Darius's POV
The valley had fallen quiet, though the battle still hummed in the stones. Resin smoke drifted low over the ground, clinging to skin and clothes. Cassian moved through the clearing, giving orders: wounded to the upper rooms, prisoners tied in the small interrogation chamber, each trap on the ground marked with red cloth.
I stood watching Sera as she shifted back from her white wolf form. Minutes earlier the whole valley had seemed intent on tearing her apart. Now she was human again, breathing hard, pale but steady.
“Are you coming?” I asked. The question held a please, not a command.
“I’m coming,” she said. “If I don’t sit, the healer will murder me.”
“We won’t let him,” I replied and signaled for the healer.
For five minutes we said nothing—just cloths, herbs, checking
