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CHAPTER ONE

Elician

T he battlefield is always chaotic. Even on a good day, when their defence is strong and their lines remain unbroken, Elician can only just manage to keep track of Lio. His presence is a constant balm in the violence as he blocks a sword here or an arrow there. Never straying far. They have fought this war for three years at each other’s sides, and knowing where Lio is has become instinct. Elician does not need to look. He knows, with perfect clarity, Lio is there.

The melees never last long into the afternoon. It is too hot. But they start early, and the battles often stretch for hours as one relief group after another reinforces the front lines. Today, the humidity is impossible to ignore, even for the most steadfast of soldiers. They choke in their armour, gasping for breath between one strike and the next. And so, when Elician first sees a flash of streaking white, lithe and impossibly agile, he thinks the creature is an illusion, or perhaps his battle-weary brain playing tricks. For no nightcat would ever appear in a place like this.

Lio yells his name. Elician twists – an enemy soldier, dressed in tattered grey rags and clinking chainmail, swings a blade towards his head. Their swords clang loudly. Elician pivots on his heel. He ducks low. He yanks his blade up in a fierce diagonal, killing the man between one hot breath and the next. The body falls and – there it is again. A flash of white. Not the beast he had first imagined but a young man, bare-chested and pale, twisting away from the violence of the battle. With no armour to protect him, the man’s skin shimmers in the high sun of the day. His hands cover his ears, as if that could possibly be enough to muffle the sound of the fighting. His head whips back and forth, mouth open in a wordless scream. There is dirt and blood splashed across the naked expanse of his chest. Elician takes one step towards him, bewildered by his appearance – then a new soldier appears in his peripheral vision.

Elician turns. Blocks. Looks back. The figure is gone, swallowed by the melee. If he had kept standing still like that, he would have been killed in an instant. Elician does not see his body amongst the collapsed forms littering the ground, but there is no time to search. The battle has not been called off yet and Elician cannot afford the distraction.

Blinking the sweat from his eyes, he adjusts his grip and his stance, then continues to fight. An hour passes. Another. His muscles burn hotter than the packed earth beneath his feet; he breathes in short bursts. The melee is agonizing in its refusal to submit to the muggy summer sun.

But eventually, it does.

A horn blows from the Alelunen encampment to the west, signalling to the enemy troops to regroup and retreat. Elician catches himself mid-swing, diverting an attack that would have taken his closest opponent’s head off. The blade slices harmlessly through the air, but he must catch his weight on a hastily planted left foot as his balance shifts to accommodate the new position. His opponent stumbles backwards, staring at Elician in horror once she realizes how close she came to dying today. She raises her sword uncertainly, but Elician shakes his head. ‘That’s enough,’ he tells her, speaking in her own language to make sure he is fully understood.

Finally, a second horn blows from the east. Elician’s uncle, Anslian, has conceded the field. The battle is over. Both armies have been ordered to retreat, but the woman Elician could have killed is still hesitating. Her eyes fall to the shimmering golden sun that shines proudly on Elician’s chest plate. Someone has already managed to dent it once today. But the sigil is too obvious to be obscured. ‘You’re . . . you’re the Soleben Prince,’ the Alelunen soldier identifies slowly.

‘Yes,’ Elician agrees. ‘I promise, you may try to kill me tomorrow.’ He pulls off his helmet and drags a hand across his brow. It is easy to ignore the sweat during the fight, but in the first moments of the aftermath Elician is hyperaware of each dribbling bead. He turns back towards the east. Lio is there, hand still on his sword, looking over Elician’s shoulder towards the woman who should have already begun her retreat. ‘She’s not going to attack again,’ Elician murmurs to his friend. He pats Lio’s metal-clad shoulder. ‘Come on.’

‘You’re too trusting, Your Highness,’ Lio tells him. But he follows Elician to camp, only looking back a few times to ensure the would-be heroine has not decided to take it upon herself to make one final effort to end the crown prince’s life.

‘I’m too tired,’ Elician corrects valiantly. If he can avoid killing one more person today, then he will take it. He is sick of feeling lives snuffing out at the end of his sword. He has done his fair share of death-dealing during the melee. Soon, he will need to stand before his uncle and recount every pertinent detail.

