The earth jostles beneath me as I drift into consciousness. Sunlight prickles against my eyelids as they blink open, the brightness rendering me momentarily visionless as my other senses tune in. The wooden walls of a carriage trap me inside, the road beneath bumpy as I move to a sitting position. The small cushion on the bench beneath me provides little comfort.

We're moving.

My head pounds, heart races. To my left, there's an opening in the wood, covered by a dirty brown sheet flapping in the wind, letting flashes of sunlight in to stain to dark brown.

I rake through my memories. The kiss, the King, the explosion, finding Samu unconscious in those tunnels, the shifters coming in... tension coils in my shoulders. Killian.

Icy horror washes over me.

My shock is overshadowed by confusion. I comb through solutions, perhaps there's some explanation, something I missed in those prisons that explains why Killian, a deserter, seemed to know the shifters that barged in on us. But the rational side of my brain presents the logic, and my current predicament, inside a carriage without any sign of Samu, is hard evidence to ignore.

My thoughts are interrupted when the sheet is abruptly pulled back. A girl pokes her head into the moving carriage, hanging off the side. Over her shoulder, the emerald forest glistens. She pauses when her eyes meet mine before slinging herself into the moving carriage, settling on the wooden bench across from me.

"You're awake."

Her voice is thick with an unfamiliar accent. Sleek, black hair is cut sharp at her jawline, her angular face tilting sideways as she examines me. Her eyes, dark like night, make me think of Killian.

"Who are you?"

"Lei," she says, reaching a handout to me. I stare at it, keeping my hands by my sides. "Though I do believe we've met before. In that crook village, when you followed me and Killian and demanded we take you with us."

I say nothing as the memory clicks in my mind. She was the other deserter with Killian in the forge that night. Only she's not a deserter at all. She looks just as human as I do, but I recognise her clothes, the same worn by the shifter who intruded on us in the prisons.

Killian was with her in the forge. Not the deserters. A shifter.

It doesn't make any sense, doesn't feel real. But nothing is more real than the stab in my chest.

"Where's my brother?"

"He's safe," she assures me.

"What've you done to him?"

"Nothing." She frowns. "I have no reason to lie to you, Freya."

I stare at her, unable to shove thoughts of Killian from my mind as the evidence builds up, none of it good. His cut, healed after mere minutes, his unnatural reflexes I pinned to years of training with the deserters. His uncanny confidence, his ability to move through the shifter castle undetected. The look of horror on his face after we kissed.

"Is he like you?" I ask, my voice small. "Is he a shifter?"

"What?"

"Killian."

Her face settles with realisation and she leans back against the cushion. "Yes."

The world around me seems to crumble. Killian is a shifter, the very species he'd sworn to hate. The shock is overtaken by a more powerful emotion—betrayal. It courses through my veins, hot like fire. But beneath Lei's careful observation, I manage to keep my expression straight even as the walls seem to concave.

"Where are you taking me?" I ask.

"Somewhere safe."

I trusted him with my life. With Casimir's life, Samu's. And though I tried to fight it, I allowed him to see the parts of myself reserved for nearly nobody--my heart. He wandered through all my memories and dreams, invaded my deepest fantasies.

"Where?" I demand.

She moves to push the sheet back. "I'll let Killian know you're awake. I'm sure you have a lot of questions."

"No." She pauses to look at me. "Don't tell him anything. Where is Samu?"

"Freya—"

"Tell me where he is."

"Relax," she says. "He's in the other carriage. Okay? He's fine, I promise."

I try to read her expression but come up empty. She's just as guarded as Killian was when we first met.

"Are you hungry?" she asks.

I shake my head, averting my gaze to the ground. "Just leave me alone."

She does, sighing as she jumps from the moving carriage outside.

I have to get out of here, back to Casimir and Elex. Casimir.

The thought hits me like a tonne of bricks. Is he safe? Did Killian and the shifters do something to him, or was Killian telling the truth when he said he believed Casimir got out safe? I don't know what to believe anymore.

