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“He wants us to feel scared,” I said. “Why else would he waste the element of surprise?”

“There were not two thousand men,” Iradîo said, her voice relaxed. She blinked open her eyes, no longer in pain. Next to her, the doctor sat back on his heels, his hands trembling as he considered the magic happening before him. “Fewer than a thousand.”

“If you were going to send Tallu away, where would you send him?” I asked.

“Here,” Saxu said, pointing to the west. “We cannot go deeper into the forest without risking the deadly creatures that live there, but we cannot send him to the ocean. Namati has taken most of his ships farther out to sea. The only option is to send him west.”

“And that is where Kacha is waiting.” I turned my head, feeling it in my bones before the shouts of “Fire! Fire!” could be heard. Everyone else in the tent tensed, and Commander Rede rushed in with the announcement that Kacha had set fire to the forests in the northeast.

“He has set fire to the woods,” I said before anyone else could speak. “He is driving us like caribou along the plain. We must go where he does not expect if we hope to survive.”

“Out to sea,” Spider agreed. “My ship cannot hold everyone. You must decide who to leave behind.”

“No,” I said firmly. “Tell everyone to retreat to the shore.”

General Saxu watched me, his eyes narrowed, but then he nodded, gesturing with one hand, and Commander Rede was already in motion, ordering the rest of the camp to retreat to the shore. I couldn’t follow the shorthand, everything moving too quickly, but I knew that I wasn’t about to let everyone die.

Circling the table, I knelt next to Iradîo, who was well enough to sit up, taking my hand to stand. I slung her arm over my shoulders and Naî climbed across to wrap around my neck tight enough that I could feel every inhale and exhale against my throat.

“What is your plan?” Tallu asked, even as his Dogs corralled us, moving swiftly through the chaos of camp toward the shore. We followed Spider as she walked, seemingly unconcerned at the screams and chaos around her. As she marched through the chaos, elves seemed to come out of nowhere, following behind her. They were members of her crew, and those that had been lent to us more permanently.

“There are islands just beyond the shore. We can use those to hide,” I said.

“This is not the Northern Kingdom. Not all of these people can swim,” Tallu said.

“And, in case you’ve forgotten, there are dangerous things in the water that want to eat us,” Iradîo said. “They almost did once, and I’m not excited to repeat the experience and give them a second chance.”

“We are going to build a bridge,” I said, swallowing and feeling Naî tighten around me. “Made of ice.”

Oh, are we, Naî said. Do not think that I do not feel how low your magic is. You have been overextending it for days, wasting it on the forest. You healed him last night, and you are lucky that you did not end up needing a healer as well.

“I have given the forest enough sacrifice. I believe it could provide the structure if we fill in the planks made of ice,” I said.

I hoped it would. We were collecting more people as we walked, servants and soldiers. The smell of smoke in the air grew thicker. I could feel the rage building in the ground, the elder trees helpless to stop the flames that had already burned their predecessors. Yes. The forest would answer my call.

When we reached the water, it was the same as before. Tavornai didn’t have a shore at the edge of the swamp so much as a slow decline, the land simply shifting into the sea.

Soon, we were ankle-deep in water. Naî hissed, her talons biting into my neck.

“I cannot turn this to ice. It is too much of the forest,” she complained.

Swallowing, I reached in for my own magic, then out to the forest, calling on the vines I could feel in the trees, the roots that drank from the brackish water. The forest wanted a sacrifice, and through its roots, through their connection to the elder trees, I could feel Kacha’s army coming close, feel their boots tramping through the forest. They were too close, closing in from both sides. We had so little time.

But I had already learned that sacrificing bits of myself would not serve me. I could not risk any more of my memories to the insatiable altar that was forest magic.

Instead, I lifted Iradîo’s arm off my shoulders and reached for one of my knives. Tallu seemed to be the only one who saw what I was going to do. Before I could move, he reached forward, grabbing hold of my wrist.

“No,” he said.

I looked at him, tilting my head. We didn’t have time for this.

I leaned forward, whispering into his ear. “I have borne worse.”

Easing my hand free from his tight grip, I pricked my thumb, and squeezed a few drops of blood into the water. The forest around us began to glow, trickles of fluorescent purple light spreading around me and being absorbed by the trees around us. The roots pulled themselves free from the silt of the swamp, creating a bridge, while vines threw themselves down from the trees, pulling the roots up further still.

“Here!” I shouted.

The boots of Kacha’s army thrummed in the back of my head, and I tugged Tallu further still, dragging him with me as the bridge built itself in front of us. Soon, we reached the edge of the swamp, where the last of the trees stood steady against the sweep of the tide.