“Kesh, on all those caravan runs you made into the Sirniakan Empire when you were Master Feden’s slave, were you as likely as this to jump at your own shadow? The approach to these ruins is narrow, along the ridge. No one is going to try to navigate that track at night without a light. If they come with a light, we’ll see them. As for whatever folk live down in Sohayil, even if someone down there happened to see our light all this way up here, they’d most likely think the ruins are haunted. So we can rest easy for one night. Why don’t you trust my judgment?”

He shuddered as he turned away from the view, clutching his bowl of gruel in his hands. Someone could crawl up that long steep slope, even at night, testing each handhold, moving slowly, using feel and the texture of the air to make his way. Someone who knew the hills well.

A single lamp illuminated the stone walls and dusty ground. The old beacon tower had collapsed untold years ago. Most likely, the folk in Sohayil had experienced relative peace for so long that no one had thought they needed to repair it. Just like in Candra Crossing, no one had thought an army would march through, devastating every village in its path. Maybe in the valley of Sohayil they still didn’t know. An army marching down West Track could have entirely bypassed Sohayil.

A spire of rock, its sheer face impossible to climb, thrust up behind the ruined beacon tower. It had a flattened top, and if you looked at it from the right angle you might imagine those contours were the remains of an old wall, all the way up there where only someone with wings could reach. Probably it was an old Guardian altar, long since abandoned.

Was that a light—a lamp’s flame—winking up there? No. It was only a trick of the light, catching in the angles of rock as the sun set behind them.

From the the tower’s ruins, beside the campfire, she watched him. “You’ve never told me.”

“Told you what?”

“Obviously since my debt was bought by Ushara’s temple, I was apprenticed to the Merciless One. All those years we were slaves, I never saw you more than once a year. You never told me where you served your apprentice year. Which of the gods you served.”

His stomach was aching, and his head hurt. He gulped down the last of the gruel, walked back to the fire, and took hold of the pot’s handle. “I’ll scrub this clean.”

She grabbed his wrist and held it. “I’m just curious.”

“Let me go.”

Her hold tugged on him, like a river’s current dragging you in the direction you don’t want to go. “Are you telling me that Master Feden broke all custom and holy law, and did not let you go for your one year when you were fourteen or sixteen? He could be fined for that! Even children sold into debt slavery must be allowed to serve their apprentice year to one of the gods. Why didn’t you complain?”