YAHIRO

She gripped the tree, heaving, trying to catch her breath, her eyes tearing up from the stress of the moment. Of waking up to a strange alien man staring down at her, of him grabbing hold of her arm and forcibly pulling her from her safe cocoon within Quist’s arms. Even now as she bent over, her free hand rubbing the cramps from her side, she felt the alien’s grip on her. Saw his molten precious metal eyes.

Too much. Her throat burned from the chilly air. I can’t take much more. For the next several minutes all she could do was cough, catch her breath, and tame the nerves that remained intact.

What had she been thinking? Yahiro dropped to her knees on the cold forest floor. Every time I let down my guard, the carousel jumps off the rails. She rubbed her nose against her shoulder and caught hold of her talisman, leeching its warmth for her own.

When she began to shake, feeling a full-blown panic attack arise, a sorrowful bellow filled the night. She shrank further into herself, barely holding back her screams. Her hands left the stone as her shivers became trembles. She pressed her nails hard into her skin and up her clothed arms, over her neck until she streaked them over her scalp. I can’t take anymore. Tears streamed down her cheeks, desperately missing Quist. Yahiro pulled at her hair.

The pain stabilized her.

She didn’t know how much time passed. She didn’t even care, as she warred to keep her mind from shattering while part of her wanted to give in.

Please, Quist, find me. Where are you? Find me. Where are you? She couldn’t muster the willpower to look up, crying and begging for her alien in her mind. But as more time passed and her head went numbingly clear, she realized he wasn’t coming. I’m not in your sight anymore. She sniffled back a cry.

It wasn’t until another horrible, gut-wrenching roar sounded that she realized the worst of the panic attack had ebbed and she’d come out the other end sane and alive. Her body missed Quist’s warmth, his strength, his steady presence. She knew she was being irrational, but he was the first good thing to happen to her and she’d latched onto it. Now she was attached to the point that even after just a few days, she didn’t think she could face this new world without him.

The connection that zipped and zinged through her whenever they touched had felt so right, so perfect. It was as though their bond had been predestined straight from the beginning despite the billions of miles in between.

Yahiro pulled herself back up to her feet, even more tired than before, and chanced a glance around her. It was still dark but it now had that gauzy feel of early morning. A stringy path of light shot out from her stone that led her back into the dense forest. It was the same airy trail that had appeared that first night in the swamp.

And it led me off a cliff...

She wiped her hands on her shirt and followed it anyway, already knowing exactly where it was leading her. It wasn’t long before she came back upon the stranger who had grabbed her.

She tiptoed toward him and Quist, who was lying on the ground, and choked. Yahiro rushed to his side without a thought to the other alien. Quist was motionless and covered in blood. Her eyes immediately fell to the wound on his side and the large hands that put pressure on it.

“What’ve you done!?” She dropped to her knees with a cry and peeled the stranger's fingers away but quickly stopped when the blood started running again. “Oh my god.” Yahiro clenched her eyes shut and forced the nausea back down her throat.

“I killed him,” the strange alien answered her, his voice dead. She glanced up to see his features no longer painted in wild aggression. They were now numb and zombielike. “It’s my fault.” He briefly looked at her, shadows and light danced across his somber features before he huddled back over her alien.

Her heart was in her throat and fear clogged her head. He can’t die. Quist promised. You promised! She tore off her necklace and the stone attached and placed it on his chest, hoping for something, anything to happen. Nothing did. Helplessly, she wiped the blood off her hands over the moss, pausing when she felt a stray feather beneath her fingers. She lifted it between them and clenched it into her fist.

“You’re not dying on me. Not now!”

She turned away, stumbling over herself and got to work picking up all the loose feathers she could find. Her hands were filled within seconds. Her eyes landed on the fallen broadsword and with gritted teeth and pain, lifted and dragged it away. The other alien didn’t even notice.

“Help me!” she screeched in frustration, unable to watch Quist die, unable to look directly at him for fear she’d be too late.

Somehow the new alien heard her and straightened, his fingertips dripping with blood, his shadowy gold eyes piercing through her soul. “There’s nothing we can do!”

Yahiro quickly turned away and lowered her feathers into the water, drenching them. “We can save him if we hurry!” she said it more for herself than for him. She returned to Quist’s side and laid his feathers in and over his wound, hoping they would help him like they had helped her. Immediately the blood stopped flowing and her heart skipped a beat.

