of toy boats next to the Imperial fleet. The only advantages the Alliance had going for them were their mastery of their element and the natural dangers of their forests.
The last thing they needed on the brink of war was a border dispute added to the pile. The emperor might just be crazy enough to let one captured scout tip the scales. So Brooke probably wouldn’t risk it, and Sa’alu would probably get away with it.
Kira’s hand on Ryon’s arm jolted him back to the present. Her soft expression filled with unveiled concern. “Are you okay?” she whispered. “You don’t have to stay.”
His tension melted. “I’m all right. Thanks.”
Yearning swelled within him, rivalling his anxiety. He didn’t know how or why, but something had suddenly changed in the way Kira looked at him. It set his blood on fire.
“Who ordered the sumiya rice bowl?” their curly-haired waitress asked in the Malaano language. A sort of basket on her hip had various holes woven to perfectly fit steaming bowls of rice topped with meat and vegetables.
“Me!” Kira said, and the woman slid her one bowl and Ryon the next.
A row of slophoof ribs steamed into Ryon’s face with red pepper flecks and citrus glaze. He set the thin Malaano eating utensils on the table and dug in with his bare hands.
“More saké!” one of the soldiers yelled, but Tekkyn waved him off. “We’ve had enough, thanks.”
Kira poised two thin sticks in her hand and collected a modest nibble of sticky rice. She took a bite and her chewing slowed and paused. “I thought this was Malaano food.”
The drunken soldier stopped begging their leader for more drink in order to laugh at her. “Are you kidding? It tastes exactly like home!”
Ryon watched Kira’s brow furrow. Great. He should have realized the islanders of Malaan would have a different palette than the cattle ranchers of the plains. Most of the soldiers’ bowls held discarded bits of fish, clam, or crab—he was probably lucky to have scored a rack of Navakovrae beef ribs this late in the day.
“Is it bad?” Ryon asked under his breath. “I can take you somewhere else.”
“No, no.” Kira glanced at her brother across the table, then smiled at Ryon. “It’s very good, thank you.”
Ryon felt like a dog tied between two trees. He didn’t belong here. But if he left, he might not get an opportunity to finish his conversation with Kira. And the last thing he wanted to do was let her go like this after all they’d been through.
“So.” The lieutenant pierced him with ice-blue eyes across the table. “You must be an Emberhawk.”
Ryon bristled. “And you’re from Malaan.” His teeth tore a bite of tender meat from a rib.
“Naturally. I apologize if that was rude. My name is Sa’alu.”
So that’s how he’s playing it—like we’ve never seen each other before? Ryon didn’t respond. He devoured the ribs as if he’d skipped lunch.
Sa’alu’s smile tightened. “I was just wondering if you have ever wanted . . . justice.”
Ryon didn’t look at him as he licked his lips and took another bite. “For what?”
Sa’alu waited for the soldier beside him to stop laughing like a seal. “For the slaughter of your people. Isn’t it hard for you to be in this city?”
Ryon gripped his rib hard enough to threaten the bone. “I’ve always lived in this city,” he lied. He reached for his glass of water and summoned the Phoera element. Frost crystallized around his fingertips as he took a swig of ice-cold water.
“And you stick out like an ember in a bed of cinders,” Sa’alu said in his foreign accent. “Don’t people look at you strangely?”
Not as strangely as you, rat-face. Ryon set his glass back down on the table with a thud. “Thanks for your concern, but what’s done is done. It was a war, and I came to terms with it a long time ago.”
The soldiers erupted into another round of riotous laughter at some joke Ryon had missed. Tekkyn leaned back in his chair at the booth’s entrance and allowed the barmaid to gather the soldier’s empty bowls. He thanked her in the Malaano language, and Ryon couldn’t help but wonder how, if he really was some kind of rebel fighter, Tekkyn put up with this lieutenant. Tekkyn didn’t seem any different than the other soldiers, besides being sober.
Sa’alu didn’t remove his cobra’s gaze from Ryon. “What if I told you that there are ways to make things right?”