As soon as Denavin walked out the door, the hint of softness in Izra's eyes vanished. Raw power still flowed from her heaving chest, and blood dripped from her knuckles, but she gave her next order with the practiced calm of a priest orchestrating a ceremony.

"Remove the binds and gag."

Plu gave a strangled gulp and nudged one heel back, but Ru scrambled toward me and loosened the rope from my wrists. I drew my arms in front of me, wincing at the splitting pain as the motion drew the skin on my back tight. Blood trickled from my shoulder down my spine, hot and then cold.

Ru shuffled in front of me and crouched to draw the gag from my mouth. She shared Plu's stocky, muscular physique and blindingly pale skin, but where Plu's hair hung in greasy blonde strands, Ru shaved hers almost to the scalp under her earline and yanked the top part into a tight ponytail. Ru swung up to her feet and spun to face Izra.

"Izra, we didn't know you... Denavin swore this was your order."

"I know." The austere voice gave away nothing. "Ru, go fetch some hot water, bandages, and alcohol. Plu, bring Zander here."

Both sisters nodded and murmured unintelligible words as they scurried toward the door. When the door clicked shut behind them, I lifted my eyes to meet Izra's. Her gaze pinned me like heavy cuffs, and the cold, dank room suddenly grew hot — charged by the electric pulse between us. My gaze flicked down to her blood dripping from her mutilated still-clenched knuckles and then dropped to her motionless feet. Half-formed words battled for dominance in the chaotic warfield of my mind. Should I thank her? Apologize?

What finally emerged was neither.

"You shouldn't have sent Denavin away just for me."

Her feet remained motionless, but a slight hitch in her breath betrayed some reaction. "Oh, you think I did that just for you? You really still think I still care about you that much?"

Though Denavin had said basically the same words, my heart clenched differently this time, sharper than the relentless throb of my shoulder. "No. No, I just... she knows too much."

"She does." A quiet, resigned agreement. "I'll visit her tomorrow... smooth things over. I've done it before, and I can do it again."

"Smooth things over," I repeated, inexplicably bothered by this cool admission. "And how will you do that?"

"However she wants me to."

Her voice remained calm, but I thought I heard an undercurrent of dark bitterness. Unease tapped my spine as I reevaluated my first memory of seeing them together. Though Izra had emanated such confidence, I remembered Denavin's hand clamping over Izra's forearm, and Izra avoiding her gaze. I want to see her crawl, Denavin had said. But that was about me, an enemy who had betrayed them. Even if Izra had lashed out in the heat of the moment, Denavin would not retaliate harshly... would she?

After a moment of silence, Izra spoke once more, a bit unbalanced.

"You are... it's just your back, right? She didn't..."

I nodded, eyes still not moving from her feet. Stockings and soft trousers, I registered for the first time. "It's just my back."

Her stocking feet padded the dirt as she shifted and slipped toward the door. When her hand closed over the door handle, panic surged up in my chest. In just a moment, I would be alone again. Alone to remember the slow slice of the blade through my back and to contemplate the bleak future ahead. Alone to remember Pim's fate and to imagine Rona's.

"Izra, wait."

She froze, blood seeping through the cracks of her fingers to wet the door handle. I rolled words over on my tongue, but the plea that clawed my chest was nonsensical and unacceptable.

Please don't leave.

Instead, I cleared my throat. "It's nothing. You should go sleep."

Then the door opened, Izra slipped out, and the door shut. The latch and lock clicking back into place echoed in my heart. I squeezed my eyes shut, overcome by despair. Beneath my eyelids, I watched water spray the twinkling smile of the golden Goddess Rashika fountain in the courtyard. Goddess Rashika, what have I done wrong? Why did you forsake me?

And then, with cold leaking into my core: Goddess Rashika... are you even there?

The door burst open, and a tiny old man flipped his arms out wide. "Here I am!"

I blinked at him, too disoriented to process the sight. "Uh..."

The man scurried forward and plopped down onto his rear end only a couple of feet from me. "Zander," he said, extending a wrinkled brown hand darker than Izra's but not as dark as mine. "Pleased to meet your acquaintance. Epsa, is it?"

The warrior part of me noted that he extended his left hand, meaning any ensuing attack would likely come from that side. Then my eyes flicked to his right side, and I did a double-take. His right sleeve folded back to his elbow, revealing a gnarled stump where his right hand should have been. A zigzagging line puckered the mottled skin like a poorly-sewn canvas sack.

