“He hit me first!”
“Shut up.”
“What would you do? You can’t expect me to—”
“Shut up, Redge, or I swear I’ll—”
“Uh... Six?”
Silence.
The voices echo through my throbbing head, but I can’t make sense of them. I should know who’s talking. I should care about what they’re saying, but I can’t focus. My thoughts are fuzzy, scattered by the constant pounding in my skull. I groan.
And feel hands at my throat. Panicked, I try to push them away, but manage only to turn over to my side and retch into the snow. My body shakes, threatening to spill me onto the ground—no, I’m already on the ground. I clutch at my neck, but the hands are gone. My fingers touch the cold metal of the ring at my throat, then my torn tunic, then skin.
Ieldran.
The tunic is only open a handsbreadth, but when I look up to see Orami kneeling over me with wide eyes and a red face, I know it’s enough.
I close my eyes and wait.
“What is this?” Redge demands. No one answers him.
“Brennr,” Orami whispers. I open my eyes and find Orami holding out my fallen scarf. I don’t even remember losing it.
“Did you know, Six?” Iorin asks. His voice is calm, his expression unreadable. One hand is still locked over his brother’s right arm and chest, the other grasping his free elbow. Thare has a fistful of Redge’s collar, but his attention is on Redge rather than me, so I can’t guess his thoughts. Six stands a few feet away, stiffly, like he froze mid-step. His eyes lock with mine, and I know he sees my panic.
“No,” he says, but it comes out as a whisper. He clears his throat, running a hand through his hair and relaxing his stance. “No, I didn’t know.”
Redge tries to storm forward, but Iorin and Thare have a strong enough grip on him that he only manages to lean. “You lied to us,” he snarls.
“I didn’t mean...” I cut myself off, because of course I meant to. You don’t accidentally lie about your identity.
“Do you know the penalty for impersonating a soldier?” Redge bites out, his voice a violent shade of crimson. “They’ll kill you for this, and they’ll kill us all for helping you.”
“Enough,” Six says. “Keep your voice down. Just because we didn’t find any Awnians before does not mean they won’t come out to investigate all your shouting.”
Iorin’s eyes find mine. “Are you injured, Brennr? Can you stand?”
My body is still shaking, but I force myself to my feet with Orami hovering nearby. I manage not to collapse, though every movement sends a stab of pain through my head. Shame and embarrassment wind through the ache.
I couldn’t even stand up to one hit.
“Now,” Six says, his voice low and even. “Redge, Iorin is going to let you go. You will not move. Then Brennr is going to explain.”
Redge grunts and throws his arm back, and Iorin lets him go. He and Thare watch until Redge drops onto a stone nearby, crossing his arms and fuming in silence. Thare stands over him, wearing the same hard expression he always wears. I suck in a shaking breath.
“Well?” Thare grunts. “Talk.”
My fingers twist together, and I focus on relaxing them before I speak. “Everything happened as I said,” I begin quietly. It’s harder than I thought it would be to switch to the feminine forms of the words, and I have to take another steadying breath before I can continue. “The soldiers came to my village to take a man from every family, and I went in place of my friend’s brother. That’s all. Everything else is the truth.”
“Your name?” Redge says.
Another stab of guilt makes me pause. “Brennr was their father’s name. He died last year.” Sour disappointment coats the back of my tongue. Yesterday, I was tempted to tell Six my name, but I never imagined it would happen like this. I feel none of the relief or peace I’d hoped for. Just more shame.
Swallowing down the guilt and bile, I force out, “My name is Ynria.”
No one speaks. I wait, fighting the urge to wrap my arms around myself. Orami rocks from one foot to the other beside me, his eyes not quite meeting mine.
“Now what?” he asks when no one else moves.
“Now we turn her in,” Redge says. “Before we’re accused of harboring her.”
Orami tugs at his sleeve. “We can’t do that. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“You know Belendres’s story as well as I do,” Redge says. “The penalty for impersonating a soldier is death. She’s risked our lives along with hers. We have to tell Captain Bayal the truth.”
