“And where is Your Excellency going now?”

  “We'll be in Vorsa in a week, don't fret.” I jumped on top of a rge rock, looking down on him. It feels nice to do that with tall people every so often. “I just wanted to enjoy a bit of this lovely summer day. Is that a crime? I mean, maybe it's a crime in the capital, how would I know.”

  In the dry season, the northeastern wind blew right from the desert, hot and harsh, making little waves of dust chase each other across the road. The chorus of canasteras and tapaculos must've agreed it was a pleasant day, though, as it was chirping in full force. The Rekul shone down the hills, wrapping itself around Cabaza, snaking toward the distance where it would turn again around El Meandro, and further on until it ended in the Lagoon of Laments. If I shadowed my eyes and squinted, I could even vaguely glimpse a silvery dish in the distance. I continued my climb, enjoying the stretch of muscles and the warm sweat sliding down my back. In such a pleasant day, any hints of Underworld miasma should stand out even more. This was good, ‘cause I doubted much miasma was left by now.

  “Your Excellency shouldn’t take the whole morning,” Valentino warned.

  “Of course not. Don't you wanna sit at the shade? Look, those trees over there look like a good pce.”

  “Only if Your Excellency does the same.”

  “Do I look like I'm doing anything suspicious? Look, nobody's gonna shit themselves if you just take your cravat off.”

  Just as I thought, I caught a faint whiff of something damp and rotten as we argued. My perseverance and attention paid off, as I noticed the glint of something gssy under an ichu's tufts. Crouching, I carefully pushed the branches aside. That was gss all right. Several darkish-blue fragments that, if put back together, would form a shape as big as my pinky. I picked them one by one. A tiny spotted lizard skittered from one ichu to the other, more interested in the beetles hiding beneath them than in me.

  “What do you have there, Your Excellency?” Valentino's voice had acquired some authority all of a sudden. Not as intimidating as Vanth, never mind Grandma Alba, but it got the job done.

  Seeing how I couldn’t sneak my finding past him, I stood up and showed him the shards.

  “I must ask Your Excellency to give me that.”

  I widened my eyes with pretend curiosity. “Is there anything special about it?”

  “Surely Your Excellency didn't pick it up from the ground believing it to be mere gss?”

  “Do you think it isn't? Because it looks like gss to me.” Now I’d brought the shards into the sunlight, what miasma lingered on them had dispersed.

  Valentino smiled that pleasant but humorless smile of his. “Maybe His Illustrious Highness will solve this mystery.”

  Not bad. He hadn’t forgotten about me walking away with Vanth. Well, seeing how we'd meet him again sooner or ter, it was just as well to let Valentino know a bit more.

  “Let's go sit under those espinillos by the river and I’ll tell you a few things.”

  The Rekul couldn’t be drunk from and few things still lived in it, but the flowing water and a scattering of stubborn trees made the banks pleasantly cool. At our right the hills rose ste-grey and sandy-brown, sliding eastwards in a slope flecked with cacti. As I told him a very condensed version of what had happened st night, I wrapped the gss shards in my hankie, right next to Vanth's spell. Valentino never showed any emotions other than restrained sympathy, but then again he was a professional.

  “I'll show His Illustrious Highness the fragments next time we meet,” I finished. “Is that all right?”

  Slowly, Valentino undid the knot on his cravat. “I don’t see why not.”

  I raised my eyes to the swaying branches over my head. “I wonder if this is one of our trees. I don’t think so, but of course they all look very simir.”

  “One of yours, Your Excellency?”

  “Yeah.” Now I’d already opened my mouth, I wondered how much it could be safe to tell him. However, it’s not as if keeping my mouth shut would make things any better. Court is a pit of scorpions and everyone gets dragged in. I was used to pretending to be just a harmless farmer who wouldn’t think of getting any ideas against my betters, but that wouldn’t help me anymore. Everyone at court held grudges, everyone had enemies. “Someone cut most of the trees a couple of years ago. We repnted them after they left, but as you can see, they’d take a while to grow to their full size. So every family in the area repnted a couple of their trees on the hill.”

