“Almost certainly.” He scrutinized her. “What are you going to do when this mission is over?”
Nadine frowned, taken aback by the randomness of the question. “I’m not staying here, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It’s not. I mean, what will happen to you? You’ll take the Eye back to Ebron, parade around in your glory for a while and then . . . what? Die a happy old woman clutching it to your chest?”
Nadine stood there, surprised that she had no immediate answer. In truth, she’d never assumed she’d make it to old age. Few career soldiers did. As for the Eye . . . Her stomach turned. “The Eye will go back to the Royal Deposit until a Pajel has need of it again.”
Magnus cocked his head. “You mean like Lavinia?”
Nadine’s gaze hardened at the mention of her older sister. “No. Not Lavinia.”
At Magnus’s silence, Nadine sighed and elaborated on an ugly truth which had haunted her for years. “The Eye can only ever be in custody of a direct descendent of Riyah Pajel, the original warrior the goddess gifted it to. That means Lavinia, me, and any children we might have.”
Magnus’s brows shot up. “You mean Volo and Brodie?”
Nadine bit the inside of her cheek. “The Mushar would never have let the sons of a foreign barbarian inherit the Eye. At least, not once he disowned their mother for choosing to wed your brother.”
It was a fact that had kept Nadine awake on more than one restless night. At first she’d been shocked to learn she had nephews. Then she’d grown proud. And hopeful. Since Lavinia’s disappearance, the Pajel wealth had fallen to Nadine, which Maladib held in trust. She could have spat on all of it. All but the Eye.
The Eye was more than wealth. It represented the potential for everything that had always been out of reach for Nadine. Greatness. Glory. A destiny worth surviving for. The answer to a lifetime of emptiness and humiliation.
Magnus tilted his head. “Then who will the Eye go to after you?”
Nadine spoke through gritted teeth. “My father’s cousin.” The man who’d assaulted her as a child, then turned her over to strangers.
Confusion morphed into anger in Magnus’s expression. He swallowed hard. “And there’s no way around that?”
Nadine scoffed. “But of course, savage. I could always breed.” Though she said it with flippancy, Nadine’s gut turned inside out at the thought. It had been the dilemma of her existence. Marry to keep the Eye out of the greedy lecher’s hands. Or keep hold of her own fate, and let the bastard have it all. Either way, she was destined to lose.
Silence drew out between them and, after another moment, Magnus dug into his pocket to withdraw the leather wrap. The one with the meat in it. Nearby, some of the gegatu shifted. They tilted their heads, and their slitted nostrils constricted, then widened again. “You said you wanted to claim a gegatu.”
Nadine blinked at him. Disbelief shot through her, followed by a thrill of reluctant excitement. “What? You mean to show me how? Now?”
Magnus gave her a sideways glance. “If I said yes, would you actually do it?”
“I . . . ” she stuttered. Though she’d felt the conviction deep in her bones that she could master one of the beasts, same as any of the savages, Nadine realized she hadn’t anticipated the opportunity. Were she even to survive this mission, who was to say she’d be given leave to come back here? Or when? But now she was here, and one of the Dokiri himself was offering her this chance.
But, now, on the eve of the most dangerous, glorious mission of her life? If she did claim one, she couldn’t very well take it with her on the underground mission. It was the entire reason the Dokiri had come to her people for help in the first place. Her mouth tightened. “You’re mocking me.”
Magnus frowned. “I love to mock you, kandiri. But I swear that’s not what I’m doing right now.”
“I can’t take it with me under the ground.”
Magnus nodded. “It takes a long time to claim a gegatu. You won’t actually be able to accomplish the task today, but—”
“—But what?” Doubt and reluctant hope danced a hurried rhythm in her chest.
“But you can choose one today. Start the mastering now, and finish it when we’ve returned. After.”
Nadine went still. “After?”
He stared at her, and the silence stretched out between them like the meat still sitting in Magnus’s palm. Nadine considered that one word, after, and all it implied. Did such a thing exist? Would they survive the deep horror to come? Would the tenuous bond between their people hold long enough for them to complete their mission? Would their souls still be theirs at the end of this mission? And even if they were, what then? He’d vowed to keep her as any other Dokiri savage would keep the woman he’d put his mark on. She’d claimed just as staunchly that she would never let him hold her.
Even if her mind were to change, would the Mushar grant her a leave of absence so that she might unlock the secrets of the sky from the back of her own winged mount? Gather knowledge of the veligiri and use it to further the defense of her own people? Learn more of their new allies who might someday become their enemies?
. . . Decide once and for all if I’ve been wrong? If there could ever be an after for a soldier and a barbarian?
She turned her gaze outward over a sea of leathery wings and gem-colored eyes. One wyvern stood out to her. Three onyx-black slashes punctuated its pale body; from just beneath its jaw they trailed down its belly and under its skinny tail. She stared just long enough for its zaffre-blue eyes to turn upon her. The color of Ebronian royalty.
Without a word of acknowledgment, Nadine snapped the meat from Magnus’s hands like a tigress might tear the offering from the hand of a man who meant to tame her.
“How long do you suppose it will take for the Nozverak to show?” Samar asked from the bench across the fire.
Nadine took the horn of water the man next to her offered and downed it in a few gulps. When she looked up, a dozen pairs of eyes awaited her answer. “Erik said they could be here as early as tomorrow night. But it might take them a few days. The Nozverak hadn’t expected us here so soon.”
Rushil, who was sitting next to Samar, tossed a twig into the fire. “Seems the rush was a waste then.”
Nadine narrowed her eyes at him. She was deciding whether or not to let the insolent remark slide when another of the men leaned back on the bench and stretched his legs with a contented sigh. “I’d rather be resting here than freezing my ass off on those godsforsaken slopes for another week.”
Another man chimed in. “But the food is hardly any better than on the trail.”
“Oh,” came a familiar voice. Nadine glanced over her shoulder. Magnus approached with a horn in either hand and a smile on his handsome face. He was looking at the one who’d spoken even as he approached Nadine. “But you haven’t tried our wine yet.”
He stopped just behind Nadine and lowered the horn near her elbow. “Captain.”
Nadine took the offered horn with a guarded expression. She could practically feel his grin as he walked along the ring of benches toward the man who’d complained about the food and offered him the other horn. He took it, but held it away from his body as though it were a bucket of slop.