single file along the roadside. The Isfayen rode forth in the column, and it took some time to reach them. Lenay warriors cheered as she passed, and she waved, smiling, and trying to be happier than she felt. It was all confusing. She wanted to see Sasha again so badly. Sasha had that way of making things clear and simple to her.
When she reached the Isfayen place in the Lenay column, her first sight was of Yasmyn, riding at her father the Great Lord Faras’s side. The two of them talked and laughed, and Yasmyn’s eyes shone with happiness. Sofy wondered what it would be like, to share a relationship like that with her own father. Sasha rode at Yasmyn’s side, evidently expecting Sofy’s arrival. Upon seeing her, Sasha rode forward, and dismounted. Sofy did likewise, and embraced her tearfully. She could not hug hard, for her brothers had told her of Sasha’s injuries. She could not hug long, either, for the column marched on, oblivious to the concerns of sisters who had not seen each other in far too long, and wanted only a moment’s pause to catch up. It felt awkward, and not at all the heartfelt reunion Sofy had dreamed of. When they parted, Sasha seemed reluctant to meet her eyes.
“Sasha, what’s wrong?” Sofy asked, wiping tears from her cheeks. Sasha’s eyes were dry. Somehow, that disappointed her.
“Did they tell you?” Sasha asked quietly. “About Alythia?”
“No.” And with growing alarm, “Sasha, what about Alythia?”
Sasha made a muttered curse, and stared off across neighbouring woods. “She’s dead, Sofy. The great Tracatan enlightenment killed her.”
Sasha and Sofy rode and talked together at the Isfayen contingent’s head for a long time. Sasha insisted that Sofy tell of her adventures first, from her ride to Baerlyn to assist in the revenge of Jaryd Nyvar, to the assembly of the army, and the subsequent ride to Larosa, and the wedding to follow. Sofy found it difficult to talk, so soon after learning Alythia’s fate, yet she tried, and was not interrupted by floods of tears too frequently.
Sasha then told her own tale, and Sofy listened with mixed horror and concern to hear of Sasha’s trials in Petrodor, and the War of the King, and her most recent horrors in Tracato. Sasha’s tone was flat, lacking its usual expression. She skipped details, and did not embellish as she usually would. Sofy had always loved to hear Sasha’s tales before, as her eyes would come alive with boisterous enthusiasm and carry her listeners along with the tale. Now, the words seemed as dry as Sasha’s eyes, and her telling did not invite any response. Sofy tried interrupting, seeking further detail that might shed more light on what she suspected Sasha of hiding, but there was no joy in the discovery. When Sasha reached Alythia’s death, she skipped very quickly to the end, and waited for Sofy’s latest tears to end.
Sasha took Sofy’s hand, and her grip at least was firm. “How’s Balthaar?” she asked.
“Well,” said Sofy, and paused to find a stronger voice. “He’s hopelessly in love, Sasha.” She managed a weak smile at her sister. Sasha just studied her, curiously. “It’s rather sweet, actually. He’s such a model of Larosan nobility. He’s very refined, very educated, quite arrogant yet not at all mean… I had not thought that such a man could fall in love with a girl like me. And a Lenay savage at that. Although I think for him that is a part of the attraction, he’s fascinated that such a savage culture could produce someone like me.”
“Are you happy?”
“Happy?” Sofy stared at her. Something about the question, so bluntly put, made her anxious. “I’m not sure what happy has to do with anything.”
Sasha seemed as though more impressed with the answer than she’d expected. She rode very upright, Sofy noted, shoulders back, with none of her usual ease. Surely her wounds hurt her. “Do you love him?” Sasha asked.
Sofy shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Then you don’t love him.”
Sofy opened her mouth to protest, but realised that Sasha’s conclusion was obvious. “I barely know him,” she said instead.
“But he’s good in bed,” Sasha persisted. Sofy frowned at her. “And tall and handsome. I hear the talk.”
