How much I have changed. I lie, when I never had, I steal when I'm in need, and instead of being cautious with magic, I've taken not one but two tattoos for enspelling animals. How much further will I go, I wonder.

  Until I can have revenge, I suppose. As I did with Torres-Cruz, I will do so again. Once I have the means... I fear for myself. The kind and innocent boy I once was is no more.

  From the journal of Drago? Buh?scu

  To lie about who he was to strangers was one thing. To lie to a cavaler and pretend he was one? Idiocy.

  And yet there Dragos was, standing on the shore of the Aluta, with bronze shining on his greaves and a cavaler’s helmet on his head. He avoided glance down at his shins and turned toward Seb and smiled thinly. “I ca—”

  He cut himself off as he saw horses in the distance coming up the road. Was this a cohort returning from war with the Aur? The snap of a steel trap resounded in his skull. He had few choices.

  His preferred one was to continue inconspicuously, which meant boarding the boat. Zgavra’s head was tilted to the side, gaze flicking between the boat and the road. It let out a curious, “Huh.”

  Thankfully it said no more.

  “Ma, got another!” The boy waved both arms over his head as the boat creaked up, its rope woven bumpers thudding against the bank beside the kedge stone. With a final whirl over her head, the woman flung the rope. Her rough voice called out, “Watch the hawser, Seb!”

  The boy vaulted off the horse and scrambled to catch the anchor stone before it tumbled into the river, then hauled it over to his horse. With a final wave at Dragos, Seb said, “Lumina s?-?i fie pa?ii, Dominule!”

  Dragos raised his hand and repeated the farewell back, then met Zgavra with a steady gaze, lips tight and grim. “Let’s board.”

  Zgavra’s huge mouth burst into a grin. It rubbed its hands together and snickered under its breath, as if Dragos's life was about to make for some serious entertainment. He resented that sentiment, but couldn’t say anything about it.

  Dragos looked at the Mare?al standing at the prow of the glorified barge, and bowed his head to her, then saluted before stepping aboard. He knew little about the Luminatori’s adjunct warriors, but it seemed the handful of soldiers on board were all women.

  “Wish I hadn’t gone so young,” Zgavra grumbled under its breath as it followed him.

  The boat itself was unimpressive, a mere forty feet in length, and squat, meant for cargo. A small cabin sat in the center, with the skeleton of a mast closer to the fore. The sail was up, only useful for downriver travel. Dragos imagined they stood over cargo from the south and supplies enough for the return to the Palisades.

  A stack of flimsy chicken crates were lashed together at the aft. The noise and the smell was enough to give him pause before continuing towards the back. He wanted to avoid the soldiers, but there wasn’t space for it.

  Still. Better the five, than the unnumbered horses he’d seen on the road behind.

  The two men worked the winches at the fore, the five cavarul, two other men who lounged near the winches, and the captain of the ship rounded out the bunch. Ten in all.

  Dragos glanced over the edge, but didn’t like the idea. Some of the things in his box would be ruined, and he did not want to risk what would happen if the starlace got into the river. It could disperse and return to the Zioruluc. Or, it could infect something.

  He’d rather not be the cause of some new Unspoken occurrence in the area.

  The Mare?al followed him.

  Jaw clenching, he listened to her footfalls on the creaking floorboards as he looked for a spot to sit along the low railing. Zgavra turned and beamed at her, his huge mouth twisting his face cheerfully.

  “I didn’t know the Cavarul had sisters!” It exclaimed, planting its backside next to where Dragos sat.

  The Mare?al ignored the gangling shapeshifter, coming to a stop before Dragos.

  “What cohort are you from?”

  It was said neither with hostility nor friendship. Dragos bit back the truth. The Luminatori had different numbers and concepts attached to those words than the Solomonari.

  Instead of speaking, he pulled out the signum that Julianos gave him. He lifted his chin enough that he could see the tip of her nose, just beneath her eyes.

  “Cavaler Julianos Vladmire. 25th Cohort.” She read it and looked it over, her mouth curling. She flicked the orange tassel with a finger thoughtfully. “Remove your hood when speaking to a superior officer, cavaler.”

  Dragos stood and flipped his hood back. The helmet did not conceal his paleness or his startling eyes, but orders were orders. The Mare?al frowned briefly at him, her dark blue eyes shifting in her sun-weathered face.

  “That plume isn’t regulation,” she gestured at the spill of white from the top of the helmet.

  “From my old horse, Mare?al.” The lie spilled so easily from his lips, Dragos wondered where it came from.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  His throat ticked against leather. His body gave off panic signals, though his mind was placidly considering different options, should a problem arise. So far, lying had gotten him out of many scrapes. Dragos had come to rely on half-truths and the assumptions of others.

  Much easier than trying to explain facts.

  The boat lurched away from the riverside while two men worked the winch arms. The big wheel turned, transforming their strength into the might of fifty rowers. Had he not been under duress, Dragos would have liked to observe the function.

  Instead, he stood toe to toe with a woman whose authority was undisputed. The other five cavaler, sitting on crates or the deck, were all watching with keen interest. The boat wasn’t big enough to hide anything, certainly not curiosity.

  Behind him, chickens were squawking for release. They weren’t fond of their enclosures. He pretended not to understand them. There were bigger things going on.

  The Mare?al’s eyes narrowed, the casual hand braced on her sword tightened. “Your commander’s name?”

