[This post is from Seamus’s point of view.]
Seamus walked toward the Wild Hunt’s camp, toward the home they’d carved out for themselves along the walls of the tiny village. They weren’t his to command any longer, but he knew that they must have felt what he did, known in the very pits of their stomachs that there was something amiss, something wrong.
He hadn’t needed to see Marin going to the fire, see her talking to Tala, complexion ashen, to know that something was coming.
He knew at his very core that something wasn’t right.
It was instinct more than anything that drove him toward the Hunt, toward his brothers and sisters in arms for so long. Even months later, he was still getting used to his freedom—still having to force himself to remember that he was no longer one of them.
And yet, somewhere inside, he always would be.
Anselm met him near the outermost tents. The old soldier’s expression was as grave as Seamus imagined his own might be.
Seamus’s voice came out as a rasp. “What is it, old friend?”
“An old enemy,” Anselm said quietly. “Old and powerful.”
“An enemy of ours?” Seamus asked, falling into step with Anselm as the old soldier headed toward his tent. “Or of…of my cousin, or the old souls?”
“All of them,” Anselm said, his voice grave. “Southrons, the ones that set the Ridden Druid against your kin, the ones we stole him from—saved him from.”
His stomach dropped.
Olympia arrays against us.
“The Hecate?” he asked in a whisper.
“I don’t think so,” Anselm said quietly. “It does not have the feel of her. Can’t you sense it?”
Seamus shifted uncomfortably. “Enough to know something’s amiss. Not enough to be able to identify it with certainty.”
Anselm stared at him for a long moment before he nodded. He stopped in front of his tent, staring at Seamus for a long, silent moment before asking a question that made Seamus’s chest tighten.
“Will you ride out with us, Captain?”
