The guard drew slightly back, startled to hear the phrase that indicated a military mission whose details couldn’t be discussed. “But . . . a scout?” She stared again at Kestrel’s armor, whose color and material (leather, unlike the steel for officers) indicated her low rank.

Kestrel shrugged. The empty black powder bag lay slack against her hip. “It’s not for you to question the general.”

“Of course,” the guard said immediately, and stepped aside as Kestrel moved to walk past her . . . and tried not to walk too quickly, but wanted to, wanted to run all the way up into the dunes.

Then it was as if a cold, marble hand rested on her shoulder, pressing her down into her boot prints.

There was no hand, she told herself. No one touched her.

Move.

But she couldn’t, just as she couldn’t help the way her gaze lifted and saw, not fifteen paces away, her father standing in the orange light of a fire.

It cracked her open. It hatched some creature of an emotion: two-headed, lumpy, leather wings, unnumbered limbs, a thing that should never have been born. Kestrel hadn’t known until she saw her father’s face how much she still loved him.

Wrong, that she felt this way. Wrong, that love could live with betrayal and hurt and anger.

Hate, she corrected herself.

No, a voice whispered back, the voice of a small girl.

Her father didn’t see her. He was looking at the fire. His eyes were shadowed, his mouth sad.

“Trajan,” someone called from across the camp. Kestrel saw the silver-headed man approach. Soldiers fell away from him like shed water. The emperor approached his general, whose face changed, becoming full of something older than she was.

Firelight striped the emperor’s cheek as he leaned to murmur in her father’s ear. She saw that slight smile, and remembered the plea sure the emperor took in his games, how he could make a move and wait for months to see its final play. But there was no scheme in his expression now.

Her father answered him. She stood too far away to hear what they said to one another, yet she was close enough to see that their friendship was solid and true.

Kestrel looked away. She walked toward the dunes, careful not to retrace her steps and risk smudging the line of powder that, once lit, must burn directly from Arin to the wagon. The bushes where Arin waited were thick black scribbles. Her cheeks were wet. Valorian soldiers didn’t look as she passed. She wiped her face. Sand hissed under her hurried boots. She left the camp behind.

She’d almost reached the bushes when she heard someone following her.

Pacing the sand. Right in her tracks. Coming up close.

She slowed, hand on her dagger, heart in her mouth.

She turned.

“Kestrel?”

Chapter 36

Her hand dropped from her dagger’s hilt. “Verex.”

He stood awkwardly in the moonlight: long and slopey, shoulders narrow, eyes large, his fair hair ruffled and feathery. When he met her gaze, he let out such a large breath that his chest seemed to cave in. “I was so worried for you,” he said.

Kestrel crossed the sand and flung herself into his open arms.

“I tried to help,” he murmured.

“I know.”

“I sent a key to the prison camp.”

“I got it.”

“I’m ashamed of myself.”

“Verex.”

“I couldn’t do more. I wanted to. I should have.”

She pulled back, stared at him. “That key was every thing to me.”

“Not enough. My father—”

“Did he find out?” Her blood went cold. “Did he punish you?”

“He talked as if he knew it was me. ‘Well, dear boy, have you heard? A prisoner tried to escape the north. Somehow—how, do you think?—she laid her filthy little hands on a key.’ Never acknowledging that the prisoner was you. Never accusing me of having sent the key. Just watching and smiling. He said—he told me that the prisoner was tortured. Killed. And I—” Verex’s face twisted.

“I’m all right, I’m here.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“What did he do to you?”

Verex flopped one hand. “Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“Nothing that mattered. I think he enjoyed it: that I knew, that I tried. Failed. I have my spies in the court—I must—and when you dis appeared I found out too quickly what had happened to you. He wanted me to know. All the while, he said nothing of your absence, only informed me of the story he’d tell the court, and that I’d be sailing to the southern isles. He said he’d watch over Risha while I was away.” Verex thrust his hands in his pockets, slumped his shoulders. “He said, ‘I know how you care for the eastern princess.’ ”