Page 153 of Scarlet Wars
She didn’t say anything right away. Just gave me a nod—curt, controlled—but I saw it in her eyes. The acknowledgment. Thetrust.
And fuck me, it would never cease to amaze me that she trustedme.
THIRTY-SIX
CADEN
The woman who held my heart in the palm of her hand, turned back to the glowing screen in her hand, the pale blue light illuminating the hard line of her jaw.
“According to the intel James and Jackson got to us through Sean,” she said, scanning the map overlay, “we should be able to see the fort from here. If it’s surrounded by water like they suspected…”
She looked up, breath fogging in the cold air as she turned toward the tree line.
The forest around us was starting to thin, revealing glimpses of open sky between the dense branches. A rush of wind swept through, carrying the scent of river water and frostbitten leaves. Somewhere ahead, the sound of flowing current broke the stillness.
Emma stepped forward, boots crunching against frozen ground. She reached the edge of the ridge and pointed across the expanse.
“Might be that one,” she suggested, pointing ahead.
I followed her gesture. Across the river, barely visible through the rising mist, loomed the jagged silhouette of a half-collapsed fort. Crumbling stone walls jutted out from the treeslike broken teeth. The water around it shimmered in the early light, too still. Too quiet.
It looked exactly like the kind of place where hostages would be hidden, and people like us were meant to die.
A thrill shot down my spine. Not fear. Something closer to anticipation.
The forest fell away behind us as we approached the river’s edge. The air was colder here, seeping through the fabric of my clothes and straight into my bones.
Emma slowed beside me, scanning the bank. Her eyes caught on something half-buried in reeds, a flash of dull metal and rotting wood.
“Wait,” she murmured, crouching down. She brushed aside the tall grass, revealing the shape of a small rowboat, old but intact, wedged into the mud and covered by a tattered canvas. Oars were strapped inside, slick with dew.
I arched a brow. “Is there a word for ‘too convenient’?”
She let out a dry, wary laugh. “Suspicious?”
“Sounds about right.” I nudged the boat free with my boot. “But it’s either this, or we turn back.”
Her focus lingered on the fort, the jagged walls, the dead quiet. Then she sighed, stepped forward, and grabbed one of the oars. “Guess we’re rowing ourselves into the trap, then.”
The boat rocked under our weight, the river whispering against its sides. Emma steadied herself, then nodded once. I shoved us off the bank, the current catching immediately, pulling us toward the shadow of the fort.
The closer we drifted,the more wrong everything felt.
Our destination loomed ahead like a carcass left out to rot. Ivy crawled up its sides like veins on a corpse. The windows gaped, black and hollow, and the mist that clung to the water’ssurface spilled through the open archways like it had a mind of its own.
No guards.
No sentries.
No sign of life.
Only silence, thick, suffocating silence.
Even the forest behind us had gone quiet, like it knew better than to follow.
Emma slowed, as she studied every inch of the decaying structure. Her hand hovered near her belt, fingers twitching just above the hilt of her blade.
I felt it too, that subtle vibration in the air. Like magic had been here. Like it lingered.