Clearing his nose, he leans a little closer to his friend, murmuring something he knows he will not include in his report. ‘I thought I saw something today,’ he says, swiping more sweat off his overheated brow. ‘On the battlefield.’

‘There were plenty of somethings on the battlefield,’ Lio says.

‘No, not like this one, Wilion. This one was different.’ He smiles conspiratorially. ‘This one was a nightcat.’

Lio and Elician help each other remove their armour after they are given permission to retire from the command tent. Ordinarily, Elician would not be expected to assist his friend. But Lio’s fingers are clumsy and tired after the hours of conflict and Elician has no interest in prolonging this process for decorum’s sake alone. The initial after-battle reports had lasted long enough for Elician to start feeling truly uncomfortable. Sweat had begun to pool at his chest, and his head had spun dizzily as the humid air made each choking breath even harder to inhale. He is desperate to shake off each layer like a beast shedding its fur.

Lio’s nostrils flare as he takes a closer look at the vicious dent at the centre of Elician’s breastplate, one that has crushed the shimmering golden sun inwards towards his heart. ‘You’re lucky this isn’t worse,’ Lio gripes, tossing the very expensive and finely made plate to the side for repair. ‘You’re equally lucky that no one in Alelune seems capable of aiming a damn arrow . Any competent archer can sight you from four hundred paces away with all this glittering nonsense.’

More than a few archers had aimed and nearly struck true, but Elician wisely does not inform his friend of that. Instead, he finishes unknotting the messy tangles of Lio’s left arm guard and teases, ‘At least I’m the prettiest target on the field.’

Lio is not amused. He swats a mosquito as it lands on Elician’s chest, killing it with a bit more force than necessary. It drives the air from Elician’s lungs, and Lio doesn’t even bother to apologize as he brushes the insect to the ground and stomps on it for good measure. Another flies close to Elician’s ear. Elician swats it against his neck with a few creative curses that would have earned him a sharp rebuke had they been back at court.

On Elician’s desk a camp attendant has already set out a bowl of scented water. Lavender and lemongrass are the best remedies to keep the bugs away. That the infusion also washes off the sweat and grime from the melee is a bonus he’s grateful to have. He sets to cleaning off his skin while Lio wages a much smaller war against the mosquitos at his back. ‘What were you saying about nightcats earlier?’ Lio asks, swatting and slapping away.

‘I thought I saw one, is all,’ Elician replies idly. It would have been a beautiful thing to behold if it had been real. His uncle Anslian, High General of the Soleben army and Second Son of Soleb, has always said nightcats don’t exist, and Elician has yet to see one in the wild. However, the other soldiers at camp always tell their own stories about the creatures prowling through the woods. Nightcats are never heard, not until the moment of attack, and they disappear whenever someone turns to look. But the camp insists they’re white as snow, and gone in a flash, taking with them anyone who strays too far from the fire lines. As knowledgeable as his uncle is, Elician much prefers the stories to reality.

‘Should I be worried you’re seeing things when you fight?’ Lio asks as Elician finishes cleaning and steps back to dry himself.

‘Probably not,’ Elician replies, sliding his fingers through his black curls in a vague attempt to assess the damage. Bad. It is bad. His fingers snag on a knot almost immediately. Sitting on the raised bed in the back of his tent, he tries valiantly to beat his curls into submission while Lio takes his turn at the bowl for a wash. But Elician’s hair and his helmet do not get along, and the result of this fight is almost assured. I should cut them all off, he thinks. But Mother will despair if I do. ‘It was a trick of the light,’ he continues when Lio’s silence weighs heavily between them. ‘That’s all.’

‘Did you eat today?’ Lio asks shortly.

‘You saw me eat.’ Elician takes up a comb in the hopes of gaining ground. His scalp screeches its despair.

‘I saw you put food on your plate, and I saw your plate empty. The middle bit I’m less certain about.’

