Alex insisted on burying Gispan himself. The Casmuni gave him a shovel but kept a close eye on him throughout.
Before Alex had even joined the army as a page, his father made it a point to teach him that enemy soldiers had thoughts and desires like any Demoran. Alex’s first real fight came as a squire, at the age of fifteen, and the experience of killing a man had made him want to give up soldiering entirely. His father told him that was as it should be; taking the life of another human being should never be easy. Then one of Alex’s friends died at the hands of Kimisar, and he felt the need to avenge him. After that, each death he delivered was progressively easier. There was always one more enemy to fight, one more injury to repay.
In the years that followed, he lost count of how many Gispans he’d sent to the Spirit without thought or care. One for each shovelful of sand now, perhaps, each one taking him deeper into the pit that was his soul.
As he dug, Alex played Gispan’s last words over and over in his head.
I wish they’d just let that woman kill me. Then I wouldn’t have had to spend my last days walking through hell.
When people were dressed for the desert with their heads covered, it was often difficult to tell, but Alex had identified a few women in the caravan. Gispan could’ve been referring to one of them, yet none of the women were outfitted like the Casmuni fighters he’d seen, so Alex doubted any had been in a patrol group. My last days, he’d said. He’d only walked one day with Alex, and it must have taken several to get to the camp in the first place. Whoever wanted to kill him tried before he arrived.
I wish they’d just let that woman kill me. If someone had merely argued for his death, Gispan wouldn’t have understood the conversation, so there must have been an actual attempt on his life. Had this woman been the one to injure him? Alex hadn’t looked close enough at his wound to guess how it had been made, nor would it be worth trying now, after so long. The wound had been around ten days old, though. It was entirely possible Gispan had been picked up by the Casmuni group that found Sage and Nicholas.
Which meant Sage had tried to kill him.
And if Gispan had been brought to the Casmuni prince’s camp, so had she.
73
THE PATH BANNETH’S caravan took wandered to stops at various springs but steadily took them southeast. When the king asked Sage what she knew of Osthiza, she truthfully answered nothing, but then she paused. Thiz was the word for spring, and os was seven. After thinking a moment, she asked if the city was built around seven springs.
Banneth appeared pleased by her deduction. “Yes. Are your cities named in similar ways?” he asked in Kimisar.
“Some of them,” Sage replied. “But Demora was created by uniting three distinct cultures—four if you include Tasmet now—and the languages mingled and created a new one. The original meanings of many names were lost over time.”
“Our people would lament such a loss. They would consider it a corruption of what was pure.”
“You must not like cake, then.”
Banneth blinked at her for a moment. “I think you must say that again. There is a misunderstanding.”
Sage briefly pulled her lips between her teeth. “Eggs are tasty. Sugar is wonderful. Oils and flour and spices are good, too. If cake is considered a corruption of their purity, then your country is missing out.”
The king threw back his head and laughed, a deep, throaty sound. She knew he had a sense of humor and had seen him smile on many occasions, but this was new to her. No one else reacted as though the king’s behavior was out of the ordinary, though, so he must not always be the solemn ruler she’d come to know.
He refocused on her, his eyes bright and merry. “Your point is taken, Mistress Saizsch.”
She started to grin back when a memory of Alex hit her hard. They’d been riding side by side on the way to Tegann last year, and she told a story and he laughed so hard he nearly fell out of his saddle. Not only that, but then she had laughed, probably for the first time since Father died. It had taken her more than four years and Alex’s friendship to recover.
Alex had been gone less than three weeks. How could she have been almost happy, even for a moment?
Sage abruptly turned away and feigned fixing a buckle on her saddlebag. For the rest of the day, she hardly spoke.
On the tenth day of travel, there was a noticeable shift in the caravan’s mood. She heard laughter and jokes she could translate if not always understand, and even the horses seemed to be dancing in delight. Banneth brought his bright bay stallion up next to the sand-colored mare she’d been given to ride, looking cheerful.
“Are we near Osthiza?” she asked him in Casmuni. Thanks to her earlier study and three weeks of immersion, her grasp on the language was fairly strong, though her grammar was still clumsy and her words occasionally wrong. “Everyone is happy today.”
Banneth pointed ahead, to the east. “That is the Protector’s Gate. The city is half a day beyond. We will dine in the gardens of Osthiza tomorrow.”
Sage squinted at the two towers of stone in the distance. “But the gate is too far to go before night.” The shadows were growing long already.
“We will ride until midnight to camp in the shelter of the gate,” he said. “There will be songs and dancing tonight, and few will sleep.”
“How long have you been away from your city?”
“Over three months I have been gone.” The king put his right hand on his hip and pulled the reins in closer, body language Sage had learned to associate with preparing to have his question rebuffed. He also switched to Kimisar, meaning the conversation was likely to be complex. “You said before that Tasmet now belongs to Demora? It was not so in our last dealings.”
Events of fifty years ago were nothing Sage felt had to be hidden. Briefly she explained how Demora became tired of Kimisara’s constant attacks staged from Tasmet, not to mention desiring the strategic value of the Tegann and Jovan Passes. King Raymond’s grandfather had begun the campaign that eventually ousted the Kimisar and forced them back. “The land is poor for farming, but there are quarries and mines. Mostly it serves as a buffer between us. The army keeps a heavy presence there.”
Sage had planned to say more, but her stomach twisted. Tasmet duty had been Alex’s primary job before he was assigned the Concordium escort last year, which he’d been rather bitter about until it became obvious he had a real threat to deal with. And of course it was how they’d met.
She would not think of it.
Banneth held his braced posture. He probably thought she’d cut herself off to prevent saying something strategically important. “You were with the army. Does Demora have eyes on other areas that may increase its comfort?”
She knew what he meant, but she feigned confusion to gain time. “Palandret?”
He cleared his throat. “Recovering lost citizens is an excellent excuse to send a significant force into Casmun.” His green eyes focused only on her.
Sage couldn’t even be sure Demora knew she and Nicholas were with the Casmuni. If the Norsari had captured the right Kimisar, they might have learned enough and followed the river to the boat and the body next to it. Whether they would’ve drawn the right conclusions from there was uncertain.
She pressed her lips together before answering. “Palandret, I can promise if Demora does come for us, they will be armed and ready to fight. To be otherwise would be foolish.” Banneth gave a short nod of acknowledgment. “But I have no reason to believe Demora wants to expand here. The taking of Tasmet came only after all other options were exhausted.”
Banneth’s fingers tapped a beat on his sword belt. “You said if Demora comes. You seem uncertain.”
“I am uncertain. Nicholas and I may be presumed dead. Or they may believe the Kimisar have us.”