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“What now?” she whispered, so quietly he had to step closer. From the look on his face, he didn’t know either.

“You hungry?”

She nodded.

“Stay here,” he mouthed, pointing to his bunk. “Pretend to be me.”

She knit her brow and grunted. “I hate this island. Grumble grumble.”

He huffed a laugh and she felt another faint thaw. She supposed maybe she had made a joke. Revni dutifully lay down, turning her back. Somewhere in the fog of her brain she knew that it was a mistake to let herself trust him again, but she was so very tired. Of being wrong, of being used, but also in her muscles and her bones. She couldn’t fathom fighting. The smell of fresh straw was overpowering, sharp ends poking her cheek through the pillow’s covering. Light poured in as the tent flap opened, illuminating the rawhide stitching over squares of goatskin, like a giant quilt, but then the flap closed and she was again in darkness.

Revni hadn’t thought she would sleep, but Eavus’ rummaging woke her with a start. He put a finger to his lips and indicated the sleeping men—there were four now—then resumed shoving his parcel behind the cot. As he handed her twin lumps—hard bread and old cheese—he turned to give a slight nod. It was the same dark-skinned man who had left when they arrived. Revni flushed at the smug look he gave her as he came in, like he knew something she didn’t. He sat and unlaced his boots, like it was any other evening, then swung his legs up and settled in, turning his back. His pillow crackled when he shoved it into a tighter ball.

The bread tasted blandly familiar to the overcooked biscuit she’d eaten on ships—meant to be softened in beer or wine. She moved her sore jaw slowly, trying to chew as quietly as she could. Eavus produced a small, corked gourd. The contents smelled like dill and vinegar, and tasted like it, too, but the biscuit practically melted in her mouth when the noxious drink hit, so she shoved in the rest in three massive bites, swigging it like medicine. Eavus tipped his flask upside down in mock chagrin, like that went quick.

The cheese tasted better, and Revni lay back down, holding the bite in her mouth to make it last. Eavus unstrapped his belt and laid it neatly in its place, then perched on the edge of the cot to take off his boots. His weight creaked the frame, but it held. The hobnails on his soles caught the light from the cracked flap. The fires outside were dying, banked and low, but voices traveled through, grumbles and low conversations, one raucous snorer that made her grateful he was far away.

Revni suddenly realized Eavus meant to share the bunk. There wasn’t possibly room for both of them—there was barely room enough for her. They’d slept close on the road, mainly for warmth, but this was too close. Too dangerous, with his fellow soldiers in the nearby cots. She knew almost nothing about the Aleterian army and its protocols, except they were strict. And she was sure you weren’t supposed to share bunks with someone everyone presumed was your slave.

As cautiously and as gingerly as possible, Eavus began to stretch out behind her. She shifted as far to the edge as she could, whether to make more room or hide the sudden thumping in her ears, she wasn’t sure. He must have been perched directly on the frame of the cot, because the thick linen barely sank.

“If anyone sees you—” His breath was hot in her ear. He barely made a sound. “They’ll…make assumptions. They’ll leave you be as long as you’re gone by muster.”

Revni tightened her jaw. “What kind of assumptions?” she asked. She knew the answer. But it was satisfying to hear Eavus’ discomfort. He squirmed, unable to avoid touching her, his hulk warm against her back, her thighs. She hated how her body responded—instantly calmer, wanting to press closer. She held herself even more stiffly.

“I have something for you.” He brought his arm around her, and that thumping in her ears turned to frantic buzzing, but he was only showing her something in his hand.

“My ring,” she gasped out loud.

“Shh,” he admonished, at the same time as another voice did the same. Revni flushed and shrank closer into the heat of Eavus’ chest. The dark-skinned man was still awake.

But it was in her hand, her mother’s ring, the dulled silver catching the light.

My ring, my ring, my ring.

“I thought my things were sold.”

In an instant, everything was restored. As soon as she got north, she could prove her kinship ties, make a place for herself, earn back her shield and the status that came with it. The loss of the ring had been a death she hadn’t yet reconciled, and now here: a resurrection. She clenched her fist, relishing the new weight biting into the flesh of her palm.

“I…didn’t sell the ring.”

