The messenger reached Silverwood two days after the ambush, and I knew something was wrong before he even dismounted, because Garrick's second never rode that hard for good news.
"Where is Garrick," I said, already crossing the courtyard toward him, my boots sliding slightly on the frost still clinging to the stones.
"Wounded, not badly. He sent me ahead." The messenger's face told me the rest before his words caught up, a grey, hollowed-out look I had seen before only after the worst kind of losses. "The unit was ambushed on the eastern road. We lost the fight before it started. Blackthorn guards came out of the trees like they knew exactly where we would be."
"And Aria?"
He hesitated, which was worse than any answer he could have given, and in that hesitation I felt the ground shift
