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“Where would you even go?”

“North.” The word strangled out of her. She knew that much at least. Eavus’ weight kept her down, rocks jabbing into her hips, her stomach. Her cheekbone ached.

“North,” Eavus scoffed. “Yes, the Isfolj are north—so far north even I don’t know exactly where. And to get there, you have to go through Dinaeii; Caerdeneii—who I suspect your people recently murdered; Sculpae—who seem to have made it their mission to massacre Isfolj⁠—”

“Why do the Sculpae want to kill Isfolj?”

“Because you stole their territory.”

“We didn’t steal it. My grandfather was given it⁠—”

“By whom?” Eavus’ tone dripped with condescension, like she was the most naive child in the world. “The Catavarrus? Who have never been north of the Coccum River?”

The extent of her ignorance suddenly felt wild and massive, like a dark mountain bursting out of the mist. She didn’t know any of those names.

“It’s easy to give land away. It’s far harder to keep it.” Relief eased through her as Eavus released his knee from her back, but it was brief, and only physical. “You’ve got nowhere to go.” He trussed her again—wrists, arms, roped and pinned—and pulled her to standing. His terrible stink cut through the brine. “Everyone you meet on this island is going to want you dead.”

“What about you?” she bit back, but Eavus only gave a wry half-smile.

“I’m a soldier of Aleteria. Everyone wants me dead more.” He gave the knots at her wrists a healthy, chafing tug. “But I’m also the only person that wants to keep you alive. So it would be easiest for us both if you’d come quietly.”

Eavus took hold of the long lead, and they crashed back through the trees they’d just come from. Revni had gotten so used to resisting, she stumbled when she tried to keep up.

He was right, but it didn’t stop her mind and heart from racing. There had to be some way to contact her people, or find her people, or at least find out where her people were. She racked her brain, but even that action hurt. Her parents, Ulf, the other adults—they had described the new land like a poem, not a place. Soil so soft you could make it into pillows. Blue skies blessed by the gods. The sunlight kisses your face in spring. Where was “go fifty field-lengths up the coast and then take the left fork of the river”? Or “Here’s a list of all the local landmarks”?

“Who were the people that took your sword?”

“It’s not—” Eavus’ gesture towards the hilt was instinctual and awkward. “The Dinaeii. What’s left of them. The Caerdeneii slaughtered the able-bodied two days ago. Likely because they were on their territory,” he added significantly. “If we can find my regiment before dark, we’ll be safe.”

He cast a glance her way.

“You’re my evidence,” he explained. “I need you.”

“I’m touched,” Revni responded drily. Eavus snorted a smile.

So he had human emotions after all. Sa. Something to work with.

She didn’t speak again as Eavus dragged her over creeks and down hills, but he did, cursing every so often as he made a different turn, the furrow in his brow getting deeper, the rope cutting into her wrists more violently with every tug.

Find my regiment, he had said.

The darkness dropped over them like a cloak. One minute there had been enough light to see by, the next the sky was navy and the trees black as shadows.

Eavus cursed again, and the stone that had been living in Revni’s gut since this morning flipped.

“Are we lost?” She’d mocked him earlier, but now her senses fired. She didn’t want to be lost in the woods. She didn’t want to be among these looming foreign trees, in the dark, with this stranger, her wrists tied and every part of her aching.

Eavus didn’t answer. He just tied her to a tree—without attempting to loosen her ropes this time, she noted—and disappeared into the darkness. She could hear ripping, snapping, branches, maybe? But the sound kept moving, off her right shoulder, then her left. She tried to calm her rising panic, but insects were chirping so loudly they made her ears hurt and her thoughts ran away with her, terrible thoughts of creatures in the night and being left here forever. A corpse tied to a stump. Ravens eating her eyes. She jumped as something hooted, and then yelped when Eavus suddenly appeared again, striding straight for her.

“Shhh,” he demanded.

He yanked her towards him, the sudden heat of his hands on her making her cry out again, everything that had happened—that was still happening—suddenly choking her worse than the rope had: her parents, dead; the ships, gone; the throbbing in her head, the blisters on her feet—and now he was dragging her, throwing her down on a massive pile of ferns and leaves, a bed he’d made in a depression between two trees—to do what?

She knew what.

Put an ax in her hand, she begged. Give her a shield.

Beld, she pleaded, god of justice. Show mercy.