SEV SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN a knife.
He’d yet to get a replacement for the dagger the girl had stolen—and threatened him with—weeks ago, and the empty sheath on his hip made him feel more and more foolish with every step he took, struggling through dense undergrowth and heavy, hanging branches. It had been a Ferronese blade, pilfered from an officer’s untended pack during a training exercise back in the capital. It had been plainly made—probably deliberately, in order to avoid theft—but Sev had recognized the stamp near the hilt that marked it for what it was: valuable. He’d hoped to sell it someday, but as he got caught in another snagging vine, Sev admitted that he’d happily take a butter knife at this point. He thought of the axes and short swords, the spears and scythes and numerous other weapons that were within his grasp mere moments ago and were now beyond his reach. Perspiration beaded his forehead, and he kept swiping at the phantom hair that had been hacked off when he’d been made a soldier. Without the thick strands to catch it, sweat trickled down his temples and dripped down the back of his neck.
The cursed llama was no help either. As luck would have it, Sev had grabbed a biter, and every time his back was turned, trying to clear a path for them, he sensed the beast’s snuffling nose and open jaws, ready to snap at any exposed flesh.
Sev hadn’t made it far when a distant crunching sound drew his attention. The biter’s ears twitched, and Sev froze, scanning the forest until his pursuer stepped through the trees.
Kade.
Shock rooted Sev to the ground, and he quickly turned away to hide his reaction. He gripped the animal’s lead reins in case the creature tried to bolt, but it was clear that Kade’s calming presence was already at work on him. By the time Kade stepped into Sev’s peripheral vision, the llama was butting its head against his outstretched hand. Traitorous beast.
“They do a head count,” Kade said offhandedly, as if their meeting were happenstance and the information were of no real importance. As if he hadn’t just caught Sev trying to run away.
“I know that,” Sev said, heat rising up his already hot face. “But I’m on pack animal duty, so that means I’m the one who’s supposed to do the count. Alec is too lazy, and Grier is too drunk,” he said, mentioning the other soldiers assigned with him that day. “That’s pack animal duty, by the way, not pack animal bondservant duty. I don’t report on you.”
Kade forced a slow breath out through his nose. “And when they don’t get a count on the pack animals . . . you think they will just forget it?”
His voice was calm, reasonable—nothing like the angry, scowling boy from barely an hour before. For some reason, this soothing tone made Sev angrier. He was treating Sev like one of the llamas, like a simpleminded, temperamental pet.
He faced Kade at last, dropping the reins and clenching his hands into fists. “They’ll march on long enough for me to get a head start. I don’t care about the rest.”
“They’ll hunt you down.” Again his voice was almost indifferent—but his eyes betrayed some hidden feeling, something that invested him in this conversation, despite what he was trying to project.
Sev frowned, trying to puzzle it out, before realizing the gravity of what was happening for the first time. Sev had run away, but by following him here . . . Kade had done the same.
“That’s my problem, not yours. If you leave now, they’ll think you were just lagging behind.”
“I can’t.”
“What—why not?” Sev demanded. A flicker of hope stirred in his chest.
Kade placed a gentle hand on the llama’s long neck. “Do you know what happens when a bondservant loses track of his charge?”
Sev swallowed, the warm glimmer inside quickly snuffed out. He . . . he hadn’t thought this through.
And why should you? asked a harsher, more instinctual part of himself. Kade disliked Sev—he had made that very clear—so Sev should dislike him back. Kade was nothing to him.
Nothing.
It was selfish, Sev knew, but he’d had to be selfish in order to survive. Look what had happened to his parents. They’d been selfless, and it had gotten them killed. They’d left him all alone to fend for himself in a world that hated him for what he was. So he’d had to become something else. There were no more heroes soaring through the sky, protecting their people. There was the empire, and those that got caught under its boot. Sure, the Riders had supposedly regrouped, but they’d soon be killed as well. Trix and Kade were stupid for believing otherwise.
And yet somewhere in the back of his mind, Sev wanted to believe too. He wanted to believe in something, and whatever his mixed feelings about Kade and his cause, Sev couldn’t let him take the fall for this.
Kade had been watching him, staring intently at his face. They were the same height, their faces on a level, but Sev was much narrower, thinner—like the sinewy string to Kade’s carved bow, the supple branch to Kade’s sturdy tree.
A dull pain shot up from Sev’s hands, and he looked down, unclenching his fists. His joints ached with the release of tension, and his knuckles had gone white with the lack of blood flow.
Kade’s hands still rested on the llama, and they were shaking. He was afraid. Did he fear being alone out here with Sev—or did he fear being caught alone with Sev?
Something dark and desperate unfurled in Sev’s stomach. He was afraid too—but not for the same reasons.
“Come on,” he said, turning around. “We’re going back.”
As the end of the convoy came into view, Sev realized it was no longer moving.
He looked at Kade, who had also noticed the halted progress.
“Just—let me,” Sev said. He shoved the llama’s reins into Kade’s hands, then lengthened his strides.
As the three of them rejoined the party, Captain Belden—who had long since returned from his meeting with the informant—was standing at the back of the line. Sev’s insides turned to liquid. This was not good.
Officer Yara, who was next to Captain Belden, noted Sev’s approach and marched over.
“How dare you remove an animal from the convoy, mageslave?” she barked, speaking directly to Kade and ignoring Sev entirely.
A hot spasm of anger lanced through Sev’s stomach, and a protective urge reared up inside him. He hated the way the soldiers treated the bondservants, and he hated the reminder that this was the very reason Kade disliked him in the first place. But they were in a dangerous position right now, and Sev had to be careful.