Just like that, her deep-seated fears seemed so silly, so easily conquerable. Mari wished she knew how Stasia did it. The talent bordered on magical.

“I’m trying to be serious!” she insisted. “It was never easy for me, you know that. Yet here on Thanet, with Endarius’s help, it’s become… I was going to say tolerable, but that’d be a lie. I’m looking forward to it now, Stasia. I’m no longer seeing the soldiers as people. Only prey.”

“Given the life we lead, is that really so bad?”

“But what happens when the killing stops? What happens when the war is over? Do we shed our violence like old garments? Can we find ourselves a life to live when all this bloodshed and horror turns to peace?”

So many questions with difficult answers, but she was never one to prefer ignorance. Those answers, they mattered. If the future they created was bleak or hopeless, then the path they walked must be changed. She believed that firmly, deeply. Mari protected people. She fought for those who could not fight for themselves. Her form may be monstrous, but she was no monster. She was a god made mortal flesh.

“Do you want the truth?” Stasia asked. “I’ve never believed in peace, not in my lifetime. How could I? The idea that people could go about their lives free—truly free—to be themselves? That calm is as foreign to me as the towers of Eldrid. It’s so much easier to believe in war. The strong enforce their will upon the weak. The one with a sword decides the life of the one on their knees. And so I strive to be strong. I strive to never find myself on my knees before an empire that would see me erased.”

The ring of a clock tower interrupted any further thoughts. The two fell silent as the tolls washed over them. A thousand memories rose and fell in Mari’s mind. Given the nature of their role as builders of insurgents, they often arrived in lands with the Joining Laws recently enacted. The hurt from it, the bloodshed, was always fresh. Thanet was one of the rare places they had come so recently after conquering, and before the laws had been put in place. Mari doubted it a coincidence that it was here in Vallessau her sister, whose usual whirlwind romances lasted a few weeks to months at best, had found someone she deeply cared about and could remain with.

“If you’re staying here in Thanet, I’m staying, too,” she said, struggling to find the right words. “We’ll make this our home. The best home we can possibly build.”

Stasia pulled Mari close for an embrace. Her cheek rested on Mari’s forehead. Strong arms held her tight, hard muscle to support her own softness. It was everything she needed, and she wished it could last forever.

“Tell me of Miquo,” she whispered.