“Any moment now,” Quick Tom said, longbow in one hand, arrow in the other.

  They waited, watching. Hogog was to Kaye’s left, a few other hunters between them and Tom, and plenty others to her right. Below them, the batsman was inching closer to a thicket, tree-branches littered with perched birds of different species.

  The batsman raised the two pieces of wood and spped them together.

  The flock of birds took flight as a hive-mind, singing and cawing in their flight.

  Kaye raised her bow and took aim, but was startled at the speed of someone else’s shot.

  She changed targets to a crow, steadied her breath and released. The arrow whistled as it cut upwards into the sky and through the target in mid-air. Arrow and animal fell in a heap along with a half-dozen others, rustling through leaves and branches on their way down.

  Kaye turned to Hogog, a smile on her face, but he was looking to the opposite side.

  “Fuck you,” one of the other hunters said.

  Taking a step back, she saw that Quick Tom was grinning, boastful, smoothing his goatee with long fingers.

  “What did I say, ds? That I would get two. Go on now, the food won’t come crawling to us, not after what we did to’em.”

  The youngest hunters moved towards the thicket to gather their prey. Kaye wasn’t much older than most of them, but she wasn’t being considered as a hunter in training. As it turned out, a few of the men even knew about the Nagra hunters, though none knew the words or had been to a Nagra vilge.

  They had, however, made it clear that Kaye would have her payment cut if she couldn’t keep up with the others.

  She was worried, though it had nothing to do with the job but everything to do with her other uncertainties.

  Aien was waiting for her when Kaye turned around. It reminded her of the time after Riin, when he was always around keeping an eye on her and Hogog. A coldness settled on her stomach as they approached one another. He would be leaving soon.

  He looked pleased. Her concern deepened.

  “Nice shot,” Aien said.

  “Not as nice as Quick Tom’s,” Kaye answered, joining him on their way back to the road, “I didn’t even think about going for two.”

  “I’m sure you can surprise him next time.”

  “Have you come to say goodbye?”

  Aien gnced at her. “No, it’s almost night already. I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning.”

  “First sunlight?”

  He nodded.

  This is it, she thought. Then, it what?

  “Be sure to say goodbye to Hogog. He’s more emotional than he looks… The Armsmasters?”

  “What about them?” Aien asked, brows slightly arched beneath the bandana.

  “How is life going to be like with them?”

  “The Armsmasters are basically mercenaries, but there is an honor to it. The goal is to become a master of as many weapons as possible, so there will be danger, but it’s what I’ve always wanted.”

  “You will be traveling a lot?”

  “Yes. There is a home of sorts, in Farhill, but Armsmasters never stay long in the same pce. The travels are also how new recruits are found. There are some talented people who need to be found.”

  Kaye could hear the admiration in Aien’s words. It barely sounded like the man she knew. He was also taller now, she realized. A little broader on the shoulders. Dark skin and bone-white hair. If anyone were to tell stories about the feats of an Armsmaster with that description, she would know who they were talking about.

  Not many around like him. The words came back to her uninvited.

  “Our lives aren’t going to be much different, then.”

  “Your uncle looks happy here.”

  “He is. Some of it is this, the hunting party, something he’s used to, but a lot of it is the relief. He never wanted to leave, and we didn’t get a chance to settle until now.”

  “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “Everywhere, eventually. It feels like a waste to not see a little beyond Eruin now that we’re so close. I was thinking about going deeper into Mor, but the capital is much farther than I expected, and I can always double back. I think there is plenty to see on the way to the Spring Isles.”

  “You’ll pass through Odanas. We might meet again.” He smiled. A thin smile, but Aien was like that.

  “We might. But I want to rest a while before I leave, and make sure that Gima is safe.”

  Aien slowed down at that. They were approaching the camp. The sun slowly crept beneath the treetops.

  “I forgot to ask about her. I… How is she doing?”

  Kaye understood what Aien meant. “We haven’t spoken much recently, but I think she doesn’t want to. I find it hard to believe she’s finished grieving, but she is doing better than I did.”

  Aien kept his eyes ahead, but he gave her an awkward nod, a tension coming to his face.

  “How are you doing, then?” Kaye asked.

  “Are you asking about my parents?”

  Aien nodded again, though this time he stared at her as he did so.

  “What I just said, about finishing grieving, I’m not sure if that ever happens. I’m not convinced it ever ends. But at the same time, I feel as if it has somehow passed. Sometimes I’ll cry thinking about them and sometimes I won’t. What do you think?”

