Touraine was the first to recover. Without thought, she shoved the rebel toward the rail. Sharp pain, dangerous pain in her ribs where her first captor had kicked her.
Touraine registered the wet suck of the bayonet as it lurched from Émeline’s body, and the other woman’s yelp of pain and surprise. Then the snap of the railing. It gave almost instantly under the rebel’s momentum. Finally, the sick thud as the rebel hit the stone floor below.
“Sky-falling fuck.”
Though Touraine’s brain hadn’t caught up, her body knew the motions. She ripped off her coat and pressed it against Émeline’s wound.
“ Émeline?” Touraine murmured. “ Émeline, you’re all right. I’ve got you.” Even though a voice in her head whispered You aren’t safe here over and over.
Touraine’s heart buzzed in her chest as she did the sums. It wasn’t safe for them to stay, to get a medic to Émeline here, but running away would only run her closer to death. Émeline’s blood smelled earthy and metallic—shit was mixing with her blood. The bastard rebel had gotten her in the bowels.
They were saved by the last person Touraine wanted to see as she tried to press Émeline’s guts whole. Tibeau stormed up the stairs, holding his rifle across his chest as he scanned for fallen Sands. He saw them.
“Tour, you bastard.” In an instant, he scooped Émeline into his arms, cradled against his chest. “We have to get her help,” he growled, setting off at a lope.
“Beau, if we move her—”
Touraine let her protests drop. Here or there, now or later. What did it matter? Grief settled over her. They were too used to hope’s quick flicker to spare the words for arguments or questions when each second could mean the difference between life and death, but Touraine still had one, more important than everything—
“Where’s Pru?”
“Held sniper. She cleared them, so I sent her back.”
“Not clear enough, Beau,” she growled back.
Tibeau looked stricken, and Touraine wished she’d kept her mouth shut. He’d never forgive himself for this. She wouldn’t forgive herself, either.
The night went quiet except for their desperate huffing breaths as she followed him back to rue de la Petière.
Émeline was dead before they reached the guardhouse. Tibeau had run silently with her in his arms, but Touraine knew they’d shared at least some of the same thoughts.
Don’t die. Of course she’ll die. Please don’t die. This is my fault. Fuck the rebels. Fuck Balladaire. Fuck me. Please don’t die.
It was hopeless, as she’d known it would be. Émeline and Thierry lay in the courtyard on blankets someone had sacrificed for their bodies. She didn’t even know when or how Thierry had fallen.
Touraine let the cold night air cool her flushed body. Her jacket was stiff and stinking with blood and waste. She balled the collar into her fist and let the hem drag through the dirt. Her hands were bloody to the wrists. She waited for everyone to bring in a cup of beer from the Sands’ common room. (Had they been there all together just a day or two ago?) Tibeau looked to the corners of the courtyard, avoiding everyone’s eyes, but especially hers. Pruett stood next to him, a quiet hand on his elbow.
The night had turned cold, but some soldiers stood with their coats unbuttoned, pale undershirts spotted with sweat. Some still had them buttoned to the throat.
Touraine took her usual place at the feet of the dead, and the rest of her squad circled off her. She hated this part of battle, of course. No one but a sadist could like this. Still, it reminded her why she did fight. As long as the Sands went into battle, she would go beside them.
She imagined that some of her soldiers prayed, forbidden as it was. Touraine didn’t, but she had an old Qazāli song she remembered, and the hum of it in her throat. As she stared at the bloody hole in Émeline’s stomach, Touraine thought about her promotion. They’d died coming after her. Being their captain wouldn’t stop moments like this.
A jostling at the guardhouse entrance—tipsy carousing, a bawdy joke—interrupted the vigil. Captain Rogan and a couple of other off-duty captains swaggered into the courtyard. Rogan might even have been sober. He stopped at the edge of the circle. Stared right at her.
“Lieutenant!” Rogan’s voice was bright and cheery. “So glad to see you’ve been retrieved.”
Touraine let him take in the scene behind her, the circle of friends around their fallen.
He tsked. “Sacrifices must be made. A pity.”
“Will they be burned, Captain?”
Rogan flicked his eyes to the bodies, lips pursed in false concern. “I don’t think General Cantic will spend the little wood we have. You’ll have to do with a field burial, I’m afraid.”
Cantic wouldn’t waste the wood on a couple of Sands is what he really meant. Never mind that they could fire horseshit to burn the bodies. Never mind that the desert was dry and packed so dense that a shovel would bounce back up.
Rogan went to his rooms, his friends chortling behind him like geese. She wanted to scream at him, but she bit her tongue on the words, blinked away the burning fury in her eyes, and took a deep, shuddering breath.
A finer person, like Tibeau, would feel some pure selfless grief. Or like Pruett, a tender empathy for the grieving. She would know how to comfort them. Touraine felt only rage.
As long as Rogan was in charge, this was their lot. Nothing but humiliation. Tibeau’s dreams of revolt were—the product of a weak mind? Uncivilized thinking? She couldn’t bring herself to blame him, but the dreams were flimsy, in any case. The Sands, the Qazāli, wouldn’t win that battle, and no one in their right mind chose
