Page 164 of The Incendiary

“Attention!” Valda shouted over the loud chatter while Elias climbed to the top of the platform. The mixed crowd of troops and cadets fell silent.

“At ease,” Elias announced when he was ready to speak. “Two of our soldiers have been intercepted and are being held hostage by Insidions. There aren’t more than fifty of them, but they’re far too close to the Caves for comfort. We can’t wait. All cadets will remain within fortress walls. Lay low and stay inside your cabins. As for the rest of us? We’re going to them, and we’re leaving now.”

At his command, Elias’s troops dispersed and leapt into action.

“Fera!” Elias’s shout made Finn and me pause. He hopped down from the platform and approached. “I want you with us if you’re able, not with the other cadets. Are you sure you’re well enough to go?”

“Yes,” I answered. Healed bones would have to be good enough. I was determined to fight for myself. When that didn’t feel like enough, I would fight for the man who taught me how.

“And you and me?” Elias lowered his voice so only Finn and I could hear. “Are we all right?”

Finn took one look between Elias and me. I could tell he wanted to bolt. I grasped his wrist, keeping him still. As I stared at Elias, sour anger festered, but there were lives at stake. Today, I needed to set my resentment aside. “I have your back,” I assured him.

Relief washed over his handsome face. Relief that he didn’t deserve, given the way he hurt me. Still, I wanted to believe him when he answered, “And I have yours.”

I started to turn away but froze when I saw how Elias stared after Finn, eyes now filled with dread.

“What is it, Commander?” I asked as a sick feeling settled in the pit of my stomach.

Elias looked at Finn with a silent apology. “The Insidions. The soldiers they captured. They have Tremaine.”

I was grateful we had horses, because I wasn’t sure Finn could walk after Elias revealed that Insidions had Gemma. He barely spoke the entire four-hour ride to our destination. Neither could I. We both did our best not to imagine the worst.

Elias wanted me riding near him. Whether that was because he felt guilty, he didn’t want me out of his sight, or he valued me as a fighter, I didn’t know. I obliged, if only because my energy was needed elsewhere.

Other soldiers lagged a few hours behind as backup. A camp was set up near a rushing river a few hundred feet wide. The camp of the Insidions was about a mile downriver, just close enough to make out their faintest movements beneath the high noon sky.

“Come with me,” muttered Elias when we dismounted, indicating a large tent in the center of the camp. Inside sat four middle-aged soldiers around a table. They stood when Elias entered.

“At ease,” he ordered immediately. “Has any progress been made?”

“Unfortunately not, Commander,” answered a tall brunette woman with olive skin and short, cropped hair. “They want a fight.”

Elias’s nostrils flared. “What could be so important to them about two of ours that they’d risk their own in combat? Tremaine and her partner were only carrying information on adjusted trade routes through northern Wymara toward a northern outpost.”

The woman cleared her throat. Her suspicious eyes flitted to me. “There’s been talk of spies among the ranks, sir.”

Elias noticed and bit out, “Yes. Draven Finch is dead. Alec Gerard, Otis Stoll, and the Sharpe brothers are allegedly working with Molochai and are being tracked. But Fera has been with me.”

“We’ve been trying to get more out of them for hours,” said one of the men. “We’ve offered them gold and horses. We’ve ensured free and safe passage through the border back to Tugaf if they give our people back to us. They won’t negotiate.”

Elias rubbed his chin in thought. “How many do we have?”

“We brought two hundred.”

He nodded and stared down at the map of the surrounding area they had roughly sketched, then picked up a pen. “If they want a fight, then we’ll give them a fight.”

“Commander,” warned the oldest of the four with streaks of silver in her auburn hair. “Respectfully, I think we should consider that just two of our soldiers aren’t worth⁠—”

“We don’t abandon our people, Captain!” he snapped.

She immediately ceased under his authoritative glower. His declaration stung me more than I wanted to admit.

“They have no more than fifty. We have a few hundred. It’ll be a bloodbath.”

I barely kept up as Elias rapidly drew an intricately detailed plan to rescue the messengers with the lowest risk of losing any of our own, breaking it down verbally as he went. How groups, in multiple areas, would move, distract, and overwhelm in large numbers while another stealthily breached the edge of their camp and went in to save our own. All the reading in the world wouldn’t have prepared me to come up with every little piece of his puzzle. I wished I wasn’t impressed, but I was.

When he was done, I followed him from the tent and drifted toward the back of the crowd of waiting soldiers. I looked around in search of Finn, but he was nowhere to be found. My only relief came from seeing no sign of Mavic and Mina.