Supplies meant for reservation camps were sold privately.

Elias learned the truth slowly.

Then all at once.

Nalin had been captured with six others after soldiers attacked a traveling group near the San Pedro River.

She was eighteen.

Elias first saw her tied beside the storehouse.

Blood ran from her nose.

A soldier had struck her.

Elias ordered him away.

Nalin spat at Elias’s boots.

He remembered almost laughing.

“You should be careful.”

She stared at him.

“You should be ashamed.”

Those were the first English words she ever spoke to him.

They changed his life.

Over the following weeks, Elias discovered what Voss intended.

The prisoners were not going to be released.

The captain wanted them transferred secretly south.

Some would be sold to Mexican labor contractors.

Others would simply disappear.

Elias confronted Voss.

Voss smiled.

“Lieutenant, civilization is expensive.”

That night, Elias made his choice.

He stole keys.

Cut restraints.

Opened the eastern gate.

Nalin and twenty-two prisoners escaped.

But somebody raised the alarm.

Shots erupted.

A lantern fell.

The storehouse caught fire.

Then the ammunition shed exploded.

Fort Mercy burned before dawn.

Elias fled with the prisoners.

Three soldiers followed.

Two died during the pursuit.

The third was never found.

Officially, Lieutenant Elias Vale was declared a deserter, murderer, and traitor.

A reward was placed on his head.

Elias disappeared.

He believed Nalin’s people had escaped into the mountains.

He never saw her again.

Until now, apparently, he was looking at her daughter.

Corvin stared at the young woman.

“What’s your name?”

“Talani.”

He repeated it quietly.

“Talani.”

She watched his face.

Then she asked the question that terrified him.

“Did you love my mother?”

The warriors seemed to vanish.

There was only Corvin.

Talani.

And seventeen years of buried grief.

“Yes.”

The answer came without hesitation.

Talani’s expression remained unreadable.

Corvin swallowed.

“She hated me when we met.”

“For good reason.”

A faint sound almost escaped him.

Not laughter.

Something sadder.

“Yes.”

Talani continued.

“She said you taught her to write her name in English.”

Corvin’s eyes burned.

“Yes.”

“She taught you Apache words.”

“Badly.”

For the first time, something moved at the corner of Talani’s mouth.

“My mother said you were an impatient student.”

“She was an impatient teacher.”

Talani reached into her pouch again.

This time she withdrew a folded piece of cloth.

Inside was a small strip of paper.

Old.

Yellow.

Protected carefully for years.

Corvin recognized the handwriting before she unfolded it.

His own.

Nalin, if the moon disappears, look where morning begins.

He had written that during their escape from Fort Mercy.

They had become separated after the explosion.

The eastern mountains had been their meeting point.