Everything ended in fire.

Embers danced in a rush of scorched wind. Flames roared and swept through the canopy, devouring the flesh of trees. Wood crackled, popped, burst, and snapped. Leaves crumbled to dust. The earth shook, and the red sky bled black smoke, plumes billowing above a charred maze of twisted branches and splintered trunks.

The forest screamed as it burned. Oaks groaned as their skins ripped and their innards cooked. Willows wept. Aspens trembled. Beasts died, and birds dropped.

Esula heard every voice, felt every death, and she could not stand it. She rushed in to help, to offer her strength, but before she knew it, the inferno reared up and seized her.

Fire.

Choking her. Consuming her. Turning her to ash. Frolicking and crawling up her roots, flickering and kissing her bark, tearing it open to eat the tender flesh of her legs.

She shrieked and batted at the flames, but they stuck to her hands and snaked over her arms, then surged up her neck and swallowed her face. Blinding. Burning. Smoke stinging. The stench of her own flowers dying.

“Esula, focus!”

A slap. Pain across her cheek. She gasped and fell back on soft grass. Her roots broke free of the earth, severing her connection with the Mother’s web.

The fire vanished. But she could still hear it, roaring just beyond Asternius’ walls. The father tree’s mighty trunk stretched far above and all around her, cradling her in the serenity of his inner chamber.

“What is wrong with you?” Her sister Poinsenia glowered down at her.

“Fire…” Esula hugged her knees, sap-drenched and shivering.

“Get up! We don’t have time for this!” Poinsenia grabbed Esula’s arm and yanked her to her feet. She stumbled, but before she could fall, Poinsenia summoned vines from the earth to steady her.

“Is she okay?” Thyme said from nearby. Her own coat of autumnal leaves had turned pale, and rivulets of thick resin glistened on the bark that wrapped her torso and legs.

“She got lost in the web,” Poinsenia said. Her hands squeezed Esula’s cheeks. “Focus! You can not help the forest now. Yours is a greater task.”

Esula nodded, caught her breath, and tried to calm her pounding heart. She felt shamed to face her queen, whose calm fortitude was unmatched, but she forced her eyes to the nectar pool that glowed green in the center of the lush chamber. Fennelore paid her no heed. Standing waist-deep in the pool, the queen’s long, verdant hair floated behind her, swaying and rippling with the gentle waves. Her eyes were closed. A pulsing green light connected her to the babe cradled in her arms. The child slept, oblivious to the end of the world.

Six of Esula’s sisters stood in a circle around the nectar pool. Six dryads, holding hands and swimming through Astea’s web even as their tangled roots trembled.

“The enemy is upon us,” Poinsenia said. “Our queen needs my strength. Center yourself and prepare for your journey.”

Esula nodded. Poinsenia’s vines released her, then the older dryad took her spot among the others.

The earth shook with Asternius’ rage. Sylvatica’s eyes burst open. “Summerpine burns!” she cried.

The other six looked at each other, terrified. “Stay focused!” Poinsenia yelled.

Fennelore gasped and fell to a knee. Nectar splashed out of the pool and flowers bloomed where it touched grass. Vines surged out of the earth to support the queen. “Majesty, take our strength!” Iberis hissed between gritted teeth.

Esula felt great power emanating from her queen. Astea’s Link unravelled as the Earth-Mother’s essence flowed from Fennelore to the babe. The process of separation was ripping Fennelore apart, in both flesh and mind. Only the strength of the seven dryads sustained her.

Asternius shuddered. Wood groaned as his great trunk swayed in anger. Light flickered as the lumin flowers of his chamber dimmed then relit.

The birds had stopped singing.

Esula realised it in a moment that seemed detached from time. All those years she had played in this meadow that grew within the father tree. Never had the starlings stopped their song, nor the squirrels their chittering. The trees at least still swayed with the Father’s breath, but no bees came to tickle Esula’s flowers.

Her fingers were trembling. She saw her sisters scrunching their eyes, fighting against the same compulsions that had overwhelmed her.

This was why the enemy burned the forest. No dryad could ignore the pain of the trees they loved. The distraction was a great advantage on the battlefield, and their enemy was not above seizing it.

Esula swallowed her fears, closed her eyes, and pressed her toes into the soil. Her roots spiralled down her legs to pierce the earth. The world fell away from her.

