nods at the northeastern horizon, where low green hills stretch, thick with old-growth trees. The Forest of Dusk is the sentinel on Marinn’s western border—one so effective that in five hundred years of Martial expansion, even the Empire hasn’t been able to penetrate it.
“You’ll see,” Gibran goes on. “When we cross the east branch north of here, she’ll be even grumpier than normal. Very superstitious, my sister.”
“Are you afraid of the Forest, Gibran?” Izzi surveys the distant trees curiously. “Have you ever gotten close?”
“Once,” Gibran says, and his ever-present humor fades. “All I remember is wanting to leave.”
“Gibran! Izzi!” Afya calls from across the camp. “Firewood!”
Gibran groans and flops his head back. As he and Izzi are the youngest in the caravan, Afya assigns them—and usually me—the most menial tasks: gathering firewood, doing the dishes, scrubbing the laundry.
“She might as well put bleeding slaves’ cuffs on us,” Gibran grumbles. Then a sly look crosses his face.
“Hit that shot”—Gibran flashes his lightning smile at Izzi, and a blush rises in her cheeks—“and I’ll gather firewood for a week. Miss, and it’s on you.”
Izzi draws the bow, sights, and knocks the boot off the branch easily. Gibran curses.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Izzi says. “I’ll still keep you company while you do all the work.” Izzi slings her bow on her back and gives Gibran a hand up. For all his blustering, he holds on to her a little longer than he needs to, his eyes lingering on her as she walks ahead of him. I hide a smile, thinking of what Izzi said to me a few nights ago as we fell into sleep. “It’s nice to be admired, Laia, by someone who means well. It’s nice to be thought beautiful.”
They pass Afya, who chivvies them along. I clench my jaw and look away from the Tribeswoman. A feeling of impotence seizes me. I want to tell her we should keep going, but I know she won’t listen. I want to tell her she was wrong for letting Elias leave—for not even bothering to wake me until he was well away, but she won’t care. And I want to rage at her for refusing to allow me or Keenan to take a horse and track Elias down, but she’ll just roll her eyes and tell me again what she told me when I learned Elias left: My duty is to get you safely to Kauf. And you haring off after him interferes.
I must admit that she has carried out her duty with remarkable cleverness. Here in the heart of the Empire, the countryside is crawling with Martial soldiers. Afya’s caravan has been searched a dozen times. Only her savvy as a smuggler has kept us alive.
I put the bow down, my focus shattered.
“Help me get dinner going?” Keenan gives me a rueful smile. He knows well the look on my face. He’s patiently suffered my frustration since Elias left, and he’s realized the only cure is distraction. “It’s my turn to cook,” he says. I fall into step beside him, preoccupied enough that I do not notice Izzi running toward us until she calls out.
“Come quickly,” she says. “Scholars—a family—on the run from the Empire.”
Keenan and I follow Izzi back to camp to find Afya speaking rapidly in Sadhese with Riz and Vana. A small group of anxious Scholars looks on, their clothing torn, faces streaked with dirt and tears. Two dark-eyed women who appear to be sisters stand together. One of them has her arm around a girl of perhaps six. The man with them carries a little boy no more than two.
Afya turns away from Riz and Vana, both of whom have similar, glowering expressions. Zehr keeps his distance, but he doesn’t look happy either.
“We can’t help you,” Afya says to the Scholars. “I will not bring down the Martials’ wrath upon my Tribe.”
“They’re killing everyone,” one of the women says. “No survivors, miss. They’re even killing Scholar prisoners, massacring them in their cells—”
It is as if the earth at my feet has dropped away. “What?” I push past Keenan and Afya. “What did you say about Scholar prisoners?”
“The Martials are butchering them.” The woman turns to me. “Every single prisoner. From Serra to Silas to our city, Estium, fifty miles west of here. Antium is next, we hear, and after that, Kauf. That woman—the Mask, the one they call the Commandant—she’s killing them all.”
XXVIII: Helene
“What are you going to do about Captain Sergius?” Harper asks as we make