“You could get hurt.”

He blinked. “No.”

“You don’t ever fear for yourself?”

“Not for something like this.”

“Then what?”

He studied his hands. “Sometimes . . . I think of who I was. As a boy. I talk to him.”

Slowly, she said, “Like you do to your god?”

“It’s different. Or maybe I think about him like my god thinks about me. I’ve made promises to the child. I worry I won’t be able to keep them.”

“What have you promised?”

“Revenge.”

“You’ll have it.”

Arin nodded, but more in simple acknowledgment than actual confidence.

She looked at him through the smoky night. Just light enough to see his expression, and dark enough that his body smudged into the shadows. Soon, night would truly fall. Waves folded and unfolded against the shore.

“We should wait for the moon to rise,” she said, “before we go down to the camp.”

“And what,” he murmured, “will we do while we wait?”

She brought his fingers to her lips so that he could feel her smile.

His hand traveled the length of her braid and toyed with the leather string that bound it. He untied the knot. The sound of it coming undone was as soft as a breath. He unraveled her hair, and brought her close.

When the moon was high, Kestrel and Arin gathered what they needed and made their way down to the beach, keeping close to the ragged bushes, blending in with their darkness. They waited, crouched near the edge of camp, where they could see the supply wagons, their domed canvas covers as pale as mushrooms in the moonlight.

Finally, a sentry on his rounds walked close to their hiding spot. In one swift movement, Arin surged up, clamped a hand over the sentry’s mouth, and dragged him down to the sand.

“Not a sound,” Arin hissed at the sentry, the point of his dagger pricking the hollow behind the man’s ear. Arin forced the sentry’s face to turn up to the moon. Eyes wide. Skin strained and white. “Tell us which wagon holds the black powder.”

The sentry shook his head.

“Do you remember,” Arin whispered, “the punishment for runaway slaves? No? Let me remind you.” He lightly drew his dagger over the man’s ear, down the tip of his nose. “Which wagon?”

The Valorian shook his head again, but this time his gaze jerked in the direction of one of the larger wagons.

Arin glanced at Kestrel. Enough? his eyes asked. Yes, she mouthed, but—“Don’t,” she whispered, ill at the sight of the sentry pressed down in the sand, his eyes as dark as her childhood friend’s, as that of any Valorian child. They were gleaming, glassy with the kind of fear a child eventually learns how to hide. But death will do that. It makes you unlearn all you know. “Don’t,” she told Arin again.

He hesitated, then slammed the pommel of his dagger against the man’s head, knocking him unconscious.

“Be swift,” Arin told her.

She cut into the small bag of black powder tied to her waist. She felt grit flow thinly from the hole. Then she straightened and walked into the camp.

She kept her head down, her tight braid trailing over one shoulder. Her face was dirty, she reminded herself as she passed campfires. She was changed. Her hair had reddened—was redder still, by firelight. No one would recognize her, surely. Not in armor. Not like this, with no trace of cosmetics, no finery, no silk or jewels or glittering gold engagement mark. She was not herself. She was simply one of them. Just another Valorian. But her throat was dry, and her stomach shrank into a stone.

The wagons weren’t far off. To reassure herself, she passed her fingers through the little stream of black powder from her bag and thought about how it traced a line between Arin and her.

When she reached the wagon the sentry had glanced at, Kestrel let out a slow breath. She peered inside and saw, in the halo of moonlight through canvas, fat mounds of sacks tied with twine.

“What are you doing?” someone demanded.

Slow, very slowly, squeezing all of her sudden fear into the sound of her boot shifting in the sand, Kestrel turned.

It was a guard. The woman looked Kestrel over. “What,” the woman said, “does a scout like you want with that wagon?”

The small sack at Kestrel’s waist felt light. It had leaked nearly all of its black powder. Could the guard see it in the shadows? “I’m verifying inventory.”

“Why?”

The words sprang to her lips before she even fully remembered them. “For the glory of Valoria.”