“Technically, she hasn’t impersonated an Ielic soldier,” Iorin says. His voice is a wary, washed-out amber, like tea that hasn’t steeped long enough. Like he doesn’t know if he should be arguing for or against me.
Redge glowers at him. “Do you think anyone will care about a technicality? You think we wouldn’t still be punished?” He stands, and Iorin takes a step to intercept him. Six and Orami answer at the same time, their words overlapping in sparks of bright green and orange, and Iorin holds out his hands for quiet. Redge raises his voice to talk over them, gesturing sharply at me.
A whistle cuts through the argument, and everyone falls silent again. Thare takes his fingers from his lips and scowls over us all. “Nobody else knows about her,” he says in a crisp blue voice. “So no one is in danger. The only way for the captain to find out is for one of us to him. We say nothing. After the attack on the fort, she leaves. Nobody knows, and nobody dies.” He stalks between Six and Redge without looking at either of them. “Now let’s go before the rest of the unit catches up to find us still fighting about it.”
Orami claps me on the shoulder. “I agree with Thare. She’s here, right or wrong, and Captain Bayal is counting on her Wordweaving during the attack.”
Redge looks like he wants to argue, but when Iorin adds his hand to my shoulder, he simply spits at my feet and stomps after Thare. Iorin winces and frowns at me. “I’m afraid you haven’t made things easier for yourself by lying, but Thare is right. There’s no reason to turn you in when you’ll be leaving after the attack.” With a final pat and a tight smile, he turns to follow the others.
“Everything will work out,” Orami tells me. “We all follow the Pathkeeper’s guidance.” He falls into step behind Iorin, and then it’s just me and Six.
I don’t know what to say. His eyes move from the stones at our feet to the trees overhead, sweeping near me without meeting my gaze. I want to say that I didn’t mean to deceive him, that I never meant it to go so far, but it wouldn’t change anything. I could have told him after we escaped.
Why didn’t I?
Six shakes his head, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “All those questions about Belendres, whether anyone else knew she was a woman... I should have seen it.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
His eyes drift away, following the others as they continue up the trail, but he says nothing else.
I force down the emotions clogging my throat. “As soon as the attack on the fort is over, I’ll go.”
One of Six’s hands settles on his hip, his thumb hooking through his sword belt. “That was always the plan,” he says slowly. His eyes finally find mine. “Why does it feel worse now? Like a punishment?”
“It’s less of a punishment than what Belendres got.”
“That’s why you weren’t sure if you could go home,” he goes on. “Because everyone will know that you disguised yourself. Where will you go if you can’t go home?”
I shrug, trying not to feel the way my heart hammers an echo of his question. “I can go anywhere. Most places would welcome a fully trained healer.”
“A male healer,” Six says.
“Perhaps I can convince them,” I say, though my words sound hollow even to me.
He doesn’t renew his offer to join the rangers. He doesn’t suggest I stay in Ieli, or try to find a secluded village that would embrace any healer, male or female—he doesn’t say anything. All he does is stand with his jaw clenched, staring down the path as if he isn’t sure where else to look.
After an agonizing pause, he clears his throat. “We should go. We’ll lose the others.” He turns to follow them, and I trail him with my eyes on the ground. This will work out. It doesn’t change anything about my plans to leave after we take the fort, except giving Redge more reasons to hate me. That won’t matter in a few days. Everything is fine.
But the thoughts chase themselves around my throbbing head, and it doesn’t feel fine.
Eventually, Six moves ahead to overtake Thare. We angle west up steep embankments, using deer trails when Six finds them, but more often forging the way over bare rock. We’re frequently forced to climb, and by the time Six calls for a halt that evening, my muscles tremble with exhaustion.
“There,” Six whispers, pointing down into a little valley. We peer over the side of a sloping cliff and find the tunnel gaping like a wound in the side of the mountain.
“What do you see?” Orami whispers, craning his neck to peer over Thare’s shoulder. I hang back beside Orami, trying to catch my breath without making it too obvious that I’ve lost it.
