Amazing, how different he looked. Max was a young man in this painting, barely more than a teenager. His face was a little softer, yes. But it was the look in his eye that so starkly separated this boy from the man I knew — a sharp, cold stare.
“He looked very different.”
“He was different, back then. He was less… afraid. When he wanted something, he was willing to do whatever it took.” She lapsed into silence. Then she added, with a hint of sadness, “He had incredible potential.”
The way she said it made my jaw clench. He had incredible potential, she said, as if there was something this boy had that the man did not. Willing to do whatever it took, she said, as if that was something to be admired.
Max had seen the cost of war, and decided it was unacceptable. That wasn’t fear. That was compassion. And this arrogant child that stared down at me from the wall? He wasn’t brave. He was foolish. I had seen many young Threllian soldiers with that look in their eye — the kind that told me they had already granted themselves absolution, and whatever they were about to do to me was merely a step in “whatever it took.”
He hadn’t lost something. He had gained something.
I turned away.
“The Syrizen told me the refugees have been settled,” I said. “I want to see them before we do anything else.”
“Afterwards, we can—”
“I see them first. Then we work.”
My voice must have told her it wasn’t worth the fight, because she let out a little, frustrated breath.
“Fine. If you insist.”
These weren’t homes. They were slums.
The Threllian refugees had been settled into large, ugly buildings at the edge of the city, constructed of crumbling stone and rotting wood. The apartments themselves were small, which would have been fine had they not also been ramshackle and ill-kept. The surrounding areas were no better. They stood just outside of the Capital, close enough to see the walls looming and then the Towers beyond them — close enough to make my palms sweat when I thought of the battles that would be inflicted upon this city, not long from now.
“This territory is safe,” Ariadnea told me, when I asked about it. “Fully undisputed. And neither Aviness nor Zeryth wants to damage the city they plan to take, not within the walls or outside of it.”
I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. And now, the chilling possibilities of everything I’d failed to stipulate in my contract loomed over me like a cold shadow. I’d spent hours dictating my demands, so careful to close every possible loophole. But how could I have stopped this? What words could I have used to define that their washrooms should be functional and their windows unbroken?
The refugees were busy, settling themselves into their new lives, making the best of it. But my magic tasted their uncertainty just as strongly as their excitement. They knew, after all, what a war-battered country looked like. They knew what dangers it held.
Nura had wandered off with the Syrizen. But Sammerin remained beside me, silent in a way that told me he was thinking what I was.
“I should have been more careful,” I muttered.
“You were never going to be able to control every outcome.”
But couldn’t my life buy more than this? I didn’t say the words out loud, but Sammerin placed his hand on my shoulder, a brief, wordless comfort for the things I did not voice.
Later, I helped Serel move into his new apartment. “Move,” actually, wasn’t quite the right term, because that would imply he had belongings to unpack. He brought only one small bag with him from Esmaris’s estate, a worn leather satchel that he had carried with him the day he arrived at the estate. I wandered around counting water stains in the ceiling as he shelved three shirts and two sets of trousers. Four books, worn and torn, that he meticulously arranged in the corner where the wall met the floor — he had no bookshelf. Then, upon his single set of drawers, he placed three items: a silver necklace that I knew had once belonged to his mother. A tin flute, which he had learned to play quite beautifully over the years. A little carved bone figurine of a bird.
And, at last, his sword — by far the most valuable item in this place, probably worth more than this apartment itself.
“I almost didn’t keep it,” he remarked, as he set it down and regarded it with a wrinkle over his nose. “It’s… well, it’s his. You know?”
“I know,” I said. Thinking of my bloody jacket that I had so happily discarded as soon as I’d arrived at Ara. Thinking of the way my hair had looked shriveling in Max’s fireplace when I’d hacked it off.
“Still.” He brushed the hilt, patting it like an old friend’s shoulder. “Just in case.”
Just in case.
I wanted so badly for my friend to never have another “Just in case.” I wanted him to be able to leave steel behind. I watched as Serel circled the room, examining his new home. A lump rose in my throat.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize it would be—” I stumbled over my words. “I’ll get you somewhere better soon.”
“What? This is terrific.” He gave me a grin. Gods, there was nothing quite like Serel’s smile. It illuminated his whole face. He went to the windows and extended his arms. “Look at this. This is what freedom looks like, Tisaanah.”
The “freedom” that he was gesturing to was, in fact, an utterly breathtaking view of a narrow alleyway, a pile of trash, and a brick wall with some very unpleasant Aran words painted on it.
“So what if it’s not pretty?” Serel added, as if he
