I recognize the haughty tone even before she lowers her hood. Afya Ara-Nur.
“Skies, you’re jumpy,” she says. “Though I can’t say I blame you. Not when you have to listen to that racket.” She waves her hand in the general direction of the prison. “No Elias, I see. No brother either. And … no redhead?”
She raises her eyebrows, waiting for an explanation, but I just stare at her, wondering if she’s real. Her riding clothes are stained and filthy, her boots wet with snow. Her braids are tucked beneath a scarf, and it doesn’t look like she has slept in days. I could kiss her, I’m so happy to see her.
She sighs and rolls her eyes. “I made a promise, girl, all right? I vowed to Elias Veturius that I would see this through. A Tribeswoman breaking a sacred vow is foul enough. But to do it when another woman’s life is at stake? That is unforgiveable—as my little brother reminded me every hour of every day for three days straight, until I finally agreed to follow you.”
“Where is he?”
“Almost to the Tribal Lands.” She sits on a nearby rock and massages her legs. “At least, he better be. Last thing he said to me was that your friend Izzi didn’t trust the redhead.” She looks at me expectantly. “Was she right?”
“Skies,” I say. “Where do I even begin?”
Night has fallen by the time I finish filling Afya in on the past few weeks. I leave out a few things—in particular the night in the cellar safe house.
“I know I failed,” I say. She and I sit in the cave now, sharing a meal of flatbread and fruit that she has brought. “I made stupid decisions—”
“When I was sixteen,” Afya interrupts, “I left Nur to carry out my first trade. I was the oldest, and my father spoiled me. Instead of forcing me to spend interminable hours learning to cook and weave and other boring rubbish, he kept me close and taught me about the business.
“Most of our Tribe thought he indulged me. But I knew I wanted to be Zaldara of Tribe Nur after my father. I didn’t care that there hadn’t been a female chieftain for more than two hundred years. I only knew that I was my father’s heir and that if I wasn’t chosen, the role of Zaldar would go to one of my greedy uncles or useless cousins. They’d marry me off to some other Tribe, and that would be that.”
“You pulled it off beautifully,” I guess with a smile. “And now look at you.”
“Wrong,” she says. “The trade was a disaster. A travesty. A humiliation for both myself and my father. The Martial I planned to sell to seemed honest enough—until he manipulated me and tricked me out of my goods for a fraction of what they were worth. I returned from the trade a thousand marks poorer, with my head low and my tail between my legs. I was convinced my father would have me married off within a fortnight.
“Instead, he smacked the back of my head and barked at me to stand up straight. Do you know what he said? Failure doesn’t define you. It’s what you do after you fail that determines whether you are a leader or a waste of perfectly good air.”
Afya stares hard at me. “So you’ve made a few bad decisions. So have I. So has Elias. So has everyone attempting to do something difficult. That doesn’t mean that you give up, you fool. Do you understand?”
I mull over her words and recall the past few months. It takes only a split second for life to go horribly wrong. To fix the mess, I need a thousand things to go right. The distance from one bit of luck to the next feels as great as the distance across oceans. But, I decide in this moment, I will bridge that distance, again and again, until I win. I will not fail.
I nod at Afya. Immediately she claps me on the shoulder.
“Good,” she says. “Now that that’s out of the way, what’s your plan?”
“It’s—” I search for a word that will make my idea not look like complete lunacy, but realize that Afya would see right through me. “It’s insane,” I finally say. “So insane that I can’t imagine how it will work.”
Afya lets out a peal of high laughter that rings through the cave. She is not mocking me—there is genuine amusement on her face as she shakes