Maren scoffed, eyeing the decorated men as we approached.
General Senan and the other commanders surrounded a crudely cut tree stump, a map spread across its grainy surface. He moved aside enough for Aren and me to join them. Maren stayed behind with her Naiads, but I knew she listened to every word that blared across.
“Fill me in,” I said before I even slid from my saddle. Snow crunched, dry and solid under my boots.
Senan flicked a snowflake from his salt-and-pepper hair. “Reports came two days ago that the Rivean army was amassing little by little across this clearing.”
“Any idea what they have? Other than fucking numbers?”
Senan sucked against a wad of Willowood tobacco in his lip, flecks of it coating his teeth. “At least a third of their men are archers. Bolt throwers there.” He pointed to the high ridge, where I could make out lines of ballistas, shadows stark against the snow. “Trebuchets below them. Catapults above.”
“They’ve wheeled their heavy artillery all the way here. It would take days to move them, we should draw them into another more favorable location.”
Senan nodded, turning his head to spit. “We’re looking into the option now,” he said, aiming a finger through the pass Maren and I had carved through. “Trying to decide if they’re intimidating us into doing just that. Luring us into a trap.”
I trekked mentally over the map, Aren hanging over my shoulder. I’d crossed these mountains just weeks ago. I’d garnered a bit more knowledge of the Calderian side of the border than most of the soldiers here.
Where the ash trees didn’t reach the summit,Maren thought at me.
My glaze flickered to the place on the map, a sharp incline overlooking a wide gulch below.Why there?
They’ll think they have the advantage in elevation. But there’s enough of a canyon underneath to protect our army. And this snow is packed thick on top of a weaker layer. We could cause a slide and devastate their forces.
Fuck. She was right.
My hand found my face, stubble scratching as I scrubbed at my jaw and chin. She was right. She was fucking right. She’d triggered an avalanche without even trying when we last crossed these peaks. I could only imagine what a hundred Naiads could achieve.
But that put her at the front of the line. Beyond the front.
I don’t like that idea, Leihani.
No? Which part of wardoyou like?
Senan spit again, tongue roaming the corners of his teeth. “Do you see something I don’t, Laurier?”
I glanced over my shoulder at her, ten feet from me. Chin tucked into her chest, deep, dark eyes gazed back, a galaxy of stars. She’d come bathed head to toe in silk and fur and coiling mist, and I swear she’d become something wild and eternal. Something forged in iron and pride, something that whispered with cracks of thunder and the promise of death, and I wondered when the girl from the islands had become a warrior unafraid to stare into the eyes of ten thousand men to cut their lives short with the force of her own mettle.
It would work, Kye, she murmured, her voice smooth and liquid against my thoughts.
My brows furrowed as I scanned the map for a better idea, imagining the layout of her plan. She and the Naiads would station themselves high on the mountaintop. The Calderian units would wait at the side, poised as though they were preparing to attack, luring the enemy like bait on a hook. And the Rivean army would never see their fate, as long as the Naiadsremained hidden. They’d send their men across the ravine, and the sirens would make a graveyard out of them.
You know it would work.
Senan watched me. Aren watched me. The soldiers and Naiads and horses all fucking watched me. I grasped the edge of the tree stump hard enough to feel the dead wood between my nails, staring a hole into the map.
Kye.
“Laurier?”
The beast in my chest snarled as I shoved off the sun-damned tree stump. They all raised their brows, but I whirled on a foot, my boots breaking the already trampled snow as I cut a line straight to Maren and kept going, grasping hold of her arm as I went. I’m not even sure we were out of earshot when I spun her around against a weeping tree trunk and leaned in.
Standing entirely below my collarbone, she stretched her neck to glare up at me, her armaments poised and ready. “It’s not what we agreed on, but when have we ever agreed? From the day we met, you wanted to row the boat. You didn’t care that I was stronger that day. You fought me for the chance to row.”
“Leihani.”
“And what happened, Kye? Who ended up rowing?”
Leihani.
