“Ilion settlers?” Marek suggested. “Maybe they don’t want to live around our people. Or maybe it’s a temporary camp for the vineyard workers during the harvest. It’s a four-hour ride from Asermos to the farthest field. This would be roughly in the center of all of them.”
Rhia frowned at the distant wooden buildings. From here they all blurred together in a brown mass. “I want to get closer.” She moved toward the trail at the edge of the ridge.
“Uh-uh.” Marek caught her elbow. “It’s not safe. We can ask at the meeting if anyone has more information.”
She halted, knowing he was right. Tonight, like many nights in the last several months, she and Marek would meet at a local farm with a small group of sympathizers—mostly people who lived on the outskirts of Asermos, though a few brave souls ventured out from the village itself. They would share intelligence, arrange for supply shipments and speak to potential recruits, each of whom had to be vouched for by three people whom Rhia trusted.
Their message was spreading, counteracting the Ilions’ propaganda and assuaging the concerns of the fearful and the weary. By recruiting not just warriors, but also cooks, scribes, stretcher bearers, makers of bows and arrows or paper and ink, they gave each person a purpose—and with it, hope.
It also kept her and Marek away from Tiros, a place made bitter by memories of their son. Countless mornings this past year, she’d catch herself ready to call Nilik down for breakfast. The reality would slam her gut so hard, she’d have to sit until her legs could support her again. The food would get cold, but no one complained.
“Wait,” Sani said. “Looks like they’re building a high fence.”
“Probably to keep people like us out,” Marek said. “People like Lycas and his troops.”
In the last year, Rhia’s brother had expanded his military operations from the Sangian Hills—where Feras had taken command of Sirin’s former battalion—to the even more rugged Kirisian Mountains north of Asermos. From there Lycas struck targets closer to their home village.
Or so she had heard. She hadn’t spoken to him directly since she and Marek and Jula had returned to Tiros almost a year ago.
“Maybe you’re right,” Rhia told Marek, “but what if the fence isn’t to keep people out, but to keep them in?”
Sani cried out behind her. Rhia turned to the Eagle, who was pinching the bridge of her nose, eyes squeezed shut.
“A vision. It has to do with that thing.” Sani flapped her hand in the direction of the makeshift village, then whimpered. “It hurts when I seek them on purpose.” Her face suddenly flushed, then paled, and she sank to sit on the ground, with Rhia’s arm to steady her.
Finally the Eagle opened her eyes, blinking rapidly. “As usual, it makes no sense.”
“What did you see?” Marek said.
“A black circle in the dust, maybe ten feet wide, lit by a white light. Not sunlight.” She steadied her breath. “More like moonlight, but much brighter.”
“You didn’t have to seek the vision.” Rhia brushed the strands of graying brown hair out of Sani’s eyes. “But thank you. Maybe it’ll mean something to the people at the meeting tonight. Maybe it’s a map or an Ilion religious symbol.”
“It was just a plain circle.” Sani rubbed her arms. “I know I shouldn’t add my own emotions to it, but it made me sad and angry and afraid—and hopeful, all at the same time.” She looked up at them. “See? I told you it didn’t make sense.”
Marek helped the Eagle to her feet. “I’m sure someday it will.”
Rhia stared out at the distant mystery and hoped that “someday” wouldn’t be too late.
Captain Addano sat at the dinner table in silence. His wife and children also did not speak, because they knew better.
He didn’t look at his meat as he ate it, but focused on the grain of the table’s wood and the seams of the cloth place mats. The sinews of the roasted mutton reminded him of the flesh of his prisoners. Many years ago he’d enjoyed meat cooked rare; now Nisa either cooked it well done or found herself scraping it off the wall.
As the meal came to a close, she cleared her throat. Addano shut his eyes to avoid sending her a withering glare.
“A letter came from Ilios today,” she said softly. “From your mother.”