There was a moment of peace, of oneness with Astea’s web. Then she was yanked out of her body and hurled into a torrent of pain, drowned by the torment of a dying forest. She felt herself unwinding, thrashing and kicking, stuck like a trapped fly – every part of her screaming as if she were the one on fire.

She pushed away her panic and remembered what she’d been taught. When lost, find the Link. And there was Fennelore, blinding bright. Like a jewel in the center of the web, connected to every thread. The babe was with her, blossoming into light as Fennelore dimmed. Around them were the nodes of the seven. Esula sought shelter in their steadiness, and through them, she found an anchor for her own sense of self. With that in place, she slowly expanded her awareness.

The tumult of the web sifted into discernable voices – the calls and cries of her sisters engaged in a fierce battle not too distant.

“Get back! It’s a false retreat!”

“The nectar! They’re coming for the nectar!”

“Hold the line!”

“We need water! More water!”

“No!”

“It’s too late! Summerpine has fallen!”

Summerpine howled as flames wicked through his flesh and ravaged his canopy. The great tree’s torture flooded the web in an avalanche of agony. Asternius’ anguish drummed like a heartbeat as the Father reached for his floundering son. But it was to no avail. Summerpine’s screams choked out, and for a moment, the web of the world fell silent. The youngest of the four Children was dead.

Asternius roared, and the web quaked at his rage. Esula felt the pain of her burned sisters as they escaped the battle. There was no time for grief. She linked with the father tree, and through that connection, vision opened to her. She saw as he did.

Asternius stood with his back to the lake. Before him lay the Ancestor’s Meadow – a half-circle of grass that stretched to the charred forest. The four Children grew evenly spaced along the border of grass and trees.

A column of fire now reared where Summerpine had once stood. Flickering and crackling, the flames sparked and flashed in blinding bursts of yellow and red. The colony ignited and pods crumpled off the tree’s side, homes plummeting to the ground. A thick plume of black smoke obscured his distant canopy. The acrid stench of his burning skin poisoned the ash-laden air.

The Father’s outer chamber was vast, shaped like a cage by thick white branches that arced down from his trunk and pierced the earth in great heaving mounds. The place roiled in chaos as sisters shouted and scrambled to raise the defenses. Summoned vines closed the gaps in the walls. Trenches were cloven into the soil and thorn bushes raised to meet the charge.

It mattered little when the enemy wielded fire.

Esula could see them now. A black mass of hovering flames that filled the darkness beyond the meadow and stretched far to the horizon. They gathered in the remnants of the forest they had burned, shifting like a swarm of stinging ants. The sight of them clenched her heart with fear. She squeaked as balls of fire emerged from the darkness and hurtled towards the Father.

The Children’s shield flashed purple, shimmering like dragonfly wings in flight. Flames went out, and the balls crumbled. Undeterred, the enemy clawed at the barrier and launched more fiery projectiles – heaving boulders and a rain of burning arrows. Each dissipated on the shield.

The fighters from Summerpine burst out of the ground in front of the Father. Their bodies had taken the shape of roots to travel through the earth. As they reformed into dryads, hundreds fell, gasping and coughing. Their leaves were burned off – branches snapped or smoking, bark left blackened beneath. Some of them were still flaming, screaming as they clutched charred limbs.

“They need nectar!” Esula cried into the cacophony of the web. “The fighters need nectar!” She wanted desperately to go herself, and she almost did, but she stayed the impulse. Poinsenia was right. Hers was a greater task.

Someone heard her. A dryad popped from the ground amidst the injured. Her body formed into a vessel that quickly filled with nectar. Her roots carried the fluid in an endless supply from the pool within the Father’s outer chamber. When her face formed, she shouted “Nectar!”

Vines and tendrils grew from the fighters to swarm her cup. They drank greedily and regained some semblance of life – clambering to their feet as the gouges in their bark mended. But nectar did nothing for wounds of fire, and many were beyond saving.

“Springdream!” The cry thrummed through the web. “We need help at Springdream!”

Esula looked up and saw the enemy flowing around Summerpine’s husk to lay siege on Springdream. She gasped as fireballs shattered his branches and stuck in his trunk. His pods caught alight. The ground in front of him burst with vines and brambles as her sisters made battle.

Not a moment later: “Winter’s Willow burns!”

Esula whipped around. At the far end of the clearing, by the lake, her own colony was ablaze. She stared as the flames gained momentum and licked their way up the great willow’s white bark. A garula bird swept by. With powerful beats of its iridescent wings, it dove and dumped a load of water that sizzled on the fire but did nothing to stop it.

