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“Maybe lying and not telling are two different things.”

“Sa.”

“Sa,” he repeated, but the smile died on his face. He’d been telling himself he wanted to keep her out of danger, but now here he was, escorting her right into it. Who’s lying to who now?

“Will you tell them about the meeting? The leaders at the monastery?”

Another stone on his shoulders. “If the tribes are making a plan to rise up, my friends, my brothers…they’ll kill everyone. Isfolj, too, I’d wager.”

Revni paled.

“You’re invaders,” he reminded her.

“But if you do tell—Aleteria will not hold back, will they? Everyone who lives on Faen will suffer. Isfolj, too.”

“You’re locals,” he agreed drily, and sank back.

“This is like me, I think. You cannot go to Norbucum, and you cannot not.”

If only that were true. He couldn’t keep hiding things, not from her. Now that they were here, he was realizing, this was just what he needed: one night’s peace. One night’s rest from being hunted and chased, one decent conversation in which he could think straight and she could help him come up with a plan.

“You and I—” She began, just as he said: “I have to tell you something.”

Her fingers paused, hair intertwined around her knuckles. She smiled faintly.

“I think we are bees’ mind.” She spoke so quietly he almost couldn’t hear her.

“What is that?”

She shook her head. Her fingers drifted to her lap. “You go.”

But now that he’d started, Eavus didn’t feel brave enough to begin. He should have gotten dressed first at least. The water was beginning to go cold, and it certainly didn’t help with that shrinking feeling that was racing over him.

“My message. The one I need to deliver. I’m not supposed to tell you this— I’m not supposed to tell anyone this—” He scrubbed his head again out of habit, and water dripped down the back of his neck. “Once I deliver it, the snakes are going to escape the sack.”

“What does that mean?”

He’d never thought of it as an expression he needed to explain. “It means…chaos. Terrible consequences, best plans going sideways,…and— I don’t know what to do.” Saying it out loud, finally admitting it, Eavus felt the weight of it all, both bearing down on him and lifted off. “It’s useless.”

“How is it useless?”

He flung a hand towards his belt. Dark drops spattered the dirt floor. “All my delivering it does is give them a few weeks’—maybe only a few days’—advance notice. So they can mobilize. So they can—” He squeezed imaginary claws together so tightly his joints seized up. It was maddening. “Pincer,” he remembered the word. He twisted towards her, tumbling water over the edges that made the fire sputter. Revni stood, as if to mend it, but then stayed where she was. “If I don’t deliver it, I’m a dead man. Beyond anything else. The slaver, the irginor I punched… People make mistakes. But you don’t disobey a commander.” He leaned over the side, willing her to understand.

“So you deliver it.”

“Yes! Exactly. I deliver it. I get my money.” He sank back again. The water was tepid. The stupid piece of sacking clung limply to his lower half. Did he feel better that she’d given him permission? “It’s so much money.”

“So what’s the problem?”

How could he make her understand? “If I deliver it, I’m only aiding the inevitable,” he justified. That wasn’t what she asked, but he didn’t know what he wanted from her anyway. “Aleterian ships will cross the Northern Sea to Norbucum, and Aleterian troops will march from Lordinius, whether I help or not. I’m not doing anything wrong.”

She took a step towards him, but this time it was guarded. She had a furrow in her brow. “Well then, what is the problem?”

“I’m the only person that message affects, and only if I don’t deliver it!” His excuses almost sounded like a squeal, and that’s what it felt like. Like he was rooting around in someone else’s mud. Get me out of this, he wanted to shout. She was smart, she was capable. If anyone could think of something, or make him forget what he was about to do, it was Revni. “Everyone else—there’s nothing I can do for them. The wheel of Aleteria will roll on just the same, crushing anything in its path. Whether it’s me who delivers the news, or someone else, you see? But I—” The words stuck in his throat, a lifetime of training strangling him. But he took a breath and pushed them out: “I don’t want to do it. I know it’s going to happen. I just don’t want to help it happen faster.”

“What does the message say?” She’d stepped closer without him realizing, stepped around so she was facing him. He squirmed in some embarrassment, but she wasn’t looking down. She was staring into his eyes, her expression unreadable.

“There’s a new emperor. New changes.” Relief flowed through him. To finally get to say it. To share this burden he’d been carrying. “No more tributes and sending people on their way. No more joint rule. Every tribe on Arnea must submit fully to Aleterian authority, or be slaughtered. Caerdeneii, Dinaeii. Isfolj.” Revni barely flinched, and that was a relief, too. She was a warrior. She understood a warrior’s choices. “And with the business at the river? The only solution I can come up with to saving our necks is to deliver it even faster—outrun any other messengers. Start that wheel rolling so I can jump out of the way.”