“You hope—” Massi swore. “I'm worried about you, Luc. We finally have the fruits of our labor all around us. The Funabi are finally here, and settled in. Most of our own people from the plains have come, and those who aren't here yet will join us soon. The Venyatux are on their way. And while Grimwalt won't stand with us, it at least has chosen to close its borders and give Kassia no aide or even trade. We're in a position of strength, headed for Fernwell with no army ranged against us yet, and instead of making plans, you are sneaking out of camp to search the horizon for a woman who you met for a few days nearly two months ago.”
“When you put it like that . . .” Luc shrugged. “Perhaps I should step down as the commander.”
“What?” She took a step back. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what you meant,” he said, turning to look her straight in the eye for the first time, “is that I should shake my feelings for Ava off and pretend I never met her.”
Massi was quiet. “That is what I meant, and it was wrong of me, and I’m sorry.” She sighed. “I don't know your Ava, but she must be quite something for you to . . . think so highly of her.” She put out a hand and rubbed Luc's arm. “I’m inclined to think highly of her myself for her part in saving you, but I also don't like that we don't know a lot about her. The way the thought of her distracts you makes me worry we'll be less prepared against the Kassian, and that is ungenerous of me. You've given everything to the Rising Wave. If anyone deserves something good, it's you.”
Luc pulled her close, slinging an arm over her shoulder. “You deserve it, too, Massi. We all do.”
They had been rounded up as teenagers, impressed into Kassia's service, and had had to make their own families, their own joy. He thought they'd been successful.
But Ava had lit something in him that he hadn't experienced before.
“Are you spelled?”
Luc stilled at the question, dropped his arm as he stepped back with a neutral face. “Now why would you ask me a question like that?”
Massi shook her head. “It's one of the rumors going around the camp. That you move faster than a man has any right to. That when you train you never miss what you aim for, never allow a blow to land.” She tipped her head back to look at him. “You were stronger than anyone I’ve ever known before you were captured, but since you've been back, you're . . . more. Better at everything. You’ve managed to fend off three assassination attempts single-handedly. And that first one, when that Funabi assassin tried to kill you the night of your return?” She shrugged. “I didn't even clearly see you move you were so fast.”
If Massi had been a bit more generous in her thoughts of Ava, maybe he'd have shared his worries that perhaps he had been spelled, but he refused to make Ava more vulnerable when she arrived.
He wanted Ava to be accepted and befriended when she reached the Rising Wave. Not treated with the awe and fear that known spell casters usually encountered as their welcome.
She was his lover. She would be living with him, if he could persuade her to agree.
He would not have her viewed with suspicion, even if he suspected her himself.
“I'd been on alert for days before that attack, expecting the Kassian to track me down and kill me. You were sitting in your own tent, feeling safe, wine cup in hand.” His voice was mild.
Massi laughed in relief. “That's true. But to be honest, that sword you brought back from the Kassian stronghold . . .” She shrugged. “It’s much admired. There are stories now that it’s enchanted. Giving you special powers. Strength and accuracy. If I were you, I’d be careful someone didn’t try to steal it.”
With a grunt of surprise, Luc pulled the sword from the sheath at his back and held it out in front of him. He had come to appreciate it more and more, the longer he had it. The intricate gold work on the hilt, the weight and balance and reach of it.
It had been in a box in a long-forgotten storeroom in the Kassian fortress where he and Ava had been held, and they wouldn’t have escaped if he hadn’t found it.
“I don't think I'm any different in training to how I was before. Maybe a bit more focused.” Was he better? He didn’t feel like he was.
“You know soldiers.” Massi turned back to the camp, and reluctantly, Luc turned with her. “They'll make a story out of anything. When it comes to you, they embellish even more.”
“Is this spelled sword nonsense making them have doubts about me? About the Wave?”
Massi shrugged. “The opposite. The story is only a righteous leader could hold such a sword. That only makes your legend bigger than before.” She hesitated. “The other story—the one I mentioned before—is that you were spelled by a fey witch who was imprisoned with you, but that’s a lot less popular than the sword one.”
A chill ran down his spine, and he struggled to pull up a lighthearted smile. “I'd like to find who's spreading that story. No one should know I escaped with anyone. I’ve only told you, Revek and Dak the full truth.”
She glanced at him. “You have told the camp you’re expecting a friend to join you, though. And that friend is a woman.”
“There’s a long jump from letting them know to be on the lookout for a friend of mine, to my escaping the Kassian with a fey witch.”
Massi studied his face and shook her head. “I've seen that look before. We need to keep things friendly, Luc. Not go around intimidating our allies.”
“I just want to know who’s spreading rumors. Find out for me. I won't approach them.”
Massi rolled her eyes. “Fine. But don't engage. We've got enough on our plate without you beating up the troops.”
“I won't beat anyone up.” But he did want to find out who was telling that particular story. Because it was unsettlingly close to the truth.
Chapter 3
They had made it off the steppes and onto the flat plains that formed the far north of Kassia three days ago.
No army had stopped them.
Ava heard there were a few scouts who rode away as soon as they saw the column, so someone would know they had crossed into enemy territory.
But it would be days at least before the news reached Fernwell.
Herron's war on the border of Jatan, to the west, had diverted all of Kassia's resources away from the far north border with Grimwalt and Venyatu.
That's what she'd heard before she left Grimwalt, anyway.
It looked to be true.
Ava kept to the front of the column and looked out over the sweeping grasslands. They were golden, the grasses dry after the long summer.
This was Cervantes.
Kassia had ambushed the people who lived here, decimated them, and rounded their children up into camps and called them the Chosen.
This was Luc's former homeland she was traveling through.
He had the light eyes and dark hair of his people, the broad shoulders and the height.
She lifted a hand from the reins and hugged herself as she thought of how he looked, staring daggers at her as he crouched, naked, in the river, and demanded she tell him what she had done to him.
She had not answered. And she had gone on to do even more.