her toe to the sword lying at his side. “So is that, apparently. Pick it up and let’s go.”
Vaelin blinked and got to his feet, scanning the camp and finding himself surrounded by slumbering bodies. Corporal Wei lay with his head resting on his sergeant’s breastplate, snores loud in the morning air and a contented smile on his misshapen lips. The only exception was Ahm Lin. He gave a grim smile as Sherin embraced him. “Please,” she said, drawing back and blinking damp eyes, “get away from here. Go and be with your wife. You have cared for me long enough.”
“True friendship is rare,” he replied. “And not easily forsaken. You know I had to come.”
Sherin wiped her eyes and nodded, enfolding him in a final fierce embrace before turning away and striding towards where the Jade Princess stood holding the reins of their ponies.
“She did this,” Ahm Lin said, nodding to the princess. “One note of her song and they all fell into the soundest sleep.”
“But not you,” Vaelin observed.
“I have a song of my own.” He shrugged. “It’s no match for hers to be sure, but I believe it protected me.”
Spying Nortah, Vaelin moved to grasp him by the shoulder, shaking it hard.
“They won’t wake until she allows it,” Sherin called from the back of her pony. “And she won’t allow it until we’re many miles north of here.”
“Why do this?” Vaelin demanded, advancing towards the Jade Princess. “These men came here to save you. They’ll be defenceless like this.”
She replied with an aggravatingly coquettish smile, raising an eyebrow at Sherin. “Is he always so . . . forceful?” she asked.
“It varies according to circumstance,” Sherin said before fixing Vaelin with an expectant glare. “The sooner we’re gone from here the sooner they’ll wake. If you care about their well-being, you’ll get your backside on a horse and come with us.”
“What about him?” Vaelin’s finger lashed towards Sho Tsai’s unconscious form. “Don’t you care about him? Leaving him here for the Stahlhast to slaughter . . .”
“Rest assured they’ll soon forget about this incursion when they have me.”
Sherin raised her hand at Ahm Lin in farewell, a sad smile on her lips. The mason raised his own hand in response, though it appeared his wariness of the Jade Princess forbade him coming any closer. “Stay or go,” Sherin told Vaelin, tugging her reins to turn her pony and kicking it into motion. “I’m tired of this.”
The Jade Princess lingered a moment before following her, casting a wistful glance at where Erlin lay slumbering. “I would have done this sooner,” she said with a note of apology. “But I so wanted to talk to my old friend for a time.”
“Wait,” Vaelin said as she gathered her reins. He felt a sore but unwise temptation to wrest them from her grip, knowing if he did he would find himself waking with the others some hours later. “Why are you doing this? Why willingly place yourselves in the hands of the Stahlhast?”
“Come along and find out,” she laughed, spurring her pony into a canter.
Vaelin watched her ride off into the dust raised by Sherin’s pony, biting down a curse before hurrying to his horse. “Brother,” Ahm Lin said, moving to his side. “I would come, but . . .”
“She scares you,” Vaelin finished. He tightened the saddle’s cinch before hauling himself up. “And well she should. Better if you stay here in any case. The captain will have need of your song.”
“You wish us to follow?”
“No.” Vaelin scanned the Steppe, wondering how many eyes had already witnessed this bizarre waking. “The princess won’t allow it, and the Stahlhast are sure to bring greater numbers to meet us. Tell him he should go south and wait until your song brings a clear notion of where to find us.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then he’ll have a war to fight . . . and a lover to avenge.”
He paused to survey his companions, arranged in a loose circle of unconscious bodies around the smoking remnant of their fire, his gaze settling on Ellese. In slumber her features were even more youthful than usual, birthing a sense that he was about to abandon a child in hostile country.
“I ask you to have a special care for my niece,” he said, leaning down to clasp the mason’s hand. “She is not as strong or worldly as she appears.”
Ahm Lin returned his grip with fierce assurance. “I will.”
Vaelin felt a pang of gratitude for the way the mason