Ashyn remembered back in Edgewood, the village girls vying for lovers among the guards. It was not easy to marry into a higher caste, but it was possible, and for the girls of Edgewood, those warrior guards were their best chance of bettering their lives. If they managed to catch one even temporarily, they’d parade trophies like the plunder of war. Most prized of all were beads. If their lover wore braids, they’d persuade him to part with a few and weave them into their own hair.

Ashyn looked at Gavril, at that unbound braid, the strap now binding her sister’s locks.

She knew it did not mean the same thing. Her sister was too private a person to ever flaunt a conquest. And yet, was it still a lover’s gift? There was something between her sister and the Kitsune. There always had been, even when they were at each other’s throats. Now even Ronan saw it, given the way he watched them whisper.

Was he sad to see it? He ought not to be, considering he had a girl in the city. Perhaps, though, he still had feelings for Moria, and she felt no pleasure at seeing him disappointed.

As for Moria and Gavril . . . Ashyn knew her sister was curious about what happened between men and women, and she made little secret of it. But that was a curiosity to be pursued when nothing else required her attention. She would not escape her massacred village, set out on the Wastes with a handsome warrior, and decide it was the perfect opportunity to find out what all the fuss was about.

Yet they had spent five days alone together, in the wake of a tragedy, relying on each other for survival and . . . comfort? Perhaps.

She looked at her sister’s hair.

“Yes,” Moria said. “It’s a mess. Just be thankful I didn’t cut it after it almost got me killed.”

“Your hair?” Ronan said.

“Did I mention the talons on that thunder hawk?” she said. “They liked long hair.”

Ronan moved closer. “You truly killed it?”

“Gavril struck the fatal blow.”

Ronan started to ask for more, but Ashyn cut in. “So your hair, that’s why it’s pulled back like that.”

“Yes, he”—a wave at Gavril, now at the door, talking to the guard outside—“wouldn’t let me cut it and risk angering the spirits. So I made him figure out an alternative.”

That explained the strap then. Expediency. Which Ashyn should have known—while she thought it quite romantic to wear a lover’s beads, her sister was far more practical. Still, there was something between them. . . .

Gavril came back. “We’ll have an audience before sundown.”

“Thank you,” Ashyn said.