Sev hadn’t slept well. Trix was nearby, muttering in her sleep as usual, and it had taken forever for him to drift off. He’d dreamed of the farm again, of rolling green hills and vast blue skies. Then he’d watched as it had all burned down.
Blinking to banish the images from his mind, Sev packed away his bedroll before making his way over to the paddock of llamas. His foot crunched on a small twig, and Kade whirled around, posture braced as if preparing for an attack.
He could be a soldier, Sev thought somewhat dazedly, scrubbing at his sleep-mussed hair, except for the eyes. They were intelligent and perceptive—but without cunning. They were kind eyes . . . until they recognized Sev.
“Oh,” Kade said, straightening up. “It’s you.”
With a sigh, Sev hunched over a water barrel and splashed several icy handfuls onto his face before taking a long drink.
When he straightened, Kade was still standing before him. He was panting slightly, his chest rising and falling, muscles glistening with sweat. As Sev lifted the edge of his tunic to mop his sodden face, Kade’s dark eyes followed his movements. His features were precisely carved, all angles and hard edges, and unlike Sev, whose chin was shaded with stubble, he’d kept up shaving his face, his jawline smooth. He was like a bronze statue of some ancient hero in a temple garden, gathering droplets of morning dew.
Sev inhaled sharply and cleared his throat, heat crawling up his neck. Since when did Sev care about temple statues? He realized with dismay that he’d been admiring more than Kade’s magic recently. He glanced up at the bondservant’s still-scowling face, and a bitter feeling settled in his stomach. Clearly the admiration was one-way.
Stepping around Kade, Sev spotted the stores of grain. He ripped one of the bags open and prepared to dump it into an empty trough, but Kade stopped him.
“What are you doing?” he demanded. His voice was its usual low rumble, but there was a raspy, gravelly edge to it—anger or annoyance, or maybe both.
Sev straightened, looking down at the grain in his hands. “Feeding them?” he said, his voice tilted as if it were a question. What had he done to earn Kade’s ire this time?
“Why?” Kade asked, taking a step forward. He waved a hand at the animals. “They are not your charges,” he said, then tapped a finger against his chest. “I am.”
“You’re not my charge,” Sev said uneasily. He was meant to guard the pack animal train and make sure everything went smoothly. Yes, that involved keeping an eye on the bondservants, but that didn’t make him Kade’s master.
“Don’t kid yourself, soldier,” Kade snapped, wrenching the feed from Sev’s grip. “You’re one of them.” He jerked his chin toward the rest of the campsite, where most of the soldiers were still sleeping.
“I know you don’t like me,” Sev began, clenching his hands into fists to stop from trying to snatch back the bag of feed. “But I think we’re more alike than you realize.”
Kade snorted, but Sev continued before he could make a snide comment.
“We both wanted to keep that girl safe,” he pointed out.
“There’s a difference between wanting to protect someone for their sake and wanting to protect someone for your own. You wanted to ‘keep her safe’ so that you didn’t have to be the one to deal the blow. You wanted to ease your own conscience so you could sleep at night.”
Sev bit the inside of his cheek, anger flaring in his breast. The words hurt, and the sting told Sev that Kade had struck close to home. Had Sev saved her neck only so he could save his own? Of course, Kade didn’t see what had happened afterward, how close Sev had come to dying for his decision that day.
“You’re a fair-weather ally—empty words and kind smiles—nothing more.”
“I didn’t ask for this, Kade,” Sev said, his voice quaking slightly as he continued to suppress his outrage. “I’m doing my best.”
“This is your best?” Kade asked skeptically, looking Sev up and down, taking in every imperfect inch of him. “I highly doubt that.”
Sev frowned, trying to work out if Kade’s words were some kind of backhanded compliment. Kade thought Sev was better than a soldier? The idea made him stand taller, even as he realized that Kade was mistaken.
“I . . . This is what I am, Kade. Sorry it’s not good enough for you.”
“I know what you are,” Kade said slowly, almost threateningly. “And it’s not this. This”—he gestured carelessly at Sev’s raider uniform—“is what you chose to be.”
It took Sev’s body several moments to catch up with his mind. When it did, Kade had marched out of his reach, and Sev was forced to stomp after him.
“Hey,” he said harshly, gripping Kade by the upper arm and turning him around. Sev was breathing hard—harder than he should when he’d walked only a few short feet. His heart was pounding in his chest, and there was a tinny ringing in his ears.
Kade stopped so abruptly that Sev’s momentum carried him forward, and they almost bumped chests. Kade’s body was tense, poised as if ready for a blow.
“What choice?” Sev asked, trying to be reasonable. “I didn’t enlist—they forced me into the military. I could either live as a soldier or die as a laborer in the dank mines of Ferro or the sunbaked fields of Stel.”
Kade’s eyes sparked, and standing this close, Sev could pick out shades of amber and russet, warm against his black lashes and heavy brow. His angular face, twisted in rage, became even sharper.
“Not the choice I was talking about, soldier,” Kade said, speaking through tight lips. He shrugged off Sev’s hand, which had still been gripping his biceps, but then he stepped closer, his voice whisper-soft. “You think I don’t see—that I don’t know what you are, animage?”
Sev’s stomach dropped, and the ground seemed to buck and dip beneath him. He staggered back. Kade knew Sev was an animage. Had Trix told him? Or had Sev been that obvious?
“You can pat the animals and get them their feed, you can talk and laugh with the other bondservants, but you’re not one of us. You denied that part of yourself—that’s the choice you made. So you don’t get to play both sides. You don’t get to be a soldier and a friend to animages—it’s one or the other.”
Sev had made a choice long ago to pretend he wasn’t an animage, to hide his magic and suffer the consequences. He’d chosen to be a coward, to “not care” about the world, because it was easier than fighting. It was survival—or so he’d thought.
Animages like Kade had made a different choice. They’d rather risk bondage than hide who they were, and their bravery shamed him.
Worst of all, it shamed his parents, who had died for Sev. They had given themselves to the Phoenix Riders, to their fellow animages, and by denying that part of himself, he denied them as well.
Sudden heat pricked at the back of Sev’s eyes, and before Kade could see more of his weakness, Sev pushed past him, bumping Kade’s shoulder as he lurched away, past the line of animals and into the forest.
Pacing back and forth between the trees, Sev gripped his head. The memory descended upon him like a heavy cloak, and in a blink, he was back home again.