Please, please, please! Please work. “I need a-a knife, a dagger?” she stumbled over her request as she cleaned Quist’s wounds, hating that her alien showed no sign of life. “I can’t lose you now, I’ve lost so much...”

The other alien produced a skinny curved blade and handed it to her. He remained silent, but watchful. Her adrenaline pumped through every fiber of her being while her heart cracked like glass with each passing second.

She removed the feathers and checked the wound, disgusted by how deep it was, but moved on quickly. Her hands shook as she worked. First, she pulled the thread from Quist’s hair and had the new alien rinse it in the water; while he did that, she shaved the frills off of one of Quist’s shorter feathers and made a shabby needle out of its stem. Her eyes brimmed with tears, looking at her handiwork with shame, but threaded it anyway.

“What are you doing?”

Yahiro pinched the bloody-again skin together and sucked in a breath. She had been trained for emergencies but she only had second hand knowledge of sewing wounds back together.

“I fucking miss Earth,” she hissed as she poked the feather stem through Quist’s skin, and with many mishaps, proceeded to sew his wound together.

Time passed with numerous curses, choking retches, and the other alien sitting on the other side of her constantly cleaning and changing the feathers she gathered. No matter what he did or didn’t do, she didn’t think she could forgive him.

When her makeshift needle broke, he prepared another one for her. Neither of them checked Quist’s pulse, neither one wanting to know if their effort was for nothing. She told herself it was better off not knowing, not yet at least, not until she had done everything she possibly could to save him.

It seemed like hours had gone by before she finished stitching his skin.

Finger joints aching, Yahiro rubbed her nose over her sleeve and sat back, eyeing her work for any gaps that she may have missed but found none, only red and swollen skin. She startled when an arm nudged her to the side and the other alien, so alike Quist yet not, took over.

With his hand filled with freshly wet feathers, he tenderly placed them over the wound until it was fully covered, and she reached forward to use the others to clean off the rest of his golden skin. His beautifully honed skin... Her eyes fell upon it, the piercings, the star shapes, and the silken hair that haloed his head. She took him in, remembering the feel of it all over her not an evening past. Her own skin grew cold from the thought of never being warmed by his again.

Yahiro pressed a hand over her heart, wishing the ache would stop. None of it made sense to her. None of it. Only that she had bonded to Quist so suddenly, so absolutely it was like Cupid himself using Apollo’s bow and arrows shooting her straight to soul. She sniffled and pulled her knees to her chest while hovering over his face, brushing her fingers over his brow, and losing them in his hair. She leaned down and kissed his unresponsive lips and nuzzled his face. Please.

With her breath against his cheek, she murmured, “Please, Lusheenn.” The grey and gold blending of early dawn flowed now throughout the glen.

“Who are you?”

Yahiro looked up to see the other alien staring at her intensely. She wiped her tears.

“Yahiro of Quist,” she breathed.

His face softened into shock before it was quickly gone and he nodded, keeping his eyes on her. His gaze was heavy and made her feel small. He makes me feel like a butterfly next to an eagle. She did her best to keep her courage in place. But the longer they looked at each other, the more she saw the resemblance to Quist in him.

Major differences aside, being this new valos had no wings and was in a full suit of gilded armor, their build and shape were the same. Even the color and length of their long hair were the same. But for some reason, she had the notion this one was a lot older and it wasn’t for his rugged, hard appearance... He had an air about him that intimidated her into a puddle of mush. Where Quist was pierced by metal, this one had no piercings whatsoever.

She tore her gaze from his and ran it over his armor. He looked like a medieval knight, straight from the Templars, or from some alternate fantastical world where paladins existed and they embodied righteousness. He screamed authority without opening his mouth.

Yahiro looked back at Quist’s wound. The feathers were unblemished with blood but it didn’t make her feel better.

The paladin cleared his throat and it made her heart skip a beat.

“Where are you from?” his voice was razor-sharp with demand. She frowned, hating the way it made her feel.

“Earth.”

“I’ve never heard of them.”

Them? Yahiro leaned over and rested her head against Quist’s chest, hoping to hear a heartbeat, knowing he may not even have a heart.

“Earth is a place,” she whispered, her mood sinking further.

“In the sky?”

She closed her eyes. Please stop talking.

“Sure. Yes.”

“I’ve never heard of this Earth,” he murmured, his voice directly beside her now. She stopped herself from flinching and fleeing, reaching out instead to clasp the stone she had placed on Quist’s chest and pressed it between her palm and his chilly skin.

