When I thought about it, he was right. A zing of fear traveled up my spine. If I survived this mission, I would have to be extra-vigilant.

“We’re really surprised you weren’t caught by the locals sooner,” Quain said. He unrolled his blankets.

“Why?” I turned my back to the flames, hoping to dry my damp clothes.

“We had a list of healers,” Loren said. “But by the time we learned of their location, they’d been executed. We always heard the same gossip. That they had been caught by doing something stupid.”

“Like healing a child,” I said. My obvious weakness. Although I’d tried hard to avoid it by keeping to myself and limiting how much time I spent with other people.

“Not that at all.” Flea fussed with his bedroll. “You’re the only one who was smart enough to take off after you healed a kid. The other healers figured the grateful person or parent wouldn’t turn them in. They didn’t bother to disguise themselves like you, either.”

I tucked a short strand of blond hair behind my ear. Some disguise. I cut my hair and dyed it. I still used my own name. It was amazing I hadn’t been arrested sooner. But then I remembered what Loren had said. “How did you get a list of healers?”

He shrugged. “Kerrick had it. He probably raided one of the old town halls for the records. Didn’t the healers have a guild before?”

Before always meant pre-plague. “Yes.” But my name shouldn’t have been on it.

My apprenticeship with Tara had started when I turned sixteen—mere months before the first outbreak. Once the sickness raced across the Realms, she stopped teaching me. Instead of earning my membership in the Guild, I returned to Lekas, my home town in Kazan, to find my family gone. They were either dead or had left. None of the living could tell me. And when the rumors about the healers grew into accusations and turned into executions, no one wished to talk. I had spent my seventeenth birthday hiding in a mud puddle as my neighbors and former friends hunted for me. After three years with no word about my family, I’d lost all hope of ever finding them or even knowing what happened to them.

I glanced around the small cavern. A couple of leather rucksacks slumped in a corner, but other than stone walls and a fist-size opening in the ceiling high above our heads, there was nothing else.

At least the cave was warm and dry. However, I eyed the hard ground with dread, longing for my knapsack. It had held my thin bedroll, money, some travel rations and my cloak.

Flea finished setting up his blankets. But instead of settling in, he swept an arm out. “Ma’am, uh, Avry, your bed awaits.”

I jerked in surprise. “No need to give up your—”

“Kerrick said to make you comfortable. If I don’t, he’ll kill me. Besides—” he flashed me that lopsided grin again “—these are Kerrick’s.”

“Won’t he be mad?” From the way his men acted, he appeared to be someone you don’t want to be angry with you.

“No,” Quain said. “There is always one of us on watch. When he wakes me to take my turn, he’ll just sleep in mine.”

Loren hooked a thumb at the packs in the corner. “He can also use Belen’s.”

The men all sobered at the name.

“He’s the one who provided the distraction last night,” I said, guessing.

“Yeah,” Flea said. His shoulders drooped and he hung his head so his hair covered his eyes. “He probably got lost or something.”

“Belen doesn’t get lost,” Quain said. “He’s probably leading the town watchman on a merry chase.”

“How long will we wait for him?” I asked Quain.

“Not long.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re more important than him. Hell, to Kerrick you’re more important than all of us, and the longer we stay here, the greater the danger.”

As I lay on Kerrick’s bedroll, I breathed in his scent. That same mix of spring sunshine and living green. It felt as if the earth embraced me in her warmth. I cuddled deep into the blankets, letting the shock of being the last healer fade into an ache under my heart. And allowing all the questions I had for Kerrick and his men to be pushed aside for now.

A shout woke me from a deep sleep. I felt safe, which was odd considering my circumstances. The fire had died to embers and the other bedrolls were empty. Alarmed, I jumped to my feet. Voices yelled and echoed from the only direction of escape. I was trapped.

As the noise level increased, I backed away until I stood at the far wall. Something large and dark blocked the narrow entrance. If I could, I would have climbed the rough wall. My first impression was that an angry bear had returned to his cave and he wasn’t happy to find it occupied. The second and more accurate but no less terrifying was a giant man who looked like he could wrestle a bear one-handed and win.

When he spotted me…not quite cowering against the far wall, he grinned.

“There you are,” he said in a reasonable tone. He crossed the cavern in two strides and held out his hand. “Belen of Alga.” Kerrick and his men followed behind him. All sported smiles.

As I shook Belen’s oversize paw, er, hand, I noted he was from Kerrick’s Realm. “Avry.”

“Nice to meet you finally. Here.” He thrust my knapsack into my hands. “I hope this is yours. Otherwise, I went to a lot of trouble for nothing.”

“You shouldn’t have risked going back for her pack,” Kerrick said.

Belen frowned at him. “Nonsense. She needs her things.” He gestured. “Winter’s coming and she doesn’t even have a cloak. You probably didn’t even think to give her yours.”

“I was a little busy saving her life.”

Loren and Quain hid their amusement at Kerrick’s annoyed and slightly peevish tone.

“Well, she’s going to need what little she has if we’re going to travel through the Nine Mountains before the first blizzard.”

I clutched my pack to my chest. “The Nine Mountains? Why?” The plague had destroyed all form of organized government in the Fifteen Realms. It had taken a couple years before the survivors had grouped together to form the small clusters we had now. Law in Realms like Kazan and most others had ceased to be.

Too busy dodging bounty hunters, I hadn’t paid attention to our current political situation, but even I’d heard that marauders had settled into the foothills of the Nine Mountains. Gangs who warred with one another and set their own rules to suit themselves. And if you managed to avoid them, the ufa packs would hunt you down.

“Didn’t he tell you?” Belen jerked a thumb at Kerrick.

“No time last night for idle chat,” Kerrick snapped. “Our sick friend is on the other side of the Nine Mountains.”

It would take us more than two months to reach him. “How sick? He might not last.”

“He’s been encased in a magical stasis.”

Interesting. There weren’t that many magicians left. I wondered how long it took Kerrick to find one. “By a life magician?”

“No. A death magician.”

Even rarer. I considered. “How bad is your friend? If he’s on the edge of dying, I won’t be able to help him.”

“He’s pretty healthy. Sepp was able to pause his life force just after he began the second stage.”

The second stage? Dread wrapped around me. Had the plague returned? As far as I heard, there hadn’t been any more victims in two years. Then I remembered Kerrick had been searching for me at least that long.

“He has the plague. Doesn’t he?” I asked.

“Yes,” Belen said. “We know you can heal him. With the whole world dying, how could a hundred of you save six million of them? You couldn’t. The Healer’s Guild sent that missive so they could organize their healers, set up a response based on need, but that’s all in the past, Avry. It’s only one sick man.”

“But—”

Kerrick interrupted, “Belen, do you need to rest?”

“No, sir.”

“Gentlemen, prepare to go,” Kerrick said.

His men scrambled to pack. I checked my knapsack. All my belongings remained inside. I removed my cloak, draping it around my shoulders.