Chapter 122
MATRON YARA’S POV
“What took you so long?” Matron Yara asked as she stood in front of the window in the cabin she was staying in.
The bell tolled again. Under it came the rhythm of battle, shouted orders, the scrape of boots on stone, the snap of bowstrings, steel on bone. Yara stood at the window and watched the wall torches flare in waves as runners moved along the parapets.
She felt the pressure of it in her chest, the way the whole outpost seemed to tighten each time the bell struck. She had expected panic. She didn’t see any.
“Tell me everything,” she said, not taking her eyes off the battlements.
“I apologize, Matron,” Maningo stood a pace behind her, hands folded at his waist. “During the first and second night, the tide was worse than the records, Matron. The number of beasts more than doubled the most extreme nights we have on scroll. Without Lord Cassian, it was almost unbearable.”
“And yet we are still here,” Yara said.
“Yes, Matron. On the second night, Lord Cassian arrived with the Princess Consort.” Maningo paused. “And a few others.”
“Few?” She turned then, frowning. “Name them.”
“That is the problem.” Maningo’s mouth thinned. “No one recognized them. They arrived and were housed in a cabin near the rear palisade. They have kept to themselves since. They did not join the fighting on the third night and not tonight either.”
Yara narrowed her eyes. “Physicians? Priests? Traders?” Who would be foolish enough to travel in the north on a red moon?
“None of those. The guards in that sector only saw cloaks. Tall figures. They do not line up at the mess, they do not draw rations. Someone brings them food and takes it back out with the tray still covered.”
She let the curtain fall back into place and turned fully to him. This was not the picture she had planned for. She had come to find a yard full of stretchers, men groaning on the stones, smoke from burn pits thick enough to sting the eyes. She had brought physicians so the outpost would remember her as the one who crossed the snow to save them when their Lord failed.
Instead, the yard had order. The wounded line was shorter than she had seen in lesser raids. Armor repair tables were busy, yes, but the men at them grinned between hammer blows. She had even heard someone laugh near the kitchens when the bell wasn’t sounding. It grated her ears.
“How?” she asked, more to herself than to Maningo. “What about the stone?” Her mind hooked on the plan she’d been promised. “A corrupted lure draws them from leagues away. The tide should have eaten their strength by now.”
Maningo kept his head bowed. “I do not know, Matron.”
15:17 Sun, Sep 28
Chapter 122
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Did Cassian sense it and remove it? Yara’s jaw tightened. No. He shouldn’t have. Not now. Not under the red moon. He was supposed to be struggling against it, head split with hunger and rage, eyes glassing over at the edges. That was the point. That was why she risked leaving the keep. He was not meant to hold the outpost in this state. He was meant to stumble, to leave gaps others could fill.
So why was he steady enough to walk the wall and hold formation? Why was the outpost not screaming his name in fear, but speaking it like a shield?
The person who had promised her otherwise would answer for this.
She looked back at Maningo. “You paused when you said ‘few others. Why?”
He swallowed. “There is more.”
“Speak.”
“The Princess Consort visited the strangers‘ cabin yesterday afternoon. She went in alone. She stayed a short time and then went straight to the infirmary.”
“Bold,” Yara said, though the word tasted wrong. “And then?”
“No one knows what passed in the infirmary,” Maningo said. “But the staff say they saw Lady Reina enter after the Consort left. She was agitated, asking for the Consort by name. After that…” He hesitated.
Yara stepped closer. “After that what?”
“No one saw Lady Reina again,” he said. “Her two attendants are also unaccounted for. Their cots were not slept in. Their cloaks are gone, but no one saw them on the wall, and they were not logged at the main gate. I checked the secondary sally–port lists. Nothing.”
The bell struck again. Yara let the sound roll through the room and fade.
“Search the tunnels,” she said.
“We already sent word to patrol the dry drains and the cart runs under the yard,” Maningo replied. “Nothing yet. If they left, they did not do it the common way.”
Yara’s nails bit into her palm. She had counted on Reina’s presence here to sour the men against Halden and to keep Morrow bent at the knee. Reina’s temper was useful for that.
Maningo cleared his throat. “After that… the tide eased. Not gone, but thinner. Lord Cassian took the largest beasts himself. The wall crews handled the rest. We lost no squads.”
Yara’s eyes narrowed. “And?”
“There is one more thing you should know.” He chose his words. “Everyone in the yard is speaking her name.”
“Whose?”
“The Princess Consort’s. Lady Atasha.”
15:17 Sun, Sep 28
Chapter 122
Yara snorted. “Praising her?”
“It isn’t just praise,” Maningo said. “They’re grateful. They say she healed them.”
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“Healed them?” Based on the information that she knew, Atasha only has a little experience in the infirmary but it was only because she was an omega in her previous pack. Yara’s expression hardened. “Was it witchcraft?”
He shook his head at once. “I asked. The officers I trust were firm. They say she is not one. She… heals. That is all they will call it.”
“How is that possible?” The words came out low. “Tell me everything that you know about this matter.”
Almost immediately, Maningo spoke. “Our people said that on the third night, while the fighting raged, the Princess Consort remained in the infirmary. They say she laid her hands on the wounded, men who had been split open, who should have bled out before dawn, and those men rose again. Soldiers too far gone to be saved walked out on their own feet. Even the ones Mendez had marked for the pyre are standing on the wall now. To the men, it was nothing short of a miracle.”
Yara’s lips pressed thin, but Maningo wasn’t finished. “However, there is another rumor. They say Lord Cassian found a stone… and that stone gave her this power. Without it, she would never have been able to do what she did.”
Yara’s face darkened at once, the air around her seeming to turn heavier. “A stone?” she said, her tone sharp. Her expression twisted as she thought about the corrupt stone that was left in the northern outpost.
B