‘Alas.’ Elician tries it from another angle. Then another. ‘Making . . . food . . . magically disappear ’ – the comb flexes almost to a breaking point – ‘is not one of my talents.’ Snap. Lio snorts, and Elician glares at the flimsy piece of wood that had promised wonders beyond its ability.

‘No, your talents clearly remain elsewhere,’ Lio says. ‘Shall I put a new comb down on your requisition report? How shall we explain it to your uncle, I wonder?’

Elician has no desire to explain the incompatibility of his hair maintenance with the army to anyone, least of all his uncle. Anslian had successfully won the territories on the Bask River’s west bank from Alelune, their only continental neighbour, twenty years ago. And when Alelune had regrouped and declared its intention to reclaim the land it had lost, Anslian had remained high general of the Soleben army. He is a hero, and too many people have died today for him to be worrying about whether his nephew’s hair is in good order. Their requisitions report should prioritize other matters. He tells Lio as much.

Lio opens the drawers of Elician’s dresser and finds them clothes to wear for the evening. Outside, he can hear the other soldiers preparing for a night of food, drink and laughter. Despite Alelune’s best efforts, Soleb hasn’t lost any ground. Tonight is a night to be proud of. Especially after a long, hot day. The smell of food wafts through the air, something thick and hearty. Elician’s stomach gurgles as he begins to dress. Lio is faster than he is. His sweat-darkened blond hair, straight as the arrows that keep missing Elician’s heart, is already tied back. Bastard.

Mostly dressed, Lio reaches for his discarded armour and plucks a carefully folded strip of cloth from the pile. The shimmering purple-and-burgundy scarf is neatly embroidered with a perfect celestial map in gold and silver threads. He unfolds it, then refolds it with meticulous precision before slipping it beneath his shirt above his heart. ‘Have you received any new letters from Adalei?’ Elician asks slowly as Lio finishes his ritual. The same ritual he’s done from the moment Elician’s cousin pressed that scarf into his hands the day they left for war.

‘This morning,’ Lio admits, reaching now for his sword and fastening it to the belt around his waist. ‘Fredian was managing mail call.’ He glances towards Elician, his lips twisting in an annoying leer of a grin. ‘He asked how you were doing.’ Elician flushes at the young soldier’s name, then scowls. He tugs on his change of clothes, thrusting his arms through the sleeves of his linen tunic and turning his back on his friend in the process. ‘It wouldn’t kill you to talk to the man.’

‘If only it would,’ Elician mutters darkly. There is a small cache by his bed. He opens the lid to retrieve the heavy golden sun pendant which lies inside. ‘And it isn’t talking that Fredian wants to do.’

‘He’s not asking you to marry him, just . . .’ Lio makes a crude gesture.

‘If you can’t even say the word, then maybe you shouldn’t be doing it either.’

Lio’s cheeks turn positively scarlet at the insinuation as he sputters ‘I haven’t!’ even as one hand returns to the hidden cloth at his heart. ‘I wouldn’t! I promised her I wouldn’t!’ Perhaps more importantly, he would never get permission to marry Adalei if he was seen sleeping about the army camp. And unlike Elician’s comb, that is something Uncle Anslian would deem most important for him to know.

‘I made promises too.’ Elician loops the chain over his head. Its weight tries to pull his neck into a bend, but he is used to it. He knows how to stand straight even under the burden of his royal birthright.

‘They’re stupid promises.’

Maybe they are. Elician shrugs. But they’re all I have. He has a few more years left before his lack of interest in camp dalliances will earn him more than an amused grin and comments on piety. He intends to milk those for all they are worth.

‘Fredian is a good lad. Good family too. He—’

‘He’s perfectly fine .’ There had been nothing wrong with any of the suitors – formal or otherwise – Elician had met. The women were exceptionally appropriate , the men had legacies to be admired, and the soldiers were blunt, offering to help him clear his head after a long day of fighting. Every offer had been fine . And he had wanted none of them. He has more than enough loved ones in his life that will die before he will. He has no intention of adding another to that tally, not if he can help it. And the mere thought of opening himself up to any kind of physical intimacy . . . That runs the risk of emotions getting involved. He knows better than that.

