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Well, brackish water. I used it to clear my mouth and rinse my face, then told Alexios to stay put. I’d seen a large conch shell with only one small snail hole. I jogged down the beach to retrieve it and carried it into the jungle to where the stream ran clearer and sweet.

“Thank you, Warlord,” Alexios rasped when I brought the water to him along with a handful of greens that looked like wild garlic I’d found on the way back. He drank, then stared at the mess in my hand. “I always took you for the sort to kill a man with a sword rather than poison.”

“What?”

He tsked when I held the plants up to my nose to sniff. “Those are young crowstem blades. If you eat one, you’ll survive. Two, and you’ll be paralyzed for a day. You picked enough to kill a dozen Alphas.”

“Huh.” I stuffed them into my pocket. They’d looked similar to one of the salad greens Rada had fed me during our year of marriage. She’d dosed me with dozens of things that made me sick, and claimed it was for my benefit. I’d been annoyed then, but I suppose I hadn’t succumbed to poison in the years after we’d met. Maybe she had helped me.

I frowned and leaned down to rub my hands clean with the brackish water and some sand. “Useful. But I was trying to get you some food.”

He didn’t reply. His eyes were closed, and he’d set down the conch shell. I didn’t think he was asleep… No, his lips were moving again. Praying. It couldn’t hurt. I wandered back to the beach, then returned after what seemed like a good amount of time for praying, plus a few extra minutes since he was a priest.

He opened one eye and raised an eyebrow. “Did you find food for yourself?”

I shrugged, shucking off my trousers and sitting on the sparse grasses. My trousers had dragged in the water, but I’d been grateful on the reef not to be bare-legged. “There are plenty of fish in the lagoon. No way to catch them, though.”

He nodded, like he’d expected that answer, and stripped out of his own trousers, each move taking him far longer than it should. When he finished, he trembled with exhaustion. “Tie them closed at the ankles and use them as a net.”

“That won’t work,” I said. He didn’t answer, his eyes closed again. I was deeply concerned about his exhaustion, but I went back to the lagoon and waded in again, not expecting anything. To my shock, a half-dozen fish swam into the leg of the trousers as if I’d called to them, and just as I was about to return to shore, a piece of bull kelp drifted close enough to grab. I gaped at the sudden abundance of food, then closed my own eyes in a quick prayer of thanks.

Two hours later, our bellies weren’t full, but the hunger was more than bearable, at least for me. I’d had fish, the meat cut out with a stray piece of obsidian I’d shaped into a brittle blade. Alexios had eaten the kelp along with some wild garlic, fennel, and even a few late strawberries I’d found on my second trip to the stream.

“Do you think she’ll forgive me?” he asked.

I wiped the obsidian clean, wrapped it in a leaf, and tucked it into my pocket with a sigh. “Alexios, you probably know Rada better than I do. You devoted five years of your life to caring for her and being her friend.” It rankled that I’d been married to her for a decade, but had spent far less time with my wife than he had. It was my fault. I’d fumbled the treasure she’d handed me: her heart.

I would not do so again.

“I was spying on her,” he stated bluntly. “The Goddess gave me a job, and I did it.”

I fought to keep from rolling my eyes. I liked Alexios. I also knew he had a steep mountain to climb to regain her trust. “You fell in love with her, man. It was obvious to every other person who saw you in the same room. On the same damned road. You look at her like she makes the sun rise and the moon shine. Like all you can think of is how to say I love you without the words themselves. How to stay close to her, no matter how fast she runs, or where. Don’t try to tell me you were just following orders.”

He took a quick breath like he might protest, but let it out silently. “Of course I fell in love with her. She’s everything. Even if I can’t have her. Even if she never speaks to me again.”

I had to laugh. “You think she’s going to let you get away with tricking her for years and not give you the sharp edge of her tongue, and probably a blade or two? I’d start practicing my apology now. Whether she forgives you or not isn’t what matters. You’re a priest; you ought to know about penitence.” We stared at each other for a long moment, until he dropped his eyes.

“You’re right. I have to beg her to forgive me.” He swallowed. “She’s going to stab me when I do.”

“Oh, definitely. Probably more than once.” I smiled, remembering the first time she’d stabbed me. “You know it’s how she says she cares.” When he made an odd sound, I explained. “If she stabs you and lets you live, it means she isn’t done with you yet.” I winked at him. “She’s not done with you, Alexios. And don’t worry. I got good at bandaging puncture wounds after a year of being married to her. I’ll patch you up as many times as you need.”

“You think she’ll forgive me.”

“I think my wife has one of the softest hearts of anyone walking this world, even if she hides it under a lot of bluster and a fair helping of murder. You two gave away a fortune everywhere you went, right?”

He nodded. “Everything except a few gems the two of you took from a dragon in Starlak. They were the only jewels she ever regretted stealing. Said they felt sad to her, like they were calling out to go home.” I thought about that for a while, until he said, “I wondered once if her father might have been a dragon.”

I’d almost never thought about her father, but Pict was the place she’d been born. Maybe she would find something out about him here. “Because she loved gemstones so much? That wouldn’t be a bad guess. Every dragon has a hoard.”

He tilted his head at me in confusion. “I told you she gave away all her wealth, Goran. Rada was a thief, but she never hoarded gemstones.”

“Then what do you mean? What hoard?”

“Omegas,” he replied softly. “She traveled all over the world, hunting for every last one, making sure they were safe. Hidden. Her hoard is the daughters of the Goddess.” He closed his eyes, finishing in a whisper, “And their children.”

I turned that thought over in my mind for the next few hours, until my full belly and the midday sun drove us under the cover of a salt cedar being strangled by vines. Then I slept while Alexios kept watch.

A hand over my mouth woke me from my dreamless rest. Branches cracked nearby. Male voices drew nearer. It was late afternoon, judging by the light filtering through the vines, and the males spoke in a language I didn’t know.