“He is very tall and handsome,” Sofy agreed, still frowning. “But I’m not a naive little girl any more, Sasha. Tall and handsome is not why I married him.”
“Do you hate him then?”
“Hate him? Why…” She shook her head, flustered. “Sasha, why are you saying these things? It sounds like you’re accusing me of something.”
“I hear you’ve been helpful,” Sasha said flatly. “Helping the lords with their squabbles. Diplomacy was always your strong point.”
“I
“Your responsibility to help the Larosa murder half-caste serrin and invade Saalshen?”
Sofy stared at her, disbelievingly. Anger followed. “And you’re here too! What does that make you, that you now ride against the armies of the Saalshen Bacosh?”
“A fool,” Sasha said bitterly. “A fool, but not a traitor.”
“And I am?”
“No, Sofy. Just a fool, like me. We’re all fools.”
They rode together in silence, amidst the great creak and sway of saddles and hooves. Peasants gathered on the hillside near their village, in huddled brown cloth, and stared fearfully at the passing army. Sofy swallowed her emotion.
“I don’t know what you want of me, Sasha,” Sofy said quietly. “I do the best I can for my people, as you do. My new family is not evil, they are just people, neither more perfect nor more flawed than most. I feel that perhaps I can do some good here. I’m good at diplomacy, as you say. Perhaps I can…perhaps I can moderate, or attempt to talk some reason to those who would not otherwise…”
“If they win,” Sasha said bleakly, “they’ll slaughter everyone. Serrin and half-castes they’ll torture first. Artists, craftsmen, philosophers, all these people are dangerous because they have dangerous ideas, they’ll be killed first. You can’t reason with it, Sofy, because reason is not at issue. Reason is never at issue. In that, Rhillian was right. Only blood will stop it, one way or the other.”
It was too much. Sofy felt her composure slipping, the tears resuming once more. “What would you have me do?”
“There’s nothing any of us can do. Serve the path of honour: family, nation, faith. When all’s said and done, it’s all any of us have.”
“And what about right and wrong?”
“A luxury I once believed in.” Sasha’s eyes were distant. “A fool’s dream. No more.”
In the early afternoon, word spread down the column that the city of Nithele lay ahead, and there a council of war would be held between the Bacosh and Lenay armies. The Isfayen lords, Sasha, Sofy and Yasmyn all rode forward to arrive at the city in good time.
Nithele was a great walled city on the fork of land between two joining rivers. The Isfayen party halted along one riverbank, and now observed the high city walls. Many small boats sat on the bank, and cityfolk walked there, to gawp at the Army of Lenayin, or to throw nets, or to gather driftwood. Planks made a path on the bank to form a low wharf. Men, bare feet slipping, pants rolled to their knees, carried cargo from riverboats dragged bow-first onto the grass.
“How do men live in such places?” Great Lord Faras wondered darkly, observing the stark walls. The red cloth about his brow denoted him as a bloodwarrior, a sacred title in Isfayen, marked by many trials of manhood, and codes of conduct rigorous even by Lenay standards.
“The lowlanders like stone,” his daughter observed. “They live in stone cages, and fear the sky.”
“Do men live as this in the Saalshen Bacosh?” Faras asked Sasha.
“No,” she said. “Their cities are open. They have no internal enemies, and the Steel have not lost a battle in two hundred years, so they do not need these great walls.”
“Never trust a man with no enemies,” said Yasmyn, as they dismounted. Ahead, on the opposite side of the river from the looming Nithele walls, sat a small fishing village, with boats drawn up to the muddy riverbank. About it was a gathering of Lenay vanguard, with many banners and horses.
“The Saalshen Bacosh are surrounded by enemies,” Lord Faras countered his daughter. “Not only have they the mainland Bacosh, they had the Elissian Peninsula to their north, and made short work of them just now. The Steel have won so many glorious victories outnumbered and surrounded, I have no doubt we do not fight for the side of
