the war,” Angelo said in a deliberately casual tone. “And pointed ears as well. The markings of a Ranger of Marzanna, if I’m not mistaken.”
“That going to be a problem?” asked Sonya.
“On the contrary,” he said quickly, “it will be nice to have one of your kind as an ally for once. It’s just… I would never have expected Giovanni the Wolf’s daughter to become a Ranger.”
“It’s… complicated.”
Angelo might have rejected the empire, and they might truly be allies now, but he didn’t need to know her family’s business.
Thankfully, he didn’t press the issue, and only nodded. They walked on for a little while in silence, with only the thud of horse hooves, and the quiet creak of the wagons loaded down with crates behind them.
“What’s in the crates?” she asked Blaine after a little while.
He glanced back at the wagons. “The dead who will become sluagh gorta.”
“All of them?” There were at least two hundred crates.
“Aye.”
“And each clan will be bringing that many?”
“Or more,” he said.
Sonya grinned as she realized all of her earlier concerns about numbers were unfounded. They truly would have an army of the dead at their command. Not even her genius brother would be a match for that.
45
Jorge was aware that there was a lot of activity going on outside his tent, but he wasn’t paying much attention to it. He had been given a challenging task as an apothecary—his first official commission, really—and he had thrown himself into the work completely. He found it a welcome respite from all the other aspects of his life that seemed so daunting. Sonya would poke her head in occasionally to make sure he was eating and sleeping, but she seemed to have learned the lesson that when it came to apothecary work, he preferred solitude, so she never stayed long. Considering she was one of the sources of stress that he needed respite from, he was very grateful for that.
Their months traveling together had not lessened his feelings for her. Not even when he’d learned that as a Ranger she couldn’t get married. He supposed whether or not she could marry was somewhat beside the point anyway. After all, if she had been willing and able to marry, he certainly could not have competed with the more masculine and virile Blaine. Jorge had no illusions about that.
And then there was the matter of Blaine. It was not unheard of in Raíz for men to feel romantic love for each other, but such peculiarities were really only accepted among the Viajero. Furthermore, Jorge had never had such feelings for another man before. Yet that first night they arrived at Clan Greim, with the strong drink, the fire, and the dancing… The memories of it returned to him at unexpected moments, leaving him both unsettled and aroused.
Of course, in addition to his own personal worries, he was also still quite worried about joining a foreign army intent on invading Izmoroz. Sonya didn’t seem concerned at all, and continued to assure him that because she was a Ranger, the people would welcome them with open arms. As much as he adored Sonya and apparently could not refuse anything she asked, he was certain that one day her cocksure arrogance would be her undoing.
Blessedly, all of those worries were mere flies batting against the windows of his mind now as he worked patiently on his long-gestating apothecary project. He had spent a week foraging through the wilderness with Blaine, and had brought back a number of unfamiliar but promising ingredients. He had then secluded himself in the tent Elgin Mordha had kindly provided, and thoroughly tested each one. None were perfect replacements, but he believed he had found a way to utilize a few of them to amplify the ingredients he had brought with him from Izmoroz, allowing him to stretch his meager supplies significantly further than would otherwise have been possible. He hoped it would be enough.
“Jorge Elhuyar?”
Jorge looked up from his work to see two people standing at the opening of his tent. One of them he recognized as the Aureumian, Angelo Lorecchio, whom he’d been introduced to a few days before. But the other person was new and entirely strange. She was tall for a woman, very thin, and dressed in a plain brown hooded cloak. Her somber eyes were almost colorless, and both her skin and long hair were an eerie bone white.
“What can I do for you, Angelo?” Jorge asked. He couldn’t say why, but in