I tossed Ruck's dirk to Niako and yanked Tibo's sword from its sheath as I spun toward the sound. Five men in tattered clothing stumbled toward us with the jerky movements of puppets on strings.

"Ruffians, not bounty hunters," Niako breathed from beside me. "They have been out here too long to know about the reward."

The man in front splayed his palms before him, offering us a smile as jagged and lopsided as the rocks beneath his feet. "Your Highness! What a surprise to meet you out here, so far from your home."

Another man shouldered past the first, blinking rapidly as his gaze darted around us. "And without any guards, it would appear? You must really trust that Claimed."

The first speaker slipped a sword from his waistband and propped the tip against the ground, fingers drumming against the hilt. "You've given him a sword and everything. Given the history between you, it is rather amazing he does not slice off your head and make a run for it."

"He is exceptionally well-trained," said Niako. "As a Claimed and as a sword fighter."

The men exchanged quick glances, and for a moment, I thought they might retreat. But then two men split from the group, circling around to approach us from behind.

I turned my head slightly toward Niako to whisper, "We fight back-to-back." 

When the men had formed a circle around us, they stopped moving. As I locked eyes with the three ruffians on my side, even the river seemed to stop.

Then they charged.

From fighting back-to-back during partner sword fights in Fooja, I knew how much understanding and trust was required. I also knew Niako and I lacked both. Still, we somehow immediately fell into sync. Niako feigned right and I covered his left. I retreated one step, and Niako dropped back to regroup. Though I barely had a chance to glance in his direction, his every move complemented my own.

None of the three ruffians I fought had great skill or efficient weapons, but their number advantage forced me to maintain a tight defensive position. I parried just hard enough to knock each blade aside before flipping the sword around to meet the next attack. The clashing blades beat out syncopated accents over the smooth symphony of the rushing river.

Between each parry, my mind jumped to Niako just behind me. He fought off only two ruffians, but he was using Ruck's dirk rather than a sword, and I feared his mysterious injuries still plagued him. I needed to be extra cautious, but I also needed to end this fight before Niako ran out of energy.

Then a rock tipped beneath the man nearest me, throwing him off-balance. As his sword flung askew, I jabbed my own up through his ribcage. 

Before the man even hit the ground, I brought my blade up to parry another attack. But to my surprise, the other two attackers had retreated, slipping behind the trees. With no time to worry about what this could mean, I whirled back toward Niako.

I tensed when I realized how much ground he had lost, his back now a mere foot from my own. Still, his dirk lashed out with precision, graceful parries redirecting the attacks away from himself. As he parried another blow, I leapt out from behind him. Before the man could bring his sword around to parry mine, I sliced my blade through his throat.

As he gurgled a cry, the man in front of Niako screamed. Almost in unison, both bodies thudded against the ground. I whipped back toward the last two assailants, but they had disappeared. For a brief moment, victory rushed over me like the river.

Then I saw the two remaining ruffians riding our horses off into the sunset.

Even as my heart plummeted, I forced myself to inspect Niako. Remarkably, he appeared completely unscathed. Somehow, his shirt even remained a crisp white, except where I had left red handprints on his shoulders and waist. Only the quick rise and fall of his chest gave any sign that we had very nearly just died — or that our hope for making it to Trebalda was vanishing as quickly as the specks on the horizon.

When I was satisfied that Niako was fine, my adrenaline abandoned me, taking with it all of my remaining energy. Suddenly, the last three weeks of fear, loss, humiliation, and hopelessness became too much to bear. Releasing a long breath, I sank down against a tree.

"Goddess Rashika must truly hate us."

After a moment of silence, Niako stooped to pluck something from the ground by his shoe and held it up between two fingers. "The Goddess left us a cake crisp."

I groaned and buried my head in my hands. "We're still on Rakim's border, and we've already lost our transportation."

"Well, at least we won't need a place to hide the horses anymore."

"Horses which have all of our provisions..."

"But now we have more swords."

I dropped my hands from my face to look at him. "Quit doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Being positive. It's unsettling."

He squinted at the crisp in his hand. "I... didn't mean to. I guess hearing you be so negative threw me off."

Despite my best efforts, a laugh pushed up from my chest, a bubbling out of both humor and despair. Niako's eyes flicked to mine, and a tiny crooked smile crossed his face.

I felt my own lips spread in response as I pushed to my feet. "Come, let's find somewhere to sleep that is not strewn with dead bodies."

I started walking, and Niako fell into place beside me. As we picked our way across the rocky land, I lifted my face up toward the sky. Near the crescent moon, the Three-Legged Lion constellation shone brightly.

Still gazing overhead, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "At least tomorrow can't be any worse than the last two days."

The rustling river whisked away my whispered words, and at first, I thought Niako had not heard me. But after a few seconds of silence, he mumbled a reply.

