sanaa ride together, Lei and Alaric. Jaycee with Harris, the older guard complying grumpily with bound wrists. Lei claims that he knew too much, that he could expose us to Hana. I glance at Alaric as we ride.

Based on Lei's explanations, he's the reason they were trapped in Dadun all along, with no chance at escape. He's also the reason we were able to leave now, when his forcefield had been dropped.

But still, his presence sets me on edge. Especially when I stormed into that cave and found Freya barely conscious in his arms.

Killian knew him, before all this. I don't know what history transpired between the two of them, but it was bad enough that Killian had been worried about Freya being in his presence knowing her association to him.

"What happened to you?" Freya asks.

"It's a long story."

"It sort of feels like we'll be riding for a long time."

I take a deep breath, not sure what to tell her, how much. But when I start, I can't stop, detailing being captured by Elora after the cloud cleared in the Saulun mountains, to our near execution, to Ereon sparing us.

I don't tell her about what the Kinjri said about her mother or Samu, or about Myers, despite the pang of guilt in my stomach. As much as it bothers me, Alaric's warning filters through my mind.

And as Freya drifts back to sleep, my eyes wander to him.

I can't help but wonder why he wanted to come. Why he wants to help.

If that's even true at all.