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“What are you doing?”

He flinched, and Revni couldn’t help smiling again at the sudden flush on his neck. He always blushed in the neck and ears, almost never in the cheeks. She handed back the waterskin at his gesture. The brush of his hand spent a sparkle through her.

“Nothing. You ready?”

“You were saying something.”

“Was I?” He knew he was. His neck turned splotchier as he re-looped the skin to his belt. “I was just…the names. The Muzzle. The Snake. I should know the names of the places we’re going.”

“Those are the names in Isfolj. In Gerstunt, it’s muzleh. The nose of a dog.”

“Right,” he said under his breath, and Revni held in her grin again.

“Snake is...” She couldn’t remember the word in Gerstunt. “Long creature with no legs. He moves like this.” She made a wave with her hand and arm.

“Hasgle,” he reminded her. “We have those in Aleteria, too. We call them ischi.”

“Ischi,” she repeated. Really, she should have been spending more time learning Aleterian. It had been so easy speaking Gerstunt with him that she’d almost forgotten Aleterian was the language of the land. Well, his land. She’d be north, wouldn’t she? With the Isfolj.

Why did that thought send a stone to her belly? Finally, after all this time, all the pain and grief and hardship, she was only days away from her people. From proper food—roasted meats and boiled roots thick with butter and smoky honey—and proper spoons and knives and axes, proper beds and clothes and boots. So why that press against her heart? Was it fear after all, because she’d chosen to travel through Sculpae lands? They hadn’t encountered anyone yet, but two days was a long time to be stuck behind enemy borders. Were the gods testing her resolve? Or maybe it was everything she’d have to face when she arrived, the possibility that after everything she’d been through she would still end up no higher than a slave in status, sold as a servant in an Isfolj house?

Revni had a nagging feeling it was more than that, or bigger. She still had the twist in her gut that she had somehow done something the gods hadn’t willed—like they’d spoken to her and she hadn’t been listening.

Eavus had been adjusting his gear—the damp worked on all the ties, swelling the leather and loosening the ropes, and he always took a few minutes when they stopped to make sure everything was set—but he turned to her as he finished and repeated, “You ready?”

His eyes were the same color as the sky. They reminded her of home, that Isfolj blue in the coldest parts of winter. A lurching rocked her belly, like she was on a ship that had lost its sails, bobbing on the ocean and waiting to see which god would answer—those that churned the waters or those that brought ships safely home. She tightened the rope around her waist and gave Eavus a nod. He disappeared over the hill, that instantaneous pull at her middle as she held her ground while he picked at the first steps of a safe path.

“There’s a bit of a drop here,” he called back, already out of sight. “Hold steady.”

They were anchored together now, each pulling short the other. That wasn’t how a ship moved forward.

Eavus gave a short yelp and Revni suddenly pitched forward, planting her feet hard to keep from stumbling over the edge. Eavus must have lost his footing. The rope burned her palms as she held on, and she skidded forward a few steps before she could wedge her foot against a jutting stone. She pulled back as best she could, but the rope held tight as a drum. He must have properly fallen. She was taking so much of his weight she was gritting her teeth, unable to even call out for fear she’d get sent tumbling.

Then, suddenly, like she’d been hit by a wind, Revni fell backward, her behind slamming into the ground. The rope was still in her hand, still snug about her waist, but it was short and slack. A limp snake. Hasgle. Ischi. Her mind rattled through words, searching for answers.

The rope had been cut.

Eavus was gone.

THIRTY-THREE

Revni went flat, her mind reeling. She couldn’t tell whether those howling, clicking noises were the wind or some strange animal, but it sent a chill up her spine beyond the cold fear that had replaced the blood in her veins.

Cut. The rope was cut. Not untied. Not slipped its knots. The simplest explanation was that Eavus had gotten stuck, cut himself free, maybe even to prevent pulling her with him—and if that was the case, she should have gone towards him, not scuttled away. Halfway back down the hill they’d came, she spied a boulder and a small depression, already occupied by a bush. Revni scrambled for it and shoved herself in, her legs stinging with scratches. Hjen had listened to her once before, and Revni prayed—Goddess of silence and quiet, I hear you. Make me your sister. The howling wasn’t an animal, it was human. Voices, if she could call it that. They called and responded, like wolves. She squeezed her eyes shut, begging the goddess to hide her. The howling traveled, moving away, punctuated faintly by those arrhythmic clicks.

Every instinct in her told her to stay put, to hide, at the very least to run. She tried to still her frantic heart to better listen, but all she could think was what a coward she was being. She crept back out, staying low, dropping to her belly when she reached the top so she could inch forward and peer over the edge.

There was a skidding of scree, as if Eavus had in fact lost his balance, but more importantly, the “bit of a drop” was a full crevasse. Revni’s stomach lurched just looking at it—a dark wedge cleaved out of the side of the hill like someone had chunked it with an ax. Revni scanned the area, a shiver running down her spine and pinching at her shoulders. Nothing. The clicking had turned to clacking, but it was still there, echoing eerily as it retreated. Drothr, her superstitious heart pressed, catching her breath in her throat. It seemed the only explanation—Eavus had disappeared like he was snatched by a ghost. Wisps of fog clung to the rise and fall of the hills, but the sun had come out and Revni, if she’d stood, could probably have seen for miles. Seen nothing but green and rock.

A thin wriggle of practicality wormed its way through her racing thoughts. Here, my child, the gods whispered. A gift. Now was her chance—Eavus gone; whoever had taken him distracted by their new acquisition, so Revni, Revni was free—to run, to find that Snake river and go north. Nothing holding her back any longer.

But that beating of drums in her chest. There was more to it she was missing. She kept thinking of that churning sea, those sailors’ prayers—which god was listening? Some squalls were a test of faith; some truly meant to kill you.

She’d sworn. It mattered that she had done this.

She swallowed hard and risked rising high enough that she could start to make her way to where he’d gone. She longed for her good Isfolj boots with their triple-thick leather soles. Or wished she’d had the foresight of the freed prisoners, going straight for the hobnailed Aleterian sandals. Every jab of every jagged stone pressed through her cheap Lordinius shoes, despite the thick calluses that had formed on her blisters, and one bare slice of shale sent a sudden, horrifying feeling of floating as her foot slipped out from under her. She struck out, catching herself with a dig of the ax just as her body slammed down, the shock of impact reverberating through her tailbone. She forced breath back into her lungs.

It wasn’t dignified, but seated was the best way under the circumstances. She pried the ax loose and scootched, sending loose rocks tumbling into the dark gap. They plinked off the stone, echoing, but then⁠—