“Are you thirsty?”
Just the word thirsty dried up what little moisture Touraine had left. She shook her head.
“You’re lying. I’ll drink first.” She drank from a clay cup and then held it to Touraine’s mouth. Most of the water spilled across her lips and onto the ground, but what she tasted was delicious.
The room was small and bare, with only one lamp. The Brigāni placed a cushion in front of Touraine and sat on it, watching her. Like the Tailleurist tutors, again, who’d watched the Sands like they were fascinating animals.
“What?” Touraine’s voice was a hoarse and dusty thing.
“Why are you really here?”
“You put me here.”
“You’re the highest-ranking soldier of the Balladairan Colonial. They made you an officer. Technically, you’re a gold stripe.” She scanned Touraine over, from the bristles on her scalp to her bound fists and worn boots. The slang sounded strange on her tongue. “Gold stripe” was the nickname for Balladairan officers—or really, anyone with government favor—so called because of the gold on their collars or sleeves. By contrast, grunts were called blackcoats. The Sands were never called blackcoats, even though their coats were just as dark. They were something apart.
“Untie me. I’ll talk.”
“No. It was easy to carry you when you were unconscious. I am not particularly interested in trying under fairer circumstances.”
Touraine frowned. Maybe the fog in her mind hadn’t been natural. The headache at the back of her skull was definitely not like any hangover she’d had. That would mean she had been drugged, though, and the throbbing pain in her head barely left room for the requisite panic, let alone the puzzle.
“How long have I been here?”
The Brigāni shrugged.
The Sands would have noticed that she hadn’t come back from dinner, and Rogan, too. He’d report it to Cantic giddily. How many of them would think she deserted? Would they look for her?
“Are you going to eat me?” Touraine masked the very real fear churning in her stomach with a taunting lilt. The Brigāni legends were only legends. None of the Sands had ever met one, but they had all heard scare stories from their parents—if they had parents.
The other woman rolled her eyes. “We’d actually prefer not to hurt any of the dāyiein. We could be mutually beneficial to each other.”
Touraine snorted, and the sharp breath caught on a probably broken rib. “Not feeling very benefited. What’s a dayeen?” She tried to repeat the word, but it didn’t fit right in her throat.
“The Lost Ones. We can… give you a place. Reunite you with family, if they live.”
It echoed Cheminade’s comment at the dinner so closely that it sent a shiver up Touraine’s spine.
“Half of us aren’t even Qazāli.”
“You are.”
That drew Touraine up short. The Brigāni rested her hands in her lap in a strange palm-up gesture.
“I also hanged five of your people,” Touraine said. “This isn’t personal.”
The lie sounded hollow even to her own ears.
“It’s always personal.” A grief-stricken grimace passed over the woman’s face. “They’re using you. Like they used you in their latest Taargen war.”
Touraine didn’t answer. The Sands had started fighting for Balladaire in earnest during the second Taargen war. Five years ago, now. They were always the first to fight and the last to get relief. Of a thousand kids taken, fewer than half of them survived, a brigade winnowed down to a few companies. They’d been trained their whole lives for it. Almost a year and a half had passed since Rogan read the official cease-fire agreement to Touraine’s company. The one time she hadn’t wanted to shoot him.
“Balladaire and Taargen haven’t been on good terms since the Balladairans started their purges to ‘civilize’ anyone who believes in a god. Balladaire is picking fights and throwing you in the middle.”
Touraine still didn’t answer. She remembered a bitter cold night following a frigid day. Blood practically congealing on the dead before they hit the ground. She opened her eyes wide against the memory, trying to fill her mind with the Brigāni, with the small room.
The Shālans are just as uncivilized.
“I’ve heard the Taargens eat their victims, too,” the Brigāni said. A knife appeared in her hand, and she came closer.
The Taargen fire. Her captured soldiers being pulled to it one by one.
“No,” Touraine finally choked out.
Touraine tried to catalog her surroundings again. Dirt. The Brigāni’s robe. The knife. The walls—not things to make the growing fear ebb.
“Well. Rumors must come from somewhere.” The Brigāni’s voice was darkly ironic. Then it softened. “How many soldiers did you lose?”
“Enough.”
The Brigāni tilted her head.
The day Touraine was captured, seventy-six soldiers died. Fifty-eight on the field. The rest of wounds and frostbite. They’d been lucky it was only a small group of the bearfuckers. Just over two years ago, now. They’d promoted her after that battle.
“Too many died in a war that’s not theirs.”
“Your rebellion would be another one.”
“You’ll have to fight for one side or the other. Why not fight for the side that gives you freedom?”
“Because I can fight for the side that’s winning.”
“Winning isn’t everything. It’s how you win that matters most.” She held Touraine’s gaze before looking distantly into a corner. When she spoke again, her voice cracked before steadying.
“Once upon a time, a young Brigāni girl stood poised to be the greatest healing priestess of all the tribes, probably in the whole Shālan Empire. A little vanity goes a long way, and she left her tribe to study at the Grand Temple in Qazāl across the river.” She trailed her knife along Touraine’s shirt, drawing a path from Touraine’s neck to her collarbone.
“She enjoyed her studies, so much so that she avoided going home until caravan after caravan brought rumors—rumors that an army from the north was traveling the Holy Sea and the Brigāni were in its path. Rumors that a young Balladairan captain was making a bloody name for herself. Perhaps you know her?” She fixed Touraine’s eyes with
