My own heart pricks that he would feel such fierce emotion on my behalf, when my own family did not.
We dance, dance, while the stars look down.
“Perhaps it would have been different,” I say quietly, “if they’d known the woman meant to take me straight to Kallias, to sell me for twice the sum she’d promised them. I like to believe it would have been different.”
I chew on my lip. I’m not going to cry. Not in front of Vil. Not ever, if I can help it. I don’t want him to think that I am weak.
“They never looked for you,” he realizes. “Or if they did, they never found you.”
I stop dancing, suddenly, and he stumbles but does not fall. He holds so tight to me it almost hurts. “And when you finally went home,” he says, “they weren’t there.” He’s breathing hard, harder than his small stumble merits.
I am, too. “No.”
“But you know where to find them?”
“I think so.”
“Then why are you here with us, instead of searching for them?”
A sudden wind seethes over the plain, blowing smoke at Saga and Indridi and causing them to choke and swear.
I blink grit out of my eyes. I don’t look away from Vil. “I prayed for the gods to send my parents to rescue me, for years and years. I begged, groveled, made vows and spat curses. But they never came. I don’t know if my parents stopped caring for me, or if the gods did.” It isn’t grit in my eyes now. I gnaw the inside of my cheek.
“My parents aren’t here to slay my demons, Vil. SoI’mgoing to. Maybe when Kallias is dead, I can sleep at night. Maybe when he’s gone, I can finally prove to my family that I am every bit as remarkable as my siblings. Every bit as worthy of their regard.”
“Brynja,” says Vil, gently, face stricken.
“They don’t feel like my family anymore. You and Saga are my family, Vil. And I mean to see this through.”
He pulls me against his chest, and for a moment I allow myself to sink into him, his heart beating fast under my ear, his scent soaking into my skin.
“There is too much,” I whisper into his shirt. “There is too much left to do. I can’t—”
“I know,” says Vil. He presses a kiss into my hair and releases me.
I walk past Saga and Indridi, hyperaware of their eyes on me, infinitely grateful for the cover of night so they can’t see how red my face is. I crawl into my bedroll, curling tight into a ball and gritting my teeth until I can be sure I’m not going to cry. I don’t want to think about my parents, my brother, my sister. I don’t want to think about how all this started. I just want it to be over. Gods,gods. I just want it to be over.
Maybe then I can be what Vil wants. Maybe then I will know what I want, too.
In the morning we start on the road to Tenebris. We have several weeks to go yet, but this is the last leg of our journey. No more twists and turns—just straight on to the mountain.
We don’t run into any soldiers, but we pass groups of Daerosian farmers or merchants who glower and swear at us as we ride by. The bloodied peace banner hangs plainly from Vil’s saddle, keeping them from hurling anything more harmful than insults and a few unripe apples. One hits me hard on the arm, and I know I’ll have a bruise to look forward to later.
In the afternoon, the daylight already fading, we glimpse a glittering company riding toward us on the road. Beside me, Saga’s whole body hardens; ahead of us, Vil curses. My heart jerks sideways, and I suddenly find it hard to breathe. Pala and Leifur both draw their swords. I can sense Indridi tremble.
The company is Iljaria, easily identifiable by their white hair. Their banners are sewn with tiny mirrors that refract the sunlight in everycolor, making it painful to look at them. What thehellare they doing here? They’re supposed to be safely on the other side of their magical barrier. The Iljaria leave their country only rarely, and it seems like more than some sick chance that their path would intersect with ours.
They draw nearer, and panic drums against my breastbone. There are too many of them for us to subdue, especially considering their magic, and in any case it would violate the terms of the peace banner to attack them. I tangle my fingers in my horse’s mane and will myself to be steady.
Saga is a pillar of rage on my left, while Vil sits tense, wary, watching the Iljaria approach. They rein in a few paces from us, their horses stamping and blowing, dust rising up from their hooves. The Iljaria themselves regard us with glittering eyes, like we’re of no more consequence to them than worms.
There are ten Iljaria in all, clothed in elegant robes the colors of their patron gods, whom they call Lords: green and blue and violet, bronze and black and yellow, brown and white and gray. Their leader wears red, the color of the god of fire. Their skin tones range from light to very dark, with every shade between. The youngest of them looks hardly fifteen, the eldest no more than fifty, though in reality he could be much older. They wear their white hair in all different styles, some short, some long, some bound, some loose. Five are men, and five women.
The Iljaria leader doesn’t look much older than me. He sits tall in his saddle, his long white hair twisted into braids, the ends crimped in metal bands. His skin is smooth and light, with a spattering of freckles on his nose that somehow hardens instead of softens him. He teems with magic, and it is so strong I can feel it crawling under my own skin, and I want to be sick in the grass.
“Hail,” says Vil finally, when the Iljaria show no sign of speaking. The word is cold and bitter.
The Iljaria leader raises one pale eyebrow, and the ends of his braids spark with sudden flame.