  “I…” Aien’s voice trailed.

  He stayed quiet for a long time as they chose a spot to set up their small camp. No tents, but beddings and a firepce that still needed to be built. Hogog could find them ter. They weren’t hard to find.

  “I think you’re right.” He finally said, hunching down to help her collect stones to protect the eventual fmes.

  “Can I ask you something? It’s nothing in particur.”

  Aien wheezed a short-lived ugh. “That must be a strange question,” he said, looking at her.

  “Can we be honest with each other tonight?”

  Though they were already staring at one another, Kaye could tell that Aien froze.

  That sent an idea across her mind. A worry. A potential confirmation.

  “This is our farewell, isn’t it? We might meet each other on our travels, but we might not, and even then that could be years from now.” Kaye surreptitiously gnced around. “And we are different,” she said the st part in a whisper.

  Slowly, as if hesitant, Aien agreed with his head.

  I’m maniputing him. A pang of guilty stabbed Kaye’s heart. But this might be the st chance I have. If I’m mistaken, then I’ll just tell him and ask for forgiveness.

  Kaye looked for a pce to start. Her mind wondered to the time when they shared the Nagra words.

  “I wanted to say I’m sorry,” she began.

  “For what?”

  “When we talked about ourselves. I kept thinking to myself that I had to help you in some way. I’m sorry if it sounded as if I was schooling you. I understand you better now, and I still don’t think I thanked you enough for helping me and my uncle all this time.”

  “I’ll tell you what I said every other time, Kaye. It’s the best I could have done.”

  The best you could have done, she echoed the words in her mind. Something about those words prickled at her thoughts.

  Am I paranoid?

  “Are your parents something we can talk about?” Kaye asked, more to keep the conversation going than for any other reason.

  “They were both terrible people,” said Aien. “I spent half my childhood alone, the other half in an orphanage. I forgot almost everything about them, then I discovered who they were, and with time I forgot again. And you? Were you luckier?”

  “I was. Absent mother from an early age. We talked a couple times after the divorce, but it was never fun. My first father was a hard-worker. I also don’t remember everything, but I still regret how I treated him sometimes.”

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  “I know now. I understand it’s not my fault, that I wouldn’t even be considering this if this hadn’t happened, but sometimes I wonder if he didn’t kill himself.”

  Aien opened his mouth, stuttered to say something. Found his words.

  “I hope he didn’t. I hope he’s happy. Not that he forgot, but that he found something.”

  “I hope that too,” Kaye said.

  This is wrong. This is so unfair. I’m not lying, but it doesn’t make it right.

  “I know you asked for honesty, but—” Aien put his hands together, rubbing his fingers against each other, clearly struggling with something. Kaye took the time to light the fire, flint on steel. “I’m sorry, but I can’t be as honest as you are.”

  “That is fine. This is a farewell, and I’ve already made it bittersweet. No reason to make it worse.”

  Kaye leaned closer to the firestarter. The thin strips of fatwood fred red when she blew air, releasing fumes.

  “In a way, and… No, forget it.”

  She leaned back from the fire that was starting to catch.

  “You can continue.”

  “Remember how I suggested something that you didn’t like? It’s not that, but something simir.”

  Kaye did remember.

  She wasn’t particurly troubled about what it could be, this time.

  And it would help her ask another question.

  “I promise I won’t be mad.”

  Sighing, Aien spoke. “In a way, I’m gd I’m not alone.”

  A genuine though thin smile came to Kaye’s lips.

  “I understand that, and I’m gd you shared it.” He is being more honest. “Were you alone before we met?”

  “At that time?” Aien asked, pausing for a moment. “Yes. I’ve been mostly alone since my parents died—the good parents,” he added with a smirk. “I believe I told you that I lived with my grandfather for a while, but he was very old then. A few years went by, and he passed away much more peacefully than my parents did. I’ve been traveling since then.”

  “Looking for an Armsmaster?”

  “Looking for an Armsmaster,” he agreed.

  “And for me?” When Aien stared from the newborn fmes to Kaye, she added, “In a sense.”

  “In a sense, yes.”

  This is it, then. Kaye knew the questions she had to ask now.

  “Aien, I might have lied to you earlier. Perhaps not lied, but misdirected. There is something I want to ask.”

  “Kaye… If you’re about to confess, I’ll have to stop you right there.”

