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Chapter five

Nerys

“ H ow are we getting out of here?” Nerys asked the Cerdorani again, who didn’t bother to hide a smirk. His favorite expression, apparently, since he couldn’t be bothered to answer her the first time.

“Easy. With our feet.” The man placed two fingers on an upright palm and mimicked walking. “Moving one, after another—”

“You know what I mean,” Nerys said, putting a hand on her hip.

“Do I?”

Nerys seethed—a soldier may die tonight after all. “Keep this up, and maybe I’ll decide I prefer the noose.”

The man laughed softly. “You and Fina are going to have a lot to talk about.”

“Fina?”

The man shrugged. “Later. For now, just trust that I don’t plan on dying. I’m going to do my best to get us both out of here.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“It isn’t. If the wrong sight-bearing Ca’mailian looks at me at the wrong time, eh, let’s just say I’d be in a noose next to you. Or worse.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

Nerys rolled her eyes. “Why are you worried about being seen by Ca’mailians? Oh” ?Nerys smiled with her mouth still open? “ that’s why you need me for your ridiculous plan. You need an assassin who won’t be exposed as a foreigner if challenged—and the R?ll’s court is full of Sight Bearers.”

“I thought I made that clear.”

“No…not quite.” Or more like information—including regicide—had been spewed at her so fast it hadn’t fallen into place. “But it does raise the question as to how you’ve survived this long here. Surely someone saw through your disguise at some point. ”

“I’m good at improvising,” he said in a matter-of-fact manner.

If she didn’t know he was serious, she would have laughed. “Are you always this sure of yourself?”

“No. Only when I am sure.”

Nerys grimaced, making the man laugh again. His voice did not belong to his face. Far too rich, too… Nerys blinked. She didn’t like where those thoughts were going. Though she was suspicious that he wore an illusion even now—he had practically admitted as much. What did he actually look like?

“One more thing,” he said, once his laughter died, “what’s your name?”

“Name?”

“The thing people call you, typically given at birth—”

“I know what a name is.”

The man looked at her expectantly.

“Nerys,” she said.

“Ah—short for Generys?”

Nerys shook her head. “Just Nerys.”

“That’s…interesting. Nice to meet you, Nerys. I generally like to know the names of those I travel with.”

Nerys didn’t answer.

“My name is Idris.”

“Alright.”

“Just alright?”

Nerys shrugged. “I guess it’s better than thinking of you as ‘that man.’”

Idris held her gaze for a moment, then broke it off abruptly. He stood, offering a hand to help her stand, but she didn’t take it. Slowly, he took his hand back, lip curled. Maybe she was being too rude.

“It will make it easier to leave the camp if we pretend we’re a couple,” he said. “A married couple.” Nope, she wasn’t being rude enough.

“Why?” she asked warily.

“It’s the only way we’d be able to leave this time of night without raising questions.”

“By being married?”

“Men don’t bring their sisters to army camps. You’re either my wife or my whore. Take your pick.”

“Ah.” Nerys held out her hand. “Well, when you explain it so sweetly... ”

Idris grabbed her hand with all the sensibilities of clutching a raw chicken leg.

Nerys turned to grab her dropped knapsack, but Idris gently tugged her hand.

“Leave it. It’ll look too suspicious, like we don’t plan to return.

” He had a point. Nothing in there was worth risking her life, the little money she owned was tucked against her skin in a small purse, next to her crystal rose.

Nerys left the knapsack behind, and along with Idris, took a step towards the tent door flap.

“One more thing,” Idris said, jerking them to a stop. “Don’t speak. To anyone.”

“Why?”

“You’re going to be nervous. And nervous people say stupid things.”

Nerys glared.

“Just…trust me,” Idris said. “And no matter what, don’t panic.”

“Sure, sure, don’t panic.” She sighed. Easy enough. She stole into the damn camp—she could get out.

The two of them stepped out of the tent and into the night.

Oddly, few soldiers paid them any attention as they strolled through the rows.

Of course, this might have been because the soldiers in question were too busy minding their business of eating, drinking, and gambling.

26 Or it may have been that a couple taking a walk was not worth looking at.

Regardless, they made it to one of the camp gates with little more to show for it than muddy feet.