  “Must have been a lot of work,” Valentino said sympathetically.

  “Well, yeah.”

  We met Mr Garza on the road, driving a cabriolet to Cabaza. I exchanged a wave with him. Before the day was over, he’d would visit our farm and have a cup of coffee with my grandmas and ask what in the coldest hell was their oldest grandchild doing with a guard, and not even a local guard at that. I only hoped we'd already be on our way out, just ‘cause I didn’t want to answer any questions. Other than that, I didn't really care. Nothing we were doing was a secret.

  We arrived in El Meandro in the early afternoon. I suppose our town isn't much if you've lived all your life in Vorsa, but it is a pretty, neat town all the same. You can fish by the riverside if you have a permit, or if you’re ready to run from the guards. Small town guards are slow and zy anyway. There's a promenade lined with tipa trees—still with their pretty yellow flowers at this time of the year—and pink mock vervains, and when the sun sets the Rekul glows scarlet. That's where Valentino stopped so that we could drink a few sips of chicha.

  “You missed the midsummer raft race by a month or so,” I said, just 'cause I'd gone too long without opening my mouth.

  “Raft race?”

  “Yeah. From here to the Lagoon of Laments.” I pointed in its direction. “In woven reed rafts.”

  “No offense, but that doesn't sound particurly—stable.”

  “Well, they’re not meant to be super durable, but my ancestors lived in actual reed isnds, all the way up and down the Naune.”

  “And what happened?”

  “The Khachimik Empire.” The Protectorate happened too, but let us keep that part of the story for another time. “See, when it’s time for the midsummer festival, people will come from all the neighboring towns and farms and some of the cities, and they'll roast veggies and meat all over the promenade, and fry pastries and stuff like that.”

  “Oh, a market?”

  “No, it’s for sharing. There’s somebody up at all times of the day, always someone pying music, and you can drop by at any time and exchange a drink or something to eat with whoever’s there. Though people will trade for other things, too. But the main draw is the races. Each raft has six rowers and a sail. With a bit of luck, you can catch the northeastern wind just right and ride it all the way to the Lagoon. But the wind is strong and can change real fast, so several rafts always crash. Nobody ends up really hurt, so it's all part of the fun. On top of betting on the winner, people will bet on how many rafts will survive.”

  “I see.” Valentino removed his helmet. “Has there ever been a year when all the rafts were lost?”

  “Not that I know of. A few rafts should always crash, so that the river and the mountains will have their due and let us be the rest of the year, but all of them? That’s either real bad luck or real incompetent shipcraft, and neither of those sound good.” I took a deep breath, reminiscing. “You know, I was in a sour mood this year for some reason I can't remember, so I cheered myself up by looking at the rowers as they went about naked to the waist and oiled up. I met an all-male team who seemed to like the look of me, too, so I promised them they could all have me if they pced, and they ended up seconds, so there you go.” I remembered, all of a sudden, the smell of river water on human skin, and how it seemed to stay with me for days, not really unwelcome. They’d been too soft and patient for my taste, but I don’t mind that sometimes.

  Valentino chuckled. My arms still encircled his waist, but neither of us had much of a reaction. I wasn’t used to it. Guess it was for the best; I didn’t really need to bribe him with sex, not when his job was to keep me safe. That didn’t make me feel any safer though. I didn’t have his loyalty—that woman did.

  “You remind me of somebody,” he said.

  “In a good or a bad sense?”

  He looked at me with a politely neutral smile. “Where to?”

  Well, if he was going to be like that, I wasn’t going to ask.

  “We can have lunch at the hotel. It's next to the train station, too. Up ahead.” I pointed at the biggest building in town. You could see its marquee easily from where we stood, half a town away.