“You wouldn’t have.”

“My name is Sundamar...”

“I don’t care!” Yahiro snapped out, feeling a little guilty when he didn’t say anything after.

The hours slipped by until the morning light streamed through the trees like thrown spears and as she knew would happen, the stone held between her and Quist vanished as daybreak stole away the night. She clung to it, to him, as hard as she could even knowing Sundamar was right across from her waiting and watching. Yahiro didn’t care. She didn’t even know if she hated him; she just wanted one thing to go right in her miserable life.

One. Damn. Thing.

He remained unmoving under her cheek and she was about to accept the fact that he was gone when a beam of light hit them directly and his wing flopped.

“Quist?” her voice came out hoarse and thick. She lifted her head and looked over his body, hoping for more movement but nothing happened and the glen dipped back into waning light and tree-shadow. “Quist?” she sniffled and peeled back the damp wings over his wound carefully. Sundamar stood abruptly, giving her room, and moved away as if her closeness suddenly bothered him. She paid him no mind as she switched out the feathery bandages.

Suddenly crunching and crushing sounds filled her ears, startling her backward but not before her eyes filled with blinding sunlight.

“Stop!” she shrieked, unsure why, trying to see but her eyes wouldn’t dilate fast enough. Branches, leaves, and bark rained down around the area, all of it missing her and Quist, and under the ruckus, she heard a moaned gasp escape his lips.

Yahiro turned back toward him and cupped his cheeks. “Quist? Wake up. Please. You’re safe, I promise. Please wake up!” she begged but he did nothing by squirm and groan. The sun continued to fill the space until she sat within a ringlet of gold and had a wall of broken up and cleaved brush around her.

The sun is helping him.

She shot to her feet and tore away any of the remaining brush, following the other alien around as he slashed his sword in powerful arcs, one-shotting trees straight in half. Each one that he felled made her heart race faster, all honed down to land opposite of her and Quist. Yahiro dragged the sticks away and returned her focus on keeping the area around them clear, and when that was done, when the other alien was single-handedly creating his own little field, she worked on dousing Quist’s body with fresh water and wiping the sweat that poured from his skin. She created a leafy pillow for his head to rest upon.

Time continued to pass and she eventually got rid of the bandages altogether, shifting her alien’s body so his wound had direct light. When his eyelids fluttered and a soft breath escaped his lips, she curled up into herself and cried.

His chest fell and rose as if he was in nothing more than a deep slumber. When her tears dried and her skin tightened under the rays of the sun, she squeezed his hand and made her way to Sundamar, who had yet to stop his deforestation.

“Sundamar?” she said, hesitantly. When he continued on as if he didn’t hear her, his armor clanking under another powerful swipe, she grasped the cloth furrows between the armored slates at his back. “Sundamar, he’s fine.”

It was the least she could do. Before he answered her, she turned around and went to the water. His heavy steps snapped the fallen branches but she refused to look, knowing he moved to Quist’s side. Yahiro didn’t want to thank him. She didn’t want to look at him. Instead, she wanted Quist to get better so he could pick her up and fly her somewhere far away.

She frowned as she cupped the water and drank, her face a distorted reflection on its surface. Where would she and Quist go? She knew next to nothing about Sonhadra and what she did know, the broken ship and inmates, she wanted nothing to do with.

As far as I know... Yahiro didn’t want to finish the thought. She clenched her eyes shut but couldn’t stop herself. As far as I know, he could’ve taken me straight to him. Sundamar. Even now she could feel him watching her.

Several phena swam by and her stomach growled, promptly reminding her that she was a mortal and on borrowed time.

A shadow appeared at her side.

“Are you okay, pale one?”

Yahiro ignored him and the way his voice sang a melody through her ears, choosing to splash the sweat and grime off her face. She moved to stand and his hand wrapped around her upper arm. She tore it from his grip.

“Don’t touch me!”

She went back to Quist’s side and placed a soft kiss on his lips. “I’ll be right back. Don’t wake up without me.”

Without looking back at the other alien, she made her way down the stream until she was back beneath the forest shadows and got to work.

***

SUNDAMAR

He watched the female walk away from him and continued to do so until she was beyond his sight and amongst the foliage. The pounding noise that filled his ears as her steps receded was from his heart and he clenched his hand around his sword to re-exert control over his body.

She healed Quist. To remind himself, he moved to his brother and checked his wound. A pang of remorse, painful guilt, stiffened his back as he eyed the zig-zagged sewed-together edges. It looked painful and he placed a hand on his own side in response.

