the old soldier said before moving off, his voice echoing in Sev’s ears as if he were underwater.
Sev staggered away, out the front door, where everything caught up to him all at once. He fell to his knees in the fruit bushes at the side of the house, the sight and scent reminding him of his father’s famous blackberry pie.
He heaved onto the dirt.
Sev didn’t know how long he was there before a cool hand pressed against the back of his neck, which was damp with sweat. He looked up, startled, to find Kade’s amber eyes staring back at him.
The haze that had surrounded him since this fight began snapped and cleared, bringing the world to screaming life around Sev once more.
“Kade,” he said, as the other boy helped Sev to his feet. “What are you doing here?”
Kade didn’t look like himself—he was dressed as a soldier, with a padded vest, tunic, and weapons belt. He even had a crossbow strapped across his back and a spear in his hands.
The bondservants were supposed to stay back at their temporary camp, managing the horses while the attendants set up a medical tent and prepared food and drink. Murder was thirsty work, after all.
Kade must have somehow slipped away, stolen a bunch of gear, and followed the soldiers.
He didn’t answer Sev’s question but gestured behind him. The house was bordered by a thick hedge, and if they climbed through, they’d have some cover from the rest of the battle.
Sev followed, glancing over his shoulder, but it was nighttime and the raging fires cast the landscape in two values: light and dark. Right now, at the side of the house, they were entirely in darkness.
They crouched low, facing each other.
Sev unhooked his waterskin and took a quick draft, spitting into the dirt.
“Are you okay?” Kade asked with concern. “Is it the smoke?”
“What are you doing here?” Sev repeated, ignoring Kade’s question—he didn’t think he could answer it. Sev wasn’t okay, but it had nothing to do with the smoke. After everything he had been through, all he had accomplished, he was somehow right back where he’d started—watching the empire wreak bloody havoc on the world to which he belonged. His parents had given their lives to protect this place, to protect Sev, and now it was going up in flames.
Sev might be a spy for the other side, but right now he felt like it didn’t matter—that nothing he did could ever make up for this.
And for some reason, Kade was still being kind to him.
Maybe he could see the devastation in Sev’s eyes, because Kade gripped his good shoulder to draw his attention.
“We can help them,” Kade said, leaning close and speaking in Sev’s ear. They weren’t going to be overheard, but the distant shouts and screams, plus the crackle of the fires spreading across the crops and wooden houses, created a kind of dull roar that made it hard to hear even at the edges of the fray.
The look Sev gave him was a hopeless one. Kade shook his head as if banishing Sev’s thoughts. “Really,” he said forcefully. “The villagers are running into the trees.” He twisted to point at a distant mass of darkness that was blacker than the sky. “I think there might still be a safe house.”
Those words shook something loose in Sev’s addled brain. The safe house. Even when his parents died and this very same farm burned, hundreds of lives were spared because of the safe house, including Kade’s. So what if Sev had gotten lost and wound up a war orphan alone in Aura Nova. Others had made it. Kade had made it. Maybe Sev could do the same thing his parents had done, and save others even if he couldn’t save himself.
“Tell me,” Sev said, and he knew his voice was sharper, clearer, than it had been a moment ago. Kade looked heartened.
“The rear guard has established a wide perimeter,” Kade explained, pointing into the distance.
“To stop people from running away,” Sev said with disgust, following the line of Kade’s finger, though he couldn’t see anything in the darkness.
“And to snatch animages.”
Sev jerked his head back around. “What?”
Kade fixed him with an unflinching look. “You know that’s what happens when the empire strikes Pyra,” he said steadily. “It’s what they’ve always done. But this time they were ordered to do it. Apparently Rolan’s other regiments have already started marching the captive animages toward Ferro.”