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One of my flailing hands knocked into a little compartment on the side of the motorcycle, and a tiny wisp of pure white cloth poked out.

Curious, not wanting to see, but already knowing in my heart what it was, I opened the compartment wider and pulled out one of my head scarves.

It had always been my favorite one, pure and soft, Rhyder bringing the bolt of fabric home after one of the skirmishes with Congregations on our borders when he had gone into the cities. He had probably taken it at knifepoint from a fabric store, I thought now, but it had made such a delicious soothing scarf. Cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

“I knew I would find you,” Rhyder said.

I pulled out the scarf and passed it through my fingers.

There were so many times I had craved wearing it in the past few years.

Not all the time. Not every day.

It was so hard because it was against the law in the cities, and when I had admitted my conflicted feelings to Craig he said I was stupid.

My brother said nothing, though.

I brought the scarf to my nose.

It still smelled like Rhyder.

My hands almost trembled.

At this moment it felt like a relief to put it on, cool soft fabric wrapping me in what felt like comfort.

My brother said nothing, which made me pissed, but then I felt his exhale as I put on the headscarf, a low rumble of gut-deep satisfaction that made me want to punch him in the throat.

But, of course, I couldn’t.

We pulled into a space at my apartment, and Rhyder caught me as I stumbled off the bike.

He clasped my hands in his big ones.

“O Allfather,” he prayed, his eyes closed, his lips moving over my fingers, lips brushing past my skin.

For this reward we praise you

Death and vengeance have been acceptable in your sight

How many people had Rhyder killed to gain his reward?

He touched the talisman that always hung around his neck on a sturdy leather cord. It was a Holy Relic. As was customary for the boys of our Congregation, he had gone on a holy pilgrimage at 16, to the ruins of a sacred building that had been destroyed by the Unsaved decades ago in one of the many unsuccessful insurgent battles the Unsaved had fought to try to keep the Congregations from taking over the northwest.

They had failed but the Congregation church had been destroyed. And our Congregation had never forgotten or forgiven it.

To get an actualpieceof the building, you had to kill the most Unsaved in a gladiator-style combat.

The Unsaved were mostly criminals, murderers or other violent men the city governments would offer up to the Congregations.

They could be dangerous and violent and the fight was to the death.

The young Congregants occasionally did get killed. But not my brother.

He came back from the pilgrimage with an actual piece of the holy building, encased in a little glass.

It always hung around his neck and I had never seen my brother without it.

“What was it like to kill those people?” I had asked him. “Was it—did they die quickly?”