Chapter 6 · Roll Call for the Dead

"Kael. Sweetheart. Come here."

The voice drifted through the trees at full dark, soft and wrong, and every hair on Cyrus's neck stood up.

Kael went stiff beside the fire. Her hand dropped from the canteen she'd been passing to Lien. The metal hit the dirt with a dull thunk.

Cyrus grabbed her wrist. "Don't."

She didn't look at him. Her eyes were locked on the treeline, pupils blown wide. The firelight caught the edge of her jaw, the way her mouth had gone slack.

"That's—" Her voice cracked. "That's my mother."

"No it's not."

"Kael," the voice called again, sweet and warm and hungry underneath. "I've been waiting. Come here, baby. Let me see you."

Kael took a step forward.

Cyrus yanked her back hard enough that she stumbled. "It's not her. It's the Road."

She rounded on him, and for half a second he thought she'd put him through a tree. Her eyes were wild. The command chain mark on her throat pulsed, dark red bleeding into black.

"Let go."

"Listen to me." He kept his voice low, steady, the way he used to talk to soldiers going into shock. "Your mother's dead. You told me that yourself.