“It’s going to be okay,” I told the male, unsure what else to say.

He grunted, holding another cloth to a deep gash above his eye. A healer appeared with a leather strap and nudged me to the side. “Hold pressure while I secure this,” he told me. I did as he asked, stretching my arms to their full length and pressing as hard as I could. He lifted the male’s leg and wiggled the strap beneath it.

The muscles in the Vezető’s neck strained, but he managed to remain silent. The healer threaded one end through the loop on the other, then tugged until the leather bit into the Vezető’s thigh. “You can release the pressure now,” the healer told me, and gingerly, I lifted the pad of fabric. No more blood squirted in my direction, and I heaved a sigh of relief.

“What now?” I asked the healer, whose garnet eyes were ringed with exhaustion.

“More clean bandages and pium from the stores. Please do get them quickly,” he said, already moving away from me and toward his next patient.

“Got it,” I replied, tossing the bloody rag into a bucket overflowing with them. Dodging males racing between the tables, I worked my way to the outside of the tent and around to the back where a second one waited with supplies. When I’d been in here hours before, everything was neatly stacked and easy to find. Now, it looked about as messy as a battlefield, with crates knocked over, some empty, others not. The formerly orderly piles of bandages were strewn across everything, and I gathered an armful before beginning a search for the vials of pium. The crate they had been in earlier was empty, and I searched the ones beside them for the green liquid.

There was none.

“Reaper’s eye,” I swore, then hurried to the exit, hoping there might be another store of them nearby.

Surely we haven’t run out already?

Racing between tents, arms laden with bandages, I still couldn’t find more.

Maybe one got mixed in with the food.

Brightened by the idea, I sprinted to the nearest cooking tent. No one would be there, given that no one was around to eat either, which meant I could rustle through the sensitive cooks’ wares undisturbed.

Before I reached it, though, voices caught my attention. I halted immediately, holding my breath so I could listen. The sound was so unlike the guttural language of the Demons, but a person was speaking, of that I was certain. Brows dipping together, I shoved hair behind my ear, trying to discern if someone was praying.

The sound was lyrical, melodic almost to the point that I wanted to listen forever to the soothing sound. Setting the bandages down as quietly as I could, I crept forward, attempting to peer around the edge of the maroon tent. A flash of movement caught my attention in the fading light. I shot forward, and three crows burst off the ground, cawing and flapping their wings wildly.

Just birds singing.

Exhaustion tugged at my limbs and my soul after the endless flow of wounded males. I must have been hearing things in an attempt to cope with it all. The thought twisted my stomach as I recalled what Rokath had told me about males who went crazy from too much time fighting at the front. Shaking my head, I grabbed the discarded bandages and continued on to the food tent in search of pium.

The tables were devoid of life, and I slipped through them, ducking behind a folding screen where the cooks kept their stores. After a few minutes of rummaging through sacks and shelves, I still hadn’t found those lifesaving bottles of pium. Tears pricked my eyes as I thought of all the males who needed it in the healing tent.

The realities of war hurt even worse than the realities of life.

Many would die because I failed in finding it or because we were simply out in the first place. Others might live if I got the bandages to them, though. Without lingering any longer, I gathered the bandages and I pushed myself into a run again, letting the tears fall in time with my feet against the ground.

I rounded the maroon tent again, only to slam into a broad male.

“Fucking ouch,” I cursed, rebounding off him and rubbing my smashed nose, eyes blurring even more from the stinging pain.

That melodic sound filled my ears again, and I jerked my head up, gaze colliding with eyes like a turquoise stone. I didn’t even have time to scream before a hand slapped over my mouth, filling my nostrils with a pungent smell. I thrashed against their hold, everything Rokath had shown me fleeing as adrenaline and fear flooded my veins. One thought managed to shatter its way through the panic—whoever this was wanted me, and didn’t want anyone to know they were taking me. I wrenched my mother’s ring off my finger and let it drop to the ground, a heartbeat before I went totally limp.

Two more passed, and then there was darkness.

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56

White bled into ruby as the salt flats turned into a bloodbath, especially where it pinched us between a low field of jagged rocks on one side and the steep slopes of an outcropping on the other. In the air, on the ground, we battled for every inch forward.

I’d known this position wasn’t ideal before we decided to engage. The narrow path made it difficult for either side to advance. Because of that, I’d assumed the Angels would realize the futility and retreat. Unfortunately for me, something shifted in their attitude and they fought with a ferocity that had been lacking since we collided in the Paks Desert.

We’d be battling into the night after all.

An Angel lunged for one of the males spearing into the front line, and without thought, I flung shadows at him. Using them like a noose, I yanked him toward me and ran him through the middle with my bronze sword. A Destructor blasted a boulder apart to my right, and I barely managed to twist my hand and morph the shadows into a shield to cover those of us in range from the falling rock.

“Fuck!” I shouted when one slipped through and whacked my shoulder. “Watch your surroundings.”

The male didn’t even have a moment to apologize or acknowledge me before two females leaped from their vantage point and onto him. There wasn’t nearly enough room to maneuver around, and the random arrows raining down didn’t help the situation either. Having to keep eyes everywhere only caused distraction and increased the chances of death.

I slashed again, pushing forward with the group, managing to pierce deeper into their line. If we could only divide them more…

Fear, so potent that it sent me staggering back, exploded down the mating bond. I stumbled to the side, nearly tripping over a fallen Angel, before shaking my head to clear it. That terror wasn’t my own, which meant the source of it waited for me at the camp.

“Assyria?” I called down our bond. The battle had taken all of my attention, and I hadn’t even thought of her since I leaped off my horse and charged forward with the Demon warriors.

Silence.

“Assyria!”

Distracted, I nearly missed the incoming arrow. At the last second, I leaped to the side again. The projectile buried itself in the back of a face-down Demon.

“Assyria!” I shouted for the third time, flooding our bond with attention in the hopes she’d respond to me.

I felt nothing, heard nothing.

An icy chill rolled through me. Something was wrong—very, very wrong.

All around me, the soldiers struggled for more ground. Spearheading the attack into their front line, my power and my leadership were essential. Dividing their forces would aid us in eliminating them, and if we needed to change course, I was in the heart of the action to determine that. Without Rapp or Trol, I was the sole command and all major decisions rested on my shoulders.