Perspiration and smoke hung in the air.
The enemy camp lay before them like a restless beast, groaning to the noises of weary soldiers, snapping fires, and hushed voices speaking a dozen languages. It was not neat, not like Everthorne's camp — it was raw, desperate. Men drank in the open. Prisoners were bound near the latrines. Whips cracked somewhere in the darkness. Authority was won here, taken by force, not yielded by rank.
Amelia knew it in her bones: Mercy had no business here.
She and Clara had walked across the perimeter the night before, passing as two terrified enlistees from the ravaged north. Filth-covered and blood-soaked rags had been all the disguise they required — they hadn't needed to act. Their eyes already wore the scars of war.
The officer who had taken them in barely glanced at them."More meat for the grinder," he'd muttered before bellowing orders."You report to Captain Jerod at dawn."
That left them a few hours.
Now, packed into a ragged tent on the edge of the camp, Amelia crouched beside Clara, their shoulders together. Their breath plumed gently in the cold.
Clara rubbed her hands together. Her fingers quivered — not with fear, but holding back. She longed to do something, to move.
"There are too many splits," she panted. "The officers don't even talk to each other."
"Which means chaos," Amelia whispered, gazing out into the formation behind the flap. "And chaos means cracks."
They'd spent the previous hour in quiet, observing which tents were high command, which of the men doubled as couriers, where wagons carrying supplies came and went. They'd counted faces, memorized symbols on armor, listened for names on the wind.
And learned a chilling reality.
The enemy had doubled — reinforcements from another foreign realm. Mercenaries. Hard, tight-lipped types who didn't wear crests, but knives and cruel smiles. These men fought for no country. They fought for money.
Amelia's throat constricted.
It wasn't any longer a war of land now. This was a war of destruction.
Clara elbowed her into motion."Two officers from the strategy tent. Same couple as before."
Amelia raised an eyebrow. One of the men walked by, grumbling softly.
"No news from inside yet?"
"They say the spy was flushed. The Everthorne idiot's back at base."
Amelia straightened up.
Clara scowled at her."They've been told Claude's alive. They've been told the spy's flown. We're losing our advantage."
Amelia breathed slowly."Then we're going to have to rely on something better. Something they don't expect."
They spent the next hour crawling between shadows, eavesdropping behind water drums and smoldering tents. They would not put it into writing. It all needed to be memorized: the schedule shifts, the food shortages, the mutiny murmurs of soldiers who were thinking of deserting.
It would all come in handy.
Clara was the bolder of the two — gliding in tight, dropping to all fours and creeping when she had to. She was even feline, even in the soiled camouflage. Amelia was rock-steady, by contrast. She walked more slowly, yes — her limp still visible, even after all these years — but her senses were sharp. She could tell when to push on, when to remain still. Together, both of them balanced out each other's weaknesses.
They were a team now. Unspoken, unshaken.
As they slipped back to their tent, the sky began to lighten, and they knew their borrowed time was ending.
Amelia fell onto her bedroll, muscles aching. Clara dropped beside her, a breathless grin on her face.
"We did it," she whispered.
"We're not done yet," Amelia replied. But her voice was tinged with something else — pride. Maybe even awe.
At that moment, they were not nobles, or spies, or women in men's uniforms.
They were survivors.
And the dawn was breaking.