I lean forward, peering through the small flap left by the sheet. We're in a forest, on a trodden path, but it's daytime, the sun high in the sky and the forest from where I can see empty of people. I try to peer around the corner, but there's no sign of the other carriage Lei spoke of.

With a deep breath, and a small curse at the ball gown I'm still wearing, I shove the sheet aside and leap from the small carriage. The shrub breaks my fall; I push to my feet and sprint. A shout expels from behind me. My head spins but I force myself forward until somebody tackles me to the ground.

We roll across the floor, my legs tangling in the ball gown as the weight of my captor threatens to overpower me. I swing my fist, colliding with something solid. Pains bursts from my hand, but before I can do anything else, he pins me to the ground, my head slamming against the dirt.

My vision blurs as I blink up. The man above me scowls, his tongue poking through a missing front tooth. I attempt to bring my knee between his legs, but he only presses further into me.

"Stop struggling," he growls, digging his nails into my wrists.

I spit in his face.

He scowls. "Little szou—"

"Get off her." The man above me freezes at the sound of Killian's voice. "Now, Draigh."

The man grunts as he releases my wrists, standing up. I scramble backwards along the forest floor, eventually shoving to my feet and snatching a broken stick from the ground as I raise my gaze, brandishing it towards them. Killian stands a few feet away. Behind him is Lei, standing with her hands on her dagger, poised, ready for attack.

"Move back, Draigh."

The man—Draigh—reluctantly obeys, walking back to stand by Lei. I can't look away from Killian. He always had a slight accent that I detected was from living in Portson. But now, in front of his peers, it's different, and sounds nothing like the traders from Portson I've heard in the forge.

Even his accent wasn't real.

Killian takes cautious steps forward. "Put down the branch, Freya."

"Get away from me."

"Nobody is going to hurt you. You're safe."

"You're shifters," I spit. "You're a traitor, a liar. You're the enemy."

Behind him, Draigh mutters something under his breath.

Killian ignores him. "Come with me and I'll explain everything."

"If you think I'm going anywhere with you you've lost your mind."

"What about Samu? You'd just leave him?"

"You'd take him from me?" I counter.

"He needs medical attention, and fast. If we leave you here in the middle of nowhere, far from any village, he'd die, and you'd starve." He takes another step closer. "We can help you."

I search his face, looking for any trace of the Killian I trusted with my life, the Killian I opened my heart to. But searching only causes the cracks in my chest to widen. His expression is stone cold. I hold the stick higher in front of me, eliciting a snicker from Draigh.

How could I have been such a fool? How did I fall for a shifter? The thought leaves me deflated, the internal admission of my true feelings simultaneously a relief and a burden.

"Let me go."

Killian doesn't take his eyes off me when he speaks to Lei. "Leave us for a few moments."

"We must keep moving, Killian. They're on our tail," Lei says.

"A few moments," Killian repeats. Draigh and Lei sigh, turning back to the carriages, leaving Killian and I to stand alone in the forest. Killian takes several steps closer, stopping when I take one back.

"Does Trina know what you are?" I ask. "Are you even really from Portson?"

He hesitates. "Come back to the carriage and I'll explain everything."

"Answer the question, Killian."

"Lei's right, Freya. Ereon's army are after us."

"You act as if you aren't one of them," I spit.

His jaw clenches at my tone. "No," he says eventually. "To both of your questions."

I think of the strange language Lei and Draigh spoke, the change in his accent, so unfamiliar it isn't even remotely like any of the traders I've heard in the forge. "Where are you from?"

"I think you know the answer to that question."

"I want you to say it."

"I'm from Torinne, so are Lei and Draigh," he says eventually.

My hands quiver, but I don't dare lower the branch. "Why are you here?"

"We've been in Elel for the past year, since our country was ravaged by the cloud and most inhabitants dead or infected with the evocian."

"You said you didn't know what the evocian was." His expression remains blank. "Another lie."

"Freya." He takes another step forward, unthreatened by my pathetic weapon. "I know this is a lot, but we've got Samu, and we escaped Ereon. We must keep moving."