"Unless we both die horrible deaths."

* * *

"Toom? Where are you going?"

His voice was still laden with sleep, and twigs stuck to his curly hair. Remembering the brush of those curls on the nape of his neck as we rode, I itched to drop down beside him and pluck the twigs from his hair.

I tightened my hold over the sword hilt in my hands. "I'm going to catch a fish."

He blinked at me as he shifted to sit with his legs in front of him. "With a sword?"

"No, with my hands. The sword is for after I catch the fish."

"Toom... have you ever caught a fish before?"

"I can beat the fastest sword fighters in the kingdom. I can't imagine this will be hard."

"I'm not sure those skills are transferable."

"Then come help me."

Abruptly, all remaining signs of sleepiness left his face, and his jaw set. "I'm not going into the river."

I huffed an incredulous laugh. "We won't be swimming. We'll go waist-deep at most. What can happen in waist-deep water?"

"It's possible to drown in waist-deep water."

"Only if someone is holding your head under."

A shudder passed over his body, and his body went stiff as wood. Then I remembered the wet floors and smell of vomit in the the silver-painted cell where Makash held Niako, and nausea bubbled up in my stomach.

"On second thought, maybe it's better if you stay here and guard our remaining provisions."

"Right," said Niako, even as his gaze swept out across the empty ground around us.

The grand total of our remaining provisions was two flasks of water and one cake crisp.

I turned and started toward the river.

On the rocky shore beside the river, I kicked off my shoes and folded up the bottom of my trousers. Then I hobbled across jagged rocks until my feet submerged in the water. The frigid rush over my skin surprised me, much colder than the ocean by the Kingdom.

As murky water swirled around my ankles, a silvery fin splashed the surface a few feet away. I lunged with all the practiced grace of a sword fighter... and felt the slick scales slip through my fingers.

An hour later, I returned to the bushes empty-handed. 

I plopped down beside Niako without looking at him, prepared for his smug response. Wordlessly, Niako dropped a fistful of berries into my lap. When I pinched a berry between two fingers and held it near my eye, purple liquid trickled down my thumb. 

"How do you know these are safe to eat?"

"I read it in a book."

"Of course you did." I popped the berry in my mouth, and tart juice exploded on my tongue. "I should have read more books."

"I heard you have learned skills from other places."

"Where did you hear that?"

Niako licked berry juice from one of his fingers. "Just tavern gossip."

I covered my mouth as I nearly spat out the berry.

Niako looked up from his hand and raised an eyebrow. "Not good at swallowing, though, I see."

I forced the berry down and reached for the flask of water to quell the heat rising to my face. Still, some part of me was happy to see the old Niako back. Though I knew I could shut him down with a single touch, I found I had no desire to. Instead, I decided to fight back using his own favorite weapon — words.

"Well, if the tavern is a reliable source, you are finer than Goddess Rashika."

He shrugged. "I should hope so. Have you seen those statues? She's hardly a looker."

I slapped a palm to my forehead as a choked laugh broke free. "Niako, you can't say things like that. Now Goddess Rashika will really hate us."

"When my brother killed my father, I stopped believing in Goddess Rashika."

His tone was still light, but the atmosphere darkened, and I noticed the lingering chill in my feet from the river. 

I stood up and began walking.

We now followed the river north, and the rising sun glinting off the water on our right nearly blinded me. As we walked, the stream narrowed, the murky water cleared, and green trees peppered the land just past the rocky rivershore. 

Initially, walking proved a much-needed change of pace from riding, stretching out my lower back and inner thighs. But as the sun rose overhead, fatigue weighed me down. At one point, my ankle twisted as I stumbled down a pile of rocks. I attempted to roll out my ankle without stopping, and Niako darted a glance my way.

"I don't know how you are one of the best sword fighters in the Kingdom when you have so much trouble walking."

"How do you know Makash killed your father?"

Niako's eyes returned to the ground ahead. "Because my father was killed with his own knife. That's Makash's sense of humor."

I shuddered as I remembered Makash's words outside the fighting pit. Finally, the prince locks himself into a cell with his own Claimed instead of attending the Coronation and ends up killed by his own blade.

"Why would he kill him, though? Could he really not wait any longer to become king?"

"Makash has wanted to kill my father ever since my father exiled Trebalda."

I side-glanced Niako as I walked. His dark skin gleamed in the bright sunlight, but his profile remained impassive.

"Makash told me Trebalda's exile was your fault."

"It was. She had everything perfectly planned to sneak away without anyone knowing. Her one mistake was asking me to join her. Because I told my parents, she was instead publicly shamed and exiled." Then he huffed a small laugh and shook his head. "That backfired, though, because when the people of Rakim learned Trebalda was being exiled, many decided to join her. They became the first members of her tribe."

"Why did you never try to join her?"

