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“She mentioned it?”

“She did.” Heival looked unamused. Her hair was tightly braided today, and she flicked it over her shoulder in irritation.

“I was not authorized to tell you.” Ava lowered her gaze. “You would be the first to agree.”

“That is both true, and annoying, at the same time.” Heival suddenly smiled. “And at least it makes this nonsense of yours that highlanders are better fighters than the steppe-dwellers finally make sense. You’re obviously highly trained.”

“You were a spy for the general?” Tras sounded outraged. “You never told me!”

“Nor could she, on orders of the general.” Raun-Tu’s tone was harsh, the stocky lieutenant looking between them as if to assure himself Ava really hadn’t said anything to her fellow guard. “But you forced the general into revealing who you are with your display last night. Very undisciplined.”

Ava stared at him for a moment. She hadn’t considered this. That she would be thought rash and impulsive for the way she’d gone off with Luc the night before.

Shehadbeen rash and impulsive.

And she would do it again without a second thought.

She bowed her head. “I had not seen my heart’s choice in nearly two months. I had prepared myself for sneaking over to him when we reached the Rising Wave tonight, and reuniting with him in secret, but he had the same idea about me, and when I looked up during the fight and found him standing there . . .” She shrugged and lifted her hands.

Every word of it was the truth.

“That’s romantic,” Tras said. He had a look in his eye that said he could barely sit in his saddle he was so eager to go off and spread the news. Unfortunately for him, their shift was just beginning.

He ended up peppering her with questions throughout the morning, as the camp packed up and began to move like the behemoth it was.

She deflected most of the questions, and was tired of the topic by the time it came to break for lunch.

They went their separate ways, he to his unit’s campfire, her to hers.

“Avasu.” Deni was standing by the horse station when she drew up.

She slid down and looked at his face. He seemed concerned, rather than angry.

She suddenly realized her error from last night.

She had bargained with the general to protect Luc from her own demons and baggage. And she would do it again. But she should have tried to find a way to protect Deni as well. He was her friend. One of the first friends she’d had in years. She didn’t want to lie to him.

She decided she wouldn’t lie to him.

“I looked for you,” he said. “When the messenger from the Rising Wave carried you away I was worried.”

“He wasn’t a messenger from the Rising Wave.” Ava reached out and grabbed Deni’s hands. “He’s my lover, Deni. The one I told you about who has my heart. And he is the Commander of the Rising Wave.”

Deni’s hands jerked beneath hers. “How can that be?”

“You’ll hear a story today about me being a spy for the general, and how I was captured by the Kassian and imprisoned in the same dungeon as the Commander, and how we escaped together two months ago.”

“A story?” Deni watched her, and she saw he understood what she was saying.

“A story. Some of which is true. Some of it . . . less so. But it is the story the general has told her lieutenants. I want you to understand that some day you might hear a different story. Don’t be surprised when you do. Know that this story is the one that works for now. It is the one that will keep the most people safe.” And if she had her way, the real truth, the one she was hiding from Luc, would never come out.

Deni turned his hands over to grasp hers. He squeezed. “That is all I need to know. The general has already told her lieutenants this story?”

“Raun-Tu and Heival have already dressed me down about it this morning.”

“Dressed you down? What for?”

“For forcing the general to reveal my identity because I couldn’t control myself at the sight of my lover. My going off with him was very public.”