I clench my teeth together. When he puts it so plainly, he doesn't sound like a villain at all. And on paper, aside from the fact that he's a shifter, the very race I despise, he did give me what I wanted—Samu. And yet when I look at him, it feels like my chest is being split in half.

"Escape King Ereon only to kidnap me yourself?" I say.

"You're not a prisoner."

"Then take me back to Veymaw."

"King Ereon announced you as the Cloud Piercer to hundreds of shifters last night, and then you escaped. His entire army will be searching for you. Veymaw is the first place they'll look."

"So you do know what the Cloud Piercer is."

"I do, and if you come with me, I'll explain everything to you." He takes another step closer. "Just trust me."

"I'll never trust you again."

His jaw clenches, but he gives no other reaction to what I've said. My mind flashes to the alcove, when we kissed, the utter horror he stared at me with after he pushed me away. The shame of it burns, but not quite as hot as the betrayal. All the banter, shared stories of his family, heated touches, and fleeting gazes—was any of it real? Oh, how easily I became caught in his web of deception.

"It won't be long before they catch up to us," he says. "Before she catches up."

She. Elora.

Elora didn't hide her hatred for me. She didn't earn my trust only to burn it into the ground. She never hid what she was, and yet Killian says her name like she's the real villain in this moment.

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

"What about Samu?" he presses. "We can help him, Freya. We have healers far more advanced than those in Veymaw."

I want to spit at him, but I consider his offer. If what he's said is true, there's no going back to Veymaw, at least not right now with King Ereon after us. And he's right, leaving Samu and I in the middle of nowhere isn't going to help either of us.

"You haven't hurt Samu?"

"I would never."

I want to believe him. My first instinct it to believe him, but I shove the feeling away. "Show me."

"Of course."

He leads me back to the trail, to the carriage at the front. It's larger than the one I was in. He opens the sheet for me, and I clamber in, shifting away when he comes after me. Inside the carriage, Samu is lying across the cushioned bench. His clothes have been changed, his skin washed, and it's more even, not so grey. But he's still unconscious. I take his hand as the carriage jolts forward.

"Lei thinks they gave him some sort of drug to keep him unconscious," Killian says from behind me. "We have a healer back at the base who will be able to help him."

My vision blurs as I stare at Samu. I squeeze my eyes shut to keep tears from falling. I won't cry, not in front of Killian.

"Tell me about the Cloud Piercer," I say without turning around.

He takes a deep breath before speaking. "The cloud destroyed Portson and most of the deserter clan there, like I told you. It's coming from Torinne, my homeland, which is now entirely covered in the cloud," he says. "It's uninhabitable."

I stroke Samu's hair back as Killian talks, refusing to look at him. "Where did it come from?"

"Did you ever learn about the war in school?"

"Only that Torinne was our enemy, and that they surrendered to Elel soldiers."

"A half-truth," Killian says. "It wasn't the soldiers my people surrendered to."

I glance at him over my shoulder. There's a burning in his gaze, fury. "Ereon hasn't lived this long, through this many decades based on good genetics alone. He used magic."

"Magic doesn't exist."

His raises a brow. "Even after everything you've seen with your very own eyes, you are still so cynical."

"A common trait for those who are consistently betrayed by people they trusted."

A tense silence fills the carriage as my words settle in. "Freya--"

"Just keep going."

He sighs. "Ereon was ill many decades ago. An illness that no healer in Elel was able to cure. Before the war started, he had merely a matter of months left to live. He needed a miracle. He needed a Kinjri."

My eyes dart to his. Kinjri. Elora and the King had used the same word. "What's a Kinjri?"

"It means wanderer in my language, because Kinjri can wander beyond the constraints placed upon the rest of our minds." He holds my gaze. "They are rare. Before you or I were born, Ereon and his soldiers hunted them, threatened by the species. For that reason, most Kinjri escaped to Torinne or other countries where they lived in harmony."

"A Kinjri could heal Ereon's illness, but he knew he would not find one in Elel. So they invaded Torinne and kidnapped a Kinjri woman."

"And she healed him? After all he'd done to her species?"