“I’m sorry,” he grunted out, not used to the words on his tongue. Sundamar grabbed additional foliage from the ground and reinforced the pillow Yahiro had made. So thoughtful. He sprinkled fresh cool water over Quist’s chest, his brother’s even breaths easing his heart.

He had lost his head. The emotions streaming through him weren’t helping, and his battle with the strange, obsessive need to touch the female was constantly warring inside him. Sundamar had never in his long, dead life lifted a weapon against another light valos. He had also never wanted a female companion to hold under his arm. So many things were happening, suddenly and all at once, that it made him want to stab his sword into the dirt and kill the world.

He glanced around him and looked at the destruction his frustration had caused; the dozens of trees, bushes, and various plants he had sliced to pieces. He was only thankful no alluvian valos were nearby to see. I’m more thankful I had an outlet that wasn’t her.

Even now, staring at his brother, he wanted to go after the female and envelope her within his arms, press her into his chest, and bury his nose in her hair. The thought that Quist had done all of that possibly, and more, filled him with jealousy.

He was the first, their commander, the one to lead them when Lusheenn was absent. It was his right to the first female light valos.

Sundamar gritted his teeth and let the sick thoughts leave him. Once his temperament had calmed, he shuffled Quist’s wings so they were straight and uncrimped. When he was done, he sat back, not knowing what else to do.

He looked up at the sky and cursed. Where are you, Galan? I need you. His thoughts shot out from him in hopes to connect to his second, but they didn’t and ended up in the void where all past thoughts were.

Somewhere off in the distance he heard a splash of water. Yahiro was still close enough that he could get to her in case of an attack but as he looked away from his brother and toward the outcropping of undisturbed forest, his curiosity got the best of him.

There’s nothing I can do but stare at Quist’s resting form. He knew nothing about healing, never having been hurt before. Sundamar trailed a finger along the stitched seams and wondered how the female thought to do that.

An exasperated grunt sounded amongst the splashes and he found himself following the noise. For the first time in his life, he quieted his footsteps, not wanting the female to know he moved closer to her.

What am I doing? It irked him how lowly she made him feel. I’m the image of Lusheenn. And yet he remained quiet, which was made all the more difficult with his armor.

The female had her legs in the water, her feet submerged, and her trousers off. His eyes trailed over her lithe legs until they reached a strap of cloth around her groin. In her hands was the knife he’d given her and the orange material; she yanked the sharpened edge through it, cutting them in half.

Sundamar canted his head and moved into a crouch. Her teeth dug into her lower lip as she struggled with the cloth but she eventually stopped and placed the cut-off material aside.

After, she ran her hands over her legs and feet, scrubbing them until they were pink. He glanced down at his own skin, knowing the light bronze hue of it never changed colors regardless of weather or exposure. When he looked up the female had lifted her feet out of the water and had picked up a long stick, the top part of it pointed until it resembled a spear.

He already knew he’d have to re-sharpen his dagger after finding the shaved chips of wood near the shore.

Yahiro moved away from him and his gaze followed her shapely legs, his member protruding from between his legs and pressing painfully into the armored leather that protected it. The scrap of cloth between her legs was nearly see-through, dampened with water, and he could almost see what was between her legs as she moved back and forth along the shore.

If he had been more patient, he may have had the sense to ask Quist what he knew of the female's anatomy.

Instead, he’d lost control and now had to deal with observing her from the shadows. Sundamar tamped back the regret, knowing he may have been allowed to touch her if his jealousy hadn’t been so overwhelming. A new need arose in him as he observed her, and it took what little control he had left to remain where he was and not pull her into his arms and bind them together.

His eyes narrowed when she stopped and slowly leaned over the water. What are you doing? He was fascinated and tried to crook his head so he could see what her eyes tracked so carefully.

Yahiro raised the primitive spear before her and clasped it with both hands. A moment’s breath passed before she struck it into the water and struck it again immediately after, uttering a strange word.

Hunting. He smiled and settled in for the show.

Time passed and she tried again and again, every now and then storming back to Quist’s side to check on him, to tentatively scout around and look for him, before eventually going back to the water and spearing it. After a while he realized she was becoming more desperate, and yet he didn’t leave his hiding spot. He didn’t want to remind her he was there.

If she would only call my name. Ask for help aloud... Sundamar would have made himself known.

