She was always good at the hard math.
Death and nothing out of it, or life and the chance to better the Sands’ lots.
That wasn’t even a question.
At the end of the line, her sergeants waited, and everyone else fell back. Tibeau stared into émeline’s fire with his arms crossed, and Pruett stood close beside him, arms at her sides. Tears glistened amid Tibeau’s stubble. Touraine wanted to wrap him in her arms and hug him to her chest. She settled for a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, Beau,” she whispered.
“We heard the princess got a new concubine.” Tibeau turned his head to look her up and down. He didn’t even try to hide his distaste.
“Concubine? No.” Touraine spoke to Pruett instead, searching the carefully blank look on the other woman’s face. “I’m just an assistant. Cantic stripped my rank. I can’t wear a uniform anymore.” It sounded unbelievable, even though she’d spent half the day saying it to herself and trying to figure out where she belonged. I’m not a soldier anymore.
“She really did court-martial you, then,” Pruett said in soft surprise.
“For treason. And murder.”
Tibeau squinted. “And you’re still alive? That’s gonna cost.”
Touraine glanced over her shoulder. Princess Luca and her guards waited patiently, for now.
“The cripple queen.” Tibeau sucked his teeth.
“Princess Luca promised to help me change things for us—for the Sands.” Balladaire owes the conscripts a great deal of thanks, the princess had said.
“Tour, you’re missing the point.” His wide hand slashed the air. “You’ve always missed the point. I want to be free of them. All of them. This includes their ‘help’ and anything else that comes with a collar.”
“Like their food? Their money?”
“Starve me, then. Been close enough to it on campaign. Give me hunger on my own terms.”
“You want to go die by yourself? End up some general’s boy when they catch you? Or would you let Pru hang you for a traitor? You go, and you bring every other one of us down with you.”
Tibeau’s face purpled and he opened his mouth, but Pruett stepped in with a hand on each of their chests.
“Fucking shut it, you two,” she whispered harshly. “We’re not in the barracks. Don’t wave your shit stains in front of the whole sky-falling army.” Her breath came heavily. “We’re safer together, and right now”—she moved her hand to Tibeau’s face to stop his interruption—“we’re safer with the Balladairans. And not because they’re looking out for us. No one is looking out for us. Not them, not the Qazāli. No matter what either of you do, we only have each other.”
When Pruett locked Touraine in her sights, though, her voice was bitter. “What’s she offering, hein? This pretty funeral?”
Layers in the question, in the voice—measured mediation over cold iron over a tremble.
“She’ll intervene for us.” Touraine gestured to the fire. “She already has.” She met Pruett’s eyes, pleading. “I can change things. I know what to say to them. I can do what they want me to do.”
Tibeau sneered. “You really are their pet monkey.”
The insult cracked like the whips of their youth. Like the whips, the epithet was a memory Touraine tried to keep buried. Tibeau had been the first to call her that, and it had clung to her with every test she’d passed with high marks. The Balladairans’ pet monkey, ready to dance for them. Even after the three of them became friends, he and Pruett teased her with it occasionally, but it hadn’t bit like this for years.
“Beau!” Pruett rounded on him and pointed to the other Sands. “Fucking leave.”
For a moment, Touraine thought he’d apologize. Instead, his face walled up and he left, shaking his head.
Touraine blinked hard and turned toward the fire. “If I don’t do this, I’m dead, Pru.”
“He hurts, Tour. And if you’d died, I… I’d be a pain in the ass, too.” They stood so close that Touraine felt the shake of Pruett’s pained chuckle. After a moment, she added, “He’s right. It’ll cost you.”
Pruett’s body heat, the heat of the fires: a fortification against the cold night. The invisible belt around Touraine’s chest tightened again.
“You and her really aren’t fucking?” Pruett asked.
“No. If she wanted to fuck me, she could have pulled me out for a night and sent me back.” Maybe that was naive. Maybe Touraine had misinterpreted the princess’s looks, her hospitality.