Wren pushed Little Crow and Wildcat as hard as she could, for as long as she could. They flew high above the jungle canopy, unburdened by any need to hunt for their food due to the rations they carried. She spent her time seeking out tail winds to increase their speed and conserve their strength, and only allowed them to land twice to rest: once at midday, when the sun was high in the sky, and once at dusk.

Liv’s father had ordered his men to pack flasks of fresh blood, from the dressing of mana beasts that the Eld hunted in the jungle on both banks of the river. Their rations, on the other hand, were from the markets of Al’Fenthia, where a constant supply of non-magical food was needed for visiting human merchants. Despite Little Crow’s complaints, Wren led the other two hunters back up into the dark sky, and they flew through the evening as well, following the course of the long river east.

Only when she was so exhausted that she found herself flying half asleep did Wren finally descend, and the three bats found themselves a convenient tree to roost in, with a sturdy branch sheltered from the hot sun by dense foliage. While a part of Wren hated to pause for even a moment, she knew they couldn’t make the trip to Red Shield lands in a single flight.

Still, she slept restlessly. While her duty to keep Liv safe had originally been imposed as a kind of punishment by Duchess Julianne, it had been a long time since that was the only thing keeping her around. After a year watching the girl’s back at Coral Bay, fighting beside her at the Well of Bones, and then following her into the north, it made Wren uncomfortably anxious to know that Liv was heading for the Tomb of Celris without her.

It was the plan, of course – Wren knew that. She’d agreed to it. Someone had to get Little Crow and Wildcat back to their tribe, and she was the only one who could accompany them. A force of Eld travelling the river by canoe would take far longer, and be received with a less enthusiastic welcome. They’d need to travel in force, through terrain they weren’t really accustomed to.

Wren wanted to see her cousin and niece again; she could admit to herself that she was looking forward to it. She had information to share with Soaring Eagle. If he was going to be the new chief of the tribe, he needed to know about their slumbering kin at Godsgrave. Liv’s promise to help wake them up might even be enough for him to agree to help against Ractia – if not in the actual fighting, as scouts or messengers, perhaps.

Knowing all the reasons why she was flying east didn’t do anything about the gnawing feeling that Wren needed to hurry, however – that it had been a mistake to let Liv go without her. It would take them a few days to get everything in order for an assault on the Tomb of Celris, but Liv wasn’t the sort of person who put up with much in the way of delays, once she got an idea in her head. Wren had the horrible feeling that no matter how hard she pushed the other two, there was no way that she would make it back in time to catch up before they actually entered the rift.

She wasn’t worried about the shoals. Liv was a walking cataclysm, once she got going. Whatever mana beasts that lingered around the edges of the Tomb wouldn’t stop her, and Arjun would keep the girl in one piece. Wren was less confident about how much value Rose and Keri brought to the group, but at the very least the two of them should be able to hold a front line and give Liv the freedom to cast. Taken as a group, she had faith they’d get into the depths.

That was where Wren began to worry about them. A year at Coral Bay had taught her a lot about how Lucanian mages worked. Sure, she hadn’t been a student, but she’d spent that time immersed in them. Whether she was lingering at the edges of Liv’s classes, teasing Jurian during their morning sparring sessions, or following Liv into an eastern rift, Wren would have had to be blind, deaf, and an absolute idiot not to come away with a pretty good sense of the average mage’s capabilities.

None of them did the sorts of things Liv did.

From the moment she’d seen the girl ride a hand of ice up out of the depths of Bald Peak rift, arms shot through with black veins, to when she’d consumed the corpse of a goddess and then promptly passed out with her bones crawling beneath her skin, Liv consistently did things with rifts that no one else did. It pushed her to the brink, and every time that had happened she’d needed people around her while she recovered.

Wren’s worst fear – the terror that stirred her dreams the entire morning she hung, restlessly, from a branch in the Varunan jungle – was that she’d arrive too late. That Liv would have done something, like she always did, and the people she’d gone in with wouldn’t be able to protect her in the aftermath.

Long before noon, Wren woke her two companions. The three of them fluttered down to the ground, took human form, and ate quickly.

“We can’t keep flying like this,” Little Crow protested, in between bites of dried nuts, oats and berries, stuck together into clusters with honey. “I thought I was going to fall out of the sky last night, and you were still pushing.”

“I’d have already gone on if I wasn’t waiting for the two of you,” Wren admitted. “I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

“Why?” the other huntress asked. “I don’t understand what kind of hold that Eldish girl’s got on you. She enslave you with your dreams, or something?”

“She’s a friend,” Wren said. “And she’s the reason the two of you aren’t dead. Now come on.”

Little Crow looked on the edge of rebellion, but Wildcat silently put a hand on her shoulder, and the other woman quieted. When Wren shifted back into bat form, they followed her, and that was all that she cared about.

As the afternoon wore on, they entered familiar territory, and banked north, away from the Airaduinë toward the highlands. Wren knew that they wouldn’t find the tribe on the slopes of the mountain where Ractia had been raised, so she headed for their old hunting grounds, instead.

