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“The sun gets so hot, the sky turns white.” Eavus sounded wistful, but Revni squinted at him.

“Those are called clouds.”

Eavus grinned, and the flush of delight it shot through her made her clamp her mouth shut. Why should his smile make her pleased?

“No, it’s true. It’s so bright it hurts your eyes.”

That she knew could be true. She shivered, some combination of homesickness and her body’s remembering. The sun glinting off snow could blind.

“The sun bleaches the sky,” Eavus insisted. “It turns white, even with no clouds.”

Revni would have continued to doubt him, but he had no reason to lie. “In Isfolj,” she said, “in the dead of winter, you can lose the tip of your nose if you go outside.”

It was Eavus’ turn to squint. “How?”

“The cold.” Revni wiggled her hands at him. “Fingertips, toes, too. They freeze right off if you’re not careful. Like chipping ice off a block.”

His face was so squinched in disbelief she couldn’t help but bark a laugh.

“Lies,” he scoffed.

This, too, pleased her inexplicably.

“This is summer,” she reminded him, the night air cool at both their backs. “And I come from farther north.”

He wiggled his own fingers, testing the chill. Believing her then.

“Sounds miserable,” he humphed, and he wasn’t wrong.

When even the birds and beetles had stopped chirruping, they snuck into the field and plucked what they could, Revni’s ax and Eavus’ sword making unwieldy farm tools, then hurried back to their little site to rekindle the fire and roast what they’d found. They were like children on Erkisjub, giggling and snatching at their prizes, brushing off dirt to get a better look in the flickering orange light. The vegetables were so scrawny and undergrown it was impossible to tell, and Eavus finally took a hard bite of the gnarled purple finger in his hand and then spit it out with such a face that Revni dissolved in laughter.

“It tastes like dirt!”

But he was laughing, too. They threw the roots directly on the fire until they were soft enough to eat, and then had to pluck them out, burning their hands, and they were both laughing too hard and too hungry to make the other one have to do it. In the morning, they woke curled next to each other for the warmth, and said nothing about it. One shriveled white something still lay among the coals. It lay there in the ash, limp and pale, and they kicked the remains of the fire over it. As they retraced their steps toward the road, Eavus paused, a finger to his lips.

Revni narrowed her eyes, and then held back a gasp. It was a deer, young by the spots on its back, too young to be afraid of them. It nibbled on a low leaf.

“Where was he yesterday?” Eavus whispered. “We could have had meat.”

Revni almost went for her ax anyway—it seemed an easy kill—but she stayed her instinct before Eavus’ hand had stilled her arm. His fingers were warm, their press so gentle it sent a shiver through her. They watched, the small black nose twitching as he chewed. A breeze rustled the leaves, sending a cool chill to the back of Revni’s neck, and the fawn raised his head, twitching his ear in their direction. His large brown eyes stared another moment, hesitating a single step, before a shift of wind caused a sudden flip, and he leaped away, his little white tail a bounding flag of surrender.

Eavus released her arm, and they returned to the road without a word. Bees’ mind.

He stayed quiet most of the day, and she was glad of it. She felt wooden and hollow. They were obviously close to Lordinius by afternoon—traffic on the road had increased, and distant sounds of construction or men calling, perhaps across farms or practice fields, carried. They came across a small caravan that offered them food—no charge, sir, only happy to help a loyal soldier—and Revni ducked deeper into the hood of the cloak. When she thought about it, it was a little odd that she hadn’t seen anyone that looked Isfolj on the roads, especially as they got closer to the city, but she also hadn’t been looking very carefully. Eavus had been like a hare, twisting his ears this way and that, but they hadn’t encountered any more soldiers. At the top of one small hill, Lordinius beckoned in the distance—the air above it had a bubble of smoky gold, and the pale stone walls reflected the sun. Eavus tugged at his breastplate after that, adjusted his sword too many times, and finally, earlier in the day than they normally would have, suggested they get off the road.

“We won’t find any place to sleep nearby, only questions. We’d have to practically run to make it there before the night gates close. Fresh water will be scarce as we get closer, too. You’ll see. There’ll be sellers that charge a fortune. We don’t have any money for it anyway. I remember that there was a small river up the way—” He’d been on this road before, when he’d first marched north, though he had split to a different fork than the one they’d come down. “Upstream the water is good, and downstream, people use it for washing.”

He paused, and Revni’s heartbeat quickened. Obey, her inner voice pleaded, but Run fought for attention.

“We could both clean up,” he added lamely. “Get to Lordinius in the morning.”

The morning. Another delay. Another gift from the gods, or another trick? Because a wash of relief came over her—yes, the morning—and it felt like a gift, the gods giving her one more chance to get the ring tonight and then escape. It felt like the way a soti should do things. Accusing him at the gates felt underhanded.

But then again— Eavus had his own thoughts, his own reasons for stopping. Did he have some other plans? He still thought of her as his prisoner, after all.

Revni gave a wary nod. “Sa.”

Eavus’ shoulders dropped and Revni’s back twanged in a ghost of sympathy. He was expecting a whipping. Maybe he simply wanted to delay it.