Red shook himself free of the bushes, and the boy yelped. Red grinned at him, waved, and turned away. By the time he returned, Glaive was showing the boy—who’d given his name as Rodren—how to tie his food bag to a tree.
“You’ll want to head north to d’Hiver territory if you want to get out from under the woman hunting you,” Glaive said, when the boy was done eating a third of their supplies. “Show me which way’s north. Good, that’s a good boy.”
“What do I do in d’Hiver?” Rodren asked, still looking to the north. He wasn’t shaking so much, now, and he looked a little less like a feral, terrified creature and more like the boy he should have been.
“Present yourself to the duke for sanctuary. He’ll probably give you a job.” Glaive had sent more than one kid to d’Hiver. The duke didn’t seem to care who worked his fields or cleaned his floors, and most mercenaries didn’t take jobs that led into d’Hiver lands. Misthotoi were generally superstitious, and there were rumors of strange things living in the duke’s woods.
When the boy had staggered off with a good portion of their food and water, Glaive’s crossbow strapped to his back, Glaive caught Red looking at him, grinning. “What?”
“You’re soft,” his apprentice said. “Who knew?”
Glaive scoffed. “You’ve seen what I do. Not going to subject a kid to it, that’s all.”
Red kept grinning even as they started setting up their own camp, suspending their tent above the damp earth. “It was sweet. You were almost, I don’t know. Fatherly.”
Glaive shot Red a glare, then paused, hands stilling on the knot he’d made in the tent rope. “That kid probably didn’t have one, if he was on his own like that.”
Red whistled as he built a ring of stones for a fire. “Don’t worry, Glaive. Your secret’s safe with me.”
He got hell for it when he reported the job as a failure, but Red smiled like a loon the whole time. Even making him climb trees didn’t put him off. When they took their next job, a hunt for a man who’d poisoned a well, Glaive made Red do the tracking, saying nothing when they had to travel an extra day because Red interpreted the signs wrong. Rather than being disappointed, Red just seemed more eager, asking for extra lessons in swordplay at night before settling down to read by the fire.
It finally struck Glaive on the fourth night of their hunt that the problem with Red was that he was familiar.
Glaive—Nyx—had trained plenty of soldiers. But the one Red reminded him of wasn’t Nadia or Estrid or even poor, sweet Kelta—it was Tyr.
Like Tyr, Red couldn’t drink more than a bottle before he was singing bawdy songs and spilling his heart out to an impassive audience. Written words didn’t dance on the page for him the way they had for Tyr, so he devoured novels and tore through every passing merchant’s cart in hopes of finding a new volume. He fought like Tyr, too, a little too enthusiastically and with no sense of self-preservation. The only difference was that Tyr had cared mostly for Nyx and his soldiers. Red seemed to care for everyone. He even cast a fake protection spell for a little merchant girl’s three-legged cat and talked about having wanted to keep abandoned baby wyverns when he was a boy.
And Glaive, seeing his old friend in the eyes of a redheaded Thalassan who couldn’t carry a tune and followed Glaive around like a besotted puppy, shrank in on himself. He went quiet, giving orders and advice when he needed to but staying silent otherwise, and couldn’t bring himself to look at Red for long. He wondered what Tyr, if he were truly reborn, would have thought of Glaive. If, like Azaiah, he would speak with horror and disappointment, his voice soft.What has become of you?
They found the poisoner the next day, and Red hesitated with his arrow on the string just long enough for the man to shoot first, an arrow slicing along Red’s left arm. Red loosed the arrow almost out of shock, it seemed, but it struck true, and Glaive bent down to finish the job as the man writhed and spat blood through his teeth. When the light faded from his eyes, Glaive got up to find Red crouched next to a tree, heaving up what was left of his lunch. He sighed and walked over, and Red shuddered and spat.
“You probably think I’m weak,” he said, forehead pressed to the tree trunk. Glaive pushed Red’s hair out of the way, just as Tyr had for Nyx when they were boys.
“It’s your first kill. That’s always hard.”
“Couldn’t’ve been hard for you,” Red said, blinking moisture from his eyes.
“No, it was. I had the same reaction.” He rubbed Red’s back, just the once, and started off toward their camp.
“Wait.” Glaive turned. Red was bracing himself against the tree, swaying slightly. “We need to dig a grave.”
Glaive almost ordered him to forget it. But Red’s expression was set, so Glaive sighed and gestured to the camp.
“Fine,” he said. “But you’re digging.”
Red was silent that night, staring into the fire. Glaive thought of Tyr, who’d wept the first time he killed a man in battle, and Azaiah leading his soldiers—and those of the enemy—peacefully across his river. He sat next to Red, who startled slightly, and handed him a tin cup of water. “I think it’s supposed to be peaceful,” he said. “When they go. They don’t mind it, after.”
“Even when they were murdered?” Red’s hands were shaking, and Glaive covered them with his, steadying them.
“It’s what I hear,” he said, and Red leaned closer, pressing his lips to Glaive’s.
His mouth was warm. Alive, not cold like Death’s, but sweet in its way, like Azaiah’s kisses used to be. Perhaps Tyr would have felt like this, if Glaive had been brave enough to make his feelings known. They really had been so young. Like Red. Glaive kissed him back, and Red moved closer, tipping the cup over them both.
“Fuck.” Red jumped and scrambled back. “I’m so sorry. I’ll clean it up. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, lad.” But the moment had broken, and Glaive could feel himself withdrawing, back into that cold, quiet place where thoughts of Tyr and Azaiah couldn’t find him. He stood, leaving Red to curse to himself and fumble over his words, and climbed into the tent.
* * *
