And I know them.
I freeze. Hyde reacts immediately, stopping with me.
“Is it Roar?” he murmurs, sensing the shock that’s swept over me.
I shake my head. Roar’s return would be a great thing. This is not.
Anger ignites inside me, and I surge forward. My strides are fast and long, fueled by an endless flow of rage.
Hyde is next to me as we break through the tree line and come into the open. The three men stand on a rise above us, and Hyde and I have no cover. I have put us in the worst position possible, but I don’t care.
“Wylan!” I slow to a jog and reach back, grabbing an arrow from my quiver and nocking it. “Don’t move!”
His head whips to me. His eyes flare with surprise; then his expression transforms into something venomous and hateful as he recognizes me.
I approach the rest of the way slowly so I can keep my aim steady, my arrow ready to fly if necessary. Hyde holds pace beside me, his bow also drawn and nocked. As I have Wylan in my sights, Hyde swings his arrow between the other two traitors, Gray and Norris.
Hyde was there the night Gray poisoned Aria. He was also there the morning Wylan took a third of the tribe and left, renouncing his loyalty to Perry and to us—the Tides. He knows as well as I do that these three were forbidden ever to come back.
I stop when we are forty paces away. Wylan stands with his hands raised in surrender, looking from me to Hyde.
The strength of my vision allows me to see him as clearly as most people see at five paces. Weeks in the borderlands have not been good to him. His brow is heavier and lower. His pointy jaw juts out farther. His grimy skin sags like a plant that has wilted in the midday sun. Clothes that are no more than rags drape on his bony, stooping form. He has always had a pinched face, like he’s just swallowed ash. In the time since he left us, he only appears to have become more bitter.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. There is a soullessness to his black eyes that chills me.
“I came to talk to Peregrine.”
“Perry would kill you.”
“Then I’m lucky to have come by you first.”
“I may kill you myself.”
Wylan’s nostrils flare, and his chin rises slightly in suppressed anger. He has never liked me. “I mean no harm, Brooke. I’ve come to ask forgiveness.” He glances at the two men at his sides. “We have.”
“You’re seeking forgiveness?” It seems impossible. It’s a word I’d never expect to hear from his mouth. But he nods.
“Yes. I want to come home.”
There is something in the way he lingers over the word home. Does he know we’ve abandoned the compound?
“Please, Brooke. We’re tired. We want to be back with our tribe. Take us home with you.”
“No chance,” Hyde growls. He stands motionless at my side, his legs firmly set, his form perfect. The picture of an archer at his most lethal position.
“Tell Peregrine, then,” Wylan says. “I beg you, Brooke. Take the message for me. Tell him I want to speak to him. He’ll forgive me. At least give me a chance.”
Hyde says, “I’ve heard enough.”
I have too.
I drop my aim and let my arrow fly. It sinks deep into the earth between Wylan’s feet.
He lets out a yelp and lurches back, but Hyde’s arrow flies an instant later, also landing inches from Wylan’s foot.
“Idiots!” Wylan yells, retreating frantically. “You’re insane!”
“Get out of here,” I tell him. “Come back to this land again and it’ll be your death.”
After we run them off, Hyde and I hold our post until the morning watch relieves us. We talk about Wylan. I am surprised by the fisherman’s return—Wylan has always been so proud, so stubborn—but Hyde is not.
“You don’t know the borderlands,” he says to me. He is right. I don’t know them, nor do I want to. “Pride is the first thing you lose out there,” he continues. “And the most painless. The trick is to hold on to your honor. There are no laws. No rules beyond the ones you choose to live by.” He gives me a faint smile. “If you break those, you make an enemy of yourself, and that’ll destroy you faster than anything else.”
I stare at him, marveling at how everything he says intrigues me. Questions pop into my head, but I hardly know where to start. I just want him to keep talking.
Hyde raises his eyebrows questioningly.
“We were good together,” I blurt, just to say something, and I could kick myself. What I meant is how we handled Wylan. How it felt like we were perfectly in tune through the entire encounter. I don’t want him to think I meant anything more.
I don’t want to hurt Hyde. The hope I saw in his eyes earlier is a precious thing; I’m afraid I’ll destroy that part of him. And if I do that, I could lose this—my connection with this warrior who is fierce and perfect at my side. This poet, whose words twinkle like stars before my eyes.
A smile spreads over Hyde’s lips. It’s affectionate and understanding and gentle. “Incredible,” he says. “It was an encounter to remember.”
I still don’t know if we’re talking about our kiss or our stand against Wylan, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t fear anymore. I know, whatever happens between us, Hyde and I will be fine.
“It was,” I agree. “It sure was.”
When the morning patrollers arrive, we fill them in and then return to the cave, where we assemble in the Battle Room, a small cavern Perry uses to discuss important matters.