“Drop that shovel this instant before I club you over the head with it.”
Sev grimaced. He’d known this moment would come, but he’d been dreading it all the same. Slowly he turned to find Trix standing behind him, eyes sparking dangerously. Kade was there as well, looming like a wide, intimidating shadow.
“I . . . ,” Sev began, but he didn’t have any words lined up.
“The shovel,” Trix barked. “Or maybe I’ll drive it straight up your backside instead.”
Sev released his grip on the spade, which fell into the dirt with a thud. The latrine was mostly finished anyway.
“Good. Now walk.”
Sev had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being marched to the edges of the campsite so that he could be killed quickly and silently. He assured himself that was ridiculous, but with every step he took, Trix’s rage seemed to grow, filling the air around them with the crackling intensity of a coming storm.
“Look, Trix, I—”
“No, you don’t get to talk,” she snapped, coming to a halt at last and turning to face him. Sev had never seen her upset before. She was always sarcastic and dark humored, but never truly angry or out of control. “For once you’ll listen. Never have I encountered such a ridiculous, stubborn, thick-skulled—”
“Enough,” Kade interrupted, and both Sev and Trix whipped their heads around in shock.
Sev couldn’t help but gape: Kade was standing up for him—and against Trix? He was almost giddy with gratitude.
Kade looked between them, from the astounded expression on Sev’s face to Trix’s similar wide-eyed stare. He cleared his throat. “He came back, didn’t he?”
Trix shook her head, as if trying to dispel a cloud of mosquitoes. She turned to Sev again; while her voice was quieter, her temper had not yet subsided. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You almost ruined everything.”
“Of course I don’t!” Sev said, his tone bordering on shrill. They stood in a dense copse of trees, the heavy branches muffling the sounds of their conversation. Still, he cleared his throat as he added quietly, “You don’t tell me anything.”
“I wonder why,” Trix sneered. “You’ve had a foot out the door the whole time.”
“The only reason my foot is in the door at all is because you blackmailed me, you sneaky, conniving witch.”
Silence.
Sev worried he’d gone too far, that Trix might decide to do away with him after all.
Instead she burst into raucous, cackling laughter.
Sev allowed himself a small, cautious smile—and was shocked to see Kade returning it.
“I hoped you might have a backbone in there somewhere . . . ,” Trix murmured, wiping at the tears of mirth that wet her eyes. Then she became severe once more. “But what you did was beyond foolish. Didn’t I already catch you trying a ridiculous escape once before? Did you really think you could slip through my grasp so easily, never mind the empire’s?”
Sev clenched his fists, but he didn’t argue with her.
“Well . . .” She sighed, the rest of her anger seemingly spent. “You were right, of course.”
Sev frowned—he was right about something?
She crooked him a regretful grin. “It was a mistake to get you involved, to try to coerce loyalty out of you. I thought you might want to fight for our people, like your parents did, but I accept that I was wrong.”
“My parents . . . ,” Sev repeated, all humor gone from him. “What do you know about my parents?”
She stepped forward, the dappled moonlight filtering through the trees playing across her wrinkled face. “I know more than you could possibly imagine, Sevro, son of Alys and Sevono.”
Their names, unspoken for so long, echoed inside Sev’s head.
“How?” he asked, his throat tight. “How do you know who my parents were?”
“It’s been my business to know things for a very long time, boy. I had reason to keep tabs on loyal servants of Avalkyra Ashfire and the animage cause, even in the years after the war. Your parents were the final line of defense in the Foothills, and though they did not bear a noble name or boast a great Phoenix Rider lineage, they earned a title of their own, after their deaths. Among the Hillsbridge survivors, they were toasted as Alys and Sevono Lastlight. When their glorious flames were extinguished that day, many saw it as the true end of the Phoenix Riders. And yet even in their dying moments, they saved lives. Three hundred and sixty-seven by my count, including hundreds of animages and their