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“It happens far too often for me.” I lay a hand over my stomach. “If I’m not very careful what I eat. There’s a short list of foods that don’t bother me.”

“That’s why you’re so thin and weak.”

The blunt truth bruises my soul, but I know she doesn’t mean to hurt me. “Yes.”

“My brother was like that,” she says. “The work of the healer never lasted long on him. Always he returned to the same weak state, until—” She stops speaking. For several long seconds, the only sound is the faint scuff of wind on snow, and the soft crunch of our footsteps.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” I say. “And your mother.”

“It is the way of things. Those weak in body or spirit die. The strong survive.” There’s a bleak hardness to her tone. She’s not angry about it like her brother is. He is molten clay, where she is cold iron. He burns and roars for change, while she drives toward it, steady and unstoppable, like a spear through flesh.

A dark, broad-shouldered form moves toward us from the camp, while the droning of the fireside song continues. “What happened?” The Warlord’s deep voice rolls through the dark. “You were gone a long time.”

“The stew didn’t settle well.” I hate admitting my weakness to him, showing him how ill-equipped I am for a life here—or anywhere, honestly.

“Are you all right now?”

“Yes.”

He rumbles assent and scoops me off my feet before I can protest. “You need rest. We’ll go to my tent.”

“Not so fast,” Zeha interjects. “She’ll be staying in my tent tonight.”

The Warlord’s arms contract around my body. “Why?”

“Because I can’t trust you not to violate her.”

“I would never take a woman unwilling. You know that.”

“That’s the problem,” Zeha answers. “I did not mind you two sharing space when I thought you hated each other. But now—”

“I still hate her,” he growls.

“Of course you do. That’s why you’re holding her so tightly, as if someone is going to steal her away.”

“She might escape.”

“Cronan, stop.” I lay my hand against his cheek. “She knows. About the ether and the thought-voices, and how we both feel.”

“The ether-speak means nothing,” he mumbles.

“That’s not true, and you know it as well as I do,” Zeha says. “If it had only happened one time, I could have discounted it as a random oddity. But multiple times? It’s the sign of a soul-bond, brother. Admit it.”

“Admitting it does no good.” He sets me down, and his hands curl into fists. “After everything that’s happened—this? When will the gods decide I’ve suffered enough?”

His sister approaches, and at first I think she’s going to hug him—but instead, she sets a fist to his chest. “Stop whining. You sound likeher.” She jerks her head toward me.

He knocks her hand aside. “I do not.”

“You do. So quit mewling like an infant, and start thinking about how you’re going to secure the mountain village and keep it safe against repossession. I’ll take Ixiana to my tent.”

She grips my arm and marches me to a small tent cluttered with two bedrolls and an assortment of saddlebags, arrows, and hawker’s gear. “Wash, and then sleep,” she orders, handing me a bar of soap.

I’ve pushed her good graces far enough for one day. She needs time to process this, just like Cronan and I do.

It’s too cold to be entirely naked for a wash, so I strip first my top half, then my lower half, cleaning everything as thoroughly as I can with soap and melted snow. Zeha does the same. Despite her disapproval of my connection to Cronan, I feel companionable with her, as if she could be a friend, or even a sister.

Once I’m clean and dressed again, I slither into the blankets, grateful for the rest.