as Shaiyung appeared beside her. “Don’t mourn them, gaia. They made their choices, as we made ours.”
Xinai nodded, shuddering as her mother draped an icy arm across her shoulders. The ghost was clearer now, her touch stronger.
“I’ve waited so long for this,” Shaiyung whispered. “Soon we’ll have what we’ve dreamed of, what we’ve bled for.” She raised a pale hand to the wound in her neck; Xinai nearly mimicked the gesture.
“What will you do then? Will you go on?”
“And leave you again? I want to see the land remade, cleansed. I want to see my grandchildren. All their whips and knives won’t take that from me again. Your children will rebuild Cay Lin.”
“Ch-children.” Xinai drew her knees close against her chest, tried to rub warmth into her hands. “I’ve never thought of that. Of a family.” A mercenary camp was no place for a baby, and neither she nor Adam had ever wanted to settle down.
“I’ve seen the way Riuh looks at you,” Shaiyung said with a smile.
“Ancestors!” Her teeth chattered as she laughed. “No need to matchmake yet, Mira. Let’s win the war first.”
“We will.” Shaiyung pulled her closer, and the familiarity of the embrace made Xinai’s eyes sting. “They bound the mountain and the river, but they can’t bind us.”
Leaves rustled nearby, almost quiet enough to be the wind’s work. Shaiyung vanished, leaving Xinai shivering in the damp. She reached for a blade, but it was only Riuh.
“How did you find me?” she asked as he crouched outside her shelter.
He grinned crookedly. “You walk softly, but not so soft that I can’t find your trail.” He ducked under dripping fronds and knelt beside her.
“I’ll have to practice.” The warmth of his flesh lapped at her, feverishly hot after Shaiyung’s embrace.
“What’s wrong?” he asked after a moment’s silence. “It’s not just what we did today, is it?”
“No.”
“Was it the man you met in the city?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You followed me?”
He shrugged. “I see how much my grandmother cares about you. I’m not going to let something happen to you out of carelessness.”
“Or courtesy?”
“That either.”
She snorted. “He was my partner for years. I thought I’d never come home again. It’s hard to leave a life behind, even for a better one.”
“What was it like, the north?”
“Strange, at first. Different. Mountains sharp as tiger’s teeth. Seasons so cold everything freezes, even your breath. People pale as ghosts. The forests taste different.”
Riuh shook his head. “I don’t think I would have been so brave. The elders used to rail at me for being wild, traditionless, but I don’t know if I could have left Sivahra.”
“I had nothing here. Aren’t you wild anymore?”
“Sometimes.” He grinned again, but it faded quickly. “But it’s not the same. I never cared much about the Dai Tranh, about the cause. I ran with the prides in the city, stayed away from Cay Xian.”
“What happened?”
“My father was arrested after a raid. They said he would be sent to the mines, a three-year sentence. Grandmother tried to find him—she knows people everywhere—but he wasn’t there. He was just gone. No body, no rites, no songs. We’ve never discovered what happened.”
Xinai laid a hand on his; he squeezed her fingers and frowned. “You’re freezing.” He shifted closer, his warmth burning against her shoulder, and pressed her hand between his. “It hit Kovi hardest of all, but even I couldn’t ignore that. We can’t let the Khas keep doing this to us.”
“No,” she whispered. Her head spun and she closed her eyes. Riuh’s arm settled over her shoulders, warm and solid. He touched the short hair at the nape of her neck and she shivered.
“Not very traditional, I know,” she said with a wry smile.
“I like it. We can do with a few less traditions.”
This was wrong. The smell of his skin, the fit of his hand around hers. She needed time…But she was so cold, a northern winter gnawing at her bones. He could make her warm again.
Riuh’s calloused fingers brushed her cheek, tilted her head toward his. His thumb traced her lower lip and her pulse throbbed like surf in her ears. She should say no, but his lips brushed hers, soft and tentative, and she couldn’t speak. Her hand rose to his shoulder—her body felt like a stranger’s. Like a puppet.
“No—” she whispered against his mouth. He pulled back, and she shuddered with the absence of heat. Clumsily she jerked away, hand slipping in mud as she landed on her hip. Her chattering teeth closed on her tongue