The forest here was dry, with grasses for underbrush rather than the flowering plants typical in the jungle closer to the river. Rather than pause for an evening meal, Wren pushed them on into the twilight, making for Clear Water Cenote. The rock had partially collapsed along one side of the water, allowing trees to take root right down to the edge, and between those sturdy branches and the overhang of rock that remained along the opposite curve, there was a combination of fresh water, plenty of good roosts, and nearby space to build.

While the adults of the tribe could simply move and roost wherever hunting took them, families with young children who were unable to fly yet needed something more. Clear Water Cenote had, for that reason, long hosted a complex of buildings made of mud bricks and stucco. It was a place from which hunters could range out into the forests and jungles, and a place to which they could return with their kills – and as soon as Wren saw tendrils of smoke rising from cookfires, she knew that she’d found her tribe.

Half a dozen bats erupted up out of the trees to surround Wren and her two companions, and she found herself pleased that Soaring Eagle was setting guards to watch for danger. Wren let them herd her down away from the village itself, to a clearing on the outskirts of the settlement. She shifted as she swooped down toward the ground, and landed on her boots among the trampled grass. A hunt must have come back through this way not long ago.

Wildcat and Little Crow landed as well, assuming their human forms, and the hunters who had met them settled into a circle, surrounding the three with spears in hand. Wren recognized every one of them.

“Wren Wind Dancer,” a man named Condor began. Wren turned to face him. “We were told by the Eld that you had turned away from Ractia, but now we see you return with two slaves of the blood goddess. Why have you come here?”

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“I need to speak to Soaring Eagle,” Wren told him. “He needs to know what my friends and I have learned, but I can’t stay long. As for these two, I caught them spying on the Eld. We didn’t want to kill them, so I brought them here.”

Condor nodded his head to one of the younger hunters, who immediately took bat form and fluttered off, presumably to find Soaring Eagle and bring him. Wren would’ve been surprised to find her cousin’s husband wasn’t already on the way, but she supposed it couldn’t hurt.

Indeed, a few moments later Soaring Eagle strode over to the group, two more warriors at his back. It was jarring to see how well he’d settled into the position that Wren’s father had held for so many years, and it occurred to Wren for the first time that the tribe she’d left had changed a good deal in her absence. If she did come home to stay, where would she even fit?

“Wren.” Soaring Eagle passed off his spear, stepped forward, and caught her in his arms. After a moment’s surprise, she allowed herself to return the embrace. “My wife has missed you,” the chief told her, then released her and stepped back.

“I want to see Calm Waters,” Wren admitted. “And Blossom, too. But I can’t stay long. Someone needed to make sure these two got here, and I have something to tell you.”

Soaring Eagle looked over the two exhausted hunters who had sat down in the grass behind Wren. “Have they turned away from Ractia?” he asked.

“More like these two got captured and we needed somewhere to put them,” Wren said. “No one wanted to just kill them. Coming here seemed like the best option.”

“I’m not certain I like the idea of our tribe becoming the dumping ground for every captured fanatic you find,” Soaring Eagle grumbled. “But come and get something to eat. We’ll talk over a meal.”

☙

“You can’t imagine how much I’ve missed this,” Wren admitted, after swallowing her first bite of the evening meal. She cradled the broad plantain leaf in her hand, within which sat a baked mixture of maize dough, wild Huehxōlō-tl meat, and peppers. Less one enormous bite. Blossom, who seemed to have sprouted up at least a hand in height since Wren had last seen the girl, was sitting right at ‘Auntie Wren’s’ hip, practically in her lap, stuffing her face with her own helping of food.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been all over Isvara and not once had a good meal?” Calm Waters asked from where she sat across the fire at her husband’s side.

“Plenty of good meals,” Wren said. “But nothing that felt like home.” Condor, at Soaring Eagle’s orders, had taken Wildcat and Little Crow away under guard, placing them in one of the empty homes. There was no shortage of those, with the Red Shield tribe reduced to a fraction of its former size.

“Are you going to stay, then?” Blossom asked, and hearing the hope in her voice was like having a dagger twisted in Wren’s gut.

“I can’t, little one,” Wren said. “Not yet. Ractia’s still out there. She’s got my father with her, and there’s a war coming. More than one, probably.”

“Not one we need to be involved in,” Soaring Eagle said. “I’ve made that clear to the Elden leader already.”

“Valtteri,” Wren said, nodding. “It’s his daughter I need to get back to. I don’t trust the girl not to get herself killed without me.” She couldn’t help smiling when she said it. “Anyway, she found something, and that’s part of why I’m here, because someone had to tell you. There’s a whole bunch of our people that no one knew about, at Godsgrave. They’ve been locked away in this enchanted machinery,” she explained. “They’ve been kept young and dreaming there ever since the war. We can wake them up.”

“How many?” Soaring Eagle asked.