‘You’re lonely,’ Lio accuses.

‘How can I be lonely?’ Elician asks. ‘I have you.’

Lio scowls. ‘You’re my best friend, and I’ll serve you until the day I die, but you know that isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m not going to be at your side for ever and—’

‘Yes. I know.’ He does not need their incompatible life spans spelled out. He never has. Thoroughly done with the conversation now, Elician gestures towards the tent flap. ‘Let’s get some food . . . and go to the river. You can tell me what Adalei wrote you.’

Lio agrees. He does not have much of a choice in it anyway. They head out into the camp proper, passing the injured, the weary and the still strong. Elician offers words to anyone who notices his presence. Polite and repeated phrases easily ignored. He avoids Fredian’s eyes when he collects his stew, and quickly leads Lio towards the river. It’s a full moon tonight. The world bathes in shimmering silvery-blue, and at the camp’s edge the terrain stretches out, hinting at possibilities yet to be seen.

The Bask River runs north and south, splitting their continent in two, Alelune on one side, Soleb on the other. Their countries have been fighting over ownership of this river since long before history was recorded. No one knows who struck first, but it has not mattered as the centuries have slipped by. The first god, Life, formed and gave birth to the world right at this spot, long before the water came and the river formed. Neither country will allow the other to claim this sacred site for themselves. It is both countries’ birthright and heritage.

Elician can feel it in the air as he approaches the Bask. He can feel it in the sound of the waves. This place radiates a kind of peace unlike anywhere Elician has ever been. As if Life himself is entreating all those who could listen: this place should be protected . And they will protect it, eternally, from their enemies across the river. Soleb will never relinquish its claim to the waterway, and Alelune equally refuses to contemplate a life without the river in its domain.

The Bask simply feels right . It flows calmly and with great certainty. Its depths contain endless fish to feed their troops. And it bears witness to blessed occasions, such as when sharks and breeding whales use the river to transition from one sea to the next. The great migratory periods are some of the few times the war comes to a pause. No one wishes to disturb these oceanic wonders on their path of travel. It is one of the only things any Alelunen or Soleben soldier can agree on.

When Elician had first been enlisted and arrived at this camp, his uncle had posted him as a whale-watcher, to sound the alarm the moment one was seen. He and Lio had spent months practising swordplay and observing the water as they listened to the older and more experienced soldiers fight. In those early days, announcing a sighting felt like the only way he could save anyone’s life. Call the alarm and the fighting stopped. Swords were returned to their sheaths. Music, calming and peaceful, echoed from one campfire to the next. Whale-watching is an honour that he has outgrown now, but not one he will ever forget.

The Bask splashes against its rocky shores as they approach. A cursory glance confirms there are no whales tonight. It is the wrong season for it. A shame. Sitting down at the river’s edge, Elician pulls off his boots and sinks his toes into the soothing waves. He brings his bowl to his lips and eats slowly, languidly, relaxing for the first time all day. ‘Fen would love it here,’ Lio says, sitting at his side. Elician hums thoughtfully. His adopted sister, fourteen and malcontent, would likely love anywhere that didn’t force her to continue her education. ‘All that anger,’ Lio goes on. ‘She could win the war in a night.’

Elician snorts. Nods. The camp songs echo louder. This far away, the lyrics are muffled but he recognizes the beat. His fingers tap along to it absently. You came – you died! You thought that you could take our lives, but Life is at our side! You came – you died! The taunting never endears them to the Alelunen soldiers camped on the other side of the battlefield, in the Grünewald.

‘We should come up with a different song,’ Elician suggests, exhausted by the nightly recitation. Do they really need to waste their energy on this?

‘You’re the poet.’ Lio shrugs. ‘You—’ He stops. Frowns. Elician sits up, listening. A noise. Quiet, muffled, but . . . there . An eroded shelf not far from the river’s edge and a shadow subtly moving in the darkness. Lio stands, drawing his blade. Elician sets his bowl to one side and joins him. They walk closer and the hitched breathing that had first drawn their attention grows ever so slightly louder.