His hand tightened on his knife, and he heard his young son and daughter suck in their breaths. He laid it down beside his plate, picked it up again, then stretched forward to set it in the middle of the table, out of easy reach.
The letters never held good news. “Give it to me,” he said. “Now?” He bit his tongue to avoid the easy sarcastic remark. “Yes.
Now.”
She withdrew the folded parchment from her apron pocket and laid it next to his plate, her hands shaking. He could remember when she’d tremble at his touch out of desire instead of fear. Before they’d come to Asermos.
He broke the seal and unfolded the letter. Nisa shifted the lantern closer so he could read.
My Dearest Dimitris,
Thank you for your letter. It will probably be the last I receive, as my address has become in doubt. Your sister and her children and I are living in Salindis with their grandmother, but by the time you get this, I may have moved on.
It’s happened, son. They’ve finally taken our farm, like all the others. The government gave it to a Leukon nobleman. He’s never been here; I don’t think he even knows where the Saldos region is. They say we didn’t pay our taxes, but we did, I have the records. They keep raising them without telling us and blame it all on the wars. They won’t even let us work on the farm because it’s cheaper to have slaves bring in the crops.
I’ll try to remain in the area so you can find me when you come home. They say Asermos is beautiful and bountiful. I hope it’s worth all this money and all these lives. The fact that the names of your father and brother are etched on a slab of rock in Leukos is pitiful consolation.
Give a long hug to your wife and children for me. You are truly blessed to be where you are, together.
All my love, Mother
He folded the letter, then creased and recreased the page until the edge was as sharp as a razor.
“What does it say?” Nisa whispered.
Addano slid it across the table. “Read it.” He shoved back his chair and stood up. “Read it out loud to the children. Let them know the latest escapades of the glorious Ilion nation.” He shot a glare at each of the ten-year-old twins. “Maybe then they’ll stop whining to go home.” He grabbed the bottle and stalked toward the door. “I’m taking a walk.”
“Dimitris.”
He heard her footsteps follow him, and he turned in time to see her flinch.
She rubbed the back of her left hand. “I wish you wouldn’t walk around at night drinking by yourself.” She met his gaze, for just a moment. “I worry about you.”
He reached out and touched her cheek, cold beneath his fingertips. “Nisa, don’t you understand?” he said softly. “I walk, and I drink, every night, to keep these hands from your throat.”
She shuddered, and he tucked a golden curl behind her ear, letting his fingers trail over her neck. He turned away before he could see her tears.
Addano walked the twilit streets of Asermos, unfettered and unmolested. A pair of soldiers stood on every corner, ready to enforce the civilian curfew, should need arise, which it hadn’t for several weeks. Either the Asermons had been cowed by the mass arrests, or they were waiting for something to happen, something the prisoners would not reveal under any amount of persuasion.
He came to the old hospital, where he leaned against the outer fence and tilted the wine bottle to his lips. He studied the front yard, wondering on which spot his brother had fallen when they’d shot him in the back twenty years ago. Had his killer aimed and fired from the thatched roof, or from that maple, where the leaves now glowed bloodred in the torchlight? An injured and unarmed prisoner-of-war, his only crime was wanting to go home.
Because of his brother, Ad
dano had asked to come to Asermos. The army had granted his request because he could connect with people, make them want to share their deepest secrets. Force was only necessary in desperate situations.
These days, Ilios was always desperate.
His head felt heavy, and he let it tip forward to tap the cold lip of the bottle. Below him, the toes of his boots protruded under the wooden fence. A wily detective once stalked in them; now they were filled by the stumbling feet of a common thug.
Ironic, since he’d joined the army at nineteen to escape a life of crime. He’d become an officer by working his way up through the enlisted ranks, instead of having his commission handed to him straight out of basic training like those effete young noble-men. Now they’d taken his family’s land…
“Dimitris.”
Out of the corner of his eyes, Addano saw his wife approach with another bottle of wine. The one in his hand was almost empty.