  She couldn’t help but chuckle, a ugh that brought in another, then another. “I don’t mean offense, but no, that’s not it.”

  Thankfully, Aien was smiling.

  She took a deep breath, straightened where she was sitting. They were around the bonfire, Aien with a leg outstretched. Kaye felt deftly aware of the bow lying to her side.

  “Ask,” he said, raising a hand in an inviting gesture.

  “Are you hiding something under your bandana?”

  To her surprise, he simply nodded. With enough ease that she thought he was anticipating the question.

  “It is something I can tell you, but you have to promise me something.”

  “I won’t be mad.”

  He shook his head, reaching for the folds of his bandana above the eyebrows, seemingly to check if it was still there. “It’s not that, not about being mad. The moment I tell you, you will think less of me. Not because of what I did, but because of what I didn’t do in Saldassa.”

  Kaye frowned, but Aien continued before she could say anything.

  “I’m sure I’m not the only one, and I’m sure everyone wonders at some point. If anything, I’m thankful you’ve put it off until now.” Aien was staring into the fire now, fmes dancing on his eyes and face. Night had fallen around them. “There are sves in Odanas. The mark in my forehead is a scar. It’s how much I was sold for.”

  They fell silent. The sounds of crackling fires and nearby conversations seemed to grow louder.

  Kaye’s mind went bnk for a moment, then it was filled by pity. She remembered Saldassa and understood his meaning. She remembered the way Aien had treated Loho and dismissed Uruoro, when they were both still shackled.

  She did her best to see it from his perspective. A short, unfulfilling life in which he had been abandoned, followed by another where everyone around him died. Then he found himself staring from the other side of the bars, and it must have reminded him of his past. He must have felt defeated, he must have felt as if there was no way of freeing them. Kaye couldn’t help but wonder if he felt for the two sves and kept it to himself or if he didn’t care about them, and she shot down her desire to point out that she had helped them. After all, it had been luck. Had the caravan not been attacked, they would still be shackled. Had Loho not been the hero that he was, that day on that hot, dusty battlefield, then they would have died without having a chance of tasting their victory. Uruoro wouldn’t have run with his arms sprawled in joy.

  “That is why you were alone,” Kaye forced herself to say. And I had my family at that time.

  “Looking for an Armsmaster,” he repeated. “If things had gone differently, back in Kakinse, I would have looked for passage here. I had to go straight south to flee, and here I could wrap back to Odanas, but hopefully far from where I came from.”

  Kaye barely recognized his st words, because it all came crashing down upon her in that moment.

  The connection was made. The thoughts intertwined. A worry at the back of her mind that had never fully taken shape. When the beggar had told her to be wary, it was the situation — she understood that now — that irked her. They were five in Kakinse, five in Geshin, and one was leaving.

  That in itself made nothing, but it made her remember things.

  “Aien,” she said, her voice serious. “Back in Kakinse, you were passing by and decided to help.”

  He turned from the fmes to her, staring as if expecting her to continue.

  His face soured as she spoke. “Uruoro and Loho were the same as you, but you didn’t think to help. You keep saying it was the best you could do. We’re not hard to find, you and me. Your white hair stands out, my green one even more. You wouldn’t have looked for passage to here, you did look. You were there in the docks. I remember seeing you.” There was fear in Aien’s eyes now. Fear and recognition of where she was going with this. “Why would you have thought to help just by hearing, when you didn’t try to help the sves or Gima without me pushing you? You only ever helped when it was about me, and you were looking for me. You knew I was in that house.” Her voice grew louder by the end.

  Before Aien showed up, one of the men had rushed at her, screaming.

  I got her.

  Somewhere between the abyss of her grief and the blood in her hands, she had forgotten about it. The endless flight since Riin only piled suffering on top, made it harder to dig.

  Kaye jumped to a standing position, bow in one hand, another reaching for an arrow.

  Quick on her feet, Kaye took a step back and away from the fmes, the arrow already loaded against her bow’s string.

  She turned to Aien, who went still in the middle of his movement. He managed to stand up and pce a hand on his sword’s pommel, but Kaye had an arrow pointed his way. The string not pulled back yet; the threat eminent.

  “I need you to expin yourself and I need you to do it fast,” her voice was spotted with anger.

  Aien’s answer? An uncertain step back, dragging his feet.

  “You’re not denying it,” Kaye said in the same moment that she noticed the dying conversations around them, from the other campers. “The sve mark? It doesn’t fit!”