Elician peers over Lio’s shoulder just as they reach the overhang, and when the hiding creature finally comes into sight, Elician laughs. ‘Look, Lio. It’s my cat.’

Half-naked and pale as the moon, the huddled form is that of a man not much younger than Elician or Lio. His long brown hair hangs limply in a tangled mess around his face, but there is the slightest bit of stubble on his chin, like it has just started to grow in. He wipes his eyes to hide tears and Elician’s heart wrenches. A new recruit? Quite possibly. Most soldiers have bad reactions on their first day in the melee.

If he is a new recruit, though, he is not one of theirs. No Soleben soldier would be as pale as this, skin all but glowing white in the moonlight. Sun-kissed skin is a badge of honour for their people, with designs burned into their skin whenever possible. But in Alelune, the less time spent outside, the better. Elician glances towards the Alelune camp. They could, conceivably, lead the recruit back across the battlefield and send him on his way. It would be an awful business to do it without getting spotted though. And his uncle would not be pleased if they were seen. He would want to know why they were the ones to do it, and what they were even doing so far from the encampment in the first place. Elician has no desire to give up the few minutes of peace he can wrangle each night. He does not want to receive another lecture regarding propriety either.

None of that matters now.

‘How did he make it here ?’ Lio asks, speaking Elician’s thoughts out loud. ‘Did all of our sentries truly miss him?’ A worrying question of security to be considered later, for sure. ‘Where are his clothes?’ he continues. The younger man is not naked, exactly. If he were Soleben, the tatty trousers would have at least been moderately appropriate summer wear. But even at the height of the hottest days of the year, Alelunens do not care much for displays of ‘indecency’. Bare-chested, bare-footed and disreputable as he is, this soldier may as well be a beggar.

‘Battlefield initiation gone wrong?’ Elician guesses awkwardly.

‘I didn’t think they had the sense of humour for something like that.’

‘Anything’s possible.’ Elician crouches. He rarely has the opportunity to practise Lunae with anyone. A few lines here or there during battle, certainly, but the chance for a full conversation does not come frequently. His countrymen hate the floating vowels of their closest neighbours. Lunae is a language that seems to imply its meaning rather than indicate any degree of specificity. Worse yet, learning it requires mastering the most subtle of nuances between vowel sounds. Elician struggled to learn it as a child, preferring Soleben or his mother’s tongue, Glaikan. There is a kind of perfection found amongst the hard consonants and dedicated finality to those languages, something Lunae’s lilting lyricism cannot quite manage on its own.

Lunae’s subtle vowels are often the first to fall under the assault of a Soleben accent, mangled beyond recognition. But, with great care, Elician resurrects them from the dead. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says as best he can. ‘We’re not going to hurt you.’ The Alelunen’s eyes flicker down to the pendant swaying on Elician’s chest, then snap to his face with such rigid attention it is almost enough to drive the air from the prince’s lungs. He frowns, unused to such piercing focus from anyone not under his command. ‘How did you get here?’ he asks.

Pale limbs unfold themselves one at a time. The Alelunen’s arms slide off his knees. His legs twist as his weight shifts. He tilts himself forward.

He is handsome, Elician supposes, for an Alelunen. Appallingly thin, all things considered, but there is a peculiar cut to his nose and jaw that Elician can appreciate. It would be a shame to kill him if it turns out he is not a wayward new recruit but a spy or something worse. Some of the Alelunen’s hair shifts, revealing a dark shape along the curve of his right cheek. Dirt? No. Something else.

Elician’s memory tingles with recognition. A half-formed thought starts to take shape even as he leans back on his heels. But the Alelunen is already moving, his left hand snapping forward – Lio intercedes. He snatches the recruit’s wrist with his bare hand and promptly falls to the ground.

Dead.

Elician’s breath catches in his throat. For a moment, he does not understand. He looks, stupidly, for an arrow or a blade or anything he could have missed. When the answer comes, Elician nearly chokes on his next inhale. A Reaper.

