I felt like a piece of evidence standing between the two Illyrians. A piece of evidence to determine whether Delvon was guilty of ignoring the High Lord's orders. I was bare and emptied for them to see. I still felt the spymaster's shadows looming over my shoulder and I was under the heavy gaze of the General, but the High Lord kept his piercing violet eyes on the camp Lord.

Delvon glared at me as though he was hoping his eyes alone would have me disappear like swatting away a cloud of fog. "She's not one of my own," he declared. "And none of my men did this to her."

"Right." The General clapped his hands with a broad and mocking grin. "We'll clearly we're just seeing things then if this woman is in your camp." His grin dropped into the sinister, almost cruel expression of a true warrior. "You said you would answer for anything in this camp. Then answer for her."

Devlon tossed his head in my direction. "Let her answer for herself then." I held his fiery gaze. "Tell them, girl! Tell them why you're here. And tell me why you've come to my camp."

The gulp in my throat was the only movement I could produce. I just didn't have anything to say. I couldn't think of what I could or couldn't say so I just chose nothing. But then I felt something. A tickling at my mind. It was like the same sensation of the shadows over my legs; the ghostly touch but this time I knew exactly where it came from.

"Don't touch my head!"

Rhysand lifted his arched brow, but I felt the ghostly tickle fall away. I bowed my head, imagining the lashings I would receive for not only a Lord, but the High Lord of the Court. Yet, he did pull away. "What is your name?" he simply questioned.

"Annika," I answered. "I...I ran," I continued. I would have to answer one way or another. "From the people that hurt me. Lord Delvon has done nothing and neither has any of his camp." Nothing today, but I would never forget the time that I sat in the empty room for days on end as they tried to pry information out of me. It was a matter of time before he recognised me. And I hoped, prayed, that giving him that nicety which he did not deserve might grant me a favour.

"Then who did?"

I glanced to the General who stood with his arms tightly folded again. His eyes were slightly narrowed but in a thoughtful manner rather than a scrutinising one. I couldn't hold his gaze for long. "I don't know which camp it was. They wanted something from me."

"What did they want?" Rhysand pressed.

"Hang on." Delvon stepped forward, bending his head down to peer closer at mine. "I know who this is. Dear little Annika here is a visionary." Delvon stepped even closer, a hand clamping over the base of my neck and he tugged the ratted remains of my shirt down. "Here, there's the tattoo." The three other Illyrians peered closer at the tattoo of an eye on the nape of my neck, just below the edges of my hair.

"I wasn't aware that one of the camps had a visionary," Azriel spoke, his voice deep but soft like a rolling plain of hills. "They haven't been seen almost as long as another shadowsinger has."

Delvon sucked his cheeks in, scrutinising me three times over. "No," he airily mused. "They wanted to keep her for themselves. Otherwise, something like this would have happened much sooner." He gave a confirmational nod to Rhysand. "I'll take care of her, my Lord. She can keep her wings here."

No.

No, my mind screamed.

"No." A breath of relief, or perhaps just disbelief passed by my cracked lips. I lifted my chin and looked directly into those violet eyes that were already staring into mine. "No," he repeated. "A visionary is a rare occurrence. And I am insulted that I was not made aware of this since you seemed to have known about her, Lord Delvon."

Delvon shifted but there was no cower. "Forgive me," he drawled. "I was not aware that you were...unaware."

"Consider it forgotten." But not forgiven, I added in my head. Rhysand glanced at both his companions, and I presumed that they were communicating with the High Lord Daemati's ability. "I will personally see to her recovery, as well as her training."

"Training?" I echoed.

"Yes," the High Lord sang. "Unless you would rather be escorted back to your home camp, or stay here if that is your wish."

He knew it wasn't. Despite my protest I knew that he had gone somewhere in my mind when I was not focused. He knew that my desire was to leave the Illyrian camps. I just don't think he had figured out the why yet, or he would not be offering me a sanctuary. The Court of Nightmares was not a better sounding place than the camps, but I would be unknown there. My past actions would have no impact on my presence and maybe I could carve a new place for myself. "No," I murmured. "It is not." Delvon chewed at his cheek as he watched my power slip from his hands but with no way to grip to it tighter. I felt the small, but glorious pang of satisfaction. To add to it, I turned myself fully to the High Lord. "It would be an honour to serve you."

Rhysand nodded with a firm and small, but ever so gentle smile. I glanced past him to the General. The size of him was outright terrifying, not to even add the seven siphons to the equation. Then I glanced to the shadowsinger and found myself in even more uncertainty. I knew what he did and why. And it was not comforting to be in his presence.

There were so many things going on silently that I couldn't keep track of it all. All of them seemed to have silent conversations with every other individual there except for me. It was a tangled web, and I was the fly caught in it.

"Azriel, see to it that she has something to eat," Rhsyand ordered his shadowsinger. "Cassian and I still have things to attend to here. We will have her tended to by Madja."

My lips parted again, wanting to deny the need for food just so I would not have to be alone with the shadowsinger. His shadows still lingered around me, curling around my legs and trying to pry their way into me. They were as cautious as they ought to be. But I kept myself silent, refusing to be afraid and weak as they were already painting me as.