“Four guards,” Iorin reports.
“Armed,” Thare adds. “Looks like crossbows. And they’re wearing chain mail.”
“So we’ll hear them before they hear us,” Redge says. From where I’m standing, I can’t see the tunnel, and I find my eyes settling instead on Six. His eyebrows are drawn together and his fingers drum against the rock face, beating out the rhythm of my still-pounding heart. I try to read his thoughts in the set of his jaw, the taut muscles in his back and the way he worries his bottom lip between his teeth. Gray hairs at his temple catch the fading light, flashing silver among the black strands tucked behind his ear. I hadn’t noticed those before. Six is too young to have graying hair—he can’t be over twenty-three. In the evening shadows, as focused and serious as he is, he looks decades older.
When I realize I’m staring, I turn my eyes away and catch Orami watching me with a knowing grin. I shoot him a glare, and he holds up his hands and shrugs. I can only hope he doesn’t notice how my face heats up.
“Bayal gave orders not to engage any guards we may have come across,” Six says. “We’ll watch them tonight, see what we can overhear, and return to the unit in the morning.”
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The others nod, and he directs them to different parts of the canyon, all higher than the tunnel and never more than a few moments’ run from anyone else. He sends them in pairs: Redge with Orami (after he refuses to go with his brother) and Iorin with Thare, leaving me to partner with Six. The others move silently to their assigned places, and Six leads me down a little closer to the tunnel. We find a thin ledge about twenty yards above it, nestled across from the others’ hiding spots. “Now we wait,” he whispers, motioning for me to sit.
I hold out one hand and extend the fingers before drawing them back into a fist, scanning the ground for a comfortable place to rest.
“What was that?”
“A hand sign.” I sit and lean my back against the rock wall, pulling my jacket tighter around me. “The fryrs in my village taught me.”
“What does it mean?”
“It’s like... ‘Yes, I understand’. There’s not an exact translation.”
Six copies the motion, his eyes bright. “What else can you do?”
I shrug. “What do you want to know?”
“Sword?”
I set my fists together and draw them apart, as if pulling a sword from a sheath. Six repeats it, smiling. “Archer?”
That’s not a word I know, so I show him “bow-man” instead.
“Perfect,” Six whispers, mimicking the sign. “I’ve been saying we need another way to communicate on missions. Can you teach me?”
I hesitate. Of course I can teach him, but how much can he learn in so short a time? It took Aze weeks to master a handful of phrases, and every day we didn’t practice he seemed to forget half of what he knew. But the look in Six’s eyes is so earnest, so excited...
“Very well,” I say. “But you don’t have much time to learn. What would be the most useful?”
He pauses to consider. “Attack.”
I ball my fists, pressing them down and splaying out my fingers as I move. Again, he copies me, and I watch the motion with the critical eye I’d learned from teaching Aze. Six’s hands are bare, free of the gloves the other rangers wear, and I’m distracted by the scars and bruises marring his skin.
“You should wear gloves,” I say.
“Why?”
“Your hands are all cut up. You must be very clumsy.”
He snorts, pulling back his hand and holding it up to the moonlight. Half-healed cuts crisscross his knuckles, surrounded by purple bruises and white scars. “It’s not that bad,” he says.
“Not that bad?” I echo, holding out my bare hand in comparison. Actually... mine doesn’t look much better. There are plenty of new scrapes and callouses from my work in the tunnel and our hikes through the woods. Six smiles smugly and pinches the tip of my little finger.
“I guess I’m not the only clumsy one,” he says.
“Well, I’m new to all of this,” I grumble, pulling my hand away. To give myself something to focus on other than the heat at the end of my finger, I roll my pack off my shoulders and pull out my half of the honey cake Six bought yesterday. I unwrap it as best I can without losing the drizzled honey that is now stuck to the cloth, then rip it in half and offer one handful to Six.
“What’s the sign for cake?” he asks.
I lick the sticky mess off the fingers of my right hand, set them over my left palm, and twist them in a circle.
