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But a sail had snapped within her, taut and full and straining its ropes. She wasn’t an Aleterian. She was a sea-raider, a savage, feral thing.

She was not someone who surrendered. Not even to the gods.

The prefect stumbled, a single lurch—the cloak pin, under his feet—but it was the break in his grip, in his focus, that she needed. Revni threw her head back, felt the snap of his nose, then twisted, hooking the prefect’s leg with hers and taking him off balance, then smashing her head forward, one hand wrenching his wrist. The blade fell. Revni snatched it up, the prefect staggering backward. Blood seeped out beneath the hand on his face.

He shouted a command in Aleterian, then, frustrated, repeated in Isfolj: “Gua⁠—!”

But before he could get the word out, Revni found herself shoved to the side. Eavus drove his sword down in a wide arc, splitting the prefect at the crook of his neck. The prefect’s eyes widened, and he glanced at Revni as if to say, What did I do to you? Eavus jerked the stuck blade out and shoved the body away.

He turned, breathing hard. Revni still held the prefect’s thin knife.

“I—”

The door burst open—an Isfolj roared into the room, ax raised, and Revni’s hand moved before her brain had processed, throwing the blade.

The gods were with her after all.

The warrior stumbled, gurgled, the ax falling to the ground, Revni’s blade sticking out of the center of his throat.

Eavus turned, finishing him off or simply shoving him outside, Revni couldn’t be sure, but the Isfolj was gone, Eavus slamming the door and pressing his back into it.

“Secure that door!” He pointed to the thin one, from the closet, and he was right—they were in danger, trapped.

Revni looked around, panicking, then saw the chair. Eavus jerked forward, slammed the door closed again. Revni wedged the chair against the small door and raced to Eavus, smashing her weight next to his. She expected more panic in the clench of her throat, more fear, but instead there was the thrumming thrill of rightness at the strength of his body next to hers.

“What do we do now?” she asked. Gerstunt again, a surprising comfort as it nestled on her tongue. She was slower in it, more thoughtful as she tried to form the words. This wasn’t her language. It wasn’t his. But it was theirs.

“The Arneans—the Faenish,” Eavus corrected himself, “—are fighting. When those bells started ringing, fires broke out, absolute chaos⁠—”

“Snakes out of the bag?”

Eavus returned her grin. Someone on the other side banged into the door again, like they simply didn’t expect it to be locked. An Aleterian voice shouted a question, and Eavus shouted back, then grinned again. “I’d say the prefect’s safe, yes?”

“Why were you punching when I came in?”

“Oh.” She thought she saw a blush. “I—I was under arrest, actually. I defied an order. And then I lied.”

“How unlike you.” Glee was worming through her.

“Well. The city—I couldn’t be a part of it. He called in these guys to arrest me—” He tilted his head to the two bodies on the floor. “—and I told the prefect my message said he should get on the first ship off the continent and destroy the dock behind him. Full surrender.” That grin. It turned what was granite in her to sand, blown away on a breeze. Someone slammed into the door and Eavus grunted. “He didn’t buy it, to be fair.”

“Now that he is dead?”

Eavus’ look darkened. “Aleteria isn’t a snake you can cut the head off. There’s a hierarchy—the centurion will take charge, and if he’s killed, then the next and the next, until the boat arrives and they wrest the city from Isfolj hands yet again.”

Revni’s stomach twisted. They were right back where they started. “What about the Faenish?” she asked hopefully. “Which side will they choose?’

“Does it matter?”

The flatness of his reply sunk in. He was right. Enslaved, exploited—Why should they care who wins? To pay taxes in gold or in silver? To have the name of their city displayed in Aleterian or in runes? “We come here,” Revni said, “and we raid, and we push them out of their lands and we thank our own gods.”

“Who’s we? Aleteria or Isfolj?” Eavus was reaching with his toes for the red sash discarded casually on the floor near the prefect’s bed.

“Both! I don’t—” She was sworn, a soti, a warrior. But knowing whose hand had guided her—there were three bodies in this room alone, the tang of copper and urine beginning to overwhelm, and Sulvi and the kitchen boy and the ones in the bath. Face after face. The Caerdeneii boy’s mangled jaw. The trust with which he’d looked at Eavus, fiddling with his buckles. “I don’t want to kill innocent people anymore. I’ve had enough of killing innocent people.”

“What about your goddess? I thought you swore revenge.” Eavus snagged the cloth, pulled it in. “Hold the door.” She did, and he wove the sash around the latch and the leg of the table next to it, securing the door closed.

“Upon those who harmed me! But these people—none of them harmed me.”