“You disapprove?” He knew her to be resentful. It seemed she might be judgmental as well.
She sighed. “No,” she said, surprising him with her answer. “You do what you must to survive, and the dead have no care for such things anymore. Whom does it hurt if some long-dead chieftain’s wife no longer possesses her favorite earrings?”
He suppressed a smile, not wanting her to think he mocked her. She was a puzzle—prickly-sharp and unforgiving, devoted to her village to the point of blind obsession even as she resented them for forcing a terrible burden on her. Yet she was polite and grateful to those who helped them. Her mercy for her fellow victims at the Rites of Spring had prevented them from suffering by delivering a quick death, and she wore the marks of that mercy all over her body as reminders.
She had another question for him. “The new grave mound we saw when we camped with Hamod and his caravan . . . do you think they looted it?”
The image of Hamod’s avaricious expression and Halani’s dour one rose in his memory. There had been whisperings and meetings in the shadows, and the dull glint of moonlight on the steel scoop of a shovel. “I’d bet a good horse on it,” he said.
“It seems odd.” Azarion arched one eyebrow, and she clarified. “I remember Halani’s face when we first came across the grave. She looked like I feel every time the slavers come to Beroe for the tithe.”
He didn’t ask her to expand on her statement. He didn’t have to. She had told him in his cell in a voice thick with acrimony, I help enough already. That told him all he needed to know about her feelings regarding the annual journey to Kraelag.
“Have you any pain in your back or leg?”
Gilene pressed her palm to her thigh, her expression one of relief mixed with admiration. “I always heal from the price I pay to wield magic, but I’ve never recovered this fast. Halani’s healing skills are better than most.” She glanced down to his side. “I see they weren’t wasted on you either. Those cracked ribs should still be troubling you.”
The poultice Halani had applied to his ribs was meant only for the bruising yet went deeper than skin and sore muscle. He swore he had felt the bones knit themselves together. And Gilene was right. He should still be in agony with every breath he took. Riding would be a torture and sleeping on his back an impossibility. Yet he had done all three now with only a twinge to remind him of his injuries.
“I know little of healers and their ways,” he said. “But the trader woman knows what she’s doing. Should Hamod decide to stop robbing graves and whatever else he does to obtain his goods, he could sell Halani’s salves to keep them fed.”
Silence fell between them again, and Azarion turned his attention back to watching the steppe and listening for the sound of hoofbeats. For now, there was only the whisper of grass bent to the wind, and the lively buzzing of insects interrupted by the occasional birdcall.
“Tell me something,” she said. “The empress is known throughout the Empire for her cruelties, but you were a valuable slave. Hanimus said you were her favorite, so why inflict such punishment on you?”
Gilene’s unexpected question, asked in a voice soft with compassion, made his gut twist.
Over the years, Dalvila had done far more to Azarion than just beat him. His mind shied away from the worst memories, the worst degradations. The carnage in the Pit, with its blood-lusting crowds screaming endlessly for more slaughter, was gentle play compared to the brutality of the woman all of the Empire feared. The last six years of his captivity had been the most trying, and that horror he would lay at the empress’s dainty feet. The only thing that had stopped him from killing her long ago was his absolute resolve in regaining his freedom. To kill her was to die himself, and he wasn’t ready to die. Not yet.
“The empress,” he said slowly without looking away from the sunlit steppe, “enjoys pain. Sometimes of those she beds and sometimes her own. But most of all she enjoys humiliation, risk, death, blood.”
He glanced at Gilene. The burial chamber was too dim to make out subtleties in expression, but Azarion thought he spotted the brief flicker of sympathy—of knowing—in her eyes.
“Not so different from her subjects then.”
He snorted, amused by her wry remark. As a surviving Flower of Spring, she’d certainly see it that way. “No, I suppose not.”
“You must hate her.”
Somehow, that seemed too mild a word for what he felt for the empress. “I do.”
“I hate them all. Were the Krael Empire wiped off the face of the world, I wouldn’t weep.”
He didn’t blame her. As the day waned, Gilene slumped sideways, eyes closed, lips partially opened to emit a soft snore.
Azarion watched her for a moment, noting her smooth skin, the curve of her cheekbone, and the shape of her mouth. Her features, softened in sleep, lost the pinched sourness stamped there when she was awake. She was long legged and slim, with forgettable curves and memorable scars. And a will the Empire had not yet broken and likely never would.
He left her in the barrow to check the horses and survey the necropolis. So far, he’d heard nothing beyond the natural music of the steppe, but he had caught a faint whiff of smoke. It was too wet and too early in the season for a grass fire, so that meant a campfire. If the Nunari drew no closer, he’d have to decide whether they should leave the barrow at nightfall and chance being spotted or heard, or stay one more day and risk losing the distance they’d gained earlier. Neither option pleased him.
The agacin was still asleep when he returned to sentry duty at the door, and he took a moment to ease her to her side and drape one of her shawls over her back. The sun beating down on the grave’s threshold and several hours of no sleep made Azarion drowsy. He occupied himself with recollections of his home and family: horse herds stretched as far as the eye could see, and Savatar women, dressed in their long tunics and flared trousers, dancing to the music of flute and mouth harp. He was so close to the Sky Below now, he could almost taste it on his tongue.
At nightfall, the gathering vibration of hoofbeats rose up in the earth to tickle his feet through his shoes. The vibration was soon joined by the sound of those hoofbeats and the distant pitch of voices.
Gilene jerked upright when Azarion shook her shoulder. He pressed a finger to her lips. The whites of her eyes shone in the dark like sickle moons. “Shh,” he whispered. “Get up. They’re coming.”
She scrambled to her feet, snatching up her shawl to toss it against the adjacent wall where the rest of their gear was hidden from view. Azarion guided her to the opposite side and tucked her behind him. To see them, their visitors would have to enter the grave instead of crouch at the threshold.
The voices grew louder, along with the hoofbeats of horses. Azarion eased the longer knife he carried out of its sheath and waited.