Cassandane blanched. Giving up all pretense of strength, she wobbled over to the tent’s sole pallet and sank onto it. “Then, we havenothing. A coup and a second unknown enemy.”
“I wouldn’t call Verentia unknown, Head Tetrarch.” Méherre raced into the tent, eyes still streaming from the smoke. “She’s coming.”
Beside her, Anek choked. Sarai eyed the other woman curiously. Soot still laced her short hair, a few burns still shining raw on her face, but there was a glow to the Bridger that she hadn’t noticed before. She seemed to be in her element.
“Did she always look that way?” Anek whisper-croaked to Sarai.
“You should see her smile,” she murmured back.
“If you need a place to hide, I have a home—a small one—in Aelius’s Quarter.” The Bridger heaved a breath at Sarai’s slanted look of surprise. “Land was cheap there after your Unraveling.” Méherre’s gaze rose to Kadra and dropped just as quickly. “We need to hurry. Those priests are some two hundred strong. Is my offer acceptable?”
Kadra nodded, and Méherre released a breath.
“Alright. The Aequitas’s wards are still standing, so I can’t open a Bridge here. It’ll be the same spot I brought you, Sarai—”
“People of Edessa,” Verentia’s hard voice boomed across the grounds, amplified. “The gods have spoken once more, and our city reels with new dead and fresh madness. Help me end this. Petitor Sarai must submit to an exorcism before she destroys Edessa. I won’t ask again.”
Sarai’s jaw fell along with those of everyone in the tent. Her feet froze to the ground.
Anek clutched their head. “Wisdom and Wrath, I’d like to help her meet the gods myself. I could flatten her face with—do we still have any of Aelius’s scuta?”
“What if we—”
“Give her over, andIwill raze Edessa to the ground, Cassandane.” Murder brewed in Kadra’s eyes.
“Gods and Saints, I’m not seriously considering it! I’m panicking! Let me panic—”
“Well, there’s our handmaiden to the Dark Elsar herself,” Harion drawled, parting the tent flaps to enter. “Ready to be exorcised?”
Sarai stared back. After today, hatred of the north would spike. Noceo had taken their capital, but the south would resist. Was it right for her to go into hiding while people, northandsouth, still struggled for answers? If they lost faith in an absent leadership, they would splinter, even look to Verentia for hope.
“Should I go?” she heard herself ask as if from very far away.
The tent fell silent.
Bloodlust yawned in the black eyes that met hers. A muscle in Kadra’s jaw jumped seconds before he took her hand and drew her to the back of the tent. “Sarai,” his voice was a gravelly rasp, “the Order isn’t like Aelius or Tullus. There is no line they haven’t crossed in the name of religion. If this is Noceo’s ploy, then know that he’s worse. My Clan haven’t tied themselves to coin, or the gods, or power. They do what they will, because they can.”
Some men might have demanded her not to go, to run from the battleground. But Kadra had always been one to show where the lines were drawn and uphold her decisions. His jaw tensed so hard she feared for his back teeth, but the fingers that brushed her cheeks were as gentle as ever.
“As someone who learned that the hard way, I concur.” Cassandane grimly squeezed Sarai’s shoulder. “I know I haven’t been a half-decent friend of late, but trust me in this.”
“Then, we run?” Harion asked, an unusual seriousness in his eyes.
“We run,” Cassandane confirmed.
Their exhales formed smoky wreaths circling their faces in the cold.
Outside, Verentia’s voice boomed again, repeating her demands.
Sarai placed a hand on the tent flap and took a steadying breath. None of it felt real. Komis crumbling. The Aequitas burning. Now, this.
Fabric slipped open. She stepped outside where a crowd had formed around their tent, held back only by the determination of all three Tetrarch’s vigiles. Kadra’s people absorbed his terse orders to watch over Gaius’s recovery in his absence. Then, they broke rank to allow them all through. Or most of them. Sarai directed a glower at Harion’s retreating back.
Kadra’s eyes touched on him and tore through. “Some people always find a way to flee.”
A touch of emptiness laced his words, discernible only because she was so attuned to him. She glanced at him in surprise, ignoring Harion’s inarticulate sounds of indignation that he was still weighing his options.He wasn’t entirely referring to Harion.
“True. But that’s a long story, no?” Their audience parted, and Noceo emerged, silver eyes afire with victory.
