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And he hated himself for it.

Revni returned to the river to wash off the blood and refill the water, and Eavus volunteered for first watch. Getting to Colcium would be a relief—it would be good to be rid of her—but what Taerus had said nagged at him. Damn those thieves. Who paints themselves blue anyway? Did they think it was supposed to be intimidating? Eavus threw a rotten acorn into the fire, the thunk and sparks matching his frustration. He’d always taken pride in the strictness of Aleterian protocol. It saved lives, for one. No surprises. No mutinies. As long as you followed the rules, they treated you fairly. You knew you could trust the man at your back to hold the line, because defying Aleteria was more frightening than whatever screamer was putting a weapon in your face. He had just never considered that he’d be on the opposite side of it. How in the nine realms was he supposed to get into Colcium without getting shot? Or at least taken immediately into custody.

Revni lay with her back to him, the blanket pulled around her. The thought of restraining her so he could drag her before his superiors—punching her or strangling her—oh, he could do it again if he had to, but did it make him soft somehow that he’d begun to enjoy their quiet evenings? That his first reaction to the sight of Taerus’ tied-up captive had been bile rising in his throat? The encounter had made one thing all too clear, however: the life of a deserter was not a life he wanted. That thrum of urgency that he’d initially felt when he’d separated from his cohort—it had gotten muffled beneath breezes rustling leaves and burbling of creeks. But it came back now with such violence he almost woke Revni to leave right now. He wasn’t like Taerus. He knew what honor was, what duty was, and that anyone might lump him in with those traitors and cowards and abusers…He was loyal, dammit. He was doing everything he could to get back! But clouds had rolled over that bright moon, and there were still several long days to go, and figuring out how to re-imprison his prisoner seemed too much to bear after the night they’d just had. Eavus settled and let her sleep.

Revni plagued his conscience in ways he didn’t enjoy. That unwavering faith in her gods—the monk Maetis had that, too. It made no sense. Isfolj had killed the monk’s predecessors; Aleterians had killed the monk’s brother. Yet when Revni and Eavus appeared, he’d treated them both with kindness. As if who they’d come from had no bearing on who they were. Maetis’ whole situation seemed so foolhardy—to leave everything you’d ever known to move to a wilderness, surrounded by war, and then refuse to pick a side. To go somewhere knowing you’d be in danger and attacked and suffer, and the best you’d have to show for it is other people believing in the same gods. What a waste. Eavus couldn’t fathom why anyone would do it. Love, the monk had told him. Love connected us all, and that was more important than anything else.

Eavus didn’t know what love was. He would die for his brothers-in-arms, but that was survival. A fair trade you made to each other. If he was assigned a new tent party tomorrow, he’d die for them, too. But that wasn’t love. The closest he’d had to a mother was Nenea, his nanny that bought him at a market, and boxed his ears when he was bad, and raised him up to be slaughtered in place of her employer’s son. He didn’t know what love was, but it wasn’t that.

Eavus eyed Revni’s sleeping form again. She had loved her parents. He knew that much. And others, too. Names she had mentioned: Ulf and Niall and Sulvi. She was full of stories. Full of memories and joys and frustrations that, now that they were gone, she clearly missed. Eavus had stories, but it wasn’t the same, and there was an ache in his heart that he would only admit to in the dark, alone, at what else in life he was missing. Was there anything he had that made him feel the same?

He sat with his back to the fire so the light didn’t blind him, its last heat concentrated on the small of his back.

The knowledge came to him in a wash of calm. Freedom. He felt ashamed, admitting it. Caea had been good to him. The army had been good to him. But that’s what he loved, what he fought for. His coins, waiting for him in Lordinius. The end of summer. Earning his last cara propita, the final line that would be etched into his arm and grant him the chance, for the first time, of belonging to himself. Love didn’t have to be people. It could be a future. It was the thing you’d sacrifice yourself for, again and again. Love was the hope you held onto, when any reasonable logic said you shouldn’t.

Eavus let the fire die, his eyes adjusted to the dark, his ears tuned beyond the rush of river. He was a soldier, and a slave, but not forever. Only make it to Colcium. Only survive the summer. And then his true life could begin.

SEVENTEEN

Revni wrapped her arms around her knees. The fire had long ago snuffed to embers. The chirruping of frogs grew louder against the mumbling of the river. The black ground began to fade into lines and shapes. Eavus slept. Revni rubbed a thumb to the center of her palm.