"Uh... yes," I said absently, eyes fastened to the stump arm. "I'm Epsa."

He chuckled, and the hand he had offered me snapped up to smooth both sides of his graying mustache. Above a receding hairline, his wavy gray hair parted straight through the middle, cutting in toward his neck just above the shoulders. His amber eyes twinkled.

"So you noticed the hand, is it? Or noticed its absence, daresay."

Despite the ache of my back and my heart, curiosity took hold. "Were you... did it..."

"Cut off by a Royal Guard," he said with a tip of his head. When he noted my expression, he chortled once more. "They thought I was stealing. Though..." He raised his mutilated right wrist and then frowned at it, and I had the uncanny impression that he was raising a phantom finger. Voice drooping slightly, he said, "Though I will have you know that I was not."

Then the door swung open once more, and Plu bustled into the room. She clutched white cloths and a bottle of clear alcohol in one hand and a bucket of steaming water in the other. She laid down all of the items beside the door before eyeing the man beside me.

"Zander." Her voice squawked, and she fluttered her fingers over her thighs. "Should you really be sitting so close to her?"

When I glanced at Zander, his expression relayed only amusement. "So I am supposed to tend to her wound from across the room, is it?"

One of Plu's hands darted up to chew her thumbnail. "I can tie her up, if you want. After..." Her gaze darted my way so briefly I barely caught the cobalt irises. "After Ru gets here."

The door swung open once more, and Plu melted and puffed out a breath as Ru strutted into the room. "Do you need a hand, Zander?"

"No." A touch of wry amusement warmed his voice. "Still got one."

Ru and Plu emitted identical gulps.

Zander waved his stump arm in a dismissive gesture. "Off to bed with you, girls." His tone was tender — almost fatherly. "No good to lose even more sleep, daresay."

"Yes, Zander," both twins replied in unison. They bowed their heads slightly and tromped out of the room.

Zander shoved to his feet with a grunt and hobbled toward the materials left at the door. When he returned to me, I scooted around so my back faced him, and he sank down behind me. The cloth dunked into water with a splash, and I clenched my back muscles as air brushed the open wound. When the cloth swiped over torn flesh, I flinched away with an involuntary hiss.

The bottle of alcohol rattled against the ground, liquid glugged onto cloth, and the touch returned. I pinched my thigh, a sharp sting that failed to mitigate the burn, and released an involuntary whimper. The cloth left my back for a moment, and when it returned, Zander skirted the edges of the wound lightly.

For some reason, this gentleness just hurt even more, the pressure swelling in my chest over the last weeks suddenly unbearable. Desperate words bubbled up without my permission.

"How can you be so gentle when you have lost so much? How are you not angry?"

The cloth paused for only a bare moment before continuing with the same delicate care as before. "Everyone has lost something."

"Not everyone shows kindness to those responsible for their loss."

"Responsible for my loss? You chopped off some hands yourself, is it?"

"No, but I'm part of the Royal Guard. And I..." I hesitated, but the ache in my chest demanded I release the words. "I helped them capture innocent Lesser God worshippers."

He reached down to dab the cloth in more alcohol. "So I heard. I also heard you helped Izra free them."

I shook my head. "That doesn't cancel the pain they went through."

"True enough. Luckily, the Lesser God worshippers managed to stow the children underground before the Royal Guard broke down the door. When children are harmed, daresay I get more worked up."

Underground? Distantly, I remembered the hollow creak of the floorboards in Pim's shrine. I swiveled around to face Zander, who blinked at me and dropped the cloth.

"Lesser God worshippers build hideaways... underground?"

"Oh, Acrador's scrotum." He smoothed both sides of his mustache several times in quick succession. "Daresay I've said too much."

"Zander, can you bring Izra here? Please, I need to talk to her."

He furrowed silvery eyebrows. "About what?"

"Tell her I think I know where the Trogolese child is."

* * *

A few hours later, carriage wheels crackled over gravel, jolting me back and forth with each pothole. Light lanced through the openings in the carriage coverings, warming my clammy skin and searing a fuzzy glow through the thin blindfold. Rope bound my wrists snugly, and lumpy canvas sacks buried my legs and swallowed most of my waist. Though my wound was bound in bandages and covered by a fresh tunic, I winced each time my shoulder pressed against the wall behind me.

The carriage jerked in a new direction, and shadow cooled my skin, interspersed with flashes of sunlight. Then the wagon wheels rolled to a halt, and Izra's boots smacked the ground. She circled the perimeter for a minute before returning to the carriage. The cart rocked slightly, canvas sacks shifted, and then fingers worked at the knot on the back of the blindfold.