  His brows furrowed in anger. Jaw tight, Aien finally said something.

  “I told you that I was ensved, and you ask me why?”

  “But it doesn’t fit! Please Aien, there has to be a reason. Why where you there that night?”

  “I saw the men entering the house. I understood what was happening and rushed in. I thought about calling the guards but there wasn’t enough time.” He had taken his hand away from the sword, slowly raising then in a calming gesture. “Kaye, you’re being—”

  “Then expin the rest! Uruoro. Loho. Gima. You’re the type to rush in to help but only back then? Never again?”

  “I—”

  “You killed all of them so no one could talk. Those men knew you, didn’t they?”

  “Is this the farewell you want?” Aien grunted, shaking as if he wanted to approach.

  Kaye raised the bow slightly.

  “Did you know that my family was going to be attacked that night?”

  “No!”

  “Then why were you there?!” Kaye shouted.

  He could have repeated his denial. Emotion had overtaken Kaye, but Aien could have stood his ground against her accusations. Instead, he looked around, to people that were now listening around the fires. Some of them had to be standing up, thinking about intervening.

  “I met someone in Geshin who warned me of you. What did you do before meeting us?”

  “And you’re going to trust this… this random person? Over me who was there through everything we went through?”

  “You’re still not expining yourself,” Kaye struggled to keep the mockery away from her voice.

  The shadows were dancing in Aien’s face, an expression of disgust writ all over him. The muscles of his neck were tense, seeming about to burst.

  “You seem to have convinced yourself already.”

  Kaye drew the string back, felt the bow’s resistance tensing against her arm and shoulders. She aimed for his legs.

  “Expin yourself now, or I’m going to put this arrow through your leg and you’ll miss the Armsmasters.”

  Even if I’m wrong, this retionship is over.

  “Fine,” Aien growled, bringing his hands down in frustration.

  She shot.

  Aien had braced himself for the impact, flinching and squinting. By the time he must have noticed he was unharmed, Kaye already had another arrow loaded.

  He took a step back, staring at the arrow shaft jutting from the ground.

  “What else was I going to do?” Aien started, his voice wavering. “Yes, I was ensved and I ran away, but I had to keep myself safe. The only thing I managed to retrieve was this sword, but others were escaping with me, and I still couldn’t do anything even if I had it in my hands. The men who escaped with me gave me a choice: either I’d help them or they’d kill me, because if our buyers found us again, they’d torture me until I said something.”

  There was hurt in his voice, more than Kaye had ever heard from him.

  “And you took it. You took it and started…” I got her, she heard the words in her mind again, “you started selling others? Like the bandits who went after those kids?”

  “What else could I have done? Let them kill me after, after everything?”

  I’m not being unfair.

  That’s not enough.

  That doesn’t expin it.

  I’m not being unfair.

  Kaye pulled the bow’s string back along with her thoughts.

  “Did you know what they were going to do with me? With my family? Did you know about the attack?”

  Aien stared at her, tears around his eyes, shoulders trembling.

  And said nothing.

  “You knew.” She made it into a statement. “You knew that my family was to be attacked that day and you let it happen so you could escape from them yourself. You could have told me. We could have fought together.”

  “I didn’t know you.”

  “Were you hired to do it? Who was going to buy me?”

  “I don’t know who it was.”

  “Was it a Nagra?”

  “I don’t know!”

  She leaned forward, presenting the loaded bow as a threat.

  Another step back and Aien hit a tree.

  The tension from the strings shook Kaye’s arm, made her muscles tremble.

  Her aim was wavering.

  “You’re going to remember this,” Aien said, confusingly. “You met someone like you, but you think you’re better.”

  No expnation. No good enough reasoning.

  She loosed the arrow.

  It skidded against the tree and diverted to the side, disappearing into the night.

  Aien was still standing.

  Kaye almost lost her bance then, the strength drawing away from her legs.

  “Go away,” Kaye sobbed the words.

  He stared in disbelief, tears and sweat running down his face.

  As if she was a beast to be wary of, Aien slowly inched forward, a hand outstretched for his pack where he had left it by the firepce. He grabbed it. Started to stand.

  “GO AWAY!”

  Aien scrambled.

  Kaye watched his back as Aien disappeared into the night, away from the firelight.

  He didn’t turn to look.

  Not a single voice spoke around the camp. The only sounds she could hear were the crackling of fire and her own weeping.