I wasn't.

I never had been until the other day. I had built solid guards around myself and enjoyed testing situations. But that camp had managed to shatter those and now I was left with the crumbles of their remains to piece back together.

I watched Rhysand stride forward, Cassian at his immediate side. The latter glanced over his shoulder at me. I lifted my chin and stared back. His eyes narrowed more then muttered something to Rhysand and turned back around.

"Come."

An order.

I turned around to the shadowsinger but could not find myself to move my feet. One of his shadows crept along my shoulder. I swatted at it as though I had the ability to move the darkness. It retreated on its own accord.

"How long were you hiding?"

I ran my tongue over my lips, glancing to the spot where Rhysand was now long gone from. "A few hours," I answered. "Not long."

"How long were you running for?"

I knew exactly what he was asking. He wanted to estimate how long I had travelled, and therefore what camp I may have run from. I wanted to answer him, simply because I feared what would happen if I didn't. I let my eyes drift down to his blade which has legends already being told about what it has done to those it needs answers from.

"I protect my court," Azriel murmured, but the words may as well have been spoken as clear as day. "If you are not a threat to it, then there is no need for me to use it."

"How do you know I'm not a threat?" I countered, already regretting my words before they finished pouring from my lips.

Azriel considered me for a long, silent moment. "Rhysand would not have offered you help if he thought otherwise."

"You call him by his name," I mused. It was odd in itself, to call a Lord by his name in such an informal manner, especially in such a formal setting. I don't know whether that said more about Rhysand, or more about the shadowsinger. I wanted to use my powers, however weak they might be to see where the High Lord went. To watch him and listen. But I have left me vulnerable in the shadowsinger's presence. "Tell me, if I ran now. What would happen?"

Azriel frowned as though the hypothetical question truly bothered him. "You would run? Why?"

"I won't," I answered, letting my gaze fall to the ground where I gathered my thoughts. I had nowhere else to go where I would be offered healing assistance. "But I'm trying to figure out if I am a prisoner or a refuge."

He exhaled slowly. "I'm instructed to find you something to eat." He turned and began to walk towards one of the commune buildings. He didn't know the answer, or if he did, then it wasn't one that he wished to tell me.

Would help by worth it if I was a prisoner once more?

Azriel did not stop to check if I was following, but I knew he was aware that I had not moved. The shadows whisper to him, telling him everything that they see. It is how he found me, and how he would find me if I ran.

I looked back to the area where Rhysand disappeared to. I longed for him to come back and tell me more. Tell me what he wanted so I could shove away variables that I hoped would not come true.

Finally my feet began to move, but I took three steps back instead of forward. I'd rather be dead than a prisoner again. I would rather be dead than have my wings completely torn from my body as I had to watch happen to so many women of my camp. I had never even seen my own mother with wings and I, fortunately, had no sisters to watch it happen to. Even though I was as natural as the day I was born, I was an anomaly amongst the camp. The woman that was well of age and still carrying her wings. It was my pay, my compensation for the duty I carried out for my Lord. I was foolish enough to take pride in that when I was younger. But I soon came to realise that having wings and the ability to move gave me, and in turn, my Lord, more benefits than having them shorn from my back.

How would these people use me?

Will they have me spy on their rivals in the Court of Nightmares? Would they have me spy on the camps themselves? They already have a shadowsinger and if they're in need of someone like me then how deep into the web of infiltration must they be?

So against my own words, I ran. I limped, I scrambled against the walls. Whatever I could, because the world alone became a lot less frightening than a world where I was trapped. I whimpered but the sounds were out of my control and I put every effort, every thought I could conjure into finding a way to outrun the shadows.

I made it to the edge of camp without so much as a call from the shadowsinger. I was so shocked that I had even made it as far as I had that I looked over my shoulder. He was there, standing at the end of the long path but he was not moving towards me. It was his confidence that I had nowhere to go that had me skidding to a halt. And just as well I did, for a large, shadowed trunk slammed into the ground three feet from me. Not a trunk, the General. His wings flared out in a powerful stance. I flared out my own but it brought me the greatest pain that I have ever known, like burning hot irons pressing against the tendons. I screamed and let them fall instantly, allowing my knees twist and bring me to the ground.

I gave up. I gave up hope that I had anything left.

A rough, large hand found its way into my cloudy vision. Open and facing me just as the shadowsinger's had when he first found me. But this one had more callouses and a wider palm. I traced my eyes along it, along a blue vein that was a vine around his forearm and elbow until it sunk underneath his skin under his bicep. His black hair hung around his face, clean and groomed. I had no choice, still. But even if I did, I wanted this burning pain to stop no matter the cost. I had tried running, and I was tired.

I lifted my hand and the General's fell closer to me in encouragement. There was a mere inch between our fingers, my own shaking wildly. I imagined myself reaching it, touching the skin and wishing that I could be whisked away. But I was met with the edges of blackness and the impending sense of sleep. I gave what I had left to push my hand out further and brush over his fingertips before I succumbed to what my body desired and fell to the side.