“No, I can’t. I have preferences about this, strong preferences, and they are not rooted in what’s best for you or your training. My preferences are personal. I don’t…I don’t want to influence your decision, and I know I will if I give you advice.” He smiled slightly. For the first time since he laid the choices out to me, some of his warmth resurfaced. “You ought to trust your instincts more. You have a sound mind.”

I dropped my head into my hands. I had spent hours thinking about the choice as it related to me. I spent seconds thinking about the choice as it related to him. I’d seen him with his sister, and I’d seen how the bond between them was a thing that brought him both deep comfort and a wealth of pain. My own future was a vague, unformed, looming thing. My future was something too fraught with unnamed failures to make sense of. I didn’t know how this decision would impact it. But I did know how it would impact him. “I’ll go with you.”

He didn’t ask me if I was sure. He didn’t ask me why I made the choice I did. All he did was give my shoulder a quick pat as he passed by. That was enough to convince us both, I think, that I’d made the right decision.

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Dirva, Abira, and I took the train from Rabatha to Tarquintia. In those early days of the railroad, Tarquintia was the furthest out the rails went. We made the rest of the trip on camelback. It was a slow trek. The desert out there is flat and empty; the days of travel were monotonous. My camel and I did not get along very well, and I spent most of the time keeping my feet tucked under me so he couldn’t bite them. It took us a week to reach the walls of the western border. We came to it in one of the empty places, where there was just us, the sand, and the wall. Dirva rode next to me when we got there. “Have you ever crossed the border?” he asked.

“No. I’ve only ever been in Ardijan and Rabatha.”

“Crossing the border is something you should go into with open eyes. They will separate us and interrogate us in different rooms. They will search our things and confiscate whatever they happen to like or whatever seems valuable.”