She didn’t think she’d ever seen so many sunrises as she had the past few days. Over the ocean, sunrises split the horizon in molten fire. Here, it was only a gradual brightening, pale lavender seeping between trunks until the world had changed without your noticing. No, it wasn’t the same as home, but it spread an open, clean feeling in her chest, like something had been wrung out. She had to admit, the subtlety, the way it snuck up on you—it was its own kind of beauty. The wind here didn’t howl the way it did in Isfjold. It whispered. It sang.

Not all songs were beautiful. The seer’s song had been a droning, a hollow, resonant, mournful sound. She barely remembered what he looked like, only the gray hanging folds of his skin, his face peppered with stubble that never seemed to grow. But the low, deep echo that emerged when he spoke to the gods—she doubted she’d ever forget it. It shook your liver.

She had been so short at her Soti Faes. At the time, it had made her feel special, proud. Even the added height of the altar stone brought her only level with the seer’s collarbone. She wasn’t supposed to smile, but the effort to resist made the blood mud on her forehead crack. Some had gotten in her nose. It was a struggle not to pick it, and her father had spied the small flex of her fingers and twitched a smile her direction, which only made her own lips spasm. The smells were overwhelming. Not just the metallic tang of clay and blood, but the too-sweet smoke from the herbs in the bonfire, the thick gamey scent of dead goat, its musk and fur and sweat. She kept tasting salt from the bead of moisture above her lip, more sweat stinging her eyes. The goat was her first official kill, though of course she’d helped with rabbits and birds and sheep, skinned plenty of deer and ox and even bear. Fish didn’t even count. Toddlers caught fish.

But the day she chose the warrior’s path, she had dragged the goat to the block, tied it down herself, and slit its throat.

Its little bleats sounded like a child crying, and Revni’s hands had been so deeply shaking with terror and regret that she couldn’t make the knots. She almost let the kid go. She had pushed down the sob in her throat, and ignored the wriggle of its nose, the way its back legs bucked, and run her finger down from the base of the ear to find the proper vein. Her father had showed her how to do it so many times—his strong hand cupped over her small one, showing her on lambs and kids and bucks. She’d find the pulse, then scratch behind the ear and slap its rump, sending it on its way. Sharp, Revni, he’d remind her. Sharp and strong. The goal isn’t to make it suffer. Cut all the vessels at once, tilt its neck to catch the blood. The sacrifice was a promise. Someone else would take it away after, slit its belly and remove the organs so it couldn’t bloat. So they could eat it at the feast.

Many from the clan hadn’t come. Revni was only ten after all. Ones that young often couldn’t follow through. They were too soft-hearted, or too weak. Especially for the girls, their mothers often hadn’t yet given up on the idea of their making a home and having children. Not that shield-bearers couldn’t have children—but it came second. The warrior’s path put the clan first, the people. How many children, some as young as even six, had dragged over a goat or a sheep, only to be embarrassed? No, wait until the deed was done. And then the rest of the clan would gather, light the fires, drag the seer from his hut and have him sing the words to begin the Soti Faes.

I swear before Tuyra. I swear before Pjour. All the gods, one by one.

I will live by their favor, and the weapon in my hand.

What made a soti worthy? She had always been taught it was courage and stamina and ruthlessness. But now…she wondered if perhaps it was blind faith.

Revni didn’t wake Eavus when she went to the river. Was she testing him? Or herself? Perhaps it was one final test for them both—because when he woke, he only meandered down to find her, took up the fish she caught and buried them in the hot coals to cook.

His faith was blind, too.

Revni wondered if she would ever forget that girl tied to the tree, those empty eyes over sunken cheekbones. No, not empty. Full of far too many images, like they blocked her vision from seeing anything else. Who were that girl’s people? Had someone abandoned her, too? Or were they combing the forests, mourning their broken daughter?

What had that girl done, to so offend her gods?

“How old were you when you first killed someone?”

Eavus looked up from poking at the fish. The meat was still glassy, and only Revni’s hunger kept the sight of it from making her sick.

“I don’t know,” Eavus answered thoughtfully. “I was sent into the army at fourteen. It was probably soon after that. You?”

“Twelve.” For the first time, the memory was sobering. “Five years of killing.”

“Really?”

His surprise pulled her attention. “What?”