“That is all well and good for a lieutenant, but you must take greater care in the future. God knows I have few enough officers of your promise, and I cannot afford to have your career ended early by a stray musket ball. And there are . . . other duties, to which you are uniquely suited. Do you understand?”

Winter thought she did, even the parts that Janus was reluctant to say out loud. “Other duties” had to refer to Infernivore, the demon she’d taken on herself in Khandar during the battle to secure the Thousand Names. For the most part, it lay quiescent in the darkest pits of her mind, but if she laid a hand on another demon-carrier, she could will it to come forth and devour the other creature. For Janus, that made her a weapon against what he called the true enemy: the Priests of the Black and their Penitent Damned. And we can’t have a weapon breaking too soon. If Winter died on the field, Janus would have to find someone else to bear Infernivore, and from what he’d said the success rate for invoking the demon was not high. Failure, in that context, meant an agonizing death; when she thought about the risk she’d run, all unknowing, it still gave her the shivers.

“Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Good.” He straightened up and gave her his brief smile again. “Excellent work today, Colonel Ihernglass. Well done.”

Winter paused, taken aback, then got to her feet and saluted. “Thank you, sir!”

*   *   *

As a captain, Winter rated a slightly larger tent than the usual, though it still wasn’t tall enough that she could stand up inside. She peeked between the flaps and was not at all surprised to see Jane within, sitting cross-legged on a cushion beside the camp bed. Winter let out a long breath and resigned herself to talking Jane down from the raging fury she’d worked herself up to in Janus’ command tent.

When she entered, though, Jane didn’t explode. She didn’t even look up. Her hands rested on her knees, and her eyes were fixed on the floor. Her soft red hair, reaching almost to her shoulders now, hung around her face in dirty tassels.

“Jane?” Winter said, slightly alarmed. “Are you all right?”

“No,” Jane said. Her voice was thick.

“What happened?”

“I went to look in on . . .” She paused and took a deep breath. “On the injured.”

“Oh.”

Winter pulled off her boots and set them beside the door, then padded softly across the cloth-covered earth to Jane’s side. She sat down, silently, and snaked one arm around the other woman’s shoulders. Jane leaned against her, hunched and miserable. There were clear tracks on her face where tears had cut through the grime and powder residue.

“Chris died,” Jane said in a whisper.

“I know,” Winter said. “I was standing right next to her.”