“Nothing is simple now,” Ben said, his chest deflating. “Argrid is in ruins. I want to help you while I can, before we get to Deza and everything erupts. Let me help you.”
“All right.” Gunnar beamed at him, taking a step around the desk. “Help me. Marry me.”
Ben actually wheezed, a cracked, garbled noise.“What?”
Another step. Closer. Ben felt a wave of Gunnar’s heat, surging brighter when Gunnar’s smile intensified. “Marry me.”
“I’m—I’mthe king-in-waiting of Argrid—”
“You say that as though I do not know. You haven’t changed, Benat. Marry me.”
Gunnar reached him. Ben was pinned in place by the question—demand?—and by Gunnar’s smile and the warmth of his being so near.
In two weeks Ben would see his country again. He would plunge into a nation on the brink of collapse. He would get off this ship as a ruler who had a reputation for being a heretic and bedding his guard.
It really wouldn’t be a surprise, then, if Ben married a Mecht Eye of the Sun warrior. It might not help his reputation or his station, but it would helphim.
Ben launched himself at Gunnar and kissed him. He felt Gunnar smile against him, his arms pinning Ben to his body. For a moment, there was onlythismoment, Ben whispering, “Yes, all right, I’ll marry you,” between kisses that grew desperate with need.
In two weeks, Ben would get off this ship. But he wouldn’t get off it alone.
At seventeeen years old, Adeluna Andreu stood in a free Grace Loray.
The wharf market was one of the places in New Deza that had been most affected by the battle. The docks were dented, some completely sunk. The stalls and shops were torn to shreds. Shattered glass, rotten produce, and splintered boards covered the stones—garbage and debris, everywhere.
Lu swept glass onto a stretch of fabric Kari held for her. Other people did the same; some carried boards out of the way or rolled barrels to be filled with trash. The areahummed with conversation as raiders worked and scrubbed and cleaned.
But Kari’s attention wasn’t on the task at hand—it drifted up, to the wharf wall.
Above them, the citizens of New Deza had started to gather. They watched, children clinging to parents, men pointing, women shaking their heads, and everyone looking wary and distrustful.
“It’s good they’re here,” Lu said as one man shouted about how raiders had caused this destruction, so they were right to clean it.
Kari stood, tying up the length of fabric so the glass pieces sat safely within. She dropped it at her feet. “We must earn back their trust. Village by village, if that’s what it takes. We will not build this government on a foundation of hatred and fear.”
“The people of this island will see,” Lu whispered. A promise, a hope. “We’ll be better this time. This government will be true, when it’s done.”
Kari hesitated, her head tipped skyward. The noon sun caught a flash of light that might have been from tears before she closed her eyes. “It won’t be done. Not this time. We cannot make the mistake of thinking this government will ever be finished.”
Lu leaned on her broom, eyes going misty as she watched her mother. Her strong, resilient mother, who, even afterTom and the Council falling and the whole of the island turning on her, stood here, now, basking in the scorching sunlight.
It might have exhausted Lu once, to think of this island as never being finished. But Kari was right. Freedom like this, a country so complex, would need to be fluid. There would be no definitions, no lines drawn between right and wrong. They would have to weigh every issue that arose, no matter how dark or shameful, and decide, together, what was best.
In the three weeks since the battle, Lu had found it difficult to tell whether her thoughts were about Grace Loray or herself. The two things had always been inextricably linked in her heart, more so now that true potential lay around them.
Lu had done irreparable things to get here. She had lost more than she knew how to deal with. And sometimes, in the dark hours of night, she woke in a startled sweat, certain Milo hadn’t died or the war hadn’t ended.
Brick by brick. Stone by stone. Wave by wave, they would all move forward.
“Tío, Tío!”
Lu turned to see Teo racing across the wharf. Jakes had been teaching him Argridian, and Teo particularly loved that the word forunclewas so close to Teo’s own name.“It’s like we’re the same!”he’d said.
If Lu had been unwilling to forgive Jakes before then, seeing him blush and tear up at Teo happily calling himTío would have soothed any lingering resentment.
Teo waved something he’d found in the debris—a small leather ball. Jakes, who had been stacking planks of broken wood, turned, beating dust from his pants.
Teo hurled himself at Jakes, who caught him and stumbled back with a smile. Teo waved the ball, talking high and fast in a mix of Argridian and the Grace Lorayan dialect, his smile impossibly large.
