The debates began anew after we had retired from our posts upon the wall. The chief and elders would grant our people the entirety of the day to speak among ourselves and have our voices heard within the hall. Aveela had stationed herself there too though she dozed off through a few hours of the afternoon.

  By dusk, most of us had reached the same conclusion we had when news first reached us of the Hume’s approach—we would leave and pass into the north. The chief set our date of departure before the ultimatum, five days after the delivery of the message, with one already spent in debate.

  Aveela and I hadn’t returned to our conversation from the night before when she vowed she would not be leaving nor would she submit herself to the Hume. The following morning, I rehearsed the arguments I’d planned when the horns sounded again from the wall. The call to arms was the same as it had been the day before, which I didn’t understand.

  I sprinted for the wall. Mirdal found me halfway there and ran after me, climbing up onto the ramparts and sheltering beside me. The soldiers had gathered outside their camp and approached in formation, their captain in the lead. He carried his helmet against his side.

  Beyond them, the herald and adjudicator had departed from the soldiers’ camp.

  Even from my position upon the wall, pain and anger radiated from the captain’s face as he glared up at us, his temper barely restrained. “We came to you in peace,” he cried, addressing the head of our ranks since the chief was still making his way here. “And yet this is how you respond?”

  The other soldiers, still helmeted, stared up at us as we whispered one to the next, trying to understand the reason of their gathering. “On his way back to Shakerton, Sheriff Calvert was attacked by one Bansaerin Lif-Kannis who murdered the sheriff in cold blood.”

  My breath shuddered in my chest, and I seized Mirdal’s hand in mine.

  I searched the captain’s expression but he held my gaze. He believed what he was saying, but his claims were impossible. Bansaerin murder the sheriff? He’d gone to find the Umbral Wolves, and as much as he despised the Hume, he wouldn’t attack one unprovoked. He wasn’t a killer.

  “We have apprehended the villain and taken him to Shakerton where he confessed to his crimes.”

  My vision swam. I could scarcely comprehend his words. Mirdal held more tightly to my hand.

  “He is to be transported to Dust and made an example of.”

  I lost my composure then, crumpling into Mirdal’s shoulder. He caught me and helped prevent my fall.

  “Any further violence against the Order or the representatives of His Majesty the King, and we will put the settlement to fire and the sword.”

  At that, wails of dismay rose up among our number, and Lifkin began staggering away from the wall.

  We all knew what it meant for one of our own to be taken to Dust and brought before the Baron. He ruled this region in the king’s name. He’d earned his moniker, the Hammer, for the many prisoners and enemies he’d broken with it, torturing them to death himself rather than using an executioner.

  My stomach rolled. He would take delight in hurting Bansaerin, and we would never see him again. He’d be held as a prize, humiliated, just as my father and his brothers had been. And then he’d be hurt more than his captors likely were doing now, whatever they’d done to him that had made him confess to a crime I knew he wasn’t capable of.

  The fear I’d been dreading with the first news of the Hume’s arrival settled heavily over our settlement. In a daze, Mirdal and I wandered away from the wall. “What are we going to do?” Mirdal whispered to me.

  “I’m not sure. But we can’t leave him with them.” We couldn’t let the Hume take him to the baron.

  “Bansaerin would come to rescue us,” Mirdal agreed. He chewed his lower lip, staring, unseeing, out at our familiar surroundings. “I think he would especially make sure to rescue you, Draeza.”

  I wasn’t as sure about that specifically. Bansaerin would come for any of our number, especially one of the Nightblades, on principle of us being taken by the Hume. But these soldiers were different, stronger, than the Hume of Shakerton, and the herald and adjudicator had the Order’s foul magic behind them.

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  A plan started to take shape, though many of its particulars eluded me. I knew Bansaerin hadn’t killed the sheriff, so the next most reasonable step was to prove Bansaerin’s innocence by finding out who had. I needed to go to Shakerton, but first I had to see my uncle and to tell Aveela I’d be absent again. Maybe she would let Mirdal help her pack once he’d finished assisting the apothecary.

  “Oh, in all the chaos, I’d almost forgotten.” I held out the healing poultice Mirdal had given me, the one I’d managed to hold onto in the trade for the lavender oil.

  Mirdal enclosed my fingers around it. “Keep it. Maybe it will help him. Or if not Bansaerin, then you.”

