Figurehead

seven

"I'm a deserter," she repeats, amusement in her eyes and lips as she watches me for my reaction. I think my face is blank.

"What do you mean?" I ask lamely.

She arches an eyebrow. "I was a soldier. Then I deserted." She says this slowly, as if I'm a child and she's one of my tutors.

"Yeah, but why?" Deserters are hated in both empires. If the two are to be at war, and lives are to be lost, there is no place for cowardice. In Avu, soldiers are conscripted, meaning deserters betray their own blood before they betray anyone else. In Escatin, soldiers volunteer. Why volunteer only to desert?

She shrugs. "My kin think I'm dead."

I gape. "Why not inform them you're not?"

She scoffs. "I have one remaining kinswoman. My ama is unlikely to care anymore."

I keep gaping. "But she's your ama."

She rolls her eyes. "And she pressured me into joining the militia when I was barely 11 Dre." She laughs at the horror she must see in my face. "I'm 24 Dre as of this season, Janf. I deserted when I was 20." We are the same age, I realise now.

"Is she still alive?" I don't know why I ask.

She shrugs. "You tell me. Is High Commander Pev still breathing?" She pronounces the title with disdain and mocking.

"She's your ama?" I flick my gaze over her, seeing for the first time the similarity of her features to her ama's. The sharpness in her eyes, the red of her hair, although Par's is darker. "Yeah," I reply eventually. "Last time I saw the former High Commander, she was fine. Missing a left forearm, but fine." I don't know about now, though. It has been months since I saw her.

"Still stern and cold?" Par asks. She seems to have no emotion when talking about her last living kin, as if speaking of her is the same as talking about Overseer Avu, the ruler of the Avu empire, someone I can assume she has never met.

"Yes," I acquiesce.

"So now you know my story," Par shrugs nonchalantly. "And for this same story, I may have to leave this place for the desert."

I sigh. "Maybe not," I offer. "Deritri holds plenty of deserters. You wouldn't be the first."

She shrugs. "I know. But so be it."

I eye her a long moment. "Maybe you should drink less firewater, Par."

She laughs. "Trust me, this is nowhere near as much as I used to drink."

Is that supposed to be comforting?

The firepit still contains flames brightly burning, despite the fact it is high night now. In the other room, Eris is most likely asleep in the darkness, accompanied by a single firefly. The door is closed, so I don't know. But here, the rest of us sit on our pallets around the fire.

Yef lies on his back, head in his bound's lap. Tri occasionally strokes his forehead with an absentminded gesture. They are opposite me from across the flames, Tui on my right. She and I both sit cross-legged, but I'm the one fidgeting in my place in the brief lull.

"So you want to leave in a week?" Tri asks eventually, raising an eyebrow. I forgot she was Nirs' sister. I'm struck suddenly, momentarily, by the similarity of the two.

"Yes," I nod.

"Where to?" Yef asks.

"Escatin land," I shrug. "Anshakim. Home." Whatever and wherever 'home' may be.

"Don't you think you'll get stuck in the desert?" Yef raises his eyebrows, shifting his head slightly so he can look me in the eye. His dark eyes are kind, yes, but unreadable.

"Maybe?" I reply, furrowing my eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

He frowns. "Surely you've heard of the illegal slave trade."

"Is that still going on?" Tui asks in alarm.

"Shouldn't be," Tri murmurs.

"What about it?" I ask Yef.

"Well, what do you know about it?"

I shrug. "Barely a thing. I just know that lots of the people in the desert used to be part of it."

"Yeah, well, the Avu empire used to have a real issue with the slave trade. It was just before the current Overseer climbed the ranks to where she is now. When she came into power, she decreed it illegal, but of course, it still continued."

"How do you know this?" I ask him.

"I travelled back and forth between Deritri and Escatin land," he says dismissively. "It used to be easier."

"Oh. Well, then what happened?" It seems strange to me, then, that one of the locals would stab him if he'd visited this place all those Dre before. But then again, people change and grow up and circumstances change all the time.

"I think eventually there grew some sort of intolerance for the trade. Especially with the war going on. It was a waste to have slaves when they could be fighting instead, so the slave traders gradually decreased to a handful, since the others were killed in war or by locals or some of the slaves themselves."

"A lot of those slaves were much stronger than they looked," Tri adds. "People often are." She shrugs. "Especially when they've been through things like the slaves had."

I nod. Yef continues, his eyes closed. "So the slaves grouped together against the slave traders, headed for the desert where the oasis is. The traders followed, but that was it for them. They got killed there, left for the desert animals. I think all of them are still living there now, the former slaves. Them and their children."

"That's... Horrible," I manage at last. For the slaves as well as the slave traders. But I'm glad the former slaves are free now, to live as they wish.

Tri nods solemnly. "It should be over now." She sighs. "Once in a while, though, rumours circulate and it's hard to tell." How does she know? She seems to sense this unspoken question, answering it dismissively. "I've been here before, Janf. It's not news."

I nod slowly. "But why would I get stuck in the desert?"

Tui speaks up. "They'll probably want to talk to you, see what's happening, see if you have anything to give to them in terms of messages from kin or something." She shrugs. "You're going alone, after all," she says, words drifting off.

I blow out a breath. "Would I be in danger?"

Yef's eyes flicker open to rest on me. "Could be. But I doubt they'd kill you. No reason to." He closes his eyes again. "Besides, you have the Lord on your side."

"Make sure you three write messages for me to send those back in Escatin," I say, shifting the topic.

"Of course," Tui smiles. "Make sure you visit once in a while." She frowns. "Preferably with another trusted messenger. It's not safe otherwise."

I sigh. "I'll try and visit," I say, managing a small smile. It's small, but at least it's honest. Maybe I can come with Nirs one day.

The room falls into silence, each of us lost in our thoughts. There is only the soft rise and fall of breathing, the faint crackle of flame. The silence rests upon the four of us like a thin sheet. But it is comfortable, this time. It is not like other times.

For that, I'm glad.