He wanted her to want him, needed her to look for him. He hated that, besides his brother’s quick revival, he wanted to consume her every thought.

But whenever he made a move to rise and help her with her hunt when she was on the verge of giving up, she’d get right back up with a groan and go at it again.

Call me, Yahiro. Remember I’m here now too. He envied Quist. Even when unconscious and undisturbed, he received her lips freely.

Every time she threw her spear aside to check on his brother, she would place her lips over Quist’s, and every time she did it, Sundamar rubbed his own, wishing the female would search him out and do the same.

She went to spear another phena and failed.

“Fuck!” She released her weapon into the water and allowed it to float away as she dropped to her knees and fell back onto the ground with a rattling sigh.

He unclenched his hand and stepped quietly out of the gloom and went to her side. She startled when his shadow fell over her pinkened face and quickly sat up. He approached slowly, hoping not to startle her away, and watched as her brow crinkled and she leaned back.

“Your eyes are hooded,” he murmured, staring into her eyes for the first time. Sundamar had never seen such cloudy, stormy eyes. “Why?”

Her mouth twisted, opening and closing before she found her words. “I don’t trust you.”

It felt like a hammer to his gut.

“Why?” Sundamar kneeled so that he would be eye level with the female. His armor pressed into him in all the wrong places.

“You almost killed Quist!”

His jaw ticked. “Quist almost killed himself.”

“So he picked up your sword and sawed into his side? I don’t think so. He wouldn’t be so stupid.”

Any nervousness she might have had was now gone. She held his gaze unflinchingly. He pressed his fist into the soil. “He disobeyed his commander.”

“You tried to take me away!”

“I wasn’t going to hurt you!” His voice rose as he dug his fingers into the ground.

“How was he supposed to know!? Quist promised to protect me!” she screamed, getting on her knees and pushing at his chest. His body didn’t move.

“And I wouldn’t? I can protect you as well as he can! Better. I would be the better choice.” Sundamar barely heard his own words but felt the burn of them on his tongue.

Yahiro turned her rolling eyes away from his, and he wanted to tear a tree limb from limb. I’m losing her. He reached out to take her hand but stopped himself. It went unnoticed as she lifted herself back to her feet and went after her spear. He followed her every move and hated the wariness in her gait.

“Go away. I liked it better when you weren’t here.” Her voice was numb as she lifted her ridiculous weapon and failed to spear another phena.

“I’ve been here the whole time protecting you, making sure you and my brother were safe. I’m your commander: you obey my orders, I don’t obey yours.”

“Wow.” He didn’t understand the word. “Last time a man watched me without me knowing it, I destroyed him, but not before he took my life so completely that I ended up on an alien world. I’m going to be my own person now, and tell you I don’t obey any man. Not anymore.”

His eyes narrowed, confused and angered by what she said. Another man watched her? Sundamar looked around before he convinced himself they were alone. Dead—dust... back into the void. Could the female have the power to do that? It was one thing to die by nature, another thing completely to be destroyed. Only a Creator had that kind of power.

“I won’t take your life like this being had and send you away...”

Yahiro shot him a look before turning away and stabbing the water over and over with her spear until it broke in half. She threw the remaining half away. “You already have!”

Her yell rang in his ears and he stood. They came to a head and he reached out to touch her but she flitted away and grabbed the extra cloth from her pants before heading back through the tree line and toward Quist’s unconscious body.

“I have?” he grunted to himself and pulled out his broadsword. His muscles bulged and twitched with the need to break something apart. Sundamar heard her tired, angry groans from far off behind him as he lifted his sword and took his frustration out on the land. He wanted to go to her. The pull inside his gut yanked him in her direction, but he pushed it down and did his best to ignore it.

Her eyes had storms.

The afternoon had come and gone by the time he stepped from the water with a pile of hacked up phena corpses in his arms. And as he headed back to Yahiro and his brother, the sweet smell of the female’s scent filled his nose.

He dropped the offering at her side, watching her face and hoping that he had finally done something right.

She lifted her head off of Quist’s chest, eyes lowered and glazed with sleep, and he realized he had woken her from a nap. When her gaze fell on the phena, a sad grumble sounded from within her belly. He sucked in a breath and went to check on his brother’s wound.

Quist’s skin had all but knitted completely back together and the string that ran through was settling into his skin as if it belonged. Yahiro moved toward his offering without a word and he chose to keep his silence, his fingers tracing over the zig-zagging pattern of Quist’s wound in awe. His brother’s wings twitched and resettled onto the ground.