  I hugged him, suddenly overwhelmed by the task before me. Going to Shakerton on an errand from Aveela was one thing, convincing Hume of the Order that I needed to speak to a prisoner was something entirely different.

  I rubbed beneath my eyes with the back of my hand. “I didn’t even ask you how your love potion is going.”

  “Ah.” Mirdal waved his hand dismissively. “We all have enough transpiring at the moment. I will simply pine for a short while longer and begin my suit again when we reach the north.”

  The chief’s son is exceedingly lucky to have such a prospect, just as I am to have such a friend. I smiled at Mirdal—he knew all of this without me having to say it. “Will you look in on Aveela today? Help her with the packing?”

  “I wouldn’t miss her scolding for all the lavender oil in Breoland.”

  My mentor was quiet as I told her about my intentions for the day, very unlike her. “Is it the Hume spirit I saw? Are you still thinking about that?”

  “No, child. I am remembering the conversations I’ve had about you with your mother.”

  I stopped my frenzied packing. Aveela had a special tone she used to refer to her conversations with spirits, one that was different than the tone with which she spoke of the departed.

  “She knew yours would be a path of adventure, just as I have as well.” Aveela shook her head. “You may not believe me now, but neither of our paths lie to the north.”

  “Aveela, are you speaking of my mother’s spirt? She—” My throat clogged. I cleared it around the knot that had swollen there. “Her spirit has appeared to you?”

  “Yes, yes, though I have not seen her for years now.” Aveela set her cloudy gaze upon me. “She will find you again when it is time.”

  My lips parted but no words emerged. What was I to say to such news?

  “But you must go, now, and rescue your friend. I will ensure they have the texts they need to go with them to the north.” Aveela shook her head as she looked over her bookshelf, dropping her voice in a murmur to herself more than an address to me. “Such stories we’ve heard. They will have to suffice for a time without a spiritspeaker, yes.”

  I squeezed her hand as I left and promised Mirdal would be along to help her in the afternoon.

  I arrived at my aunt and uncle’s hut just in time to catch Uncle before he met with the advance guard who would be departing in the afternoon to stake out a place for us in the north and who, unbeknownst to the Hume, would be joined by the scouts protecting the Seed.

  Aunt and Uncle had received the news of Eletria’s pregnancy with a mix of joy and sorrow. It would have always been the child’s fate to grow up outside of Lifkin society, but to do so now, with us so far away, had tipped the scales once again on sorrow’s side.

  I set apart from my mind what Aveela had said about me not accompanying them to the north. Aunt Rugan was still red-eyed at the thought of departing from her daughter and her first grandchild.

  She rushed out and embraced me as I drew near, ushering me inside. Orabella toddled over to me and crawled up into my lap as I spoke to her parents, contented to play with the beaded doll toy I’d made for her for her second birthday while her sisters played a string game by the fire.

  “I know he’s innocent, Uncle. I have to go to Shakerton and find out what happened.”

  Uncle’s jaw worked back and forth. Bansaerin had been a source of argument between us for years. He reminded Uncle too much of my papa—a bright-burning fire untempered by wisdom.

  Upon my arrival, he’d explained the chief’s reaction to the news of Bansaerin’s arrest. Like me, he’d questioned whether or not the Hume spoke true. He and Uncle had agreed that no one was to leave the settlement without express permission from either Uncle or the chief, but there were no plans to rescue Bansaerin. It was the chief’s primary responsibility to protect those of us who remained from the Hume’s swords and flame.

  Uncle paced before me while Aunt furiously scrawled out a letter to Eletria, apologizing for the distance that had grown between them after Eletria had taken up with Parrith. Aunt had purchased a pound of the apothecary’s stores for pregnancy tea and was sending it with me to Shakerton.

  “How will you make it past the soldiers?” Uncle asked.

  I nodded toward Aunt Rugan. “I’ll explain my visit to Eletria before our departure. They won’t suspect me.”

  He grumbled low in his throat. “They don’t need suspicion, Draeza. They simply need an excuse.”

  Though I wouldn’t say as much to him, there were times when Uncle reminded me of Bansaerin. He’d never forgiven them for what they’d done to his sister nor for them taking Iredella, but he did believe in choosing diplomacy when possible, in walking a path of wisdom. “I’ll be careful,” I said instead.

  His jaw tightened again but he nodded. “And you will be wise?”

  I smiled at that. “I promise.”

  Uncle sighed. “Do not do anything reckless. Tensions are high enough as it is.”