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She understood his h, even if he didn’t use the word love "Well, since she was too afraid to talk to him, she drew him a treasure --they worked at the same theater, but they’d never spoken--and she left early that night so she wouldn’t see hi, you know, and she just couldn’t take it She’d already decided that if he didn’t follow the ain and that would be the end of that"

"What was the treasure?"

"She was" Karou laughed "That’s Zuze being shy She won’t talk to hiht in the hed, too "So obviously he went He followed it"

"Mm-hmm He went to the place and she wasn’t there, but there was another map, which led to another, and finally to her And they fell in love and they’ve been like this ever since"

At "like this" she gestured out the open door, to where Zuzana was now gingerly treading along the edge of the trough, holding Mik’s hand

Ziri had never heard anything like that story of a trail of treasure uised into the cage city of the enemy to dance with his lady

He liked Zuzana’s story better "A luck thing," he said

"Yeah," said Karou She looked at hiain "I think they both have to be lucky It’s like, luck friction One’s flint and one’s steel, striking together to hter around herself "It’s better when they tell the story themselves They’re funnier than I ao’s asse, and that he needed to be there "The way they’re learning Chi before they can tell it"

She didn’t say anything The softness of good one She looked over her shoulder, furtive, and then up at hiet theo’s threatened the as they’re here, I have to do exactly what he says And I really want to stop doing what he says" She said the last part quietly, burningly, and Ziri had the iathering of breath and strength

"Do Zuzana and Mik know?"

"No, and they won’t want to go They like it here They like being part of soical"

So did Ziri He’d relished those hours spent in Karou’s room with her and Issa and Mik and Zuzana, even if he had been tithing They had been lively and filled with laughter and war "I’ll help you We’ll get theain, "Thank you"

Then Zuzana called so through the door

"Are you coun"

"Not invited," she said "I’m not supposed to worry myself over such ?"

"I will," Ziri proain, that girding and gathering, and a keen new resolve Gone was the treo had found in the ruins

"What is it?" Ziri asked, but the small human ind reached therabbed her hand and pulled her aith a distracted hello over her shoulder to Ziri

He left his breakfast uneaten and went out the door What did she want to tell him? He could still feel her touch on his hand

Once, when he was a boy and she was Madrigal, she had kissed hihtly on the forehead, and it was ridiculous how ht of it since But his moments of happiness were a sad, small lot, and the kiss hadn’t had much competition for best memory Now it did

Now he had the ainst his own as they slept side by side, and thebeside her What would it be like to wake beside her every ht? And… to fill, with her, the hours between All the hours of night

"A luck thing," she had said

Supposedly he was lucky Lucky Ziri Because he had his natural flesh? It was a claiue if they wanted to call hi up without a people, no life but war, and even less now that the as over--whatever that ht of the screa, the smoke of the corpses, and he was ashamed to question his own luck He was alive; that was not nothing, and it couldn’t be like this forever

Everyone was already in the court when he got there--except Ten, who ca in a moment after Ziri and sidled up to the Wolf to whisper in his ear Thiago paused to listen, and then his glance slid, cool, to lock on Ziri It made Ziri’s flesh crawl, and then the Wolf spoke

"As you all knoe lost a teaht, our first casualties, but their safety did his duty and returned with all their souls Ziri" Thiago nodded to him There were cheers in the assembly, and someone reached out a heavy hand to jostle Ziri’s shoulder But Ziri didn’t for a ood, and he braced himself, and was unsurprised by the rest

"But you need a new teao turned to Razor

No, thought Ziri, his jaw clenching Anyone else

"Your wish, eneral," came Razor’s hiss of a voice "But I can’t promise he’ll play hide-in-safety on my team, or keep that pretty skin of his"

"Hide-in-safety" was a slur used in stupid bravado by soldiers who couldn’t see the value of preserving the souls of the fallen Ziri tensed at the implication that he would ever choose to hide, but then he thought of what they would certainly be doing, and there was no conviction in his outrage He would rather hide Better yet, he would rather prevent the slaughter fro to be an option Ziri had been a soldier now more years than he hadn’t He’d never loved the life, but he was good at it, and never, at least, while the Warlord was alive, had he abhorred it He did now

"There’s a string of towns on the Tane River, east of Balezir," said Thiago He srievous harels to wake in Balezir tomorrow and wonder why the Tane runs red"

64

A NICER NUMBER

Karou was bent over a necklace when Ten cahts were far away, in Loraet her ood and bad indeed But good and bad ords for a child’s prinitude of tragedy on the one hand, and on the other… hope