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Chapters (58)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright
  3. Dedication
  4. Part One
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Part Two: Three Months Later
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Chapter Twenty-one
  27. Part Three
  28. Chapter Twenty-two
  29. Chapter Twenty-three
  30. Chapter Twenty-four
  31. Chapter Twenty-five
  32. Chapter Twenty-six
  33. Chapter Twenty-seven
  34. Chapter Twenty-eight
  35. Chapter Twenty-nine
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-one
  38. Chapter Thirty-two
  39. Chapter Thirty-three
  40. Chapter Thirty-four
  41. Chapter Thirty-five
  42. Chapter Thirty-six
  43. Chapter Thirty-seven
  44. Chapter Thirty-eight
  45. Chapter Thirty-nine
  46. Chapter Forty
  47. Chapter Forty-one
  48. Chapter Forty-two
  49. Chapter Forty-three
  50. Chapter Forty-four
  51. Chapter Forty-five
  52. Chapter Forty-six
  53. Chapter Forty-seven
  54. Chapter Forty-eight
  55. Epilogue
  56. Acknowledgments
  57. About the Author
  58. Keep Reading for a Sneak Peek at Umbertouched

I swallow the scream at the last moment, but not before a ragged sound escapes my throat. The girl jumps away from me. I realize I’ve thrown my hand up over my head. I stagger, struggling to get my bearings. My heart is about to burst out of my chest. The girl’s staring at me, and I thread my arms under the dead soldier’s armpits to hide my confusion. That memory had been far too real.

“Clear me some space in those bushes,” I tell the girl. When she continues to stare, I raise my voice. “Move!”

She runs ahead of me, pushing branches aside, and then the two of us start the work of hiding the body. She keeps her distance from me, and I can’t blame her. Have I gone mad?

Finally the body’s well hidden. I wave the girl away and she runs off. I kick some more leaves over the corpse as I watch her go. She’s silent and fast—like a wood sprite, if wood sprites carried slings and had deadly aim. To be honest, I’m not sure why I commanded the girl against taking that shot. She had as much of a right to go for the kill as I did. But then, where would that have led? One kill and then another. In several years she’ll be leading raids on the mainland, and one day she’ll be captured. For a moment, the future stretches out all too clear. For me, for her, for the boy she wrestled, and for everyone else around the campfire tonight.

And I wonder just how much longer we can endure.

Chapter Five

Days with our patients bleed into nights, which blur again into sunrise. At first I wonder if I can do it, whether I can work so hard to save men who care nothing for us, who’ve made our lives difficult in so many ways. I wonder if I should drag my feet, leave their fates to the Goddess. But the plague is no less horrifying when it strikes an enemy, and all men look the same under the fever’s hold. And after a while I’m too tired to think about anything at all.

I alternate rounds in the plague-ridden soldiers’ cottages with visits to the commander. I mix potions for Arxa morning and night: vel tea for fever, valerian root to help him sleep, a tiny bit of snake venom to keep his blood flowing freely. Doron can find no fault with my treatments, but even our best drafts can only do so much. In his delirium, Arxa relives past battles, and there’s one in particular, in the southern deserts, that he commands over and over, ordering cavalry to harry the enemy flank, cursing the adversary for making his archers shoot into the sun. In a quiet moment, he calls for Mehtap, and I wonder if he has a woman back home.