They’re slowly overtaking the remaining half of the Sicclunan war party. Evie rears her mount back from the battle and scans the ongoing wreckage for the party’s leader, but neither they nor their white mount are anywhere to be seen. Looking from the small battle to the flat lands across which they all came, Evie spots that oversize hat and a large white rump shrinking in the distance.

Without thinking, she turns her commandeered mount and charges after the Sicclunan captain.

By the time Evie realizes she’s left the battle, and her fellow Savages, behind she’s already closed a large portion of the gap between her horse and crimson outrider. A voice she’s begun to forget, her true voice, Ashana’s voice, warns her that she’s acting in haste and without any of the resources needed to cover her flank if things go wrong.

Evie the Savage doesn’t listen.

A large formation of dry, dust-laden boulders rises from the wasteland in front of them. Evie spurs her mount forward, galloping alongside the Sicclunan outrider captain. When she’s close enough, Evie jerks the reins to the right as hard as she possibly can, forcing her mount to collide with the other horse. Their front legs entwine and they’re both born to the ground, throwing Evie overhead and into the dirt between the beginnings of the rocks. The wind can’t seem to escape her body fast enough, and everything between her pelvis and neck goes numb.

Evie ignores the pain and the constriction choking her body and mind, scrambling to locate her short sword. The tsuka practically leaped from her hand when she went over her horse’s head. She spots the blade partially wedged inside the crack of a boulder. Evie crawls up the narrow pass into which they’ve toppled and retrieves the weapon. Thrusting its blade into the hard ground, she uses it as leverage to pull herself to her feet, though she has to half lean on the rocks just to turn herself around and maintain her footing.

The Sicclunan captain is sitting against another boulder on the other side of the pass, looking almost casual in their fine crimson leather and ridiculous hat. They might be reclining at an afternoon picnic. The only indication they’ve just been through a near-fatal fall is the steady rise and fall of their chest accompanying every shallow breath.

“You’re still alive, then?” Evie asks.

That moon-brimmed hat rises and she spots a flash of the queerest purple eyes beneath.

Evie can recall only one time in her life when she stared into eyes that color. They belonged to the Sicclunan agent disguised as a serving woman who attempted to poison the wine at Evie’s first and only Revel as a Savage. She was the only one besides Spud-Bar to realize Evie didn’t belong among the Legion.