saw in her face that she’d known he’d come around, that the whole thing had been a bluff. For some reason, it didn’t bother him the way it once might have. After constantly suffering at the hands of others, he was at last an active participant in the events around him, finally giving his parents something to be proud of. It made Sev’s every footstep lighter, his thoughts almost carefree.
But as the details of Trix’s plan unfurled, he knew that his decision would come at a cost. He would be expected to kill, to become a traitor to his fellow soldiers. Sev didn’t relish the thought, but his loyalty didn’t belong to them. For most of his life it had belonged only to himself, but no longer. Being a soldier at all was a betrayal of his parents and all they’d fought for, and if anyone deserved his loyalty, it was them. He would serve the Phoenix Rider cause, whatever the cost.
When Trix decided it was time, the cooks and bondservants would poison the evening meal. They were using a toxic mountain flower called Fire Blossom, which could be dissolved into food or drink. Captain Belden and the others didn’t know about the flowers, which Trix’s cohorts had to pick as they traveled. Clusters of the Fire Blossom tree dotted the mountainside, their fat red petals dangling like drops of blood from their knotted, twisted boughs.
“But what are you waiting for?” Sev asked one night, spotting a pyraflora tree and tugging a bright red flower from a hanging branch. “Fire Blossoms are everywhere. Why not poison them now, before we risk getting caught?”
“This,” Trix said, plucking the flower from his hand, “is about as poisonous as black stew. Which is to say, quite poisonous—but not poisonous enough.”
Then she popped the blossom into her mouth. Sev gaped at her, and she gave him a wide, wicked grin.
“Iron stomach,” she promised, before moving on.
“So you need time to turn the flowers into poison—into something lethal.”
Trix nodded. “Boiled. Dried. Crushed into a fine powder. All this has to be done after our regular duties and out of sight of the captain. Besides, we must choose our moment carefully. You soldier types aren’t often all in one place . . . what with scouting up ahead, hunting for game, or breaking off to meet informants or purchase llamas. We can’t risk poisoning too few and wind up on the edge of a returning soldier’s blade.”
Sev hadn’t considered that. Suddenly her task seemed impossible. “So when?”
“We will have one opportunity when no hunting parties or forward scouts leave camp: the night before the attack. They’ll need to ensure everyone returns to the campsite to nail down assault plans, assign positions, and prepare to strike with force. That’s when we’ll deliver an attack of our own. One blow to the main camp and . . .”
“Another to the perimeter guards,” Sev said, seeing his role at last. Despite Trix’s confidence that they could poison the majority of their party in a single stroke—including Captain Belden, whom she intended to deal with personally—at any given time at least five guards were on watch duty at the edges of their campsite. Sometimes more, depending on their location.
With his gift for memorization, easy access to the duty roster, and his position with the llamas, Sev was ideally placed to poison the personal packs of the soldiers assigned to perimeter guard before they left for duty. They didn’t have a lot of the Fire Blossom to spare, and of course, they didn’t want to spoil all the supplies. If they were successful, the other bondservants, cooks, and anyone else loyal to Trix would need them to make their way back down the mountain—or wherever they intended to go. Most would probably seek out refuge somewhere in Pyra, where they could be free from bondage—and the empire—and start their lives anew. Sev would seek out what was left of his family farm in Hillsbridge, but he didn’t know where Trix would go. Or Kade.
No matter how hard Sev tried, he couldn’t figure the bondservant out. Kade had argued against Trix’s hasty dismissal of Sev the night he volunteered, insisting they needed him, but now Kade seemed unhappy that Sev had to decided to remain. It didn’t make any sense.
Without their interactions during pack animal duty, the only time Sev saw Kade was at night with Trix. He remained frowning and distant as they discussed plans and strategies, and sometimes he didn’t