“We don’t even know for certain,” Wren told him. “And we won’t, until we go there and start searching the ruins. It’s going to be dangerous, and it's going to take a lot of people, but the Eld are willing to help.” Well, Liv was, at any rate, and she was certain her father would, as well.

“It doesn’t matter how many,” Calm Waters said. “If it's even one or two of our people there, we can’t just leave them.”

“Ractia must not know,” Soaring Eagle said, after a moment’s consideration. “If she did, she would have sent her people to find them. She wouldn’t turn down the chance at more soldiers. And if she doesn’t know, we can’t let her find out.”

“You might want to send scouts to keep an eye on the place,” Wren suggested, once she’d finished the last of her meal. She threw the plantain leaf into the fire, stood up, and wiped her hands on her leathers. “But that’s something you can figure out without me. I’ll be back as soon as I can, but if you want to get word to me, find Valtteri or his people at the bridge.”

“We won’t be pulled back into this war,” Soaring Eagle warned her.

Wren sighed. “I understand why you say that – but you can’t just expect to hide out here and hope the world passes you by. You said I’d been all over Isvara, and you’re right,” she said, turning to her cousin. “And you know what I’ve seen? Having friends and allies takes you a lot further than being alone. And I’ve got to get back to some of mine.”

Blossom caught her by the hand. “Stay?” the little girl pleaded.

Wren knelt down and wrapped her niece in her arms. “I can’t stay, little one,” she said. “I’ve got people waiting for me. But I promise I’ll come back. You just keep your mother and father safe until then.” She gave the girl one last squeeze, then pried her off.

“You should stay the night, at least,” Calm Waters suggested.

“No time,” Wren said. She jumped, changing the moment her boots left the ground, and began flapping upward until she found an updraft that would carry her above the forest. Then, she set out southwest, toward the river.

☙

This time, Wren didn’t have to worry about stopping for anyone else.

By the time dawn broke, she was following the sun-touched ribbon of the Airaduinë along its winding path west through the jungles of Varuna. She landed at noon to eat, and again at sunset, but she flew through the night and broke her fast on an outcropping of granite above a series of cascades.

Her exhausted mind fixed on the image of Elden warriors carrying their canoes past the rocks, with Soaring Eagle leading the way, and Wren almost wished she’d been there to see it. For a moment, she dozed in the warm morning sunshine, then shook herself awake and continued on.

Wren did end up having to sleep that afternoon, but she simply found a convenient branch to roost from, and then pushed ahead by the light of the moon and the ring overhead. It was dawn of the fourth day of flying when she caught sight of the bridge, the reservoir beyond, and the armed Elden camp that had been built to protect the waystone.

When Wren landed, Valterri’s soldiers were waiting for her and had orders. They took her pack, ripped everything out of it, and began stuffing it with supplies; at the same time, she was led to a camp chair and given a hot meal. Someone must have run to get Liv’s father almost immediately, because he joined her before she’d even finished eating her stew.

“Last word I have, she’d gone on to Mountain Home,” Valterri said. “They were going to try to get new armor fitted there before heading on.” He sat down next to her and placed three flasks on the ground. “Fresh blood.”

“Good. I’m going to need it,” Wren said. She scooped one last spoonful out of the bowl she’d been given, then swallowed it and put the bowl aside. One of the Elden warriors took it, along with the spoon.

“I’ve had my men pack you what you’ll need for the north,” Valterri said. “Furs, rations, blood. There’s a full quiver of arrows for your bow, as well. As soon as you’re ready, I’ll send you on to Mountain Home.”

“No,” Wren said. She lifted one of the flasks, put it to her lips, and gulped down blood until it was empty. Then, she passed it back to Valterri. “She won’t still be there. They don’t need four days to find some old armor and get it fitted. Send me straight to the Tomb of Celris.”

“You’re certain?” Valterri asked. “You’ve never been there before.”

Wren nodded. “I’ll find her.” She slung the pack and the quiver over her back, hung the extra flasks of blood from her belt, and stood. Liv’s father accompanied her to the waystone, where he knelt down to activate one of the sigils without hesitation.

“Get in the air as soon as you go through,” Valterri told her, then stepped off the waystone.

Wren shifted into her bat form, and then the waystone took her away. When she returned to the world, it was to the most bitter cold she’d ever felt. A Whitehill winter was nothing compared to this. She flapped up into the air, and realized she could hardly see from all the snow flying on the wind.

That was fine; bats didn’t need eyes, anyway. Wren sent out a pulse of sound, and when it bounced back she knew where she had to go. She banked over a great frozen canyon, racing past a pack of wolves below, and made for a great dome of ice that was half buried by the drifts. Wren flew up, then dove down.

She let herself fall, shifting into human form as she did, and drew the two enchanted daggers Jurian had given her. When Wren hit the dome, she brought the blades down with all the force of her fall behind the strike.

With a crack, the dome shattered beneath her, and then Wren was inside the rift, flapping her wings as she followed the frozen shards down into the darkness.