“I'm more than competent.” Ava realized she'd have to play this just right. “I am happy to fight someone to show you.”
“It's not me you'll have to convince,” he said. “But I'll put in a good word for you.”
“I'm Avasu.” Ava touched her forehead and bowed, and when she looked up she saw the guard was looking at her strangely.
“I am Deni. I never knew people at the border were so formal.”
“Maybe it's because we are representing the nation with the Skäddar?” she said lightly, and shrugged.
Deni gave a slow nod. “Maybe.” He raised his arm and hailed another guard heading toward them, a woman with a similar style of high ponytail and long plait, like Deni.
Ava wondered if it was a regional style.
“What do we have here? A little stray?” The woman looked Ava over with quick, suspicious eyes.
“A straggler. Heard about the call to arms and wanted to join. She's come from the border with Skäddar.” There was a slight warning in Deni's voice, as if admonishing the woman to be nice, and Ava felt a flare of warmth for the big man.
“A goat herd?” The woman tilted her head so she looked down her nose as Ava.
“What's wrong with goat herding?” Ava asked. “I bet there are plenty here eating border mountain goat and are happy to be doing so.”
Deni laughed. “She's got you there, Sybyl.”
“Anyway, while I may herd the occasional flock of goats, I also protect them from the mountain lions and the thieving Skäddar that come across the border. So I can fight as well as anyone.”
The woman looked at her again, a little less dismissively. “All right, we'll take you to the lieutenant, and she can decide what to do with you.”
“That's all I ask.” Ava smiled. She didn't really mind what task she ended up with, but she preferred to fight. She wanted the practice for when they joined the Rising Wave.
She wanted to ask how far they were from Luc's army, but she kept her mouth shut.
She would hopefully find out soon enough anyway.
This was surely the fastest, safest way to meet up with her lover, so she would do what she had to do to fit in and be accepted.
She followed behind Deni and Sybyl as they trotted forward, toward the front of the column, and allowed herself a last look back.
There was no one on the hills behind her, but that meant nothing.
She was sure the man who'd called himself a messenger from the Speaker of Grimwalt's court was still out there, along with his companion.
They'd tried unsuccessfully to kidnap her seven days ago from her grandmother's house, and she was sure it was them who had followed her when she'd packed up and run. It was also possible his accomplice had gone back to report their failure to the Grimwalt court at some point, while the messenger tried to run her to ground. Or they could still be working together.
In the last two days they'd tried to attack her twice.
She would need to watch her back.
She was sure they weren't going to let a little thing like an army on the move get in their way.
Chapter 2
Luc walked through the camp, nodding to the soldiers who hailed him, stopping here and there for a short exchange, but heading inexorably to the open plain beyond the tents.
He'd left his horse behind, even though he'd have preferred to ride out a little way, leave the whole army behind him for a bit.
If he'd taken it, though, someone would have insisted on coming with him, and he wanted to be alone.
His friends thought being alone was a dangerous thing for him right now, but no more dangerous, in his mind, than being in a group.
He'd been attacked by assassins three times since he’d returned to the Rising Wave after his escape. Once while sitting with his three top lieutenants, not two hours after he'd found his way back from the Kassian fortress he’d been held in. No one had been fast enough to save him then.
He'd saved himself.
He gripped the fabric over his chest at the thought, and looking down at his fist, forced himself to release it.
“You do that a lot.”
He managed not to show his surprise at the voice to his left, and simply turned to look at Massi as she fell into step beside him.
He sighed.
Even sneaking off on foot hadn't been enough to fool her.
“Do I?”
“You know you do. It worries you.” Massi looked over at him. “Why?”
“I took an arrow there, when Ava and I were escaping the Kassian. It's natural for me to rub it.” Except, if anyone asked to see the scar, he couldn't oblige.
It was gone.
“What's going on, Luc? I'd ask what they did to you while they had you prisoner, but you and I both know nothing could have been as bad as the Chosen camps.”
“No, they beat me a little, that's all.” He shrugged. “It was nothing.” Not even the knife they'd stabbed into his side to see if he was truly unconscious had worried him.
The scar from that wound was gone, too, he reminded himself. As was the one on his forearm. The one he'd gotten fighting the Kassian soldiers when they'd ambushed him before his capture.
Everything that Ava had touched with her needle and thread had healed completely.
“Then what?” Massi's exasperation came out on a puff of white because of the chill in the air.
“Ava . . .” He hesitated. He didn't understand what Ava had done to him, and was reluctant to share anything about her with anyone else. Even Massi, who had been by his side since he was fifteen. They were family in every way that mattered.
“Ava.” Massi said her name neutrally, but Luc detected a hint of censor in her voice.
“Ava,” he agreed. He shielded his eyes against the bright midday sun and looked out in the direction of Grimwalt.
“She has some hold on your mind. Your happiness.” Massi kicked out at a small pebble in her path and it skittered off into the long grass.
“She does,” he agreed.
She made a sound of surprise. “You admit it?”
“It's true. I'm worried about her, worried something has happened to keep her away so long, and given what she was planning to do . . .” He shrugged. “Not a day goes by I don't struggle not to get on my horse and ride off to find her.”
Massi was silent, so he turned to look at her, and found her staring at him in horror.
“You would leave the Rising Wave?”
“I'm still here, aren't I?” He lifted his hand to shield his eyes again. “But it's not without regrets and doubts.”
“You knew her for all of three days.” Massi's words were soft, as if she was unable to speak properly.
“And yet, I miss her.” This time, he put a fist over his heart, and Massi's silence was beyond shocked.
She knew what that meant. Everyone from the Chosen camps knew.
“Does she feel the same?” Massi whispered.
Luc didn't know the answer to that. Ava had asked him if her coming to join him would be acceptable to him, after she was done trying to wreak her revenge on the Queen's Herald. That sounded like she at least cared.
“I hope so.”