  “Mare?al Urs.”

  Her hand relaxed and shifted to the pommel. She tossed the small signum plaque back. Dragos caught it by the orange-dyed tassel and tucked it back into his armor. Her fingers tapped on the hilt of her sword, her gaze falling on the one Dragos carried for appearances.

  “Always wanted to see how Surorile de Luminii would match up to Cavalerul in sword skills. We don’t spend much time in the Palisades. Prince Grozav likes to keep us close.”

  “Are you coming from the Khalkh?” Dragos asked, hoping to change the direction of the conversation. He had no training with swords. The Solomonari didn’t consider them particularly useful. Only his cohort brother Johan had taken a sword, much to Mirel’s chagrin.

  “We are,” the Mare?al replied, her mouth twisting in an unreadable expression.

  “When did Surorile split from Cavalerul de Lumin??” Zgavra piped up, a little overeagerly, if Dragos were to judge.

  “Before your time, sprout.” The Mare?al’s expression flickered into a sneer before flattening into a stone wall. “The cavalerul forgot that their origins were from a woman, and the monks insisted we take secondary roles. Some of us weren’t pleased to stay in monasteries and sweep shrines along with the monks. We built our own sect around the time this one was born.”

  She nodded at Dragos.

  He was glad she seemed to have forgotten her half-suggested sparring idea. He didn’t sit back down, despite the sway of the creaking barge. The sisters’ commander stood, and though he wasn’t clear on etiquette, he assumed he should stay on his feet until she left them alone.

  He hoped it was soon.

  “Why do you have a peddler’s box, cavaler?”

  “It’s mine,” Zgavra lied while Dragos mouth opened and closed like a fish breathing. Memory of the last time it was taken froze his previously glib tongue.

  Water lapped at the sides of the boat, but the thump of Dragos's heart was louder. The Mare?al’s fingertips tap-tap-tapped on her sword hilt. The other sisters had mostly gotten to their feet as well. One plopped her helmet on.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, her fingers still making that steady, rhythmic tap.

  “The Palisades,” Dragos replied. “Reporting back to Mare?al Urs.”

  “Tell me more about the sisters, Mare?al. Please?” Zgavra begged, slipping between Dragos and the commander, hands clasped.

  The zmeu was, again, overselling it. This time, it seemed the commander was less inclined to indulge the boy in front of her. She put out a forearm to nudge the beast out of the way.

  Zgavra forgot to move. It failed to shift as a youth might have, stumble, fall, anything but stand like a stone in her path. The Mare?al’s arm pressed, and her frown deepened.

  The bronze sword slipped free of its sheath by her hip. “No, this is all wrong. You’re wrong. You’ll submit to a test,” she called over her shoulder, not taking her eyes from them. “Check them for witchmarks!”

  Dragos held still, the boat’s sway turning his stomach while the other soldiers closed in on the aft of the boat. Ahead, the river bank drew closer, the boat pulled at a declining angle along the hawser, but it wasn’t jumpable.

  He let out a long sigh, as if he were exasperated. His fingers worked on the buckle of his sword belt as he judged distances. The screeching chickens behind him hadn’t stopped their complaining the entire time.

  “Alright, fine,” Dragos murmured. He wasn’t speaking to the commander.

  “Slowly,” she said, watching his hands on his belt as he pulled it away.

  Zgavra flicked a look between them, then smiled broadly at the other soldiers. “Now, now, one at a time, ladies. Each of you can search me all you want.”

  Dragos held the sword by its scabbard, but as he tipped it towards the Mare?al, he snapped his fingers around the hilt as she grasped the leather. He ripped the blade free and the commander stumbled back a step, expecting him to attack her.

  She threw the sheath on the deck and yanked her sword out.

  Instead of stabbing at the soldier, Dragos spun and swung the blade at the ropes holding a stack of flimsy containers and shed feathers together. As some of them broke open, he shouted, “It’s their fault you’re in those crates. Get them!”

  The chickens shrieked. Wood splintered. Feathers floated in the air. A dozen chickens burst forth, but it was the roosters that took up the suggestion of violence. Thick-spurred birds lept, talons kicking at the soldiers that closed in around the chaos.

  Dragos eyed the railing, and the distance to the shore. The kedge stone drew closer. The hawser shortened with every lurching glide forward. With the flap of his cloak, he leaped, bounding up off the railing into an arm-flailing jump toward the shore.

  Zgavra sailed past him, snagging the leather loop at the top of his box, yanking him forward the last few feet.

  His toes caught on the grassy bank.

  Dragos's arms windmilled. He lurched forward to fall on his hands and knees, then glanced up to see Seb, sitting on the giant horse, staring open-mouthed at him. Zgavra’s grass sandals blurred by as the monster in a boy’s body raced away, towards the thicket on the far side of the road.

  Lunging upward, Dragos was fast on its heels.

  The squawking of chickens and the Mare?al’s shout echoed behind him as he flung himself into a gap in the honeysuckle.

  “Catch them!”

  Lumina s?-?i fie pa?ii, Dominule!: May the light guide your steps, sir!

  Mare?al: Field Marshal

  Luminatori: Order of monks that worship the light.

  Surorile de Luminii: Sisters of the light.

  Khalkh: Southeast region of Calruthia. Fertile lands beyond the mountains threatened with almost constant warfare.