She watched helplessly as a flurry of fiery arrows launched into Red Maple’s trunk. The flames caught, and isolated pockets of fire swelled and joined, feasting in their slaughter.

All four Children were alight. The web shook with their screams and rang with the cries of her sisters, desperate and confused as they held their ground against the endless horde.

“All fighters retreat to the Father.” The command resonated with the queen’s voice. The ground around Asternius burst as sisters clambered out, screaming, gasping, and crying for nectar.

“Esula,” Poinsenia called to her.

Esula drew away from the web. The world shrank, and she was back in the calm of the Father’s inner chamber. Untouched by fire and war. She breathed deeply of the sweet, clean air, trying to steady herself.

“Esula, come here.” Poinsenia and the others stood around Fennelore. The queen had risen out of the pool. Nectar dripped off the thick roots that held her body. She cradled the babe, and though she smiled as she stroked the child’s cheek, her leaves had lost their glow. Damp, matted hair draped over her sagging shoulders.

The sight of her queen in such a state rent Esula’s heart. She wanted to cry out for her to run, for her to escape the flames. But she knew better. Fennelore’s roots were too deeply intwined with the Father’s. She could not leave him.

“Esula.” Fennelore’s voice was thick with exhaustion. “The time has come.”

Esula’s back straightened. “My queen, is it done then?”

“Yes. Willow is Astea’s Link now.” The queen rocked the babe, and vines grew down her arms to give it a gentle squeeze. Then, hesitating as if it pained her, Fennelore offered the child to Esula.

Esula stared for a moment before carefully taking the babe in her arms. Willow. Beautiful little Willow, perfect in every way. Her bark was mahogany. Her thick, healthy leaves glowed green with Astea. Her flowers were already blooming, and a starling had started a nest in her mop of mossy green hair. Esula stroked the pale, waxy skin of her cheek. Willow’s little hand latched onto her finger. Cooing, the babe turned into the nook of her arm. When Esula looked up, she had to blink back tears.

Fennelore and the others watched Willow wistfully. A creeper wiped the queen’s eye, and she cleared her throat before speaking. “Esula, this task is yours. Protect the child with your life.”

“Yes, my queen.” Her voice trembled.

“Raise her and teach her our ways.”

“Yes, my queen.”

“Know she must survive, for the Mother’s sake, and the sake of all her seed.”

“Yes, my queen.”

The ground shook. Asternius roared. Through the web, they felt the deaths of the Children. The shield flickered. Esula saw with her sister’s eyes as balls of fire shattered the barrier in a blinding flash of light. The projectiles hurtled towards the Father but fell short, cleaving great, smouldering gashes across the meadow. The enemy horde rose in a deafening cheer. Then the black mass began to move. The earth trembled, and her roots thrummed with the drumming of their footfalls.

Death came, and it held fire.

Fennelore closed her eyes as she whispered comforts to the Father. She opened them and turned to the others.

“Thus comes the autumn of the Asteine. Thus comes the end of Astea’s age.” She glanced at Esula. “Go now, my daughter. With Astea’s blessing, go now. We will buy you time.”

Esula nodded. She willed a vine to grow from her arm and splash into the nectar pool. It stiffened, then sucked. Her veins flooded with strength as she filled herself. When done, she brushed blossoms with her weeping sisters.

Poinsenia cradled her cheek. “You are the fastest, and her best chance. Never feel guilty about it.”

Esula wiped her eyes, held Willow to her heart, and delved into the ground.

She found the Father’s longest root and clung to it, following it far to the east, far from Mithras and his fire. Even as she fled, her connection to the web was strong. She bore silent witness to the atrocities that ended her people.

The human horde swarmed Asternius’ meadow. Frothing and screaming, swinging dead steel and burning wood, they charged towards the paltry line her sisters had made. Crashing footfalls churned grass into mud. Machines launched fire like comets across the sky. Blazing slivers fell like a rain of death.

Asternius roared. His wardens pulled themselves out of his flesh. The great white ents groaned and lumbered into battle, swinging their arms to send dozens of men through the air. The ground cracked and tore asunder as her sisters summoned vines, brambles, and thorns to pierce, slash, and kill the humans. Aeumula riders charged from behind, swinging their double-bladed halberds. The four-legged beasts of bark leaped over the flaming mass of men, ripping and trampling. Garula birds dove and dropped water. Ashfangs, wolves, bears, and all the beasts of the forest joined the fray.