Both taller and heavier than the would-be assassin, Lio’s collapse had dragged the other man to the ground. But the Reaper wastes little time wriggling free. He gets back to his feet and charges at Elician once more, hands outstretched. Elician takes half a step back, instinct howling at him to defend himself even as he realizes the inevitable. He left his sword back in his tent. Lio’s is too far away. There is no other way for this to end. The Reaper reaches towards him, his deadly touch crossing the distance between them, and Elician shoves him backwards. Hard.

The Reaper trips over his own feet but manages to stay upright. He seems to be preparing for a second assault when his eyes go to Elician’s bare hands. He falls eerily still, staring at Elician’s sun-dark skin. Elician had made direct contact. He should have died. Had Elician been anyone else, he would have.

‘I’m a Giver,’ Elician confirms, exhaustion coursing through him. ‘You can’t kill me. No one can.’ A Reaper’s touch means death. But a Giver is imbued with the power of the god of life. Only the gods can kill their kind. Nothing else. Elician glances back towards camp. They are still alone. There are no other witnesses. Good. ‘But,’ he growls out, aiming one finger at his best friend’s body, ‘ he really hates it when I bring him back.’ It is impermissible. Frowned upon for many reasons and considered taboo. Whole histories have been written about how pulling people away from Death leads to nothing but suffering. And yet, Elician kneels. He presses his palm to Lio’s throat and wills him to return.

Immediately, his friend lurches beneath his touch and Elician feels relief flood his bloodstream like a bitter high. Lio gasps for air, rolling to one side and coughing as he tries to catch his breath. ‘Welcome back,’ Elician mutters.

‘Fuck.’ Lio braces himself on his hands and knees. ‘Did you—What happened?’

‘You died,’ Elician replies, dry as dirt. Lio curses again. And again. Elician leaves him to it, turning back to the Reaper, whose confusion has given way to wonder. He meanders closer, one hand outstretched towards Elician. Not out of malice, necessarily, simply to test a theory. His eyes are wide, lips parted, stunned and curious. Elician takes his hand. Holds it long enough to make it clear that neither is going to die from the contact, then asks, ‘What are you doing here?’

The Reaper does not reply. When that fails, he leans back on one foot and slashes his other hand towards Elician’s face, sharp nails nearly catching him in the eye in the process.

Elician ducks, twisting the man’s wrist in his hand to manoeuvre the Reaper down to the ground. ‘Give me your belt,’ he snaps at Lio, then quickly works to bind the Reaper’s hands behind his body once he has it. ‘You really are a damned cat,’ Elician gripes once he is done. Bound for now, he tugs his captive up onto his knees and steps back to get a better look at him. ‘What’s your name?’ he asks, temper rising.

The Reaper hisses something, some nonsense thing that sounds like it was intended as a word but has turned furious and unintelligible instead. ‘Cat it is, then,’ Elician decides. It is simple enough for now and he does not have the energy to come up with something better. What to do? There is nowhere in the tent-city of their army that a Reaper can be properly restrained. The closest true city, with a proper prison system, is Altas. But, once there, Cat would need to be kept in solitary confinement and isolation. The guards would not be able to manage him otherwise. If he were to break out of the cell, he could murder anyone who dared try to stop him with barely a flick of his wrist. Sending him back to Alelune, though, is not an option. He knows Elician is a Giver now. And that information cannot be known. Not yet.

‘What is he even doing out here?’ Lio asks, fetching his sword from the ground and holding it uselessly in front of him. ‘It’s forbidden for Reapers to fight.’

‘It’s forbidden for Givers to fight too,’ Elician reminds him, rubbing his face again as if the sensation alone would provide an answer. He is exhausted . After the endless hours of the melee . . . he had just wanted to get clean. Eat some food. Sleep, even. He does not have the energy to deal with this too.

‘You aren’t resurrecting or healing anyone!’ Lio protests. Elician’s hand drops to his side. Even Cat looks unimpressed at that proclamation. A proclamation that Elician had not even thought the failed assassin could understand. They both look at Lio, incredulous in the face of Lio’s own, very recent, resurrection. And Lio has the audacity to argue. ‘We’re not on the battlefield now,’ he snaps. ‘And a Reaper is as much a liability to the Alelunen army as he is to ours. Especially like that.’ He waves a hand at Cat’s half-naked body. He’s not wrong. Any Reaper, in any capacity, is a liability in combat. He is a danger to both armies merely by existing.

