'All right.'
They were silent then for a dozen heartbeats, until Nil said, 'You shouldn't worry overmuch, Nether. A half-woman half-animal all covered in smelly fur isn't much competition for his heart, I'd imagine.'
'But it wasn't my hand-' Abruptly, she shut up, then offered up a most ferocious string of Wickan curses.
In the dark, Nil was smiling. Thankful, nonetheless, that his sister could not see it.
****
Marines crowded the hold, sprawled or curled up beneath blankets, so many bodies Apsalar was made uneasy, as if she'd found herself in a soldier barrow. Drawing her own coverings to one side, she rose. Two lanterns swung from timbers, their wicks low. The air was growing foul. She clasped on her cloak and made her way towards the hatch.
Climbing free, she stepped onto the mid deck. The night air was bitter cold but blissfully fresh in her lungs. She saw two figures at the prow. Nil and Nether. So turned instead and ascended to the stern castle, only to find yet another figure, leaning on the stern rail. A soldier, short, squat, his head left bare despite the icy wind. Bald, with a fringe of long, grey, ratty strands that whipped about in the frigid blasts. She did not recognize the man.
Apsalar hesitated, then, shrugging, walked over. His head turned when she reached the rail at his side. 'You invite illness, soldier,' she said. 'At the least, draw up your hood.'
The old man grunted, said nothing.
'I am named Apsalar.'
'So you want my name back, do you? But if I do that, then it ends.
Just silence. It's always that way.'
She looked down on the churning wake twisting away from the ship's stern. Phosphorescence lit the foam. 'I am a stranger to the Fourteenth Army,' she said.
'Doubt it'll make a difference,' he said. 'What I did ain't no secret to nobody.'
'I have but recently returned to Seven Cities.' She paused, then said, 'In any case, you are not alone with the burden of things you once did.'
He glanced over again. 'You're too young to be haunted by your past.'
'And you, soldier, are too old to care so much about your own.'
He barked a laugh, returned his attention to the sea.
To the east clouds skidded from the face of the moon, yet the light cast down was muted, dull.
'Look at that,' he said. 'I got good eyes, but that moon's nothing but a blur. Not the haze of cloud, neither. It's a distant world, ain't it? Another realm, with other armies crawling around in the fog, killing each other, draggin' children into the streets, red swords flashing down over'n over. And I bet they look up every now and then, wonderin' at all the dust they kicked up, makin' it hard to see that other world overhead.'
'When I was a child,' Apsalar said, 'I believed that there were cities there, but no wars. Just beautiful gardens, and the flowers were ever in bloom, every season, day and night, filling the air with wondrous scents… you know, I told all of that to someone, once. He later said to me that he fell in love with me that night. With that story. He was young, you see.'
'And now he's just that emptiness in your eyes, Apsalar.'
She flinched. 'If you are going to make observations like that, I will know your name.'
'But that would ruin it. Everything. Right now, I'm just me, just a soldier like all the others. You find out who I am and it all falls apart.' He grimaced, then spat down into the sea. 'Very well. Nothing ever lasts, not even ignorance. My name's Squint.'
'I hate to puncture your ego – as tortured as it is – but no vast revelation follows your name.'
'Do you lie? No, I see you don't. Well, never expected that, Apsalar.'
'Nothing changes, then, does it? You know nothing of me and I know nothing of you.'
'I'd forgotten what that was like. That young man, what happened to him?'
'I don't know. I left him.'
'You didn't love him?'
She sighed. 'Squint, it's complicated. I've hinted at my own past. The truth is, I loved him too much to see him fall so far into my life, into what I was – and still am. He deserves better.'
'You damned fool, woman. Look at me. I'm alone. Once, I wasn't in no hurry to change that. And then, one day I woke up, and it was too late. Now, alone gives me my only peace, but it ain't a pleasant peace. You two loved each other – any idea how rare and precious that is? You broke yourself and broke him too, I'd think. Listen to me – go find him, Apsalar. Find him and hold onto him – now whose ego tortures itself, eh? There you are, thinking that change can only go one way.'
