Samar’s lips thinned. “You asked me for help.”
Nadine shot him an irritable look. “I asked your jemadar to lend me your men and for you to be my second for this mission.”
Like her, Samar was a captain and a commander of one hundred troops. Unlike hers, who were trained as part of Lapour’s defensive guard, Samar’s company were Shaan-Jens—elite soldiers trained in stealth and wilderness survival. She’d need those talents in abundance to pull off the task before her. Just as important, Samar’s company was composed entirely of men. No one else needed to be subjected to the Dokiri’s savage rituals.
“I didn’t ask for someone to hold my hand while I explain to the barbarian the terms of our arrangement.”
Samar shoved aside an oblivious bypasser who had wandered into his path. “Arrangement? Is that what we’ve decided to call it?”
“What would you call it?” She regretted the question the instant it was out of her mouth.
“Matehood. You’re agreeing to be an animal’s mate. I hear they even call it that.”
Nadine rolled her eyes. “I can assure you there will be absolutely no mating going on between us.”
Samar waved a hand. “Hey, I wouldn’t want to get in the way of a good time.”
Nadine slid her gaze toward him. He had that look, one he donned when he was trying too hard to convince someone of something. Like the time they’d been on leave and Samar had gotten his hands on a fold of torvi weed. They’d smoked it together and spent the hours afterward musing in the laughter and what-ifs. Somehow the night had devolved into Samar telling Nadine that she’d been lowering herself by visiting the beds of uncommissioned soldiers, that she’d better serve herself with men of equal rank. Men like Samar. Afterward, he’d tracked her down, tried to explain he hadn’t meant what he’d said. That he’d simply been cooked. They’d not spoken of it since. Nadine clenched her fists.
“Neither would I. So I’ll make you a deal.” She stopped walking and turned to him. “I’ll suffer the ceremony itself, and you can service him for the wedding night. You know? Since you only want to be helpful.”
Samar stopped walking and ran his tongue along the insides of his lower teeth. He was a handsome man. Tall for an Ebronian, though not as tall as a Dokiri. His tanned skin and honed muscles were a testament to daily hours spent training in the yard. He sported a closely shaven beard and dark curls that lay relaxed against high cheekbones. Why had she never felt anything for him?
Because if life’s taught me one thing, it’s that people are only there for you as long as it’s convenient for them.
Still, if anyone were the exception, Samar was. That was why she was tolerating his mockery even now, on the eve of the most distasteful decision she’d ever had to make.
“You don’t have to do this, Captain.”
Nadine raised a brow. “Don’t I?”
“We can find another way into the mountain. Hell, we can follow them if we choose.”
Nadine snorted. “I know you haven’t thought that through. It will take us months at best to reach the place where the Nozverak will meet us.” She paused as a vague sense of self-consciousness assailed her. She was practically regurgitating the very words the barbarian had used. Nadine cracked her neck and went on. “The Dokiri can reach it in a matter of hours.”
“And why won’t the Nozverak simply meet us lower down? Surely there are other ways into the mountain?”
“They say it will be safer once we’re inside to start from the top.”
“Why?”
Nadine shrugged. “There’s a shortcut that starts near the top. Some sort of crevice we have to drop into. It’s faster and safer than any alternative.”
Samar crossed his arms. “Bypass danger by dropping into an uncharted crevice? That sounds asinine. And who’s to say this is even the best way to go about things? Going down into the mountain itself? Have we given up on drawing the Soul Thieves out?”
“What do you suggest, Lanta?”
Samar tensed. “That’s a riddle for the shars.”
“Well, this is the plan they came up with.”
Samar grunted but said nothing.
“Are you afraid, Captain?” Nadine didn’t attempt to hide the smirk in her voice.
“You know the answer to that.” Samar glared at her in the same way Lavinia did when she believed Nadine was being intentionally pigheaded. “I’m not eager to lose good men, but I’d do it in a heartbeat if I thought it would change anything.”
“It will.”
“We survived against their army the last time they came to Ebron.”
The last time the veligiri, as the savages called them, arrived at Ebron, they’d swept through the city, slaughtering many of its inhabitants, abducting the Mushar himself. They’d nearly made it back to their refuge before the Ebronians had time to formulate a plan. Even then, the Ebronians had been victorious only with the help of the Dokiri, a fact Nadine was loath to admit out loud. So she wouldn’t.
“Better our lives than the whole of the Ebronian army.”
Samar frowned. “My life, yes. Your freedom?”
Nadine squelched a bitter laugh. As if she’d ever have that. It was the fate of women to be dependent. She was a soldier for one reason and one reason only: It was the closest to free she would ever come. Nadine would choose the army over the fickle nature of a man any day.
“Even the savages concede their women a choice in the end,” Nadine said, careful to hide her own uncertainty of that fact. “This has been my choice from the beginning, and it will be my choice when it’s over.”
Samar cocked a brow in challenge. “Oh? Is that what your sister told you?”
Lavinia had explained a great many things to Nadine about Dokiri ways. Things like that they loved to dance, their eyesight was uncanny, and they were as good with the bow as they were with the crude axes they carried. However, on the subject of claiming their women, Lavinia had been infuriatingly close-lipped, even for a stutterer. It had felt like betrayal. But that was nothing new, and Nadine had made up her mind that she’d never allow anything to come between them again. Not even her own bitterness.
No, Nadine had gleaned her knowledge of Dokiri marital customs from a far less reliable source. Court gossip. Still, she wouldn’t let Samar know she’d spent the past days frantically searching for any and all details about how the Dokiri conducted themselves with their claimed brides.
“Yes.” She was nothing if not a good liar.
The corner of Samar’s mouth curled in a smug, self-satisfied manner. “And look at how she turned out.”
Nadine narrowed her eyes. It was one thing for her to know Lavinia had a weak will, which had made her susceptible to Dokiri manipulation. It was another for Samar to assume it. “Careful, Lanta.”
Savage swallower. Brute bitch. Nadine had bloodied a few noses and bruised her knuckles upon hearing one fool or another spout their drunken opinions on her infamous older sister. The long-lost heir of the Pajel household who’d risen from the dead, only to subsequently lose everything upon throwing in her lot with uncivilized foreigners. Even ones who’d been instrumental in saving the Mushar’s city, not to mention his very life.