“And honey?”
We go on like that, me making signs and him copying them, for what feels like hours. I make him repeat the first few back to me, testing his memory before I agree to show him more. He’s a much better student with this than with herbs; by the time I tell him we should stop for the night, he can sign a few simple commands and promises to teach it all to the others.
“Get some rest,” he says at last, finishing his third repetition of the phrase “Wait here, I’ll go on ahead.” “I’ll take first watch.”
“First watch?” I ask. “Then you’ll let me take second?”
His eyebrows furrow. “You want me to stay up all night?”
“That’s not what I meant.” I study what I can see of him, but most of his face is too dark to read. His hands rest on his knees, forgotten tools of communication that tell me nothing. “I meant... you trust me to keep watch?”
“Oh.” Six runs a hand through his hair, leaning back and looking over my shoulder. “Because of...”
“Because for the last few days, I’ve been little more than a prisoner,” I say. “And because I’ve been lying to you since we met.”
His hand stalls at the back of his neck. “It’s not as if you lied to me specifically. I can hardly blame you for protecting yourself.”
“You’re not angry?”
He pauses for a long moment. “No. Trust is a choice I make willingly tonight. If you cut my throat in my sleep, I suppose that will be my punishment.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Isn’t it?” He shrugs, dropping his hand to his knee. “Fine. We can only make decisions based on the information available to us. I may not know much about your history, but I know you saved my life when you could have escaped on your own. Captain Bayal thinks the benefits of believing you outweigh the risks, and I trust his judgement. I’ve watched you throw yourself into Somre’s work, which revolves entirely around helping others, and you’ve even earned yourself a name from him. You’re concerned with justice, with correcting the wrongs you see around you. A little inflexible in your thinking, maybe, a trifle naïve—but those aren’t qualities I condemn in my friends.”
Thank Ieldran for the concealing darkness and curse the telling blush heating my face. I take a moment to inhale, making my voice casual. “Friends?”
“Yes,” he says, and I hear the smile in his voice. “I trust my friends. Now go to sleep before I change my mind and give you first watch.”
I lie down with my back to the stone wall, curling up in my bedroll with the cold air chafing at my face. I won’t dwell on his words, no matter how much they want to buzz around my head. Tomorrow has enough worries to preoccupy me.
It seems like only moments have passed before Six touches my shoulder, pulling me from a dream in which I had been running from a pack of golden-eyed wolves and a black raven. My eyes are heavy when I force them open, heavy enough that I want to seal them again and tell Six to keep watch himself.
But I make myself crawl out of the blankets and roll them up, stifling a yawn and trying to blink the bleariness from my eyes. “Has anything happened?” I ask.
“There’s been no change of guard yet, but I’m guessing it will happen soon. Try to listen to whatever they say in case they give away anything important.”
I nod, wishing I had kept the blanket to wrap around my shoulders. Six lays out his own bedroll, sliding into it and turning his back to the wall like I had done. He burrows into the blankets so only the top of his forehead is exposed to the elements, and I get the sudden urge to stroke the shock of hair that shivers in the breeze.
Ieldran. What’s wrong with me?
After fighting for so long against an unwanted marriage, I’d convinced myself that romance would never be a part of my future. Aze was always the romantic one—but then, men can afford to be romantic. Women have to be practical. I’ve only known Six for a few days, and feelings that develop so quickly cannot be trusted. I can’t afford to be distracted by something only brought on by the thrill of the upcoming attack.
I rub my fingers over the ridges in the ring to distract myself. When this is over, I will say goodbye to Six and the other rangers and go on with my life unfettered. We’ll be nothing but memories to each other, and I will be grateful for every monotonous day that fills the rest of my life.
The hours pass on, cold and dark and infinite. Eventually I wriggle back into a sitting position beside Six, wishing I could stand and stretch. He lies completely still, never turning or rolling or even sighing in his sleep, as if he’s right on the edge and any movement might pitch him over the side. I count the rocks on the ledge to keep myself awake, then move on to categorizing the plants in my bag. When I can think of no more herbs, I look out and notice a pale haze of light against the eastern horizon. The longer I watch the sky, the brighter it grows, and I sigh in relief.
