“Lord Endrick took my memories,” I said. “You’ll get nothing from me that he didn’t plant there.”
“We’ll see.”
“Let me escape, and I will find Endrick. When the Olden Blade is in my hands again—”
Now he laughed. “In your hands? By the time we’re finished, your pretty hands won’t be holding anything.”
“And you’ll lose more than your hands if you don’t release her to us now,” a voice said.
The Ironheart sti
ffened and let go of me. I stepped back and saw Wynnow immediately behind him, with a knife at his back. Basil was with her and heaved a sigh of relief to see me. He took my arm and said, “Let’s go.”
“Where’s Simon?” I asked. No one else could have told the Coracks where I was.
Basil frowned as he hurried me away. “He couldn’t … Kestra, he just couldn’t come.”
Behind us, the Ironheart yelled, “She’s escaping!”
Wynnow had been running to catch up with us, but twisted around with her disk blade and shot him, and then a few others who had noticed us. Ahead, more soldiers were already gathering. Basil put me behind him and raised his halberd. I hoped he could use it well.
“Come this way!” Wynnow grabbed my hand, but we didn’t get far before we were surrounded. “Get down,” she yelled. “I’ve got a plan.”
I crouched down, instinctively covering my head with my hands. One of the soldiers around us must have noticed my necklace, because I felt a tug on it. As soon as it snapped loose, my throat began to close up, constricting just as my heart had done, making me labor for each breath.
In nearly the same moment, Wynnow set off a charge that threw every person who had been surrounding us backward into the air. That must have included the person who had grabbed my necklace because suddenly it was gone.
I collapsed on the ground, stricken with pain, desperately feeling around for a necklace I knew wasn’t anywhere within reach. A series of explosions came from the far end of camp, drawing Ironhearts and officers that way, some of them right past us in the darkness. None of it mattered. I was choking on my own breath and struggling to keep myself oriented to the chaos around me.
Basil picked me up and began running with me in his arms. “Hold on,” he said. “We’re getting you out of here.”
When we came to a quieter area of camp, I called Simon’s name again, but it was almost too soft for my own ears.
“Simon!” Basil repeated, lowering me to the ground.
Within seconds, Simon was hovering over me. I couldn’t see him well, but what I did see broke what remained of my heart. Grief was etched into every curve of his face. Heavy bags of exhaustion were under his reddened eyes, and his shoulders bore an unseen weight.
“Where’s her necklace?”
“Someone pulled it off. We were surrounded.” That sounded like Basil’s voice.
I tried telling them about Gabe, and that I needed the necklace back, and that Sir Henry was here. I tried saying anything at all, but I couldn’t make myself speak.
Simon cursed. “We need to get her to Loelle. She’s dying.”
“I’m the fastest rider.” That was Wynnow’s voice, maybe.
My eyes were closing, and I was trying not to die, but I couldn’t see why fighting Endrick mattered anymore. The end was inevitable. He always won.
Basil picked me up again and laid me on a horse that I barely felt beneath me. I was draped over it, utterly helpless, certain each shallow breath I drew would be my last.
“Huge still hasn’t returned with Gabe,” Simon said. “You keep her alive until she gets to Loelle.”
“I promise that I will,” Wynnow said.
“No,” I mumbled. No, I didn’t want Simon to risk himself by going into that camp to find Gabe. But no one heard me.
And maybe none of it mattered. I wouldn’t be alive to see what happened next anyway.