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She suddenly understood everything.

“Let’s head south from here,” she offered. “Join the road again tomorrow.”

Eavus gave the barest nod. They waited until the noise had passed, the sun cooling on the tops of their heads, and then a few moments longer. Eavus finally stood, squinting into the dimming light. His lip quirked to the side.

“I can take a whipping.”

“I know.”

But now her thoughts were racing ahead, too many corks tossed in too fast a current. The gods had watched over her so far, but a plan that worked once failed the next. A stone shifted, and a centuries-old wall fell. Meals burned. Buckets cracked, sometimes at the top where they could be mended, and sometimes at the bottom, where the heavy milk split it in an unexpected rush that dashed all your hard work into nothing.

Leaving him right now was not an option. Where else could she go? North had been her initial destination, to the settlements, but Berae had told her how the Sculpae were growing too, like the Dinaeii, and Revni had nightmares of paint spilling over the maps, giant, oily waves of color that pulled her under. She woke sweating. The ring that might have saved her in Colcium might get her killed in Eaborik—if she even knew where that was either. No, the capital city was the right destination, even if her own clan had thought Colcium was as far south as it was safe to go. It had become clear that her own people hadn’t known everything about this island. The Aleterians valued order, hierarchy, laws. Lordinius was the place of treaties and commerce, where there would be the languages of Brigfaen and Gerstunt, arguments she could make, perhaps even ships she could take.

But she couldn’t do any of that if people thought she was the prisoner of a slave.

She hadn’t minded at first, that he still had her ring. The gods had told her to trust him, and there was no great rush to have it back when she thought she’d only have to give it to him again outside Lordinius. But now that she needed a new plan, it winked at her, snug on his pinkie. In the firelight, the garnet looked black.

“I can take my ring back.” She held out her hand.

Eavus twisted her inheritance casually, as if he’d forgotten it existed.

“I should hang on to it. For safekeeping.”

And then he looked at her blandly, as if he hadn’t done the same math she had, as if she weren’t capable of understanding.

She swallowed, shrugged. “Sa.” Her heart pounded in her ears.

Safekeeping. Not of her ring. Of her.

They were on a clear path now, nothing more to do but follow the road as far as it went. While he still had her ring, he had her only reason for staying. There was still no great rush—if she ran now, all he had to do was catch up—but every time she looked at her ring, or asked about it, he furrowed his brow a little deeper, and Revni thought more carefully about how she’d fallen into a trap of her own making, and how to get out of it.

He wasn’t stupid. But he wasn’t clever either.

What could she do that would put an Aleterian at ease? If she wanted to escape, she needed to start thinking like an Aleterian. And then listening to the way he pointed out a pair of bright golden finches—even beauty came as a demand—it came to her.

Revni began to obey.

Eavus suggested they stop, Eavus suggested they go, Eavus suggested they eat, or drink, or pause to tighten their shoes, and she did it. She didn’t make herself small necessarily, just less noticeable. She wore the Dinaeii blanket over her ax, hoping he would forget she carried it, and kept the hood up, hoping he would forget her Isfolj braids. She moved a step away when they encountered others, so they wouldn’t be thought of as together. When she recognized the Dinaeii weave on a woman’s sash, Revni hurried to intercept her. She returned with familiar sour biscuits and several apples, and Eavus had been so happy to taste fresh fruit that he didn’t notice that Revni had traded away the rope he had meant to use to tie her hands.

Eavus carried himself differently in the armor than he had in just his tunic, but Revni hadn’t put together what it meant until what was likely their last night of travel. He eased the dented breastplate off and settled comfortably by the fire, and realization seeped into her limbs, one climbing on another like laddering out of a pit.

It was pride. He wore that scuffed armor like it meant something, because to him it did. She felt something soften towards him, like by the river when she’d thought of him like a child. Had he ever owned anything of value in his life? Was it any wonder he wanted to hang on to the illusion a little longer?

Because it was an illusion. He still thought of himself as her captor, as if she would reach Lordinius and volunteer again to be tied up. Did he not think what it meant that she was the granddaughter of a jurl? She was a celebrated soti warrior, with proof of claims to land. All Eavus had in this world was two separate owners, their names carved into his arm.

And then the last truth tipped within her, something people didn’t talk about in polite company. A truth that crossed all continents:

Laws were made to protect people like her. And punish people like him.

All she had to do to get her ring back was accuse him of stealing it. Aleteria would take care of the rest.

She warmed with something close to pity. Their food from both Colcium and trades had run out, but they had found a nest of bird eggs that they’d eaten raw, and they were waiting for full darkness to take what they could from the nearby field. The green seedlings were squat, and they both had distracted their gnawing stomachs with guessing at what roots they might find. Revni chose carrots or parsnips on account of the feathery leaves; Eavus guessed turnips only because he hated them and thought it would be in line with his luck thus far. The breastplate had a ratty cape attached to it, nothing like the nice red one he’d had before, but every night he had insisted that it was all a good soldier needed. She couldn’t listen to his teeth chatter, yet again. She forced him to take the hooded blanket.

“Hunger makes the cold harder,” she reminded him.

“It’s never this cold in Aleteria,” he said, “even in winter.” He tugged the blanket tighter, shoving his hands under his armpits.

“What is it like in summer?” Revni leaned back on a log. The temperature wasn’t half-bad as far as she considered.