I looked back at Jase. After two fights, we now kept him separated from the other prisoners.
“You have to stop beating yourself up, Kazi,” Wren said. “You gave him a chance to step aside. And according to Griz, it was an undeserved chance.”
“I know how it looks to Griz, but the bare facts don’t always tell the whole truth. I didn’t give him any chance. A Ballenger never steps aside. They hold their ground. They protect what’s theirs at all costs. And I knew that.”
Wren shook her head. “It’s that stubborn pride of theirs.”
“It’s more than that. It’s their history. It’s who they are.”
We sat down together on the bank and cooled our feet in the water. “I’m still worried about what Bahr said to Phineas.”
“That ‘There’s still time’?”
I nodded. We had interrogated every prisoner individually, but none would say a word, not even with the hope of a deal to spare their lives, as if some other hope was still out there. “It’s as if they’re expecting a rescue, and if they are, that means they weren’t working alone.”
“He might have meant there was still a chance for them to escape. They’ve done it before.”
Possibly. I had seen them watching for opportunities, eyeing weapons and stands of forests to disappear into. “But there was one other thing—when the captain first saw troops riding toward us, his face brightened, as if he thought they were somebody else.”
Wren thought for a moment. “It could be they were working with a league. Paxton maybe?”
“Yes. Or one of the others.” Or worst case scenario, several of them together. I remembered Rybart and Truko walking the streets together back in Hell’s Mouth.
“Even if they were working with a league to take down the Ballengers, the important thing is, by their own words, they didn’t have an arsenal yet. We got there in time and destroyed their plans. We saw them go up in flames. Plus, we have the architects for those weapons in custody. Whatever plans they had are finished. Life will go on as usual at Tor’s Watch.”
I thought about the captain’s reaction when we destroyed the plans—the piles of documents that were his key to riches. His fury at their loss was real. The same with Torback, all his work up in flames. I was certain by their reactions that they were all burned—but then what were the papers that Phineas wanted me to destroy? He had mentioned olives in his last breaths too. Olives? Maybe as he struggled with his last words he became confused. Maybe he meant the papers I had already destroyed.
“Break’s over!” Griz called. “Let’s move out.”
Wren dipped her handkerchief into the water and tied it in a cooling band around her head. “I better get back before Synové starts in on another gruesome end. We’ll never get her moving.” But neither of us begrudged any fear she wanted to inflict. Bahr had earned it. Synové and many others would have to live with the fear Bahr had inflicted on them for the rest of their lives.
With the call to move out, soldiers began putting their boots back on and saddling horses. Jase wrung out his shirt and slung the twisted fabric over his shoulder. He sloshed back along the creek’s edge with his boots in hand. His horse was tethered in the creek near mine. The axel on the wagon had broken more than a week ago, and we’d been forced to switch the prisoners to horses. While we made faster progress, it made for a tenser ride. Even with their hands tied in front of them and two horses tethered together, we had to keep a constant watch on our captives.
I waited at the bank’s edge until he caught up, my toes nervously curling into the sand. It had been days since we had really spoken. The last time I tried to talk to him, he had asked me to leave. He didn’t want to speak to me. I understood that.
He stopped in front me. “I get an escort back to my horse?” he asked.
I looked at his bare chest, the sweep of the tattooed wing seeming to wave me away now. I was an outsider again. I remembered when my fingernail used to outline the jagged edge of the feathers. “You should put your shirt back on so your back doesn’t burn.”
He stood ankle deep in the water, not moving, his shirt still dripping from his shoulder, the tilt of his head full of irritation. “What’s really on your mind, Kazi?” He reminded me of how he had looked that day on the riverbank after we had escaped from the labor hunters. Then, he’d looked like he was ready to bash in my head, and I’d thought the chain was the only thing saving me. That seemed like years ago. He shifted weight, signaling his impatience.
“I was talking with Wren and Synové this morning,” I said. “They’re afraid that your family will retaliate against the settlement. It’s my worry too. Will they?”
“And incur the further wrath of the Vendan queen? You don’t need to worry.” He started to walk on.
“Jase—”
He spun around. “I made a blood vow to protect them, Kazi. And the Patrei’s vow is his family’s vow. We don’t go back on our word. Call it that Ballenger pride you like to make fun of. Anything else?”
His expression was strained, as if he couldn’t stand to be next to me. I thought there was nothing left inside of me to crumble, but I was wrong. His contempt was more than I could bear. “No. Nothing.”
I began to step away when he lunged, pulling me with him as we tumbled to the ground. I didn’t have time to yell or react. He hovered over me, his chest pounding against mine, his expression impossible to discern. “A scorpion,” he explained. “You almost stepped on it.” He looked at me for a second longer, and I wondered if he was thinking the same thing as me. What happened to us? How did we get here? But the answer was clear. Once again, we’d been shoved down an unexpected path, and there was no clawing our way back to the one we’d been on. A simple chain we had both cursed had done the unthinkable—it forced us to see the world through each other’s eyes. Now we had to forget those worlds. Or maybe we would always be haunted by the memory of each other.
His grip on my arms tightened for a moment, a breath shuddering in his chest, but then he released me and stood. He grabbed one of his fallen boots then smashed it down. “It’s
dead. You should put your boots back on.”
I got up and looked at the broken scorpion. A black ringtail. Its venom could kill you in seconds. I watched Jase walk away, uncertain if even he knew how strongly protection ran in his blood.