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“Well, me too, if we’re thinking semantics. Nat could live forever—exhibit A.” He motioned toward his own chest, and I snorted. “Purely hypothetical, obviously.”

Blowing out a haggard breath, I admitted, “I’ve been so focused on survival, I haven’t put a whole lot of thought into any kind of reform.”

“We win the war. What then?” Aren straightened, lacing his fingers behind his head as he scanned… endless ranges of mountains.

Maddening.

If the desert had tested our sanity and the thicket our grasp on reality, what was this cruel form of torture supposed to accomplish? It was the desert on steroids. At least our terrain changed up here—just ahead, the path narrowed into what was almost a canyon, two unnaturally sharp ascents nearly kissing in the valley. Still. The mountains liked to blend. To make it worse, our already short stints of sleep were shorter still, as we had to pair off for Balorath watch. The beast had yet to approach, and somehow that had me even more on edge.

“Mags? Focus, baby.”

Blowing out an irritable breath, I mulled that over, tracking his movements as he stretched, twisting from one side to the other. He shifted his pack, dropping it into his waiting palm and fishing out a water bottle. Those icy blue eyes shifted skyward, searching, scanning for our tracker.

“Fuck The Six.”

A laugh barked out of him as he untwisted the canteen cap, holding the bottle out to me. “You know, I think you’re not the only one on that train.”

“Thank fuck for Freya.”

“Amen.”

“I’ve never seen so many misogynistic cowards in one room.”

“You’ve clearly never sat in on a senate meeting.”

My mouth popped open, water slipping between my lips before I snapped them shut. Embarrassment heated my cheeks as I ran my sleeve over the dribble.

“Crotchety old men doing curmudgeonly things isn’t new.”

“I don’t know how you do it.”

“Politicking? Fucking loathe it.”

“Any of it,” I clarified. “How’d you manage to get so many Commanders on a favor-swapping basis? Tolerating human shitheads shoving their ideology down everyone else’s throats—the system was broken long before Moros made his move.”

“It was,” he agreed, lips slanted with that telltale amusement. “In all my centuries, I’ve yet to see a government that actually serves their people.”

“But you don’t interfere?”

“Define interfere,” he prompted with a hint of humor that spoke to some potentially questionable stories that I definitely needed to hear.

“Intercede on humanity’s behalf? Save them from dictators? Make a change?”

“How does one do that, dove?”

“Do what?”

“Make a change in the world?”

“Well, I mean there’s all kinds of advocacy—especially in this day and age. Or… rather… there was. I’d like to think the world will feel normal again someday.”

“In my experience, the one and only thing I have control over is my own reaction to my circumstances. My actions in response to them. Those actions then ripple out to move the people around me, like leaves buoyed on a pond. My movements—my dedication to bettering myself—inspire betterment in those I rub shoulders with. My friends. Advisors. Coven-mates. Hierarchy-mates. Ambassadors. Subsequently, leadership of other hierarchies. The alternative never interested me.”

“What alternative is that?”

“Well. What we now have on display.” He accepted the bottle when I held it out to him, eyes sparkling with light as he tracked Brody where he scaled a damn opalescent evergreen tree to act as lookout. “I think most people can’t change the world.”

“That sounds uncharacteristically skeptical of you,” I noted, watching his throat work as he drank deeply. A bobbing Adam’s apple should not be attractive, but six weeks of being back in this man’s orbit had me practically salivating.