Bodies piled on the grass. Red blood rich with Astea seeped into the meadow. The tangy smell of it was strong, and the air rang with the enemy’s screams.

But the humans were too many. For each struck down by a sister, ten more appeared. Fire caught and swept across their lines, turning sisters into howling piles of ash. They cried for nectar, but the humans knew to cut it off. Like stinging ants, they swarmed and surrounded, heckling until the strength was gone and the sister was helpless. The queen’s forces shrank. The humans bulged around them, threatening to break into the outer chamber.

“Fall back!” came Fennelore’s order.

Brave sisters held the line while most of the survivors retreated into the chamber. Hardly a hundred remained. They gathered in front of Fennelore, faces grim and fearful. The queen floated on her thick roots, her verdant eyes narrowed at the entrance.

Cheers rang out from the humans, then grew silent when one stepped forward and raised his weapon. Lifeless, cold, and sharp, forged in the flames of Mithras’ fury. A sword they called it. Steel it was, and imbued with the power of the sun.

Silence stretched. The squirming horde of men waited with bated breath. They stared intently at their king, on their toes and craning their necks to catch a glimpse of him.

The sight of him sent a shiver through Esula. She’d not seen many humans, but this one was terrifying. Tall and broad shouldered, with hair black as pitch and skin brown as bark. His hazelnut eyes were dark and narrow, hard set in a hard face. When he turned, his hair shifted to reveal an expanse of scars and burns: pocks, pustules, and blisters that swept across the left side of his face.

The man looked at his army, then lowered his weapon and stepped carefully into the outer chamber. Hundreds followed him.

“You are Isaiah of Oakheart.” Fennelore’s voice resonated around Asternius’ walls.

The man narrowed his gaze at her, his scarred face twisted and unseemly. “I am,” he rasped in a deep voice like grating sand.

“You have unleashed fire upon Astea,” Fennelore said.

The man said nothing. His fingers tightened around the grip of his sword, and he lifted his wooden shield, eyes flicking slowly over the gathered sisters.

The silence was broken when another man yelled “Freedom for men!”

“Freedom!” The cry was raised and rode the horde like a wave. A horn trumpeted a harrowing note, long and echoing around the chamber.

Isaiah raised his shield, and the crowd settled uneasily. A beam of Mithras’ light glinted off the steel that coated him.

“You know not the powers you contend with,” Fennelore said. “Isaiah, put down your arms. It is not too late to stop this madness.”

Still, the king said nothing. He held his weapon aloft, lowered his head, and started moving towards Fennelore.

“I can bring her back.” Fennelore’s voice was laced with honey.

The king stilled.

“Your mate. I can bring her back. If you stop this now.”

He glanced at his soldiers, then at Fennelore again. His scarred face twisted in a sly smirk. “You lie.” He continued forward.

“So be it.” Fennelore clasped her hands.

Two vines burst from the ground near the king. They rushed for his legs as a green spear shot towards his heart. In a flash, he rolled aside and swung his sword, cutting all three in one stroke. When he stood, flames crackled the full length of his shimmering steel. The smell of burning plant rose on tendrils of smoke.

Fennelore’s eyes narrowed. She bared her teeth, spread her arms, and unleashed Astea’s fury.

Thousands of vines exploded out of Asternius’ trunk. Spiralling through the human horde, they skewered soft flesh and impaled dozens of squealing men. Like enraged pythons, they whipped around to smash or crush bones, wrapped men and hurled them shrieking through the air. Swinging branches of thorn and bramble burst from the ground to decapitate or gore. Trap-plants seized and chomped on legs. Spores poisoned the air. Flowers spat acid. The earth split, clouds of dust rising as screaming men fell into chasms.

The humans shouted and scrambled, swinging their fiery sticks and steel weapons, hiding behind splintered shields. Their mass swelled and surged, split apart and slaughtered. Hundreds were killed in the blink of an eye. Blood pooled in the Father’s chambers. Astea soaked the soil and misted the air.

A dozen soldiers rushed forward to surround their king. They were dressed in steel that vines could not breach, and their swords blazed with fire that cauterised and burned.

“Hold strong!” The king’s voice rang from within the clump as they fought desperately against Fennelore’s summonings.

Bodies piled on soft moss. The humans shouted frantically for order. Fennelore’s eyes burst with black veins. Esula’s sisters joined the fray, boosted now by limitless nectar, their summonings laying waste to the human forces.

