They reminded him of exactly what he was: a poor, thieving murderer.
If possible, he enjoyed his proximity to the empire bondservants even less. They reminded him not of his worst self, but of his best—the part he’d sworn to leave behind. The part he’d had to stifle and suffocate until only the smoking wick remained. Sev might be an animage, the same as them, but that didn’t mean he had to live like one—an unpaid servant for the rest of his life.
And he didn’t have to die like one either, leaving people who needed him behind. Like his parents had done to him.
Of course, no one needed Sev. He’d made sure of that. It had seemed like a good idea as a child, when his world had collapsed around him. Love no one, and let no one love you. Less pain that way. Sev could die tomorrow, and not a soul would miss him.
Sometimes it was hard to remember why he’d thought that was a good thing.
Sev continued to trudge on, but when the feet in front of him slowed, he risked a glance up. He and the rest of his unit—ten soldiers in total, not including nearly a dozen bondservants—were escorting thirty llamas they’d purchased from a breeder in the backwoods of the lower rim of Pyrmont, the mountain that held the majority of Pyra’s settlements.
It was painful to be here again, so close and yet so far from home. He’d longed for a chance to return, to leave the empire behind, but he’d never imagined he’d return like this—as a soldier serving the very empire he hated.
It was thanks to the empire that Pyra was now a cursed land with cursed people. Their fight for independence had ended in thousands of deaths—the deaths of the Phoenix Riders, in all their fiery glory. The deaths of Avalkyra Ashfire, their would-be queen, and the sister who challenged her.
The deaths of Sev’s mother and father.
Now Pyra was the home of exiles and people who’d fought against the empire in the Blood War, or animages who wanted to avoid the registry and use their magic in peace. There were no governors stationed here, no laws or taxes or even soldiers to defend this place. Raids were common near the border, which was why Sev and his fellow soldiers were dressed in rags and mismatched gear. They wanted to blend in.
They were part of a much larger force, which was camped well away from the Pilgrimage Road, the main thoroughfare through Pyra. Sev and this small splinter unit had been tasked with exchanging their wagons—useless on the steep off-road paths they intended to take—for the sure-footed llamas, who were docile and mild-mannered beasts of burden, excess excrement aside. Their unit was meant to return to the rest of their regiment before nightfall, and they were cutting it close as it was.
So why were they stopping?
Sev craned his neck and took a step forward, but before he could figure out what was happening, his heel sank into a warm, slippery heap.
“Teyke,” he muttered. Only the god of tricksters could manage to constantly put piles of feces underfoot.
Unearthing his boot with a squelch, Sev caught sight of the bondservant next to him, watching Sev’s struggle with a frown on his face. The bondservant was familiar. Not because Sev knew him, but because he always seemed to be watching Sev—especially when Sev did something stupid. This happened often, and so the bondservant watched him often. He was about Sev’s age, tall and broad-shouldered, with golden-brown skin and black hair cropped close to the scalp. He had a chain around his neck—a requirement for all bondservants—from which dangled a plain pendant, stamped with his name, crime, and the duration of his sentence.
The bondservant seemed curious rather than hostile, as if Sev were a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out, but whenever Sev met his gaze, his expression would turn wary.
Hatred for animages was rife in the military, carried over from the Blood War. It began with the higher-ups, who’d spent years fighting against Phoenix Riders—with all the gruesome wounds and burn scars to prove it—and then trickled down to the lower ranks. Many of the younger soldiers had been orphaned by the war or had grown up hearing their parents disparage the rebel animages and the Pyraean separatists. The two were often lumped together: Not all animages were Pyraean, and likewise, not all Pyraeans were animages. But after the war, when animages found their magic outlawed and their lives in danger, many fled the empire altogether into the relative safety of Pyra.
Most soldiers were spiteful toward the animage bondservants, lording what status they had over them and treating them like lesser servants. Like criminals. After all, they were criminals, and whether their crime was serving Avalkyra Ashfire in the Blood War, avoiding the register, or using their magic in secret, the animages in the empire had been rounded up and either taxed into poverty or, if they couldn’t pay, forced to serve their debt to the empire as a bondservant. Half of the soldiers were criminals too, but their crimes were forgiven upon enlisting. Like Sev’s had been.
Of course, the hatred went both ways. Animages had been treated like traitors—even if they’d had nothing to do with Avalkyra Ashfire’s rebellion—and had suffered at the hands of the empire.
Sev was stuck somewhere in the middle, having as much in common with the bondservants as he did with the soldiers.
On the one hand, his parents had been Phoenix Riders, and he carried that same animal magic in his veins. The threat of the empire had forced him to keep it hidden for most of his life, and the fear of soldiers discovering his secret had often haunted his dreams. They didn’t know he was an animage in hiding, just trying to make it through another day.
No one did. And they couldn’t.
If anyone found out Sev was an animage, he’d have a chain on his neck too, and given his criminal past, a life sentence to go with it.
Of course, on the other hand, Sev was a soldier, despite hating and fearing soldiers for as long as he could remember. The Phoenix Riders had stolen his parents, ruined his life, and left him orphaned on the streets of Aura Nova. He couldn’t help but dislike them, too.
Sev belonged nowhere, a sheep without a flock.
Staring down at his boot, he gave the bondservant a rueful smile before trying to scrape the mess off on a nearby patch of grass. The bondservant shook his head, looking away. Sev continued to struggle, and the bondservant finally looked back and tapped his belt exasperatedly—as if trying to show Sev something. Sev frowned in confusion, staring somewhat awkwardly at the bondservant’s empty belt, before realizing he meant for Sev to look at his own. There hung a waterskin, perfect for removing animal dung. Face heating, Sev nodded his thanks before pulling out the stopper and making quick work of the cleanup.
Once finished, Sev squinted through a gap in the trees. The soldiers had come up to a sun-drenched clearing, and visible in the middle of it was a small cabin with a blue door.
The cabin was round in shape with a domed roof, a popular style in Pyra, and was probably a single-room hunting cottage or the dwelling of some old hermit, tucked away here in the middle of nowhere.
They’d had two orders from Captain Belden when they’d left camp that morning. Return before sundown, and don’t be seen. As empire soldiers, they were unwelcome in Pyra, and Sev didn’t think their raider costumes would hold up under close inspection. And besides, it wasn’t like the locals would welcome raiders, either.
There was a commotion somewhere up the line, and it seemed they were moving out once more. Sev expected they were diverting around the clearing in case anybody was inside the cabin. It looked empty, but not abandoned. Firewood was stacked against the back wall, the pathway was cleared of overgrown grass and weeds, and ghostly wisps of smoke slipped from its chimney.