A scowl, more mock angry than serious. “That’s not the same, Keeper. Those are—”

“Ancestral devotion markings for high-born warriors,” she said. “I know. I’m only teasing.” She shifted for a better look. As long as the subject was being discussed, it gave her the excuse. “I’ve heard it’s done with needles and ink. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“When I asked Orbec about them, he said it doesn’t hurt.”

“He lied.”

She laughed softly and looked up. “Truly?”

“Very truly. I am extremely glad they only do one section at a time, with many moons between.”

She smiled and shifted onto her stomach, her feet over Daigo. Gavril was sitting, leaning back on his elbow, letting her examine the tattoo on his left arm. His eyes were almost closed, as if basking in the fire’s heat. He looked more at peace than she’d ever seen him.

“When do you get the upper arms done?” she asked.

“Soon. They were supposed to be done on the eighteenth anniversary of my birth, but winter is hardly the time for travel in the Wastes.”

“Are you glad for the delay?”

He paused. “Not particularly. Getting inked is hardly pleasant, but . . .” He shrugged. “It means something that’s important to me.”

“It’s beautiful work.”

He hesitated. Then, “Thank you.” Another pause. “I’ll remember that when they’re doing the inking, and I’m trying very hard not to cry out.”

She laughed. “If you fell from a thunder hawk without so much as a gasp, I think you can handle inked needles.”

She rolled onto her back, staring up at the dark sky, feeling the fire’s heat against the top of her head. Gavril reached forward and she felt a faint tug on her hair. She tilted her head back to see him moving her hair away from the fire pit.

“Before it catches alight,” he said.

“See? It’s a menace. We may have escaped a thunder hawk, but ultimately, we will perish . . . killed by my hair.”

A chuckle. He settled in again, and silence fell, broken only by the snapping of the sparks and the crackle of burning wood. When the clouds shifted, stars lit up the sky, brighter than they’d ever seemed in Edgewood.

“I know you’re curious,” Gavril said after a while. “About the sorcery. You’re trying very hard not to ask about it.”

“Given how difficult it was for you to admit to it, I can hardly imagine you’d welcome questions.”

A few moments of silence. Then, “What I said yesterday, about the rumors of my father, how his enemies used that against him: it was true.”

“Except that they weren’t mere rumors.”