Hopefully, that mud was not the result of man-made water.

Nerys tried to drop Idris’s hand but he gripped it tighter. “We’re in love, sweetheart,” he hissed.

Love. Right. Nerys plastered a wistful gaze and a knowing smile on her face, like a lovelorn idiot.

Now they had to get past the guards, the sour-faced guardians of the threshold.

Two burly men stood near the gate, arms crossed as they shared a flask.

27 One of the guards returned the flask to his companion and strode over, dramatically adjusting the crotch of his pants.

It was a good time for Nerys to look at the ground.

“Where are you going?” the guard asked, inspecting them like the answer would suddenly appear on their flesh.

“The village,” Idris answered in his old accent, pulling Nerys closer. She did her best not to wrinkle her nose. He reeked of unwashed body and…cloves? Idris was certainly committed to his role as a solider, odor included. “My wife needs supplies.”

“What do you need that you can’t get here?” the guard asked her.

“Soap,” Nerys said. Fuck staying silent. No Ca’mailian woman would hesitate to answer for herself.

Idris shot her a quick glare, but didn’t hesitate in saying, “Good luck getting decent stuff that won’t take your skin off here.”

“That can wait until morning,” the guard said.

“It can’t,” Idris said.

The guard crossed his arms. “Why the urgency?”

Idris paused, seemingly at loss for words. Did he have a plan? Nope. No plan.

Shit, one of them had to say something.

As painful as it was, Nerys wove her arm through Idris’s, slapped on her biggest smile, and said, “We’re newly married, and it’s been…difficult. Such cramped quarters and all.”

“Ahhh.” Understanding spread over the guard’s features. “Why didn’t you say so? The guard moved aside, all but waving them along. “Return before sunrise, or you’ll be in violation.”

“Of course.” Idris nodded and rattled off his army number to the guard, who noted it in a book he pulled from his coat. Brief formalities done, Idris gave Nerys a flirty grin and led her outside of the camp, leaving behind the miasma of masculine communal living.

“I told you to let me talk,” he said, assumed accent gone.

“And if you had , I wouldn’t have bothered.”

“Just” ?he let out something between a grunt and a sigh? “make sure you listen to me for what’s next.”

“Of course, dear husband .”

What’s next ? They were out of the camp. What was left?

After a few hundred feet, Nerys took a deep breath, rejoicing at the tasteless taste—the tang of human excrement finally gone from the breeze.

Her eyes wandered from the cloudless sky to the delightful trees, and then over to the swinging lumps next to the road, when her next breath stilled in her mouth.

The dangling objects were not some sort of siege weapon—they were hanging bodies, barely visible in the darkness.

Some had little decay, others had white bones poking out of bloated flesh, pecked away from birds.

All of them a reminder of just how much danger Nerys was still in.

28 She kept a hand on Idris’s arm—he was her only chance to not end up dangling beside them.

They kept moving along the jutted road until soon they were well out of sight of the soldiers patrolling the wall.

By this point the road narrowed and was no longer a muddy plain, and in the distance the approaching village glowed softly against the black night.

Nerys and Idris weren’t the only ones enjoying a moonlit stroll—other couples walked hand in hand, most of them soldiers and their companions, who did little more than give them an acknowledging nod.

“Now what?” she asked once the latest couple was out of earshot.

“We walk to the end of the road here” ?Idris nodded towards a fork in the dirt road up ahead? “and then we’re going to take a small detour into the woods.”

“There are people on these roads.”

“Where else are they supposed to be? The sky?”

She resisted the urge to yank back her arm. “They won’t wonder why we’re wandering off into the wilderness?”

“Oh, they would. 29 But they won’t see us.”

“How—never mind.” Nerys needed a long nap before she tried to figure out how Cerdorani magic worked.

Since Idris—arguably—wanted the noose less than her, she decided to trust him.

Though, she didn’t exactly have a great history of trusting the right people.

She eyed the others on the road, the opportunities through which one woman could disappear into the darkness. She could run…

No. She had to stop. Idris wasn’t Cefin. It was too late to regret this now. Someone may stop her, follow her. Best to stay with the insufferable, smelly Cerdorani. She’d leave once she was safe in the woods.