“They keep taking land and territory, but they’ve stopped extending the border.”

Sirach nods, the expansive brim of her hat nodding along with her. “They’ve pushed as far as they can while continuing to sustain the divine paradise they’ve built for their citizens.”

“And they sustain it by stripping everything beyond the border, right down to the bones of the world, and feeding it all to the cities.”

“You can’t argue with the results,” Sirach says, only a drop of bitterness poisoning her jovial tone.

“I didn’t notice any of this when they were carting us to the front,” Evie marvels.

“You’re seeing a lot you never saw before,” Sirach reminds her.

With that, the Sicclunan warrior puts heels to her mount and takes off at a gallop, riding up the column and eliciting a barreling wave of cheers from her soldiers.

“That girl is something,” Mother Manai says.

Evie nods. “Of all the things she could be, yes, she is indeed something.”

“I think in spite of all that brash, she’s soft on you.”

“Maybe she is.”

“And you?” Mother Manai asks.

“My love life is complicated enough as it is,” Evie dryly laments.

It was strange enough for her to part with Brio after making finding and protecting him the center of her life for so long. It was agreed between everyone, except him, that Brio belonged back at the Sicclunan’s hidden camp to await the outcome of the border battle. Evie had to remind him that even if he still possessed both legs, he was no warrior to begin with, and in the high likelihood the rest of them were killed, the Sicclunan leadership would need someone like Brio who knows the Crachian mind and bureaucracy from the inside.

Evie admires the man he’s become. She once truly loved the boy, and she’s found it difficult separating the two.

Bam continues his new habit of perpetually flanking her protectively as they march toward their fate.

“Why do you keep that hood pulled so low all the time, Bam?” she asks.

Nothing at first, and then his deep hound dog voice murmurs, “They said my face scares the children.”

Evie’s brow furrows. “Who said? What children?”

Bam motions with the hammerhead of his mallet at Lariat and Diggs who’ve been keeping their own Council on the march, laughing at war stories and foul jokes.

“I fought with Lariat in the alleys before the Aegins took us. That’s why m’face looks like this. The man who ran the fights told me to keep my face covered because it could scare children in the street.”

Evie frowns. “He sounds like a man who needs his ass kicked, and he was just teasing you, cruelly. I like your face. It reminds me of a sock puppet I had when I was a girl. I always smiled when I looked at it.”