‘He’s a danger to himself too,’ Elician murmurs. Someone with his powers cannot die a proper death. He could have been stabbed or sliced by hundreds of blades earlier today, and each wound would have healed. Even fatal blows would have eventually led to him standing up and walking away. But Elician knows from experience that just because something heals quickly does not mean there is no pain.

There is a good chance this violent, vicious assassin – surely sent by Queen Alenée of Alelune – really had been crying by the river, caught in the same post-battle shock as any new recruit. And his attack – almost successful, all things considered – had been a crime of opportunity. He could not possibly have known Soleb’s crown prince would be here, now. Which means . . . something.

Elician sighs. It means something. His sluggish brain is simply not willing to work it out at the moment. ‘He can’t stay here.’ That much is certain. He rubs his face again, trying to form his scattered thoughts into logic. ‘We could take him to Kreuzfurt,’ he offers. Though the fortified town is three weeks’ journey by horseback.

‘He tried to kill you,’ Lio says slowly. ‘He did kill me.’

‘Yes, but you’re better now.’

‘Joy.’ Lio’s unhappiness is palpable. Elician ducks his head even as Lio keeps talking, growling out each word with increasing frustration. ‘But even if we do take him there, what exactly do you think is going to happen? It might hold others of his kind, but do you think he’ll just play nice with all the Soleben Givers and Reapers with no thoughts of escape?’

‘I think,’ Elician says, kneeling down to look the Reaper in the eye, ‘that the guards patrolling Kreuzfurt are the only ones capable of keeping our Cat here from wandering off. They are uniquely qualified to handle those with his powers. And if he does decide to tell anyone what he knows about me being a Giver, that information isn’t going to get very far. Marina will put a stop to it immediately.’ He expects hostility, violence, even a few curses or condemnations, but the Reaper stays silent. The brief moment of clarity that had come at Lio’s earlier bombastic declaration seems to have passed and he regards them both with almost passive nonchalance. If anything, his attention is solely on Elician’s hands, as if he is trying to work out exactly where his planning went so wrong.

Slowly, Elician reaches for Cat’s face. He ignores how the Reaper flinches back and presses his thumb against the man’s cheek. He rubs back and forth, smearing a concealing unguent that had disguised the black stain seared into his skin. ‘I thought nothing could leave a permanent mark on your kind,’ Lio murmurs at his back.

Elician nods, continuing to reveal the stain. ‘Marina told me it was something the scientists in Alelune had invented to make sure that anyone who crossed paths with a Reaper would know what they were.’

Lio shivers. ‘Alelune likes its experiments.’

That it does . . . Clearing his throat, Elician returns to Lunae to ask, ‘Tell me, Cat, what would you prefer? I cannot let you go. So, either I take you to Altas to be held in solitary confinement, or I bring you to Kreuzfurt – where you can wait out the rest of the war with your own kind.’ Both are life sentences in their own way. The war always picks up again, for one reason or another. The last break in tensions only lasted seventeen years, and that was following a particularly aggressive forty-year campaign. This recent assault is only three years in the making. There is no guarantee when Cat will be returned to his own people, but at least one option comes with human contact and the possibility of a life worth living.

It is more than most assassins get.

‘Can he even speak?’ Lio asks in their native tongue when the Reaper stays silent.

‘Altas,’ Elician repeats in Lunae, holding up his left hand. ‘Or Kreuzfurt.’ He holds up his right. Slowly, the Reaper’s head tilts towards Elician’s right hand. ‘Kreuzfurt it is. Lio, could you go fetch my uncle?’

‘You want me to “go fetch” the high general of the army?’ Lio scowls, already lowering his sword.

‘Well, we need his permission to go.’ They need more than that, but it would be a start. None of them are going to get much sleep tonight, it seems. At least they will not have to fight on the front lines in the morning. And good things, no matter how small, should always be celebrated.