“I hear something,” says one of the guards below. I freeze to listen.
“Torch light,” says another. “Looks like our replacements are finally here.”
“About time,” another grumbles.
“Anything to report?” asks a new voice, and I flinch.
It’s Tyrr. I reach out to put my hand against Six’s arm, and he comes instantly awake.
“It’s almost dawn,” I whisper. “The new guards are here. One of them is a tenant.”
“A tenant? Why?”
“Nothing, sir,” says one of the soldiers below. “All quiet.”
“Good. Go on then. The men will be arriving soon.”
I shoot a startled look to Six, who hurries to roll up his blankets so he can lean over the ledge. Four men stand in the tunnel entrance, including Tyrr, who studies what looks like a map by the light of a mounted torch.
“Why would more men be coming?” I whisper. “The tunnel is finished.”
Six reaches for his bow without taking his eyes from Tyrr. “The good tenant has already been helpful enough to give us some information. Maybe he can give us more.”
I stare at him. “Is that a good idea?”
“If there will be soldiers coming through the tunnel, we need to know why. We can’t let Bayal walk into an invasion force.”
“But how can we get more information?”
“We do have them outnumbered.”
“Barely.”
“Barely still counts. And we have surprise on our side.”
Uneasy nerves grip my stomach. “Captain Bayal said not to engage the Awnians.”
“This won’t be an engagement,” Six says, stringing his bow with quick, practiced movements. His gaze flicks up to me, and he winks. “Trust me.”
I try to force my pounding heart to calm, sucking in a breath through my nose and counting to five before I release it. “What should I do?”
Six turns to face the spot where Iorin and Thare hide. The sky grows lighter by the minute; I can almost see across the rim of the ledge to where they’re hiding among the rocks. Six cups his hands around his mouth and lets out a harsh raven’s caw. Two more calls answer his, their echoes bouncing off the rocks and dying in the wind. Six leans back before Tyrr and the other guards can look around for the nonexistent ravens and grins at me. “The others are awake. Should we have some fun?”
“Fun?” I repeat, with the distinct feeling that whatever he has in mind will not be fun.
Six makes three more sharp caws. Then he nocks an arrow, shoots to his feet, draws back the string, and lets it loose. I scramble up to watch the arrow slice into the dirt at Tyrr’s feet. In the next instant, four more arrows cut down the other guards, and Tyrr is left by himself in the center of the tunnel entrance.
Tyrr had raised his crossbow toward us, but as the other guards fall, he turns to flee into the tunnel.
“Stop,” Six calls in Awnian. “I would hate to have to shoot you, too.”
Tyrr glares up at him, his crossbow still half-raised. “Retaliation may not be your best course of action,” Six adds. “If you’d care to look around, you will find we have you surrounded.”
Tyrr casts an uneasy look over his shoulder, in time to see Redge, Orami, Thare, and Iorin rise to their feet, new arrows already drawn and aimed. He turns to glower at Six, who is now leaning against a rock.
“Your name is Tyrr, correct?” Six calls down in the same amiable tone.
At that Tyrr starts. His eyes narrow, his arm twitching like he wants to raise his crossbow again. “You’re the scout who escaped.”
Six bows. “Redge, Iorin, keep cover on our friend while the rest of us climb down.”
They acknowledge by readjusting their aim while Orami and Thare ease their arrows forward and begin their descent. “After you,” Six mutters to me, and I scramble down the steep rocky rise to the base of the tunnel. Once I reach the ground, I turn toward Tyrr and watch as Orami and Thare relieve him of his weapons.
“So?” Six says once he’s down, jogging up beside us and twirling his bow in one hand. “This is the tunnel I told you about, gentlemen.”
“Gentlemen,” Thare snorts. “Anyone ever told you you talk like a baron when you’re trying to be impressive?”