"I'm not sure she would've had much choice in the matter," he says grimly. "But the woman, Nala, worked closely with the Queens of Torinne. Our armies went to search for her in Elel."

"And that's how the war started? Over a kidnapped woman?"

"A very powerful woman," he corrects.

"If she was so powerful, couldn't she just escape?"

"She did, multiple times, but never for long enough to completely leave Elel." He swallows. "He held her captive for the length of the war, Freya. Nearly 10 years. Whatever she endured in that time, I do not know. But it's long enough to drive anyone to insanity, no matter how powerful. By the time our armies started to encroach on Elel territory, he'd found some way to harness her power. He created the cloud."

I turn to look at him. His dark eyes flicker with fury. "The first storm hit seventeen years ago when our soldiers were in Elel searching for Nala. When they returned, many of their families had already perished." He meets my gaze. "Lei and I, we grew up in constant fear of the cloud. It was random when and where it struck, until eventually, it started to spread throughout the entire country. There was no stopping it, no matter how many Kinjri tried. When I turned 19, we had to flee."

"Where did everybody go?"

"Most of us fled to Ayrith, afraid that the neighbouring countries would soon be taken over by the cloud due to their proximity to Torinne. And they were right, reports claim that Llyn is experiencing similar storms that ravaged Torinne in the early years."

"Like the one in Veymaw," I murmur. "So it's spreading to Elel, too?" He nods. "What happened to her? The Kinjri woman Ereon used to create the cloud?"

"Nobody really knows. Some believe Ereon exhausted her powers and she died, but nobody has ever been found. Others believe she is still alive, kept hidden somewhere in the Elel Palace."

"Is that why you came to Elel? To search for the Kinjri Ereon used to create the cloud?"

"No," he says. "I wasn't sent to Elel for her."

"Then why?"

"I came for you."

I blink at him. "What're you talking about?"

"Nala escaped Ereon many times over the ten years she was held captive, going into hiding with the aid of many in the human villages. The longest period she managed to evade him was 10 months." He pauses, surveying me for reaction. "When she was found and returned to Ereon, she'd had a child. That's why I don't believe that Nala's still alive."

"Because she had a child?"

"Because, if she were still alive, Ereon's armies wouldn't spend every Red Moon searching for the child, hoping they have the same gift as their mother." He meets my eye. "Now, that the cloud has started to invade Elel, the search has become more urgent. The search for you."

"The search for...for me." His words connect in my mind. "You think... you think I'm that child?"

"I wasn't sure," he admits. "At first, I thought it was Samu, but when you told me he was adopted, I realised Ereon's men had taken the wrong child. Nala was your biological mother, not Samu's."

I shake my head. "No. My mother died giving birth to me."

"That's not true, Freya."

"It is. My father was no liar."

He pauses for a few moments, choosing his words carefully. "I know it's a lot—"

"It's more than a lot, it's... it's insane," I snap. "You expect me to believe that my mother was some magical being and it's her fault that your country was destroyed?"

"It wasn't her fault, it was King Ereon's doing."

"You sound crazy."

"I'm telling the truth."

"And I'm just supposed to believe you? After everything you've done?" I demand.

His expression tightens. "I never intended to hurt you."

"You used me. This entire time I was just part of some twisted game of yours."

"It's more complicated than that. I—"

"You used me to get into the Palace. You used me to get to the King, to find information on your country, all the while knowing that at the end of it all, you'd take me back to wherever we're going now."

"That's not—"

"True or false, Killian."

He presses his lips together but doesn't respond. True.

I turn away from him, my eyes prickling. I feel like such a fool. "So, what now?"

"We're going back to our base camp. It's secure, and Ereon doesn't know where it is, for now. We'll get Samu help, and we'll tell you more, anything you'd like to know."

"And then?"

"And then we try to take down the cloud. Together. Before it's too late for any of us."

I look out the window at the passing trees. They crowd around the small path we travel, stretching overhead and making it difficult for even the sun to peek through. If what Killian is saying is true, Casimir had as little as an idea as I did about his true identity. But what also means he wasn't wrapped up in this, he should've been able to escape the Palace before even we did.