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The pile of breastplates in the Sculpae tent. The tense wait for that captive girl to come identify him. Perhaps the Sculpae had reason to hate the Aleterians so terribly. Perhaps the world and its relationships were so much more complex than just what he knew. That didn’t make the Sculpae right in their savagery, but it did make them, possibly, human. And the thought that even the Sculpae deserved some emotion—it changed everything, in a way Eavus couldn’t begin to unthread.

“I told you I would save your soul, Ricaea Marceas Eavus. There is a war you have been fighting inside you. My god is a god of peace. So what is a soldier to do?”

Whatever reply Eavus was going to make caught in his throat. He had felt it all his life—as a young boy, cheered on in the practice ring every time he threw a punch, every time he made another boy bleed; as a new soldier, driving a weapon into a body made of straw, encouraged to imagine something crueler.

“I hate it,” he admitted. “The one thing I’m good at in all the world. And I hate it.”

“So what do you want instead?”

What do you want? Had anyone ever asked him that question, and meant it? Had he even given himself permission to think beyond vague images of freedom? How would he live, without the food and money and shelter of the army? Taerus, the deserter, had shown him what happened when the army used you up. It was already happening to him, no other skills, could barely make it from one fort to the next, if it hadn’t been for Revni. Revni, who knew how to make a fire, and learn languages, and navigate the stars. She had cursed him, called him a monster. And wasn’t he?

Eavus suddenly felt a crushing emptiness where his insides were supposed to be. She hadn’t been wrong. He had taken their kindnesses, all while knowing what fate he was helping bring about. He had been dropped into the middle of this vast, exquisite wilderness with its gigantic whispering trees and cool, bubbling streams, and the deer and the goslings and the way the dead leaves smelled sweet underfoot—and been told to ignore it, chop it all down and pave it, march through it to get to the next city, only to burn that one down, too. And for what? For the glory of the emperor. For the glory of Aleteria. That was how the saying went.

But Eavus didn’t feel glory. He felt only a deep, horrible loss. Was there something he could have done differently? Maybe he didn’t have a choice, not then, but he did with Revni. He could have let her go right from the beginning. He could have taken her to the Isfolj. Or if not then, after Triconum. They could have traveled together, up that Snake River, found her people, kept her safe. Instead, he had driven her even more deeply into danger. If it hadn’t been for him, for the message he carried, she’d be here. Or they’d be there, in Norbucum, together. She wouldn’t hate him. She wouldn’t have left.

Their argument reverberated in his brain and fought for more space. He’d always thought she resembled a lioness, and no more so than in that moment. A god has a face, he’d said, but it was Revni’s that filled his vision. She’d been all teeth and claws, a growling, terrifying mess. Those braids a blond mane, the stalking terror she’d evoked in him, the flash in her eyes, her righteous anger. It stirred things within him that he’d never given himself liberty to feel. Those moments in the woods—where all they had or needed was each other. That felt like something important. Moments where you held someone tight against you and didn’t care if the whole world disappeared, because the whole world was inexplicably right here, in the heaviness of their arm across your chest, in the breath of sleep against your neck.

Gods. How had he been so blind? How had he been so obtuse? What did he want? He wanted to slam Revni into the wall and press his body against hers. He wanted her pale skin under his bare hands. He wanted her claws on his back, her teeth on his lip. He wanted to throw himself between her and her enemies and take a sword to his gut. He wanted to cradle her up, scoop her in his arms and let her clutch onto his neck while he ran them both to safety.

How he could want to do things to her and protect her at the same time made no sense to him, but he was nothing but a soldier and a slave and he didn’t understand the ways of the heart or of the body.

All he knew was that he loved her.

And however that manifested, Revni was what he wanted.

His voice came out raw and rough. “How far away do you think she got?”

THIRTY-NINE

Revni’s emotions were a savage thing: rage and grief and shame. That soft heart, that had molded itself towards Eavus—that was weakness. That wasn’t the vow she had made. A soti’s promise was to die with a weapon in your hand, availing of what the gods had laid in front of you.

If a ship of Aleterians was on its way, she would make sure the Isfolj would be ready for it.

She knew now, with a surety she hadn’t felt since she first arrived on this island, that the gods guided all. Why else would the monk have pushed her away, sent her towards Norbucum? How else could she have run through the darkness? Nikeni was so bright, lighting her way, that her eyes began to ache. How else could she have found that cave to sleep in? Wind didn’t howl like that, keening over hills. It didn’t change its whistle to a thin song, leading her to an opening in the rock. How else except by the gods could she have found those travelers the next day—hunters, maybe, not Dinaeii, but she followed the sound of their voices and raised her hands in peace and they gave her food and kept her on the right path. How else could all this have happened?

The gods rewarded the strong, not the gentle. Never mind the ghost of Eavus’ fingers tracing her skin. He meant nothing to her. He was not blood. What would her parents have thought of her? The seer? Her clan? Ready to surrender who she was. The only surrender an Isfolj should make was to the gods—and so she did. Their feet guided her. Their will filled her heart.

It was like bjerluk, this giving up of herself, this clarity. Revni had been kidnapped, hunted, sold. She had been stolen and robbed and betrayed. What was left for her? She was one person, alone in a world that didn’t want her.

What could one person do, besides surrender to the goddess of revenge?

Whatever had almost been between her and Eavus receded like claws, replaced by the goddess’ fangs and scruff. Five days alone in the wild lodged a growl permanently in her throat.

Pincer, Eavus had said. What was a crab without its claws?

Norbucum had been Eaborik once, and with the gods’ will it could be again.

She knew she was close to the city by the noise, a hum that sounded like geese, distant creaks of wood. The squawk of seagulls made her heart race. These weren’t Aleterian roads, smooth and planned. These were Isfolj paths, worn by feet and worming around boulders. Trees had been felled long ago, leaving a surrounding field now peppered with thin saplings and wild grasses, and the high earthworks—so familiar—made Revni pause and take in a deep breath.

Fish and smoke and vinegar. If she strained her ears, she could almost hear the slap of the sea on docked boats.

The gates stood open, as they would during the day when no one was aware of danger. Norbucum was most certainly smaller than Lordinius, but with its winding alleys and mismatched houses, size was impossible to tell. This was an Isfolj city, no matter whose banners fluttered off the high tower. Revni’s eyes watered at the rise and fall of Isfolj words. She hadn’t heard her own language in so long that she found her tongue moving along with it in her mouth, as if to taste it. A pig grunted up behind her, hurrying as if late for the tide. Revni stepped aside to let him pass, her heart full with the smells and sounds of a place that could be home. She came upon an altar black with old blood, the dead flowers on its surface the only indication it was for Yesena, but Revni touched a hand as she passed out of respect for the goddess who had been kind to Kyrianos.

I hear you.

Revni passed people going about their daily work, beating rugs and emptying pots, but no one took notice of her. From what Eavus had said, Norbucum was jointly ruled but in practice divided into two—the Isfolj kept the outer ring, all the way to the port, and half the old city. The Aleterians stuck mostly to the center, the pit of the plum, extending like a knife to the sea.

Revni stopped short as she turned another corner. An Aleterian leaned against a railing, his helmet tucked under his arm. The girl he was flirting with kept a hand on the basket on her head, but when she laughed, it rocked, and the Aleterian steadied her arm.