For a moment, it looked like the war would end, and her people would be saved.

But for every human that fell, two more ran in from outside. Fiery rocks exploded on Asternius’ trunk. His bark caught flame, his skin whistling and popping in flashes of light. Blazing arrows rained death on the sisters. They fell, screaming and rolling. The foliage within the chamber ignited. Thick smoke clouded the ceiling. Arrows stuck in Fennelore’s roots. Flickering flames crept up her body.

The humans pressed forward, led by the men dressed in vile metal. Neither thorn nor barb could stop them, and their blades of fire quenched life with a single blow. One by one, Esula’s sisters fell. Poinsenia was killed, and then Fennelore was alone.

A dozen humans surrounded her, hacking at her roots with steel and fire. She screamed. Her face contorted with pain, blackened capillaries pulsing through her soft bark as her roots blazed and her leaves smouldered.

Her thorns lost their edge. Her summonings wilted. Her roots crumbled, and she sagged to the ground.

The human king raised his hand. His horde stopped, watching warily.

Then one of them shouted, “Freedom for men!” and the cry reverberated through the smoke-filled chamber. They started cheering and howling, tear-sodden as they bashed their weapons against their shields.

“Your freedom is doom,” Fennelore whispered.

The king swung his fiery blade, and her head fell to the ground.

Asternius roared. His roots convulsed and flung Esula from the soil in an eruption of dirt. She reformed, screaming and cradling Willow as she plummeted to the ground. On impact, her bark bulged and cracked. Pain shot through her cells. She gasped and choked on ash, each cough like a barb in her stomach. Her roots sought the web, and her body burned nectar to heal itself.

When she was whole, she ran her gaze over Willow. The child was asleep and safe. Esula crumpled to her knees, hugged the babe, and sobbed. Thick, watery tears melded with the sap on her cheeks and fell in gleaming beads to a forest floor strewn with pine needles. A gentle breeze lifted the petals off her branches and sent them fluttering away.

She felt the heat of fire on her back. An orange glow surrounded her. Shadows of the trees and bushes flickered in the light. She turned and stared through watery eyes. Mithras was a small orange dot poking through the western horizon. She’d travelled far east, and it would have been dark were it not for the fires.

She could see Asternius. His great white trunk stretched to the clouds. All of it was ablaze, the sky cast red by his death. A mass of billowing black smoke shrouded his canopy, resting on pillars rising from the Children, roiling and raining ash as it slowly drifted westward.

Silence filled the web. Unnatural, heavy, and endless. Esula swam through it, searching until she found the last flicker of Asternius. He wept alone. She cradled him, and in her arms, he died.

And in her arms, Willow stirred. Esula opened her eyes and wiped away her sticky tears. She brushed a finger across Willow’s cheek to smudge off a flake of ash. Calmness radiated from the babe. The steadiness of the Mother, the solidity of rock, the persistence of water, the fluidity of air. There would be seasons enough for anger and grief to bloom. This was not the time.

Esula lifted Willow to her shoulder and her nectar-fueled vines pulled the child into a basket of brambles on her back. She squeezed the soil and made to stand.

“Don’t move.” An icy voice, cold steel at her throat. Esula’s eyes went wide. She turned slowly, staring up the narrow blade.

It was held by a human woman. Young, lean, and well-muscled, with white hair the length of her shoulders. Fire danced in blue eyes set against skin as pale as Hecata.

“Kill her!” Esula commanded.

Nectar drained through her roots. A vine-spear surged from the nearest tree and shot towards the woman’s heart. It faltered halfway there, then fell limp to the ground. Esula gaped at the dead thing. She willed the command again. Nothing happened. She strained, pushing into the web, begging the plants to answer her. They did not so much as stir.

“Out of nectar.” The woman prodded Esula’s throat with the sword. A thin cut leaked green.

Esula batted the blade away, stumbled to her feet, and tried to run. A swift kick from the woman brought her down crying. The blade reappeared at her throat.

“I said don’t move.” The sword burst into fire.

Esula shrieked and shrank. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t even think. Her eyes were fixed on those dancing, flickering fingers of light and death.

The flames went out, leaving black spots in her vision.

“I would listen to her if I were you.” Another voice, a man’s, deep and rumbling. “She’s a master with the blade.”

His broad-shouldered form stepped out from the shadows. Esula hissed at the sight of him. Black skin, the mark of Mithras. She backed away, but stopped when the woman’s hot steel poked her again.

