He never touched her without warning.
Never asked forgiveness.
Never demanded gratitude.
That made him difficult to hate cleanly.
On the second evening, they reached a narrow canyon.
Gideon suddenly raised one hand.
Ayana stopped.
“What?”
He crouched beside the trail.
Bootprints.
Horse tracks.
Fresh.
“Soldiers?”
Ayana whispered.
“No.”
Gideon studied them.
“Three riders.
Maybe four.”
He touched a print.
“One horse is shod backward.”
Ayana frowned.
“Why?”
“To hide direction.”
She had seen that before.
Scouts sometimes reversed shoes to confuse pursuers.
They continued more carefully.
Near sunset, a rifle fired from the cliffs.
The bullet tore Gideon’s hat from his head.
He threw himself behind a boulder.
Ayana dropped from the mare.
Another shot.
Gideon fired toward the ridge.
“Stay down!”
Ayana ignored him.
She crawled through scrub and saw movement above.
A rider disappeared behind stone.
For half a heartbeat, she saw the man’s face.
Her blood chilled.
She knew him.
Taza.
One of her own people.
A warrior from her clan.
And closest friend to the man Ayana had been promised to marry.
She said nothing.
Not yet.
They reached her people the following afternoon.
The camp saw Gideon before Ayana could call out.
Twenty rifles appeared.
Bows lifted.
Men rushed from between the lodges.
Gideon slowly raised his hands.
Ayana rode forward.
“Stop!”
Her uncle Chayton emerged from the crowd.
His face transformed when he saw her.
“Ayana?”
Then he saw Gideon’s coat.
Shock became fury.
Warriors surrounded them.
Someone struck Gideon behind the knees.
He fell.
Another man pressed a knife beneath his jaw.
Ayana slid from the horse.
“He saved me!”
Nobody moved.
She repeated it louder.
“He saved my life.”
A path opened through the crowd.
A tall warrior stepped forward.
Keme.
Ayana’s betrothed.
They had been promised since childhood.
He was handsome, disciplined, respected.
She had once believed she loved him.
Now his face looked carved from stone.
“We buried your sister,” he said.
Ayana’s throat tightened.
“You found Ka?”
Keme nodded.
“Two days after the soldiers attacked.”
Ayana closed her eyes.
Then Keme looked at Gideon.
“And you brought one of them here.”
“He saved me.”
“He wears the Seventh.”
“I know.”
Keme’s expression changed.
“You know?”
Gideon spoke.
“I was at Black Mesa.”
Silence spread.
A woman screamed.
One warrior lunged forward.
Keme stopped him.
Not from mercy.
From control.
“Bind him.”
Ayana stepped between them.
“No.”
Keme stared at her.
“You protect him?”
“I said bind him if you must.
But no one kills him until I know why Taza was shooting at us.”
That changed everything.
Taza stood near the edge of the crowd.
His face went still.
Keme slowly turned.
“Taza?”
Ayana pointed at him.
