TARA

       Seventh moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus

       South barracks, Second Circle, Rilporin, Wheat Lands

      ‘Tomaz? Tomaz, my love? Call to me, darling. Tell me where you are.’

      Tara rushed along the rows of beds with their manacled, staring occupants, easily outstripping her guard, skirts bunched in a sweaty fist and praying none of the soldiers outed her as one of them. She passed an open-mouthed Captain Salter, a man who’d served under her for a year and had never once in that time heard Tara call anyone ‘my love’. He looked down and away.

      Too many weeks of eyes-down, mouth-closed hard labour and a dedication to duty that would have astounded Mace, and Valan, her owner, had finally allowed her to visit the makeshift prison and her husband. Valan himself stood by the entrance with the other barracks guards, the door open to clear some of the miasma of sweat, shit and sickness from his delicate nostrils. Tara barely noticed it, both out of respect for the Rankers chained here and because if this went wrong, she could measure her remaining life in breaths, not years.

       You better figure out the ruse fast, Tomaz my lad, or we’re both dead.

      ‘Slow down, wench,’ Bern, the barracks guard escorting her, grumbled, a note of warning in his voice.

      Tara gritted her teeth and complied. ‘Forgive me, honoured, I am anxious to see my beloved after so long. I’ve been so worried …’

      ‘He’s a heathen traitor, an enemy of Rilpor, and a bastard,’ Bern grunted. ‘You want to get anywhere in this life, you’d be better off finding yourself a real man. Your so-called marriage laws count for nothing now, remember. It’s only because you belong to Second Valan that you haven’t been fucked seven ways from midsummer already. Though I bet he’s done a good job of showing you what a real man can do, hasn’t he?’

      Tara didn’t answer. Instead she hurried for the row of small rooms at the rear of the barracks, the officers’ quarters, where word had it that the captive high command were imprisoned. Not dead. Not dead yet, anyway.

      ‘Tomaz?’ she called again, and this time a bearded face appeared at the barred window in one of the heavy wooden doors. ‘Darling!’ she shrieked, running to the door and pressing her face to the bars. ‘I’m your wife,’ she hissed. Major Tomaz Vaunt blinked once in confusion and Tara’s stomach threatened to exit via her throat, and then the guard was unlocking the door and she shoved her way inside and fell into his arms, showering his face with kisses and clutching his unresponsive body to hers.

      ‘Oh my love, my love,’ she said breathlessly, ‘I never thought I’d see you again. Oh, my darling Tomaz, my husband, my Tomaz.’

       Please, please, you fucking idiot. Play along.

      She could feel the disbelief in Vaunt’s rigid frame and dug her fingers hard into his back. He coughed. ‘Tara?’ he said hoarsely and squeezed her to him. ‘You there,’ he added a moment later as Tara was swallowing tears of relief, ‘any chance you can piss off for a while? This is my wife.’

      The man staring through the door sniggered and made a few comments, but they heard the turning of the key in the lock. ‘One hour,’ Bern said, ‘and if you come out of there with a babe in your belly, you’ll still work until you drop it. No light duties, no extra rations. And if Valan wants to put one in you, you’ll abort it and thank him while you do, understand?’ He spat at them, the thick glob of saliva clinging to the window bar, and left.

      Tara gave it a few more minutes, murmuring endearments and pressing kisses to Vaunt’s face and neck. He thawed quickly and soon enough was playing the part of loving husband with vigour.

      Eventually, Tara pushed him away. ‘Put a curtain up over the window, my love,’ she said huskily and he grabbed up a blanket, hooked it awkwardly over the frame; they heard a cheer, and more ribald jests that made even Tara blush. As a soldier, she’d thought she’d heard them all. Apparently not. Fucking pig.

      Vaunt sat cautiously next to her on the bed, close enough to drag her into an embrace if needed. ‘You’re alive.’

      Tara snorted. ‘Of course I’m alive. What do you think I am, some soft Palace Ranker?’

      Vaunt’s mouth quirked. ‘No. Though you do appear to be married to one.’

      She shrugged. ‘I didn’t fancy being passed around the Mireces, thought a high-ranking husband’d be my best bet. Working so far.’

      Vaunt shook his head. ‘What the actual bollocking fuck are you doing here, Major?’ he hissed. ‘I mean here, in Rilporin? Last we heard, you were cut off in the city, no idea if you were dead or not. Why didn’t you get out?’

      Tara took a second to rub the taste of him off her mouth, her chest suddenly tight at his use of her rank. A reminder of who she really was, not this, this drudge, this slave.

       I’m a soldier. An officer. I’m a godsdamned West Ranker.

      ‘Assassination, rebellion, insurrection. The usual,’ she said flippantly, but Vaunt wasn’t taken in by her act.

      His face paled. ‘Assassination? Corvus?’ he guessed and she blinked acknowledgment. He ran distracted hands through his hair. ‘That’s a big ask, Carter.’

      She waved it away. ‘First things first: what do you know?’

      He looked ready to argue, then slumped. ‘Not much. I haven’t been out of this room since they caught us at the King Gate, even though the rest labour from dawn to dark every day repairing the walls and gates.’

      ‘All right, listen up. You’re the only captives who haven’t been sold as slaves yet,’ she told him. ‘You and any soldiers still alive in the north barracks, but as I have no reason to go there, I can’t find out who’s left. Everyone else, every other civilian, now belongs to someone. You belong to the city itself, or the Mireces as a group, maybe. I don’t know why they haven’t sold you, but it can’t be out of a sense of fair play. So they’ve got something planned. I’m trying to find out what, but no luck so far. I’ll keep digging.’

      ‘And you?’

      She tapped the heavy metal collar around her neck. ‘Oh, I’m special, I am. I was a gift to Valan the king’s second himself. Hence the need for a husband, though he’s … got a sort of honour, in a way. Hasn’t touched me yet, anyway.’

      ‘Carter—’

      ‘I’m your wife. Get used to calling me Tara. And don’t worry about it.’

      Vaunt was grim, but he didn’t press and she was glad. ‘What else?’

      ‘The East Rank has been sent up the Tears and the Gil to subdue the towns and villages and take a tax in food and goods to send here. So that means there’re only Mireces guarding this place. That could give us an advantage.’

      ‘You want to start a riot?’

      ‘I want to start a fucking war,’ Tara snarled and then interrupted herself with a string of endearments and a giggle she could tell by Vaunt’s face he never expected to hear from her. The footsteps outside the cell paused and then carried on. More than one guard now, ready with their fists and clubs no doubt.

      ‘My orders are to kill Corvus and Lanta too, and for that I’m going to need a distraction. I’ll ready the palace slaves to fight and if we