Xiala stood dumbfounded. Did they really expect her to answer? Hells, did they blame her? Was that why she was there?
“One word will do,” Iktan said. “Yes or no.”
She pressed her lips together.
Iktan sighed. “The answer is yes. She won’t speak it because she just realized who we are.” Xe started walking again.
Ziha’s eyes lingered on Xiala. “Who is she, again?”
“Come, Ziha. Is there a meal to be had in this place? I’m tired and hungry, and I stink. The last meal I ate was some kind of gruel. Utterly tasteless. I could use a decent plate.”
“Should we shackle her?” Ziha asked, eyes still on Xiala.
Iktan had reached the top of the hill. “What for? Tova is a hundred miles south from here. She has no food and no water, and it’s cold enough to freeze. She’s not going anywhere.”
“Am I a prisoner, then?” Xiala asked, trying to keep the trembling out of her voice. Iktan was right. The reality of her situation was crashing down on her with the terrifying undeniability of a rogue wave.
Iktan’s dark eyes softened. “We are all prisoners here, Xiala. You, Ziha, even myself. Prisoners to fate, that unreasonable bitch. But I prefer to think of us as people who can help each other, yes? After all, we’re all on the same side, now.”
Xiala watched Iktan disappear over the crest, and after a moment, Ziha hurried after, the guards who had accompanied her trailing. Finally, the sailors from the skimmer passed, talking quietly to themselves and ignoring her.
“On the same side,” she murmured. “I do not think so.”
But she was hungry, and Iktan was right that she had nowhere to go. You’ve survived worse, Xiala, she told herself. Survive this and get back to Serapio. It sounds like he’s in need of rescue. And maybe she could learn something here among Serapio’s enemies. Something she might bring back so that when she did see him again, she would have something useful to offer him besides tears.
* * *
The camp was not as large as Xiala had first thought. There were three dozen tents made from tanned and treated hide stretched around flexible poles. The hump-shaped structures looked quick to assemble and disassemble and light enough for a person to carry in a pack on their back. A small refuse pile on the outskirts of the encampment suggested they had only been here a few days, and the lack of more permanent structures like a well or a ditch to the nearby river suggested they didn’t mean to stay for long.
Ziha escorted them to a tent six times as large as the others and able to fit a dozen people at once.
“You may refresh yourselves here,” she instructed. “There’s water and clean clothes. I’ll see about a meal, and then we’ll talk. You’ll tell me everything you learned, Iktan.”
“Of course.”
Her brow crinkled. “It would be proper for you to call me Commander.”
“You don’t have an army yet, Ziha. When that day comes, I’ll consider it.” Xe lifted the tent flap, motioned Xiala inside, and then followed.
Xiala heard the woman growl a curse before storming off. Shadows at the door meant Ziha had left guards to watch over them.
“You like to irritate her,” Xiala observed, eyes on Iktan as xe pulled the cloak from xir shoulders and let it drop to the floor.
Xiala had not gotten a good look at the priest before now. Xe was tall and sinewy, with a prominent nose in an angular face. Xir black hair had recently been shorn but since had grown in as a soft fuzz. Xe rubbed a hand over it now, as if annoyed at its length.
“She irritates easily,” xe said.
“But why poke her at all?”
Xe walked to a water basin and dipped both hands in. “Could she not bother to heat the water?” xe complained, before leaning over to wash xir face. “Ziha is young and spoiled and has had a tremendous amount of power given to her purely because of who her mother is. If things go as planned, she will soon have even more.”
“Then I understand your motivation even less.”
Iktan searched for a towel and, finding none, used xir gray shirt to wipe xir face. Xe looked back at her with large intelligent eyes. “Perhaps you’re right, and it is simply my nature to provoke. But be glad her temper is focused on me right now and not you. The Odo Sedoh killed her cousin and spoiled her clan’s long-planned coup of the Watchers. She wants him dead. You would make a fine proxy.”
Iktan pulled off xir shirt, knotted it up, and dipped it in the water. Xe continued xir ablutions, wiping across xir underarms. Xiala turned to give the priest privacy when xe began to unselfconsciously strip off xir pants. She heard the splash of water and the soft rub of cloth against skin. The scent of yucca and lavender soap filled her nose. She caught sight of Iktan’s backside as xe padded over to a trunk in the corner and threw it open. It was piled with fabrics, and xe plucked various articles of clothing from inside, holding them up for size. Once satisfied, xe dragged on a pair of white pants and a plain white shirt that looked very much like the lesser cousin to Ziha’s finer ensemble.