I slipped inside the door of my temporary home, some of the tension within my muscles easing. It was always a relief to get away from the constant surveillance. And contrary to my initial expectation, I had grown comfortable with Dara and Quirin in the weeks since my capture.
But when I looked around the room, there was no sign of either of them. I frowned. Dara was always here at this time of day. I had expected her to be waiting for me, no word of censure on her lips although I was late to help with the day’s food preparation.
At first, after their betrayal, I had stayed in my room, refusing to speak to them. They showed patience with my surliness, offering me no violence and delivering meals at regular intervals, but it was the inactivity that got to me in the end. That and the realization that I was more likely to effect an escape if I was free to roam the camp.
I emerged with a begrudging acceptance of my new housemates that was mostly feigned. But somehow, over the weeks that followed, it became real. Out in the camp I was watched by hostile eyes, but with my father’s old friends I felt almost safe.
It wasn’t entirely an illusion, either. Since venturing out into the wider world of the raider camp, I had learned it was thanks to their intervention that I had received a room in their house. Without them speaking up for me, I might have spent these weeks in the open pen the raiders used as a makeshift prison.
“Dara?” I called, looking around the room.
It wasn’t large enough to hide her, containing only a simple wooden table and chairs and a small kitchen. My brows lowered as I examined the space. Dara should have been back.
I had slipped out of the house early, but the buzz around camp had all been focused on the late evening return of the most recent resupply trip. Dara didn’t usually go with them—it was the first time she had done so since my arrival—and I had actually been looking forward to seeing her again.
In her absence, Quirin had turned silent enough to count as surly, and I hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of their son, Renley. Not that I missed Renley’s company.
I had come to accept that Dara and Quirin had acted out of a misguided desire to protect the daughter of their old friend. Not so their son, however. The old playmate I had greeted with shock and excitement outside the ball had been a deception. Renley had participated in my abduction out of loyalty to the General, not consideration for me, and he was dedicated in his pursuit of a position among the General’s warriors.
Dara argued that I was being too hard on him. She pointed out that he had given up his room for me, moving into a barracks-style dormitory that housed single males. But she was blind to his obvious delight at the necessity. Now he could spend his time with the people he wished to emulate.
My frown deepened as I registered that nothing in the room had been touched from the night before. But the door to Dara and Quirin’s bedroom was closed, so perhaps she was still sleeping after her late arrival.
I moved into the kitchen and began to rummage among the basic supplies kept there. I hadn’t opened anything, however, when the front door opened again. I looked up eagerly, only for the smile to drop from my face.
“Oh, it’s you.”
Renley regarded me with a hooded expression I couldn’t read. “Who were you expecting?”
“I haven’t seen your mother since the supply team got back. She would normally be here this time of day.”
His brows lowered. “My mother?”
I stared at him, thrown off by his obvious confusion. After an awkward moment, he cleared his throat. Something in his manner and voice seemed less haughty than usual, as if his constant assurance of the superiority of his cause had been temporarily superseded by some other emotion.
“You really haven’t heard?” he asked.
I shook my head, impatient. “Heard what? Where’s Dara?”
He drew himself up. “She’s gone.”
“Gone?” I continued to stare at him. “What does that mean?” I drew in a quick breath. “Surely she can’t have been killed on the supply mission? I thought they were just hunting this time?”
“Not killed.” He hesitated, glancing at the firmly closed door of his parents’ bedroom before shrugging and continuing. “She’s dying. She has been for some time. I thought she would have told you, given you two are so close.”
A hint of resentment crept into his voice, and for the first time I wondered if he had minded giving up his bedroom, after all. But his words were too shocking for me to give much thought to such minor issues.
“Dying?” I shook my head. “Dara’s seemed increasingly weak lately, but she never…Why did she go on the trip, then? She should have stayed home to rest!”
“Resting wouldn’t have helped. She was too far gone for that. And she cared about you, even if you refuse to accept that all of us Calistans are equally victims, and the General is just trying to reclaim what’s ours. She gave up her final days—days she could have spent with her family—to bring you your family.”
“What?” I felt the blood draining from my face. “What are you talking about?”
“She went to fetch your sister.”
He sounded almost smug as he said it, as if despite framing it as a positive, he knew the news would be unwelcome. Clearly he resented Dara’s care for me.
“Dara is dying, but she’s gone back to Tarona to try to abduct Cadence?” I said the words slowly, as if a slow pace would make them intelligible. “That makes no sense.”
“Do you think I would lie about my mother’s death?”
I looked up quickly, examining his face. For all my dislike of Renley, the emotion I read there was real. He was putting on a face of bravado to hide actual grief.
A churning, painful sensation erupted in my stomach, growing into a storm of grief, fear, and anger that engulfed me. Storming over to their bedroom door, I thrust it open. But there was no sign of anyone, the neat bed looking unused.
I spun around and marched across to the door. When Renley didn’t move out of my way, I pushed past him and outside. He trailed behind me, so I threw a question over my shoulder.
“Where’s Quirin?”
After a moment’s silence, he pointed toward the back of the camp. I picked up my pace, running toward the camp’s small graveyard. If Quirin was there, then everything Renley said must be true.
I came to a sudden stop at the sight of the older man kneeling in the dry ground beside a small stone marker. He looked up at my approach, his face streaked with tears, and I read Dara’s name etched into the stone.
“It’s happened,” he said in a roughened voice. “I can feel she’s gone.”
“I…” Now that I was here, I didn’t know how to begin. “Renley just told me…” I looked over my shoulder at Renley who had just caught up. “You said she went after Cadence.”
“She did,” Quirin said, looking back toward the stone marker. “When she heard Lawson was being sent to the Guild, she convinced the General to let her go, too. He needed someone with a power affinity to accompany Lawson, so he agreed.” His face twisted. “Better to send a dying woman than risk one of the few with a power ability who are loyal to him.”
“And you let her go?”
He laughed, a mirthless sound. “I never let Dara do anything in her life. We were partners in everything, and I couldn’t deny her wish in this.” He looked into my eyes for the first time. “It saddened her to see you so despondent. She thought you needed your family with you.”