She hadn’t thought he was the one doing the selling at all, but the logistics no longer mattered. For now, her mind was racing with new plans. She’d pushed it all away, the drag through the streets, the tight fingers shoving her towards the slave market. But now she stretched her mind to remember—there had been a fountain, a horned creature spitting water. Yes, and before that, an intersection of three paths, two made of freshly-laid stone, the thin one dirt. They’d come down the stone road. The wall at the sentry gate—they’d snuck her in, the soldiers doing Eavus a favor—but a poorly-guarded entrance was a poorly-guarded exit, too.

Eavus whispered instructions in her ear. She didn’t mind his heavy presence anymore. She should have been more angry with him, and maybe that anger would come, but right now he was warm and she had her mother’s ring and a plan. In the end he had traded his freedom for hers, and maybe that was enough. A shield sibling’s bargain. A life for a life.

When the horn blasted at first light, Revni rolled out from beneath the back of the tent, squeezing herself through the space between metal rings that held the ropes. She hurried, making sure that she was clear of the line of tents before the second horn drew the soldiers out for inspection. The dew stuck clover to her bare feet, but Revni crept along the fence line towards the ovens, noting the smoke already rising.

Eavus knew the camp well. The boys arrived exactly as he had said they would, struggling under yokes heavy with river water. The guard, as Eavus predicted, hurried them to the brewer’s vat, chastising their laziness, and Revni, while the guard’s back was turned, slipped out of the encampment and into the streets of Lordinius.

TWENTY-EIGHT

The road north passed far more quickly and easily than Eavus’ journey south. He traveled fort to fort, sleeping in beds and getting full meals, which made the days pass faster, too. Was it possible to run for twelve days straight? He would have been willing to try it. The commander’s cryptic message, wrapped around his pay voucher and sealed with wax, was placed in a thin, watertight cylinder, also sealed closed with wax, and Eavus wore it on his hip where the sword had been before. He wasn’t re-issued the weapon. He was still a slave, after all. The importance of the message did earn him a short dagger, which felt more a gesture than an option. He’d have to run into danger nose-to-nose to even use it. He didn’t plan on using it. He didn’t plan on encountering anyone on this errand if he could help it. Even coming into the forts, where he checked in with the commander-at-arms, stated his name and purpose with a proper salute, got assigned a bunk and a place at a table, he barely made small talk. Fellow soldiers pressed him for news of Lordinius, news from other forts, information about where he was going, information about friends he might or might not know. He kept his answers brusque, and they’d slowly stop asking, turning back to their own conversations. He shoveled food into his mouth and retired to whatever sad little room they’d put him in to polish his armor, replace a worn nail in his shoe, reassess his supplies. Then he’d sleep—terribly, always terribly—and rise as early as possible to shovel more food in his face and move on to the next road.

He didn’t think of Revni. That haunted look in her eyes when he’d seen her in the cage—like all her fire had become a shadow of smoke on a wall, a ghost of a candle that no longer existed. He couldn’t possibly unknot the reasons that sight had frightened him so deeply, and so he didn’t think of it at all. If his thoughts did stray—and they didn’t—it was simply because of how much she cost him. He just wanted to feel he got a return on his investment. That was all it was. He’d gotten used to her stories before bed. Every night she had a new one—sometimes about old friends, sometimes about the gods, sometimes he suspected she just made things up—but they’d had a routine, and he’d gotten used to the way her voice quieted as she got towards the end, the way his eyes drooped in response, as if given permission to rest, because Revni would be there, with her ax, with her alert strength, and Eavus didn’t have to worry.

There had been no alarms the morning she left, no panicked whispers or lockdowns or rumors, no word of dramatic captures or mysterious escapes. He had mustered with the rest, his heart pounding but his eyes staying straight, and gotten his orders and his supplies and his initial escort and then departed through the gates as if he’d never known her. She had slipped out of his life, out of Lordinius, as easily as she had slipped into it. There, and then gone.

He didn’t wonder which clan or tribe the people he passed on the road were from. He didn’t listen to the rumble of carts, the clank of armor as regiments crossed the terrain—moving into position, most likely, whether they realized it or not—or the rise and fall of other languages as he crossed into new territories. As he got farther from Lordinius, into regions where the road was thin, or incomplete, or simply unmaintained, he especially didn’t think about the breeze rustling the leaves, the cool streams running over smooth rocks, the hidden corners of forest and hill, the smell of green and pine. These weren’t his business. These were dangerous thoughts, and Eavus was not interested in courting danger, not with only a short dagger and conscript armor to defend himself. He had a helmet this time, a fresh gleaming breastplate, a brightly-dyed cape. His leather greaves were still stiff and new.