  I'd been to enough cities to know Hotel Rekul was kinda small. It serves the town's needs all the same, and it's an elegant confection of white adobe white a cascade of flowers coming down from every balcony and balustrade, so that from the distance it looks like a fancy wedding cake. It's also the best pce in the area to meet guys willing to trade you a blowjob, or even buy you dinner in exchange for one; tourists and traveling salesmen and bored farmhands. Just don't expect to make a living out of it or anything. I had kind of a reputation, which is both good and not. Technically you need papers to do sex work, but when you’re already poor and brown, you don’t need any more reasons to make yourself a target, so you just keep a low profile. At least homegrown guards didn't give a shit if some farm kid wanted to ride cocks for profit. That’s way better behavior than you’ll ever find in a city. Trust me on that.

  A couple of blocks ter, Valentino stopped at a dusty knot of dirt roads. Hard to tell where one ended and the other one began, much less which one to choose.

  “Someone is making a wonderful job of managing this province.” The weary bitterness in his voice sounded exactly like when we had a round of compints. That wasn’t what I expected from a Sabrewing, but I might as well go along with it.

  “Look,” I said, “governors work hard enough pocketing our taxes away, they can’t be expected to care for these wonderful roads and sanitation and plumbing.”

  He ughed out loud. Now that was genuine amusement: find the humor in your situation or you’ll go insane.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I don’t look like a kid from the slums.”

  As you will soon see, what happened next can be considered my fault. This is what I told him:

  “You know, there’s a public restroom in the park and it’s not bad. The water’s safe too. We can wash up a bit before going to the hotel.”

  I thought nobody would hang around the park at siesta hour, not in the bzing days of January.

  We left his motorcycle propped up under a tree. As if anybody would dare touch a Sabrewing’s property. The pyground looked lonely except for a few birds: tangles of rope and structures of reed sitting deserted in the pale dust. Here and there, miniature gardens circled by low, uneven rocks. I noticed Valentino staring at the fruiting cacti with their menacing thorns.

  “There’s always some kid,” I told him, “who manages to get a thorn stuck all the way through their hand. Back in the day it was me.”

  Somehow, Valentino managed to wince and smile at the same time. “I’m sorry, Your Excellency.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Grandma Cielo is a great healer, in case you don’t know, so I always just pulled the thorn out and used a spell bead she gave me. The other kids were all in awe of me for a few moments, so that was good. My grandmas never let me away from their sight without making sure I carried a couple of healing spells, anyway. Sometimes they came in handy to help someone else. But mostly me.”

  The restroom’s walls were so heavily scarred with graffitti you’d be forgiven for not noticing it was whitewashed once. ‘Cause it’s property of the town, nobody feels the need to respect it like you’d do to your neighbors’s houses. When there’s no more room to write in, someone whitewashes it all over again. And so the cycle begins anew.

  Like I said, I wasn’t expecting to see anybody, so when I happened to gnce at the restroom’s shadow and see a few people sitting on the worn wooden benches, I almost jumped behind Valentino’s back. I’m gd I didn’t, ‘cause that would’ve looked real stupid.

  They were Tekitekis, six of them, teenagers, nobody I remembered meeting before. But then, they’re always coming and going. Because they won’t swear allegiance to the Megarchon, they belong nowhere. Barefoot, they wore sleeveless tunics of summer-light vicu?a-brown wool and threaded colorful shells into their braids. Their mitemas should be close by, and maybe their families too.

  Valentino nearly stopped in his tracks when he saw them, but quickly recovered, tipping his cap to them. They just stared back with deep-set dark eyes, looking kinda bored.

  I was kinda surprised they didn’t run away the moment they glimpsed a white uniform. Anybody who hasn’t sworn allegiance to the Megarchon can be killed on sight, and nobody will care. Well, maybe not nobody. We trade with them. Ages ago, when the Megarchon’s ckeys dumped us in these hills to fend for ourselves, it was the Tekitekis who taught us to understand this nd, to coax crops out of the arid soil. When they come asking for shelter, we let them into our homes and share what we have with them. If you start acting like a pawn of the Megarchon, a pawn is what you’ll become.