The man squatted down in front of her. Hazel eyes – not cursed then. He watched her, but she could not meet his gaze, staring instead into the braids of thick hair that fell past his shoulders. Her vines tried to hide Willow.

“Who are you?” His voice was gentle. A deception.

His eyes roved over her, taking in the cracked, ash-coated bark and crusty leaves of her body before settling on Willow.

“Don’t worry, we won’t hurt you.”

“Maybe he won’t.” The woman’s sword pressed against Esula’s throat, quenching her courage with the memory of flames.

“She has a baby with her.” The man stood and crossed his arms. The woman didn’t reply. Esula’s eyes flicked back and forth between them, her heart pounding powerless nectar. She searched for escape, but there was none. The steel was fire, and fire was death.

“I will not kill a child,” the man said.

“No? And how do you feel about killing children, tree-witch?” Esula whimpered as the woman’s sword cut a thin line across the soft bark of her cheek.

“Enough, Raia.” The man’s hand gently lowered the blade. “We will be better.” He gazed to the west, Asternius’ body flickering in his eyes. “It’s over.”

Esula stared at the point of the sword, now resting in the dirt between her legs. She glanced up and saw the woman watching her with eyes of ice. Calm, cold, and merciless. She would kill Esula and murder Willow without so much as blinking.

“He’ll be expecting me,” the man said. He sighed and turned back to frown at Esula. “We won’t hurt you. Will you not give us your name?”

“You’re being naive,” the woman said. “She’s dangerous.”

“She’s helpless. And scared.”

“Like I said, naive.”

“Maybe so. But I’ve seen enough dead.”

“Two more wouldn’t hurt.”

“I suppose you won’t talk to us,” the man said to Esula. “Well, I can’t blame you. But I also can’t let you roam free.” He turned and shouted into the darkness, “Nial, are you there?”

“I am here.” A deep, purring voice.

Branches rustled, and Esula saw dark eyes watching her from the shadows. She gasped as a paw broke into view, firelight glinting off sharp claws. The night creature followed, whiskers twitching on its feline face, pointed ears swivelling.

A child of Hecata.

Thick fur, white as snow, puffed out as it shrugged and shook its body. Back arching, it yawned, showing sharp fangs amid the gaping black. Shoulders pulsed as it straightened and approached the man. It licked him, tongue fat and wet, before standing up on two legs to tower over him. Leaves rustled as its long tail brushed against them.

The hecatite’s eyes moved to Esula, and she met them with venom, shocked by the gall of this creature to meddle in Astea’s affairs.

“Nial, I haven’t much time,” the man said. “Can you help us find a home for this dryad and her child?”

“This is not our way, my friend. We are the wardens of Hecata. We are the watchers—”

“Yes, yes. You watch, you never interfere. And yet you led us here tonight. Don’t pretend you had no part in this.”

The hecatite looked pensively at the man. He raised his eyebrows and continued.

“As far as we know, these are the last two dryads. In the forest, they will be killed. Can you not find them a home in Hecata’s desert? Beyond the reach of my people?”

The hecatite growled quietly. Graceful as a falling leaf, it dropped to its front paws, stepped forward, and studied Esula. She glared at it, but dared not move when it sniffed her.

“For those that watch, I will speak,” it said. “I am Nialaq-a-Naqil, The One Who Walks on Soft Sand. Let it be known I had no part in the decisions that chose the arc of the future. Time and the fate of the Three revolve around one human’s heart, and his heart alone. May the Aksha forgive me.”

The hecatite turned. Its tail brushed Esula before it prowled into the shadows. The man stared after it.

“I think he agreed,” he said.

“I don’t like this,” the woman said. Her sword flicked up to Esula’s throat again. “I still think we should kill her.”

“Don’t.” The man turned back to burning Asternius and sighed. “I really must get going. Take her and follow Nial.” He started towards the clouds of smoke.

“You’ll travel alone?”

“With Ruby.” He smiled back. “Don’t worry. We won the war, didn’t we?”

“Doesn’t feel like it.” The woman prodded Esula. “Get up. Any funny moves and the baby dies first.” Another prod had Esula scrambling to her feet. She hugged Willow and stared around frantically. The hecatite’s eyes glimmered in the shadows. There was no escape.

The man smiled at her. “You’re safe now. Trust them.” He turned and trudged into the bushes.

“Come on, then.” Cold steel poked her back, and Esula staggered. She tripped and fell into step, helpless as she followed the hecatite into darkness.