“He’s gleaming.”

Sundamar snapped his eyes up to see the female looking at Quist. The litany of her dialect soothed him. She’s looking at his sun piercings.

“Quist always does in the light, more so when he’s happy.”

“He’s happy?”

“Yes. He must know you’re watching over him.”

Her fingers trailed up and down the golden baubles over his neck and shoulder. His own skin prickled with the whispering touch. Sundamar tore his eyes away.

“How?” she asked.

“How? Because of the pull, the one that brought us together. He feels your nearness and it’s comforting him.” It’s how I feel. Her movements stopped for a moment before she continued. “Thank you for saving him,” he said at last.

“I’m not sure if I have... He hasn’t woken yet and my stitching, it’s terrible. I’m praying it doesn’t get infected.”

“He’ll wake soon and a simple wound from a blade won’t fester, only shadows do that. Look.” He pulled on the skin between Quist’s stitches, “It’s already mended.” Yahiro leaned toward him and he held still.

A sigh escaped her lips. “I wish I healed like that.”

“You don’t?”

She shook her head, sending her long silken hair scattering over her shoulders. “A wound like that, without proper medicine and treatment, without the,” she stumbled over her words, “the conveniences of Earth would take weeks, maybe even months, if it didn’t kill me.”

A sudden, sharp fear in him grew. “Yahiro—”

“—why did you grab me anyway?”

He looked over her shoulder and sighed. “My arms wanted to be around you.”

There was a long pause before she answered him. “I’m with Quist.”

“You’re with both of us,” he hissed between his teeth. So many shadowed emotions! “Galan too.”

“No. I’m not.” She looked up and held his eyes.

“Then you don’t feel the tug in your chest, the one that’s clawing at you from the inside out to be near me too? Because that’s what I feel, it’s what Quist feels, and Galan. We glimpsed you, several dawns back. It was crushing—that immediate feeling—seeing you through Quist’s eyes and being so far away. Don’t deny me.” He reached for her and the moment the pads of his fingers touched hers, she jerked away.

“Don’t!” she gasped and crawled back a few steps. “Please. I’m not a valos. I’m not even supposed to be here! Whatever this is—” she waved between all three of them “—is wrong.”

Don’t deny me.

‘She’s not.’ Sundamar startled and looked at Quist.

‘You’re awake?’

‘No.’

‘You shouldn’t have denied me.’ It was as close to an apology as he would give his third.

‘Look at her. You know I’m right. She’s not safe on the ground. I can feel the sun fading already, my skin isn’t as warm and my blood...’

Sundamar sucked in a deep breath, inhaling the tangy scent even though it had been diluted by water and multiple scrubbings. Many of Sonhadra’s predators could smell blood from leagues away, even if it was only several drops.

He reached for his sword, suddenly feeling the shadows under his feet.

“What’re you doing?” Yahiro watched him warily.

“We need to move.” He stood and checked the sky, the sun already on its way toward dusk.

“Why?” Yahiro rose with him and looked up where he had. “Is something wrong?”

“Ak’rena are coming.” Sundamar went about their camp and retrieved any wayward items.

“Those... those are the monsters that screech?”

“What’s a monster? Yes, the ak’rena screech.” He turned back toward her. “Can you travel? Are you hurt at all? Is there anything you need before we leave this spot?” I have no idea what you need. He waited for her response with apprehension and frustration. He hated that he didn’t know how to provide for her.

Yahiro looked down at herself, at Quist, and frowned. “Only him. I won’t leave without him.”

Sundamar felt his lips twitch up into a tiny smirk. ‘This is going to hurt, brother.’ He folded Quist’s wings in and hefted his body into his arms, cradling what he could. Feathers fell around him in trickling waves.

“Stay close.”

She stepped close to his side and gripped his armor. He wished he could feel her skin touch his. He wished he was holding her in his arms rather than his third.

“Yes, sir,” Yahiro whispered at his side, her heart pounding loud enough for him to hear. Sundamar canted his head toward her.

“You’re safe with me, pale one. The ak’rena are night prowlers and there is time yet, but once the lower light and twilight haze cover the land, they’ll awaken and come straight here, brought on by the bloodshed of this morning. I won’t risk you.”

Her grey eyes met his. “Promise?” she whispered.

“Promise?”

She latched onto him tighter. “Oath?”

Sundamar narrowed his eyes and nodded. “It’s an oath.”