  The inside of the restroom wasn’t bad, as I said: it too was about to disappear under its load of graffitti, but it didn’t smell bad and you rarely found anything frightening on the toilet bowls. I washed the road dust off of my face and instantly felt refreshed.

  The Tekitekis weren’t sitting out there when we left, and I think I should’ve taken that as a warning. Instead I followed Valentino’s golden-vested back and wondered what I’d have for lunch.

  “Run,” he said.

  Thankfully, I didn’t just stood there gaping at him like a fish. I made a straight dash to the motorcycle. Valentino followed just a couple of steps behind me. I could tell he was trying not to overtake me, so I picked up speed. Something whipped at my ankles. I caught a gnce of brown tendrils—roots? Whatever, I didn’t care to make sure of it.

  The weak blows turned into a heavier, scratching drag. Before they could worsen, though, I was lifted into the air, magic crackling all around me, so high I could’ve kicked the treetops. My hat flew right off my head and floated peacefully to the ground. Like an idiot I stared at it, wishing I could reach out and grab it. That wasn’t important! I turned back as far as I could, squinting in the sunlight.

  Valentino had been surrounded by the Tekitekis. A tangle of those root-like things had toppled him, wrapping itself around his ankles. Now it crawled up his legs, then his belly. But Valentino only looked at me, focused on taking me to safety. I was coming down, gently, at the edge of the park, until my feet touched the ground by the motorcycle’s side.

  The Tekitekis blurred together in the distance, surrounding an unmoving shape covered in roots. My heart leaped into my throat. Could a bunch of teenagers harm a Sabrewing? Even six against one? Fine, I only really knew Sabrewings by reputation! But they had to be more than just a fitted uniform. Even if the Protectorate failed to deliver every single one of its promises, it’d never fail on the threat of power.

  Though it felt like a century, I was only paralyzed for an instant. The tangle of roots shattered with a crack like splitting firewood, throwing off splinters in every direction. The Tekitekis were thrown off too. I ran back to Valentino, though a part of me already believed it was too te—too te for what, I didn’t even know. It hurt to breathe.

  Valentino stood very straight, covered in dust from the toes of his boots to the tip of his braid. Before I could ask him if he was hurt, I saw the look in his eyes, and I forgot what I was going to say. It was the kind of look of someone focused on squashing a bug before it runs away.

  The Tekitekis weren’t going anywhere, all sprawled on the ground as carelessly as fallen leaves, and at least one of them wasn’t unharmed—they’d fallen on the cacti, crushing a couple of pnts and leaving a smear of blood on the ground before curling up on a pained knot. Well, it wasn’t serious or anything, just unpleasant. In fact, they should be on their feet already. But none of them were, ‘cause Valentino wasn’t letting them. As I reached him, he tossed the Tekitekis one on top of the other, as easily as he’d handled the undry.

  Sweat stung my eyes. What to do? They’d attacked a Sabrewing! You can’t expect to walk away from that. If Valentino wanted to kill them right there and then, I couldn’t stop him. His real duty was to escort me to the capital unharmed, not to obey my every order. And the Tekitekis had threatened me, even if only to get at Valentino.

  They were dead! Dead! After attacking one of the Megarchon’s personal guard of honor, one of the Megarchon’s own blood retives, the best you could hope for was a quick death before your corpse was thrown in the garbage. Even for a citizen of the Protectorate. Which they weren’t.

  And if they were dead, so what? I’d done nothing. Yes, it was Valentino they were after, but they hadn’t been too worried about me being caught in the middle, had they?

  “Please listen to me, Sergeant Vargas.” How I managed to make my voice sound so calm, I had no clue. Valentino didn't even look at me. I took a couple of wary steps closer. “Please, listen to me.”

  Valentino still didn’t look at me, but he did whip his head to the right, where someone had just gripped his arm.

  “Listen to him,” Vanth said.

  broccolifloret