As the cloth fell away, I blinked at Izra. An oversized cloak hooded her face, concealing her eyes from my view and casting a shadow across the sharp cut of her cheekbones and jaw. She reached toward me, and sunlight illuminated the bandages wrapping her knuckles, pink spots sponging the white cloth.

I remembered watching her wreak havoc, and the strangest giddiness fluttered through my stomach. Though the sight had been unsettling, knowing the dormant power underlying her every graceful move excited me in a way I had never felt before. Like lightning splitting open the night sky, the danger accentuated her beauty.

How could this storm cater to the whims of someone like Denavin?

And how had she almost fallen for me?

Izra grabbed the rope around my wrists and pulled at the knot, her movements brusque and efficient. The rope slipped free and coiled next to the blindfold. Then she jerked her head to beckon me and scampered out of the carriage.

Outside of the carriage, brown hills rolled out into the bright horizon. Colorful cottages with peeling paint and sunken roofs perched on the top of each mound.

"It's the blue cottage up the slope on the left," I said.

Izra scanned the area around us once more before striding toward Pim's cottage. My feet moved before my mind, jogging a few steps to keep pace with her. If this was a trap, I could not let them capture Izra again.

Then I realized the ridiculousness of my own thinking. Though my hands were now free, I had no weapon. And was I really willing to kill guards who were just doing their jobs? Guards I would have joined just weeks ago?

On my first visit years ago, Pim and I squelched through mud, trampled ferns, and watched for slithering snakes as we trekked through the marshes between the hills. Now Izra and I padded over dry, lifeless dirt. Izra's cloak swished around her ankles, and her hood obscured her profile. I scoped the nearby trees for any sign of movement, but only a few small animals broke the stillness.

Izra climbed the front steps to Pim's front door and then turned back toward me. Her hands on her hips propped the cloak open, revealing a hilt tucked into both sides. She lifted one hand to the door handle and cocked her head slightly, inviting me forward.

Fighting back a wave of anxiety, I stepped past her and pushed the door open.

The inside of Pim's home looked exactly as it did the day before, the dusty footprints untarnished. I picked my way around the footprints toward the door with the broken padlock and eased it open. Ignoring the gleaming gods crowding the outside of the room, I paced toward the center and crouched to rap my knuckles on the floor.

Soft footsteps followed me into the room. Izra leaned against the wall just inside the door, arms folded, brow furrowed, and unreadable dark eyes studying me. I shuffled to the right and rapped again.

The rap rang hollow.

Heart quickening, I traced the floorboards until I found a groove. When I grasped the board and pried it up, several feet of floor shifted free, revealing a dugout deep and wide enough for a man Pim's size to sit. Ratty blankets piled in one corner, and a few nuts and dried fruit scattered the ground around a half-empty burlap sack. Rona had almost certainly been here... but where was she now?

Then a tiny sneeze drew my attention to the blankets piled in one corner. One blanket wiggled and slipped down, and brown eyes peeked up at me amid bronze curls.

"Epsa?" she squeaked.

"Rona!" In the rush of relief, I slipped to my knees and reached toward her without thinking. When her eyes widened, I jerked my arms to my sides and rocked back to my heels with a pang. This child had just as much reason to distrust me as everyone else.

Then Rona shot up on wobbly legs, vaulted out of the dugout, and wrapped her arms around my waist.

My back went rigid and arms locked at my sides for a startled moment. Then I released a long, shaky exhale, and the pressure in my chest eased a bit, like water seeping through cracks in a dam. Her furry face buried in my shoulder, and I pulled her in closer and sank into the hug.

"You remembered my name," I whispered into her hair, chin tucked to marvel at this living being. One person I could save.

She tilted her head so one eye met my own. "Of course. Pim tells stories about you all the time. You are the bravest, fiercest warrior in all of Najila."

Tears pricked my eyes, blurring my vision, and I clutched the small body a little tighter. "Pim told you that?"

"Uh huh. And he told me if I hid really good for a really long time, I could be a warrior like you someday." Then she twisted in my arms to look back toward Izra, who leaned against the wall beside the door watching us. "Where is Pim now? Is he hiding, too?"

I shook my head, voice strangled off by the salty mucus clogging my throat. I swallowed hard, attempting to prepare a response. But before I could decide what to say, Izra whipped toward the door and wrenched the sword from her hip.

Several sets of footsteps clomped up the front steps.