Sheneeded him.
“How do you expect me to rest when my brother could very well be dead?”
“You underestimate him if you think he could not survive—”
“I haveneverunderestimated Aidon,” Josie hissed. “I have always known he would make an excellent king. I have always known that he was what our people deserved. And now, thanks to you, he is gone!”
Not dead. Not dead. Not dead.
“Finally we get to the bottom of your ire.”
No, Josie thought. They were nowhere near the depths of her anger.
She stepped toward the general, her chin lifting as she glared up at her. “Have you considered what it looks like to these soldiers that their king has fled? What it will look like inTrahirwhen we arrive home without him—?”
“As I’ve told you,” Aleissande interrupted. “If Aidon does not beat us to Trahir himself, we will say he has continued on in Tala to aid—”
“This elite Visya force knows that to be a lie!” Josie barely refrained from shouting as she gestured to the ship.
“This elite Visya force,” Aleissande retorted through gritted teeth, her cheeks flushing pink, “has sworn to stand beside their king. I have ensured that.”
She had. Aleissande had gathered the elite unit before they’d ever set sail from Dunmeaden, and had made one thing clear:
Anyone who did not stand with their king was not welcome aboard their ship.
“These soldiers fought and bled beside him,” Aleissande continued. “They will not forsake their vow.”
Josie held the general’s stare. “And yet you bid him to run anyway. What do you expect will happen when stories of Aidon’s power spread to Trahir? No one questioned us when we left, but you saw to it that we fled promptly. And then you delayed us with that stop in Milsaio.” Aleissande went to argue, but Josie continued before she could utter a word. “Doyou not think it willfurthersuspicion when we arrive without Aidon? Do you expect the Visya guard to kill anyone who questions the king?”
Aleissande stayed as unmoved as ever, a perfectly carved statue, from her tightly plaited bun to her firmly crossed arms to her evenly braced feet. Always steady, always prepared, always anticipating a fight and knowing she would win.
“The chaos of battle is enough to make even the steadiest of warriors misconstrue what they see,” she finally said evenly. “We will claim any rumor about Aidon being Visya as a lie.”
“Where was that confidence, General, when you ordered your king to flee?”
“What was I to do, Josie?” Aleissande demanded, her arms swinging wide in an uncharacteristic show of emotion. “We were in the most devout realm of the kingdom. Half of the Dyminara were attacking their own. It was better for Aidon to disappear and let rumors stay rumors. Better him alive than murdered in the streets!”
“If he is not already dead—”
Aleissande closed the distance between them, anger flaring in her eyes as the setting sun haloed her in shades of orange.
Mango and rust and tangerine.
“I made the best decision I could,” Aleissande ground out. “That is what your brother trusts me to do.Thatis what any warrior isrequiredto do in the midst of a battle. You would do well to learn that.”
Josie did not balk from the way Aleissande glared down at her, the tips of their boots touching. She met her anger head on, matching it with her own. She could feel the heat of Aleissande beneath her leathers, her chest brushing against the general’s as she sucked in a breath.
“Am I dismissed, General?”
A good warrior knew how to make decisions in battle, including a retreat. It would not bode well for Josie to give into the itching in her fingers, which longed to curl around the pommel of her blade.
Aleissande blinked and took a small step back. “Fine,” she muttered. But then her lips were parting once more, a sound dying on her tongue as she stared at Josie, something shifting in the blue of her irises.
Sky and powder and steel.
“You can trust me, you know,” Aleissande finally insisted.
Josie had been given such a promise before. It had been pressed into her skin through soft kisses and gentle hands and a love that turned out to be a lie.