“You know me too well.” He traded bottles with her.
“I know a little wine makes you dangerous, but a lot of wine makes you safe.” She shifted to stand out of reach, her hands resting against the fence. “I figured I’d find you here.”
“I come for inspiration.”
“For your job.”
“Yes.”
“Does it work?”
He took another slug of wine. “It used to.”
Until last year, he could console himself with the fact that no matter how his prisoners suffered, at least he’d never taken the life of a defenseless man. He was better than the cowards who’d killed his brother.
But Sirin had dispelled that delusion, Sirin and the dozens of other corpses Addano had created on orders from his superiors. He might as well be a priest of Xenia, the death goddess, for all the time he spent in her temple, offering payment for their souls’ easy passage.
His superiors called them “extrajudicial executions.” Since torturing civilians was against Ilion law, once prisoners had been abused, they couldn’t go back into the court system, and they certainly couldn’t be released.
“We could take a walk by the river,” Nisa said, “like we did every evening when we first came here, remember?”
“I don’t go to the river anymore.”
He had people do that for him, take the bodies and weigh them down with stones. Always downstream from Asermos, he ordered, so that no recognizable pieces, half-eaten by fish, could wash up for the neighbors to see.
“Your mother’s letter,” she said, “it made me think, perhaps, we should go back to Ilios. Help her and your sister and your nephews find a new home.”
“You know I can’t leave my post.”
She cleared her throat and took another step away from him. “When I say, ‘we,’ I don’t mean you and I. I mean, the children and I.”
His hand clenched the fence post, and he heard her take in a sharp breath.
“With your blessing, of course,” she added.
“Blessing?” He turned to her. “Blessing of what? The gods? The Spirits? A blessing from me would turn to dust in my mouth.” He advanced on her, and marveled that for once she didn’t recoil.
“Dimitris—”
“Nisa,” he pleaded in a whisper, “the occupation won’t last much longer. Ilios is breaking, I can feel it.”
“Shh.” She cast a nervous glance over her shoulder. “You shouldn’t be telling me this.”
“I’m trying to make you stay, just for a while.” He drew his hand up her arm, ordering his fingers not to squeeze and twist until she begged for mercy. “Soon we can all go home together.”
The dismay in her eyes made her words unnecessary, and he wanted to clamp her mouth shut so she wouldn’t utter them.
“I can’t live with you anymore.” Her lower lip trembled. “Please let us go before you kill us.”
“Before?” He yanked the empty wine bottle out of her hands. “Before?” He lifted the bottle by the neck as though to bash out her brains. Nisa didn’t cringe, just stared straight ahead, resigned.
Addano slammed the bottle against the fence. It shattered, the glass clattering on the stones of the road.
“It’s too late.” He flung the broken bottle neck at her feet. “I’ve already killed you.”
He turned away from her, clutching the half-empty bottle of wine.
He’d never come back to the hospital, he vowed, never again stand by this fence and mourn what had been taken from him.
Tonight, he would go to the river.
03
Tiros
“Can I tell you something odd?”
Dravek marked his place on the reading lesson and looked at Sura sitting beside him at the table. Leaning her head on her hand, she blinked at him.
“Go ahead,” he told her.
The lantern light cast shimmering shadows of her long, dark lashes. “The back of my neck and shoulders are tingling, like I’m wrapped in a blanket. Did you put something in the tea?”
“No.” He broke into a warm smile. “You’ve mentioned it before when you’re teaching me to read.”
“What do you think it is?”
“Contentment.”
“You’ve felt it?”
“Not since I was young.”
She chortled. “Since you were young? Are you so ancient at nineteen?” Her smile faded. “You’re still only nineteen, right?”
He nodded. “Like you.”
“I remember being eighteen, and I know it was last year. But I don’t remember my birthday.”
Dravek felt a pang in his chest at the lostness on her face. “Your uncle Marek caught a pheasant and roasted it for dinner.”
