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She ran a hand down her braid as she entered the tent, passing Bastone, Faro, and Heva at a round table, two of whom must have been wondering why she still wore her armour. But there were plenty of other paranoid soldiers throughout the camp in their armour today after everything that had happened.

“Did you go to the strategy meeting?” Faro asked, and Ryn nodded. “What’s the news? Are they going to send us out somewhere again?” He shrank a little when he asked, flicking a mancala stone that missed the tray and rolled off the table.

Ryn shook her head. Her tired feet dragged through the sand as she made her way to a cot past half a dozen bed rolls. She slumped down and breathed in the light fragrance of cooking food trickling through the camp. It didn’t mask Burn Division Twelve’s sweaty scent.

Heva appeared beside her, the cot squeaking when she sat. She twisted her pale lips back and forth, then scratched the back of her neck, then flicked an invisible fluff off her shoulder. She fiddled with her thumb ring, and Ryn sighed.

“Out with it, Heva,” she said quietly. “Are you going to ask me if I’m alright? Are you going to ask me if it’s difficult to see him?”

Heva folded her arms, her foot digging into the ground.

During the entire walk to the Helbite Cliffs oasis, Heva had stolen looks at Ryn. Apparently, she wasn’t done giving them. The same creases etched her face, a thousand things said in silence.

“I’m fine, Heva,” Ryn said. “Stop looking at me like that.” She began peeling off her armour, unfastening the shoulder pieces, the breastplate, the sabatons, finally feeling fresh air on her skin. She didn’t touch her mask.

Before Heva could come up with a response, the tent flap flew open, halting the mancala games around the room. A thick man marched in, twisting the end of a gray-streaked brown beard that stuck out in all directions. A gold emblem shone at his chest that was different from the commanders, and he wore a long green cape that rippled when he walked. He scanned the burn division soldiers across the tent from beneath heavy, half-closed eyelids until he spotted Ryn.

Ryn’s hand flashed to her armour spread around the cot in pieces, but she didn’t pick anything up. The light was vanishing with the approaching night; her only hope of concealing her small frame.

A helmet was tucked beneath the man’s arm, balancing on his hip as he approached. “Commander Adassah?” he asked with a coarse voice, then released a cough; a dreadful, watery sound that made his whole body convulse.

Ryn’s fingers slid off her breastplate as she stood. Her gaze flickered to the tent opening, but no one else was there. Heva skated away, returning to the games table with Faro and Bastone, studying the man over her shoulder as she did.

“I’m General Reza. I hear you’re from the seventy-fifth province?” he asked, clearing his throat again when the words came out raspy. Ryn noted redness in the corners of his eyes along with patches of paling skin on his face and the weary sway of his stance that reminded her of inmates she’d watched get weaker during her months in the caves.

She knew an ill man when she saw one.

Behind General Reza, Bastone’s head came up. His light brown eyes flickered between Ryn and the General as he lowered his handful of stones to the table.

Bastone hadn’t scolded her for lying the last time she was asked about Burn Division Twelve’s province of origin. He hadn’t even asked why she was keeping secrets, but based on the look he was giving her, she imagined he would soon.

“That’s correct,” Ryn said to the General.

The General’s sagging eyes did a quick sweep over to her armour splayed on the cot, followed by a flicker of his gaze down her scrawny legs. Ryn’s toes curled in the sand. “The King asked me to investigate you,” he admitted. He slid his helmet to his other hip. “I’ll only instigate a full investigation if necessary, but first I wanted to ask you what exactly it was you went to prison for in the seventy-fifth province. I suppose I feel uneasy asking such a thing now though. You don’t look dangerous.” He muttered the last part as he glanced down to her legs again, then at her mask. His brows came together as he studied it. “Not to us, anyway.”

Bastone’s bright gaze sharpened, his crescent scar going taught over his flexed jaw. It was a clear warning soaring across the burn division tent, aimed right at Ryn’s criminal soul.

