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Gods’ hearts, she cursed as the scowl fell back over his face. She’d pushed too fast. He jerked and she stumbled behind, her headache throbbing, her bruised neck humming its own aching tune.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” she tried. Eavus took a hiding spot behind a particularly wide tree trunk and she crept closer. “I only meant I could help.”

“Shh,” he said sharply. The people they were following were mostly old women and young mothers. Revni hadn’t noticed the babies tied to their bodies at first, but several had one hand protecting the bulging fabric on their fronts, and another had a hump tied to her back with toddler legs dangling out of it.

“I won’t run.”

He shoved her behind him with a gesture like shooing a fly. The group had paused at the widening of the stream, bending to cup water while the little boy with Eavus’ sword and a few other older children stood guard.

Revni leaned closer. “You can’t take them all on your own,” she whispered directly into Eavus’ ear. The hair on the back of his neck rose. He waved her away, but with less gusto. Revni held her tongue, her heart in her throat. Patience. Patience, this time.

She could tell he was considering it. Stars danced in her vision. Everything was sore. She moved her jaw tenderly, testing it. She couldn’t remember getting tied up. She couldn’t even remember getting knocked down, though clearly she had been. But the sun was dropping, and the coast was east, and if she didn’t make a run for it soon, she wouldn’t have any sense of direction at all. She didn’t even know if the boats were still there, or where exactly the cove was, but there was at least a chance…

No there isn’t. She tried to push those thoughts down again, but they kept rising, the pangs of worry sinking their grip. The boats will be gone by now. Everyone will have fled.

But if there was any possibility, any hope at all...

Eavus eyed her, and Revni put on the best face she could: innocent and willing, but with a firm chin that said, I’m an asset. She hoped that was what her face said. She couldn’t be sure she didn’t look crazed.

“Are you hungry?” Eavus asked quietly.

It was Revni’s turn to blink in surprise. But as soon as he said it, her stomach snarled, as if it had been waiting for permission to assert itself. Eavus flicked a smile.

“I do not need your help,” he insisted, beginning to work at the knot at her wrists. It had tightened considerably with all his tugging. “But I also need you to sit still. So I’m going to tie you to that tree there—” He nodded toward a sapling at her back, and Revni’s pulse sped up. He wasn’t letting her go after all. “—and if you’re good, I’ll get you a nice meal as soon as we reach my regiment.”

Revni swallowed, her mind racing. If she cried out, would they kill him? Would they kill her? They didn’t look like they could, but this island had already surprised her more than once. She searched the man’s face for some sort of sign, but he simply stared back, jaw hard, waiting for her to assent.

Waiting for her to submit.

She exhaled quietly and nodded. She kept her eyes on the warrior’s face as he loosened the rope. His forehead wrinkled in concentration. His callused fingertips scraped at her pulse point, but not as rough as the rope had been. A moment of relief, a breath of air on her overworn skin.

Revni took off like an arrow shot from a bow, Eavus loosing a curse behind her.

SEVEN

Nothing.

A sandy, rocky, nothing spit of beach, a great big nothing of ocean as far as the eye could see, with a great big nothing of darkness stretching and growing above it. No boats. No people. Not even any weapons left behind, a cookpot, a length of rope. Revni held herself completely still, refusing to exhale the tortured, frightened breath that clenched at her throat. It was like the Isfolj had never been there at all, except for the charred remnants of a fire made at too low of tide. The logs were haphazard and soaked, like someone had tried to spell a word in the sand and given up.

“Don’t hit me again,” she said to the noise at her back. “I’m not going to run.”

“Do you plan to swim?”

Revni huffed an inadvertent laugh and twisted to look at the warrior. For a moment, her heart stuttered in her chest. Ragged, damp with sweat, a weapon ready in his hand—he reminded her of home.

But then the picture came together, and her breath caught. He had his sword. Had he killed that child? She didn’t want to know. He had a fresh stab wound in his side, or maybe an old one that had reopened. He was bleeding, anyway.

He stepped forward with his rope and Revni held out her hands obediently, her heart resuming its racing. What else was there to do, except buy herself time?

“We’re sitting ducks here. This is Caerdeneii territory.” He moved in, making a loop. “They’ll be watching us by nightfall, if they’re not already.”

Revni rammed her elbow into his nose and sprinted up the coast—she’d scramble over those rocks until she could find a cave or an outcropping, somewhere to hide while the fighter gave up, somewhere she could come up with a better plan.

Eavus slammed into her from behind. Her face hit the rocks, and then Eavus’ knee pressed between her shoulder blades, his strong hands on either side of her head.

“Stop,” he hissed. His fingers pressed into her cheek and jaw. He could snap her neck in an instant. “I do not want to kill you. Stop making me try.”

“I want to go home.” Grief slammed into her harder than Eavus had. Home. Was it only this morning that she’d watched her parents die? Only an angle of the sun since her people had abandoned her, alone on a foreign shore?