Riv hovered at Aphra’s shoulder, pouring her more wine as her sister held out her empty cup.

They were in their barrack’s feast-hall at Drassil, Aphra’s hundred were finishing their evening meal. Once the White-Wings were done, Riv and the other trainee warriors would sit and eat, though usually Aphra was more informal, allowing Riv and the others to sit and eat with them. On occasion some of the Ben-Elim would visit and take their evening meal with Aphra and the White-Wings. This was one of those evenings: white-winged, blond-haired Kol sitting upon the bench beside Aphra, a Ben-Elim named Adonai with him, as perfectly handsome as all the Ben-Elim, a disarming innocence to his smile. A dozen other of their kin were scattered about the feast-hall.

They are not all as aloof as Israfil, Riv observed; the Ben-Elim were looking relaxed, eating, drinking cups of wine and laughing.

‘I wish they’d hurry up and go, or finish their meal. I’m starving to death!’ Jost whispered to Riv. He stood close by, his broken arm from his failed warrior trial out of its sling now but still bound tight. He was attending to Fia, Aphra’s closest friend, and a handful of others, and making a fair job of pouring wine despite his injured arm. Fia was deep in hushed conversation with Aphra. There seemed to be a tension between them, Riv observed. No one else would notice, but Riv saw something in the set of Aphra’s shoulders, the jut of her jaw.

Aphra held her empty cup out to Riv and she poured some more wine.

She doesn’t usually drink like this.

‘What do you make of the news?’ Riv said to her sister, as much to distract her and somehow shift her mood with Fia as anything else. Aphra looked up at her, an unfocused stare for a moment, as her mind lingered on whatever she had been talking about with Fia.

‘News? You mean the beacons?’

‘Aye.’ Riv nodded. Word had reached Drassil, spreading through the White-Wings faster than fire through a summer-dry forest, that blazing bonfires had been spied throughout the Land of the Faithful, and even further afar, in Ardain to the west, and the Desolation to the north. Rumours of unrest were spreading along with them. Rumours of human sacrifice, like the body that Ethlinn and Garidas had discovered in the Kadoshim lair where they had captured the half-breed.

Aphra shrugged, draining her cup and holding it out for some more. ‘I shall do as a good soldier does, and wait on the word of my commanders,’ she said. ‘You could always ask him, though.’ She nodded at Kol, who was sitting beside her, though he was turned away, his wings taking up a space of their own. He was laughing good-naturedly with Adonai and one of Aphra’s captains, Estel, blonde-haired and recently promoted.

‘Not that he seems too concerned,’ Aphra commented.