She brightened. “I must have loved that.” She glanced at the stairs behind them. “Is he here now?”
“He’s outside of Asermos with your aunt Rhia. It’s just us, your daughter Malia and your cousin Jula. She’s out delivering the news from Velekos.” He focused on his reading lesson. “This one’s confusing. When this letter is here, it sounds different than when it’s at the end of the word?”
“I’ll show you.” She reached across to point to the text. Her skin brushed his, and he jerked his arm away. “What’s wrong?”
He explained for the hundredth painful time. “We’re not allowed to touch outside of training.”
“Why?”
“Vara says it intensifies our powers.”
“Oh. Does it?”
“Yes.” A gross understatement. Having her so close but untouchable created a constant, consuming fire inside him. They could now start a deliberate blaze just by touching hands. Fortunately Vara had taught them how to channel it into a precise, controlled force, with no more accidents like his wedding’s bonfire.
Sura chewed the inside of her cheek. “You’ve had to tell me all this before, haven’t you?”
“You remember?”
“No, but it seems like something that would’ve come up.”
“It’s probably on your sheet. But yes, it comes up a lot.”
“Does Jula know?” “
She knows it’s Vara’s orders. She knows she’s the one who helps with anything that involves touching you. But she doesn’t know why.” He wondered how much he should confess, how much longer he could hold back the words he wanted her to remember. “The worst was when you were pregnant and your back ached so bad.” He tucked his hands under his arms at the thought of stroking her long, strong muscles. “I could’ve rubbed the pain away, but…”
“I would’ve liked that,” she whispered. Then she cleared her throat and pointed to the parchment. “Anyway, when this letter comes at the end of a word—”
“My marriage is over.”
“Oh.” Sura was silent a moment. “Is this the first time I’ve heard this?”
He nodded. “As of tomorrow, Kara and I will be separated a year. Under Tiron law, we can divorce.” He traced unsteady lines within the corner of the parchment. “She wants to marry Etarek.”
“That’s good, right?”
“But would you be happy?”
He twisted the pen in his hands. “I’d get to live with my son.”
“Stop before you break that.” She took the pen from him and set it aside. “From what I remember last year, you didn’t get along, and you felt trapped into marrying her.”
“But at least she—” He cut himself off.
At least Kara wasn’t forbidden. Marrying her had felt like the right thing to do, even more so after Sura came along. Now he could no longer use Kara to avoid his feelings for his Spirit-sister.
Dravek’s feet tingled as the floor vibrated in the direction of the front door.
A knock came, then the shouted code word, “Sparrow!”
Dravek grimaced as he pushed back his chair. “It’s your aunt Rhia. She’s been away for two months, since right after Malia was born.” He called out the coded response, then unlocked the door and opened it wide.
Rhia staggered through, dripping wet. “What a ride. We could barely see the road for all the mud. Marek’s stabling the horses. They’re a mess.” She gave Dravek a perfunctory hug, then turned to Sura, who was standing behind the chair, gripping its back. “It’s wonderful to see you.” To Rhia’s credit, she didn’t advance on Sura with an embrace, understanding that to her niece she was a near stranger.
Sura, however, came forward and took her hands. “I remember you.” She studied Rhia’s face. “You’ve aged.”
Rhia’s eyes widened, then she laughed. “Oh, you mean in the last ten years. Yes, I’m afraid I have.”
A whimper from the other room turned into a wail.
“Sorry,” Rhia whispered. “Guess I was too loud.”
“It’s all right.” Sura started to walk toward the bedroom. “It might be feeding time, anyway.” She gave Dravek a questioning look, and he resisted the urge to answer. He made a subtle gesture with his thumb, at the schedule tacked to the wall.
“Oh!” Sura examined the parchment. “Looks like she fed an hour ago. Maybe she needs changing.” She passed into the bed room. The door swung shut behind her, as it always did when it wasn’t propped open.
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