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Eavus couldn’t feel a thing. Aleteria. Had been there. This whole journey could have been avoided. He could have turned her in weeks ago. He could have been back with his tent party the very day after he’d lost them.
“You ruined my life.”
The monk scoffed. He used the skirt of his robe to lift the hot pot off the coals. “I saved your life. And hers. I told you my god had a mission for you.” The monk took a small taste, using his teeth on the wooden spoon.
“So how did that work out?” Eavus’ bitter growl made Maetis start.
“What?”
“My mission. Your god’s plans. Do you know what message I carry?” Eavus pointed. He felt like he had fire in his veins. “The wrath of Aleteria. The fires of Viduus. The Aleterian gods will sweep over this whole island.”
“No,” he said calmly. “I don’t believe they will. Eat.”
Maetis shoved the spoon into his hand. Eavus was so taken aback that he took it.
“There’s meat in that. A little. A Dinaeii delegation brought me a leg bone. I didn’t ask what animal, but it’s flavored my meals for days.” He looked up. “They’re not the cannibals, are they?”
“That’s the Sculpae.” But they weren’t. Were they? He hadn’t stayed long enough to figure it out. Eavus couldn’t seem to move.
“Well, now here you are, back in my company. That’s not coincidence. That is my god at work.” Maetis rinsed his hands in the tub. “My god will work through you, too.”
“How?” The word ripped out of him. Eavus had no faith, not really. He did his duty to the gods, but to actually believe they did anything? First Revni, now Maetis. All these fools trying to convince him that somehow he was wrong— “How can you believe in your god when you’ve seen what Aleteria does? What the Isfolj and the Sculpae and your Caerdeneii do?” A dam had broken and Eavus was powerless against it. “We’re not the only empire that enslaves. It’s all war, war, and more war. Dead friends, dead mothers, dead children. Rape. Famine. Disease.”
“These are not the actions of my god.”
“But you only have the one! So what is he doing if not driving it?”
“I do not claim to understand the universe. I’m a humble monk.” Maetis plucked the spoon out of Eavus’ hand and placed it, unused, back into the pot. “I was born in poverty. I had a book read to me as a child, and I believed it,” he shrugged. “I am not a teacher. I’m simply a man.”
That isn’t good enough. Eavus repeated the pounding thought aloud: “That’s not good enough.”
Maetis looked up, surprised. “Do you want me to lie?”
No, Eavus cursed, he didn’t, but— “I want you to have the answers.”
“Why?”
“Because someone has to! Someone has to—” Eavus cut himself off, angry at his inability to express himself. He wasn’t a scholar either. How could he explain how much anger he felt? How could he explain injustice to someone who barely believed it existed?
“You are a soldier,” Maetis agreed. “You need someone to tell you what to do.”
“I am a slave,” he spat.
“No.” Maetis raised a hand and hovered it over Eavus’ tattoo. “You were born free, and you will die free.” He traced the tattoo in the air above it, the line that marked Eavus’ owner, the line that marked his status as a soldier. And then he made a slanted line down the middle, where the letters of Eavus’ freedom would go—and the gesture hit like a physical blow to his chest. “Under my god, all men are free.”
The symbol the monk wore around his neck, the shape that marked the tops of their temples and decorated the insides of their buildings…
How had Eavus never noticed? He’d seen it before, but not here. He’d seen it on the arms of old centurions. Men who’d never once heard of the new religion from the east.
It was the mark you got when you had served your time. When Aleteria gave you back your life.
That’s not a coincidence. That’s my god at work.
Eavus had a sudden feeling the same as when Revni drove the javelin into his shoulder—not pain, but like his blood had turned to wine. He felt drunk. He had to sit down.
“What—” Images of Revni came to mind, of her swearing on her gods. Of the miracle of the arrow bouncing off her helmet, the swift water bearing them to unexpected safety. “Where are you from?” Eavus didn’t know why it mattered, but it suddenly did—that the three of them were all born somewhere else and had come together here. Revni and Maetis with their blind faiths. Eavus with nothing.
“A fishing village near Haut.”
