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“Do you have anything else stashed up there I should know about? Weapons? Money? A cookpot?”
“It’s not a satchel,” she replied angrily.
Eavus rolled the ring between his fingers, and then pushed it onto his pinkie.
“Sa.” Revni obediently presented her wrists. “You get it back to me,” she reminded him. “We are blood-debted, you and I.”
Eavus tied her, feeling more and more guilty with every loop and every step returning towards the road and then upon it. He’d been racking his brain for a plan for days—the risk of catchers on the Rapon Road, how to get past the sentries at the Colcium gates, how to secure Revni without her driving the ax through his skull—and then he’d thought through what it meant to march a “close enough to chief” Isfolj into a potentially Isfolj-heavy city. He’d always thought the stories of the fearsome Isfolj were exaggerated—lungs pulled out backwards through your ribs like wings, noses and ears and nipples cut off for minor transgressions. But what might they do to him, if he dragged in one of their own, bloodied and spitting? That possible cara propita, that money—it still lingered in the back of his brain, but the longer this journey took the more it began to pale in importance to simply Not Being Executed.
And then, with the word Listen on his lips, she’d just offered. Held out her wrists. Handed over an object that alone he could sell for his freedom, much less what it did to the price he’d get for her. She’d poured all that value right into his cupped hands, just when he’d been doubting whether all this trouble was truly worth it.
But the more he considered it, the more his guilt shifted to anger. He hadn’t asked—for any of this. She had insisted on Colcium. She had handed over that blind trust—and just because she asked for help didn’t mean he had to do it. Same with the Dinaeii, he reminded himself. If Aleteria even cared—which they wouldn’t. Not from him. If people wanted to keep making stupid decisions, those were their choices. What happened to Revni after was not his fault, or his responsibility.
“How far are we to Colcium?”
“I don’t—”
She held out her hands. “One last stop then, before we keep going. Or I might be messy when we arrive.”
Eavus obediently untied her and waited for her return, feeling even sillier. Prisoners didn’t ask to be untied, and captors didn’t simply do it. She came back and held out her wrists again, and Eavus fumbled with the same actions, resuming their journey with her at his side like a very obedient dog on a very unnecessary leash.
Eavus might not have shared her Isfolj superstitions, but being apprehensive of an orange sky seemed universal. That, and the emptiness. He found his attention on alert. The Rapon Road wasn’t complete—it had originally been constructed to connect the forts at Cyraden, Tinoc and Raponum, then extended northeast to Colcium, with the intention of continuing it all the way to the sea. But after a rough rainy season, when it was discovered that the route lay in a floodplain, the project had been temporarily abandoned while whoever made those decisions argued whether to spend the funds to level the ground, or whether to splinter the road off in another direction. Still, it stretched for at least two days’ journey across the landscape, and Eavus would have expected travelers, scouts, stalls setting up shop as they grew closer to the town. But the road appeared abandoned. Trampled weeds sprouted between the stones, and a layer of dust covered everything, even the neighboring trees. A rippling traveled up Eavus’ skin that made him pause and take the blanket from Revni’s shoulders despite the heat. He pulled the hood over his close-cropped head.
“Is something wrong?”
Her eyes were bloodshot. Probably as dry as his.
“Wildfire. A bad omen.”
She nodded. It wasn’t cowardly, it was practical. He still didn’t have armor. If they came upon someone, he’d rather their first instinct was questions rather than the sharp end of a spear. Eavus pulled the cloak tighter, making sure his tattoo was covered, and did his best to tuck the cloth over his sword. It would be impossible to hide completely, but still…as long as it wasn’t the first thing people noticed.
Eavus drew her closer, adjusting the rope. “You let the Blue Men take my armor and kept your ring?” he admonished.
Revni almost smiled, a nervous look that made him even more unsettled.
“You could have tried to hide your armor in the same way.”
Eavus huffed a laugh, then grew serious as he retied the knots to a shorter lead. “When we get to Colcium— If you want the Aleterian commander to listen, you do what you’re told,” he advised. He could give her that much, at least. “You gain favor. That’s how you stay alive. They don’t give you freedom if you fight them. They give you freedom if you make it worth their while.”
“Freedom isn’t something someone gives,” she countered. “It’s something you take back if it’s been stolen from you.”
Eavus huffed again, this time with no humor in it. “Spoken like someone who has never been a slave.” He gave a final tug. “Stay close.”
The ochre sky had gone soft, no division between land and air. The hidden sun cast an eerie glow that made Revni’s skin look carved of marble, made the paved stones of the road seem to float. The smoke made everything echo, the crows so loud they made Eavus shudder. Eavus had a vague thought that his prisoner carrying her own ax would ruin his alibi, but he only held the waterskin for Revni to drink and then took the last of the water himself. He wished they had linen, some cloth they could soak to cover their noses and mouths. He could already feel the tightness in his lungs.
They crested the hill. Squat in its valley, like a dormouse curled in its nest, lay the city of Colcium.
Or what was left of it.
NINETEEN
Plumes of pewter smoke drifted in thin columns, like spirits who’d grown tired, and the wooden walls were nothing but char.
Revni sucked in a breath. “Is that Colcium?”
Eavus didn’t bother answering. His eyes searched the details. No guards at the gap where the gate had been. Black dots hopped and flapped on what remained of the palisade, but none circled. It had been a few days at least.
All the hope he’d had for money, freedom, an end to all this confusion and fear—gone, in one of those tendrils of smoke.