She ignored it, focusing on the General. “I stole from the market by my house to feed my poor neighbours. My family cast me out afterward,” she said. This time, Faro’s head was the one that snapped in her direction. “I was arrested for thievery three years ago.” She shifted her footing, fighting the urge to glance at their table. From the corner of her eye, she saw Faro try to stand, but Heva’s hand found his shoulder, keeping him down.

The General nodded, his gaze softening in time with a breeze ruffling the walls of the tent. “I see. So, you’re not a rioter or a threat to His Majesty. I apologize for being so forward. I know everything about most commanders in this army, but we’re given no information about burn divisions.” He didn’t have to say that it was because no one expected burn divisions to stay alive. He twisted a strand of his beard, matting it into a thin knot. “You’re creating quite the stir among our men, Commander Adassah. Thank you for volunteering to meet King Alecsander, even though King Xerxes didn’t accept your offer.”

With that, the General gave her a shallow bow, and Heva’s jaw dropped behind him.

Ryn’s hand almost flew out to grab the General’s shoulder to stop him from lowering. Never—never had Ryn seen a Weylin bow to an Adriel. But before she could, he was already up again standing tall. General Reza nodded farewell and left the tent, his cape fluttering behind him.

“You volunteered to what?!” Heva hissed.

Bastone was suddenly before Ryn, grabbing her hand and dragging her past the bed rolls on the ground. Ryn barely had time to snatch her breastplate and wrestle herself into it before they flew out the flap and were bathed in the deep pinks and reds of the vivid setting sun. The sand glowed at her feet, illuminated and glassy. Ryn scurried to keep up with Bastone as he led her past the remains of singed tents to a passage between two gray shelves of rock. She was enveloped in a chilly breath of shadow when she passed through. They came out the other side into an oasis where high stone ledges shielded small clusters of whispering palm trees. Bastone turned her around, nudged her against the stone wall, then took a step back and folded his arms.

His bright eyes swam in the last of the passing daylight. “You’re going to get me killed,” he said. He bit his bottom lip, turning it rosy. “Do you think I don’t know who you are? Do you really think I didn’t hear about you, Heartstealer?!” Ryn’s mouth parted, the serene calm of the oasis breeze turning sour and hot. “Everyone in the Mother City saw your banner in front of the palace. City artists did live paintings of you at revelries! I knew who you were the minute I stepped into the caves to prompt the Fall Order. The only reason the rest of your division hasn’t figured you out yet is because they were already in prison when the Heartstealer trials were taking place!” His jaw flexed, his muscles tightening across his chest. “If you keep lying about your province of origin and I don’t report you, Estheryn, then you and I will be executed side by side when you’re discovered!”

Warmth ravaged Ryn’s body now, and she glanced toward a blue pool of water behind him. She shook her breastplate, not finding relief. Bastone stepped in and pushed her mask up, revealing her face to the oasis, his tea-soap scent sweeping over her as he took hold of her chin. “Don’t ignore me, Commander Adassah. I know who you are. I can expose you at any…”

Bastone’s hand went still. He tilted his ear toward the oasis, his gaze flickering up the rock ledge, then over to the clusters of jade palms and salty white rock piles. His fingers slid off Ryn’s chin and he pulled her mask back down over her face as he turned and slowly drew his sword. “Stay back. You’re unarmed.” His quiet whisper sailed back to her.

Footsteps sounded down the path they’d just travelled. Ryn rattled her breastplate until the breeze found its way inside and cooled her hot chest, her eyes trained on the opening of the path.

A young, handsome king with dark hair and haunting blue eyes sauntered out from the stone alley in a messy, wrinkled white tunic. Ryn’s gaze rounded and she pressed herself back against the rock, but the evening shadows couldn’t hide her glittering gold—she glowed just as much as the signet ring on Xerxes’s finger and the sword he rolled in his hand. He limped a little as he walked, same as he had when he’d marched from the strategy tent earlier.