And yet a small voice said at the back of her mind, if the Sands didn’t have to be soldiers at all, they wouldn’t have to die. If only they were given the choice.
Touraine raised her cup to push the thoughts away, and the other Sands followed suit. They drank as one.
Then, as if a string knotting them together had been cut loose, the Sands went their own ways, to bunks or the small infirmary. Tibeau and a few others wrapped the bodies to ready them for transport to the compound. Noé, a small man with a handsome voice, sang a sad Balladairan song they all knew as they worked.
“As it whistles through the mountains, as it tickles blades of grass, as it pulls me from my bed, again, the wind, it cries your name.”
Everyone found their own dark corners to mourn in. Someone’s arms, the bottom of a cup. Touraine decided on her bunk. She trudged up the stairs alone and slammed the door shut behind her—tried to. It caught on Pruett’s propped boot.
“Hiding from something?” Pruett cocked her head and an eyebrow. She held two cups of beer. She didn’t show any signs of wear from the night’s fighting. That, at least, was a relief. She stepped inside, set the cups down on the one small table, which held a lamp. She lit the lamp before closing the door.
“Hiding? Who? Me?” Touraine limped to her bed and eased herself down with the wall’s help.
“You need the infirmary, Tour. Don’t be stupid.”
“Nope. The infirmary needs us. Without us, the medics would be out a job.”
Pruett rolled her eyes and shoved one of the cups at Touraine.
“You know I hate drinking. I’m already fucked enough as it is.” Just that many words left her wanting breath. Maybe the rib was more than fractured.
“Thought you’d make an exception tonight. You were blasted for three straight days after we got you back from the Taargens.”
“Exactly.”
Still, Touraine swallowed against dryness, weighing the potential dizzy sleep against the last—few?—days. She took the cup, and Pruett sat down on the bed beside her.
“You gonna tell me what happened?”
“She got caught by a bayonet. I flipped the bearfucker over the railing, and he cracked like a melon. How did you find me?”
“We got a tip. Not all of the Qazāli like the rebels. Might have exchanged some money, too.” Pruett put a hand on Touraine’s lower back. It was warm. “Where did you go, Tour?”
“I didn’t go anywhere.” Touraine drank deeply. The beer was better than she remembered.
“Why’d you leave? Did you… mean to leave? Did Cantic say you wouldn’t get a promotion?”
“No. She said she could see me as captain one day.” That wasn’t exactly what Cantic had said, but she forced more confidence into her voice. “Head of a whole sky-falling company. Sky above, I ate with the fucking princess.”
Pruett slouched, elbows on her knees. “What’s wrong, then? Did they do something to you?” Pruett sounded guilty, as if she were the one who had done something wrong.
“Am I on trial?” Touraine snapped.
Pruett flinched. Touraine dropped her head against the wall, letting it loll, and caught the shape of the tapestry hanging behind her. A rug with a thick layer of dust covering a swirled pattern, just like in the rebels’ room.
After a silence that stretched too long, Pruett spoke in the barest whisper. “The others are worried about you.”
Touraine drained her cup, then held her hand out for the other. She emptied it in one go. Filling her stomach felt good. She only just realized how hungry she was. How hungry she would be in the morning.
“I could use a few more of those,” she said.
Pruett stared at her in silence for one long breath, then stood. “I’ll be back.”
She returned with a tray of cups. “I had to fight for these. We should get you rinsed up first.”
Pruett helped Touraine pull off her undershirt. She raked her eyes up and down Touraine’s torso, the black and blue of it. Pruett’s hand hovered over the scabbing cut the Brigāni had given her.
“Sky above, Touraine. Sky-falling fuck—”
Touraine gave her a crooked, tired smile and tried not to slump back into the wall. Part of her wanted to point out her new scar, to ask her about it. But the urge to sleep was sudden and real, as real as wanting to keep the lamp up high, to keep looking at Pruett.
So she drank while Pruett wiped down her back and chest, going carefully over the cuts, murmuring and soothing, until Touraine didn’t feel the ropes around her wrists anymore.
She startled from her doze, jumping out of the bed, sloshing beer over the bedclothes, over her trousers. The room spun, out of focus, in focus, out again. A shadowed figure in the corner, that woman with her sky-falling boots—Touraine lurched.
Pruett leapt to her, snatching the cup away with one hand and holding her close with the other arm. “Shh, shh. Tour? Stay here, okay? Here. I’ve been there. You don’t have to go back today. Stay here.”
She kissed Touraine’s temple, her eyebrows, her cheekbones, finally her lips. Then she led Touraine back to her bed and propped her up with pillows. She settled on the narrow cot beside her like a spoon.
“They don’t trust me like they trust you.” The words spun out of Touraine like the room spun. The rug on the wall spun, too. She turned away. “They listen to me because I’m your and Tibeau’s friend.”
Pruett settled against her. “That’s not true. We’re not that fickle. You get shit done like he and I don’t. You’re balanced.”
“I’m not clever enough. Not brave enough, not passionate for the right—”
“You keep a cool head, Tour. That’s what we need. Maybe not all the time, but that’s okay.” She rubbed Touraine’s back in broad circles. “You think before you act. More than Tibeau, anyway. And I’d probably never act for
