Page 112 of The Threads Between

August stepped back and took my hand. His eyes held mine steady.

“Together,” he said.

I squeezed his fingers.

“Together.”

We walked out of the barn and into the gathering dark, where an army of women in black waited to follow us into war.

CHAPTER 30

AUGUST

The Oxfordshire countryside lay quiet beneath a February sky, the kind of cold that seeped into bones rather than bit at skin. No snow, just the damp chill of a winter that had overstayed its welcome. The ground was soft with mud where frost had melted, and the hedgerows stood bare and black against moonlit fields.

We moved through the darkness in near silence. Dozens of women in black, their cloaks pulled tight against the cold. The only sounds were the soft rhythm of footsteps on frozen earth, the occasional rustle of fabric, the muffled jingle of supplies packed too quickly to be secured properly. The air tasted of wet soil and the distant woodsmoke of villages we would never enter.

I had led men before, hunters who followed my orders without question, who looked to me for direction in the field. But I had never led women who had every reason to fear me. Never led the very people I had been trained to destroy.

Now I walked at the front of a column of Weavers, and they followed.

The strangeness of it had not faded. These were women who should have run at the sight of me. Women who had spent their lives hiding from men who wore my name. And yet here they were, moving through the night at my back, trusting me to lead them toward the man who had made me into a monster.

Lily's presence was a steady flame. She walked somewhere behind me with Beth and Beatrice, but the distance meant nothing. She was with me the way my own heartbeat was with me.

I'm here, she sent. The warmth of her awareness brushed against mine.

I know. You always are.

I knew these roads. Every turn, every hedgerow, every sleeping village we skirted in the darkness. I had ridden them on horseback beside my father. I had hunted on this land, tracked Weavers through these very fields.

Now I was bringing an army back along those same paths.

An hour into the march, footsteps fell into rhythm beside mine.

I glanced over to find a woman matching my pace. She was middle-aged, her dark hair pulled back beneath a dark hood. I recognized her from Diana's farmhouse. She had arrived with a group from the coast, and she had watched me with sharper suspicion than most.

Now she walked beside me in silence, her eyes fixed on the road ahead.

I waited. If she had something to say, she would say it.

Several minutes passed before she spoke.

“My daughter was a Weaver,” she said. Her voice was low, pitched not to carry. “Thirteen years old when they found her. Your father's men.”

I did not look at her. I was not certain I could bear to see what was in her face.

Thirteen years old. Just a child.

“I'm sorry,” I said. The words inadequate. But they were all I had.

“I did not tell you this for your apology.” Her voice was steady, almost matter-of-fact. “I told you because I want you to understand why I am here.”

There was no hatred in her words. No accusation. Just a weariness that went deeper than bone.

“I watched you at the farmhouse,” she said. “Watched how you moved, how you spoke, how you looked at those women. I watched you learn to control your power instead of letting it control you.” She paused. “You are not your father.”

“No,” I said quietly. “I am not.”