Chapter 90. Night of Two Drums

We broke the camp in silence and set it again in the same breath. Men like to talk before a fight to prove they’re not afraid; wolves prefer the sound of buckles, the hiss of a whetstone, a checked knot. The Sable Steppe held us like a palm. Far off, the Vesper tents stitched a dark seam along the low ridge—orderly, patient.

“Quiet Duke won’t come twice with the same trick,” Syra said, setting watchers where the grass went broken and the ravines pretended to be shadows. “Expect nets. Expect glass. Expect kindness.”

“Kindness?” Neris snorted, sliding a bone token into the loop on her belt.

“Something that looks like it,” Syra said. “Men die soft when they’re thanked for it.”

Knot trailed me with a bowl he was pretending wasn’t too hot for his hands. His eyes kept going to my brand like he was trying not to. “Where do I go?” he asked, quiet and careful.

“Here,” I said, pointing to the ledger-wagons, the cookfires, the water lines strung with ward salt. “I