Six shoots him a glare, and Thare gives an unapologetic shrug. “I was raised with manners,” Six says, returning his attention to Tyrr. “We should be civil to our new friend. You know, ask questions to get to know him better.”
“It’s only polite,” Orami agrees.
Tyrr spits at Six’s boots, but he seems to be expecting that and steps neatly aside. Thare draws his knife and presses it to Tyrr’s throat. “Try that again,” he growls.
A nervous swallow bobs down Tyrr’s neck, but the anger doesn’t leave his eyes.
“You said more would be coming back through the tunnel,” Six says. “Why?”
“Do you know who I am?” Tyrr hisses.
“The world’s softest whetstone?” Thare says, pressing his knife deeper into Tyrr’s skin. “Answer him.”
“Th-they’re just widening the opening,” Tyrr says. “So we can better defend ourselves. It’s for defense only.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Six says in a flat voice. “Unlike your captain, Thare here prefers not to take prisoners. If you aren’t helpful, we’ll simply kill you and wait for the next bunch of guards. Surely one of them will be more cooperative.” He waits for his words to sink in before repeating, “Why send more men through the tunnel?”
Tyrr clamps his mouth shut, and Six shrugs. “Thare?” He turns away, and Thare lifts the knife over Tyrr’s chest.
“Wait,” I say.
Thare stops, his gaze darting from me to Six. Careful to keep my face down, I take a step forward and bend to retrieve the map Tyrr dropped when he drew his crossbow. It’s thin paper, painted with what smells like walnut ink—and it isn’t a map.
It’s a building plan.
“Another fort,” I say, holding the paper out to Six. “They’re building another fort on this side of the tunnel.”
Tyrr jerks in Thare’s grip. “To defend the border, that’s all!”
“So they are starting the invasion,” Six says, his eyes on me. He shifts his attention to Tyrr, his expression hard. “What’s the timeline?”
“I don’t know,” Tyrr says in a thin voice.
Six turns away. “Then we have no further use for you.”
Tyrr sputters, but Thare only pulls the black scarf from Tyrr’s neck and rips it in half. He stuffs one part into Tyrr’s mouth, using the other strip to tie the cloth in place. Orami hands him a length of rope from his pack, which Thare uses to bind Tyrr’s hands behind his back.
Thare gives him a gentle kick towards Six. “Done, your grace,” he says. “Any other orders?”
I look over at Six and watch him worry his bottom lip between his teeth—slightly crooked teeth—making a tiny dimple appear and disappear on his chin. An arc of stubble runs along his jawline, which—
Stop it. Focus.
“We have to warn the captain,” Six says at last. “He’s walking into an ambush. Orami, go and—”
Heat bursts across the back of my neck and races down my spine. I stiffen, drawing in a breath that is painfully loud in the quiet morning.
Six is there in an instant, one hand reaching for his sword and the other for me. “What is it?”
I struggle to compose myself, breathing through my nose the way he’d told me to when we were running. The burn turns to an itch that pools over the back of my neck, writhing beneath my skull, the old familiar presence I had finally gotten used to not feeling.
“Brennr,” Six presses. His hand is on my shoulder, anchoring me as the fire settles into my skin, but I pull away. Brennr, he’d said. Not Ynria.
“Listen,” Orami says. The others go still as the sound of booted feet echoes out from the tunnel.
“Go,” Six hisses. “Thare, get Tyrr into the bushes. Be ready for my signal. Orami, find Captain Bayal and warn him. We’ll do our best to hold them off.”
The rangers scatter, swift and silent under the threat of the coming soldiers. I catch Tyrr’s gaze as Thare drags him into the forest, and his eyes widen in recognition before he’s pulled out of sight.
“Hurry,” Six says, grabbing my arm.
“Another Wordweaver,” I gasp, scrambling back up the side of the cliff.
“What?”
“There was another Wordweaver at the fort,” I say, throwing myself flat against the ledge.
“Yes,” Six says. “I remember.”
I gesture helplessly at the tunnel. “He’s here.”