didn’t even get the chance to start our attack. The camp mobilized and came at us, but…Alchan, it was like Elvasi soldiers came out of thin air. My scouts didn’t have any evidence the location wouldn’t be secure. Archers flooded the hills while most of my warriors were resting…”
“The missing soldiers,” Mave whispered to Alchan. Alchan nodded.
“What?” Seanev looked back at her, his mouth open in confusion.
“Bryn’s scouts do regular number checks of the Elvasi camps we know about,” Alchan explained. “You know that. Well, about a month ago, we found one of the camps had nearly half of their soldiers just disappear in the mountains. The scout couldn’t find them. At the same time, in other areas of the mountain, Shadra deployed more of her army into several camps, many of which we sent smaller strike teams to. It seems…she set us up, and you paid for it.”
Seanev blinked several times. “It was an ambush, then. She would have…figured out where we were going, how we were planning on attacking her, then set up an ambush.”
“That’s my guess. What happened to you?”
“I fought. I lost.” Seanev said, his eyes darkening. “Isn’t that obvious? One of my warriors was able to drag me out of that valley. We found as many survivors as we could, then began coming home. Without a thousand men and tons of horses, we could move faster.”
“How long ago?” Alchan asked.
Seanev closed his eyes, and Mave watched his mouth move, whispering numbers, mentally counting the time.
“Just under a month ago,” Seanev answered. “We would have gotten your intel too late.”
Alchan nodded sadly.
“How many warriors are left?” Mave asked, looking around the temporary camp.
“One hundred and four,” Seanev whispered. “Including me.”
Mave felt her heart drop further. Realizing she needed to sit down now, she fell onto the log next to Seanev. Reaching out, she tried to grab his hand. Looking down, confused, she couldn’t find one. She was on his right.
He didn’t have a right hand anymore.
“It takes some getting used to,” Seanev said sadly, shifting to bring his left hand around, wrapping her hand in his own. “But I appreciate the gesture.”
“I’m sorry this happened to you,” she said, swallowing tears. This wasn’t supposed to happen. They weren’t supposed to lose like this.
“This is war,” he said softly, leaning on her. “Did Alchan tell you?”
“I asked him the moment you were gone,” she confirmed, amazed he could switch topics so quickly.
Leaving his wife is probably easier to deal with than losing nine hundred warriors in an ambush.
The fact that so many Elvasi soldiers could disappear still worried her.
“I’m sorry she doesn’t like you.”
“I don’t need her to like me,” Mave reminded him. “I’m the champion. She is a mativa. Only one of us is replaceable. Besides, I have plenty of good friends. If she and I can’t be, I’m okay with that. It’s not like I’m alone.” Mave squeezed his hand. “But I think you needed us to be friends, didn’t you?”
“She’s a good mativa, and I wanted…I wanted you both to be my family. I needed you both to be my family,” he whispered. “I loved her before the war ever ended, but everything changed. You coming back into my life made me realize things weren’t right between her and me. Something was off, and I started to realize I never had my own life. I was able to make one decision in our marriage, then we blood bonded, and everything else…faded away for me. I was her general, her warrior, to help protect her people, but recently, I stopped feeling fulfilled. That change in me made her feel threatened, and no female likes to be threatened, especially when it comes to her husbands.”
“How long have you been planning on leaving her?”
“I only decided when she forced me to bring Lilliana down to Alchan. We started fighting after we left. Well, right after you left for Kerit, actually. It was almost instantaneous. Like a switch had been flipped. I went from being her husband to being me again. I wanted more independence, less oversight. I wanted to help more with this rebellion, and she did not want that. Her using the blood bond to make me submit started…probably a year ago now. Lilliana was the last straw.”
Mave shifted, so she could wrap her free arm around him. It was the first real hug she had ever given him.
“And now, I’m not even a useful warrior,” he said softly. “She’s going to say I proved her