Niako's eyebrows twitched as he turned his face toward the river. "I guess I thought —"

Then he jerked to a stop fast enough that his hands swung up to balance himself.

I stuttered to a halt beside him and followed his gaze. Just around the next bend of the river, I could make out a dozen men and women scrubbing clothes over wooden boards at the riverside.

"A Busk town?"

Niako shook his head. "An independent tribe. Zarku. We'll have to make a detour."

Remembering Zeke's warm smile, hope flitted in my chest. "Niako, I think Zarku will help us. They can provide us with food, water, and maybe even a couple horses."

Niako didn't answer. He only pressed his fingertips together in front of himself one by one, head downturned.

"What?"

"Toom... the people of Zarku want me dead."

"Well, I don't know why that should bother you. You're already traveling with someone who wants you dead."

I had attempted a humorous tone. Based on his stony-eyed gaze and the way his hands dropped back down to his sides, I missed the mark.

"That wasn't —" I started, but then I broke off with a sigh and scrubbed a hand through my hair. "I promise I won't let them hurt you."

He raised one eyebrow, eyes still hard. "And what makes you think you can stop them?"

"The people of Zarku respected my father. They will listen to me."

He shook his head. "Zarku is a violent tribe, Toom. Do you know why Rakim went to war with them? Because when my father came here to negotiate a trade, they tried to kill him."

"Well, I can't say I blame them for that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

His voice was unexpectedly sharp, maybe even defensive, and a warning flagged my mind. But instead of backing down, I said, "They can't be as violent as your father was."

"The violence was rarely my father's idea."

"Right. He would prefer to just make people into animals and take them as his pets."

His jaw tensed. "I never said he was a good man — only that he did not like to kill unless it was necessary."

"Really?" I could hear the heat creeping into my voice. "I suppose murdering my father was self-defense, then?"

He hissed out a breath and rolled his eyes. "No, but my father liked yours. He wanted to find another way. Unfortunately, he was too terrified of my mother to go against her wishes."

"So he was not only despicable but also cowardly."

His hands twitched and eyes flashed. I realized right then that Niako had perhaps loved his father despite everything, and he had never been allowed time to grieve his loss. For a moment, I considered apologizing. But Niako's next words shredded my fragile sympathy.

"At least my father was not a pathetic, drunken idiot."

My hands clenched into fists as I sucked in a sharp breath. Did Niako think his family's brutality had been justified? The memory of my father's burning flashed through my mind with such clarity that the acrid stench of burnt flesh and concentrated alcohol filled my nostrils. Niako had known what was coming, and he had done nothing to prevent it.

When I spoke again, my voice shook with the effort to retain control.

"Then you are happy my father was murdered?"

His trademark smirk graced his lips, and I knew even before he spoke that he was about to push me over the edge.

"Happy? No. But maybe it needed to happen."

My body reacted before my mind could. I seized a fistful of his tunic and slammed him back into a nearby tree. I pressed my left forearm against his throat, pinning him in place, while my right hand snaked down to grab the dirk at my hip.

"Take that back," I growled, and I pressed the dagger against his tunic just over his stomach.

The smirk remained, but his eyes darkened like a cloud passing over the sun. "So there's that hatred. I was wondering where you were hiding it."

I pressed the blade forward an inch until I could feel the resistance of his flesh beneath the shirt. "Take back what you said about my father, or I will gut you here and now."

"Go ahead. The Zarku Tribe will help you find Trebalda's tribe. You don't need me anymore." 

He reached down and placed a hand over mine on the dagger's handle, pushing the tip further into his own stomach. When he breathed in, the expansion of his lungs made the blade pierce his skin. A small red patch blossomed out over the white tunic.

Though his abdomen quivered under the blade, his voice remained soft and steady.

"Kill me, Toom."

My stomach lurched, and cold washed over me. I jerked the knife back, ripping my hand from his hold, and staggered back a few steps, heart pounding.

"What in the seven hells, Niako? What's wrong with you? Do you want to die?"

Though I was no longer touching him, he remained flattened against the tree, dark eyes fastened to the blade still in my hand. "I don't know. Do you want to kill me?"

In that silver-painted cell, Niako had just faced Makash's cruelty and had been too weak and helpless for me to harm him. Now here was the Niako I hated — smirking, insolent, even disrespecting my dead father —

And still my heart clenched at the thought of his heart stopping.

The answer to his question escaped me in a choked rasp. "No. I don't."

Having admitted the truth, my shoulders slumped, and I slid the dagger back into its sheath. With my threat exposed as empty, I was left with nowhere to channel the anger still coursing through me. My hands fidgeted at my sides as I searched for a place to put them.

Niako's eyes tracked from my hands up to my face. The sides of his lips ticked down, and his eyebrows drew together. Then he peeled himself from the tree and took a step forward.

"Alright. We'll enter Zarku."