Page 49 of Homeward for a Spell

More kindling for the bonfire of shame burning inside her.

“What’s that?” she grumbles.

“Back there. It wasn’t only you who locked up tight. Not sure you noticed, but I didn’t fare too well myself.”

“Is this meant to make me feel better about myself or worse about you?”

“Leader’s choice. What do you know about wraithverns?”

“Is that what those were?”

“Mm. Dead ravens who might have pecked at the bodies of soldiers who died far from home, or simply alighted too close to their graves, and became possessed by them. I half thought they were superstition, an old fireside story meant to scare the new recruits.”

“But you knew what to say to dispel them?”

He gives a laugh that turns halfway to a sob. “I hoped. We always said that prayer to send fallen soldiers to the next plane, lest they become trapped in this one. Glad it worked, ey? But my point is, wraithverns have a particular effect upon those who’ve been cozy with death. Who’ve felt the blood of another man dripping down their hands, or held the hand of a friend while he breathed his last, or saw their own soul floating toward the stars, very nearly beyond reach. Which is it for you?”

“More than one,” she admits.

“Now, how many bodies do you think Nura’s seen, even in the fighting pits? Nobody drops for more than a moment before they’re brought back by the pit priests. City wouldn’t stand for it otherwise. And what about Bramble, in their little fish shrine, or Phi, with her fancy dresses and not a single scar on her body?”

“Not many.” Then she tightens her grip on the reins, pulling her horse up to glare at him. “Wait, how do you know Phi hasn’t got any scars?”

Remy chuckles. “Didn’t until now.”

“I suppose you think you’re clever,” she sniffs, kneeing Reaper forward again, but feels grateful that her cheeks are already flushed with cold, disguising her blush. “Which is it for you, then?”

He scrubs a mitten over the black-and-gray beard that’s come in thick since their journey began, melting away the trapped snowflakes. “More than one as well.”

“In the Battle of the Broken Pacts?”

If she’s ever seen a clearer example of a body drawing in upon itself, she can’t recall. Every muscle in the Agent’s body tenses, and his air of affability dissipates instantly, like a snuffed candle. “You talked to Viktas.” It’s a cold hiss of an accusation. “Nothing that woman has to say about me is worth considering.”

“She said you fought in the king’s army. That you weren’t conscripted, but joined together.”

“Might say I was conscripted by the stupidity of youth. We all make mistakes. I expect you’ve made some that cost you dear, though you’ve had fewer years to make them.”

He isn’t wrong, but Sage won’t retreat. “So you deserted?”

“Perhaps I’ll tell you if you tell me why you want to know.”

“Why not, if we’re soon to part, and never think of each other again?” It isn’t a false answer, yet it isn’t her true reason either. Whatever blessings have been visited upon Sage that made her the ranger she is, she has no skill for divination. But looking at a man whose true name she doesn’t even know, she feels as though she’s glimpsing her future. If he’s survived the road for this long, perhaps he has some kind of wisdom to impart. Surely Remy has never let a doomed tryst turn him to porridge in the middle of a fight.

“I’ll tell you this,” he says after a silent moment. “I looked up one day—not on a battlefield, just thigh deep in the marshes, everything pale green with pond scum so you wouldn’t see a goblin snake till it sank its fangs into your ankle. But I was hot, and I was tired, and suddenly there it was: the boot of the kingdom coming down on me. And I realized I’d been living under it my whole life, only I hadn’t seen. My vision was clouded by misguided notions of loyalty and honor and glory and all of the tripe that won’t put soup in your bowl or herbs in your pipe at the end of the day. Nobody who died in the Swamplands that summer meant more to the crown than another body to bury in soggy ground miles from home, no matter how many pretty speeches the king gave. I ran that night. And I’ll never live under another boot. I go where it suits me and then collect my gold, with neither a commander or client or companion to tie me to any cause besides my own. We’re alike in that, aren’t we, Sage?”

Are they?

Sage can’t recall the moment she first realized the kingdom had its boot on the people of the Rookery. Rather, she can’t pick out a single moment from a thousand just like it. Perhaps she always knew and was only waiting for someone like Ollie—anyone like Ollie—who saw it too, and wasn’t so tied down by life that they wouldn’t come along.

Unlike Remy, Sage hadn’t been brave enough to run alone.

Scowling, she clucks her horse to move faster, trotting farther ahead of the Agent. But her heart feels lighter and her shoulders looser, knowing her near-collapse was an aspect of the wraithverns’ innate and sinister magic. The surge of terror she felt when Araphi cried out in pain, and the desperate plea of not her, not her that Sage silently sent up to any deity or devil listening…

Remy is right, of course. It was only the wraithverns, and nothing more.

By the time they reach the bank of the steel-colored Willowthorn, sluggish with ice floes this far north, sunset is seeping quickly across the sky visible through the break in the canopy. “Should we stop here to make camp, boss?” Bramble asks as they dismount to let the horses drink. “There’s water and a windbreak, at least.”

“Not your boss,” Sage says offhandedly. She tests the snowpack beneath her boots, then looks to the rest of her party. The Agent seems to be bearing up all right, but Araphi and Nura huddle against their horses’ ribs for warmth. Nura has her face buried in its shaggy fur. “We should press on for shelter. The sailor’s account mentioned a temple on the shore of the Swallow, guarding the grave of the great beast who died there. I’d rather bunk down in a ruin than in the open.”