It could be complicated; of course it could be complicated. And it opened one up to the possibility of more pain and loss.

Still, it was a blessing I would never relinquish. Love, genuine love, was always a cause for joy.

At last the crucible reached the proper temperature, glowing bright silver in the twilight. The smith began feeding the chains into its maw, and I drifted over to observe the process, standing unseen at Aleksei’s shoulder and peering into the crucible. Slowly, slowly, the chains and shackles began to glow with heat, the perfect links softening, the cursed lines of each perfectly etched sigil and inscription beginning to blur.

It was profoundly satisfying.

Once or twice, Aleksei shifted restlessly, glancing around as though to ask if I were ready to leave, but I wasn’t content until those chains were altogether gone forever, reduced to a seething mass of molten silver. Then, and only then, did I whisper in his ear that I was ready to go.

Outside in the cool air, it was hard to contain my exhilaration. Those hateful chains were gone, gone, gone. Oh, I knew they could be forged anew, but for now, they were gone. Even if the Patriarch found me, he couldn’t bind my spirit. Those chains would buy my passage out of Vralia. I laughed and spun around Aleksei in circles as he led us back to the narrow alley where I could release the twilight safely.

He smiled wryly when I did. “You look positively giddy, Moirin.”

“I am,” I admitted. “I’ll try not to look it.”

“Yes, do. It’s nice, though,” he added. “You’re right. Until we fled, I’d never seen you happy. I imagine…..” He cleared his throat. “I imagine it would make a person want to go to any length to coax such a dazzling smile from you.”

I raised my brows. “Are you turning romantic on me after all?”

“I don’t know.” Aleksei frowned a little, nodding to himself. “Mayhap I am. It’s a bit like trying on a strange garment. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet.”

“It looks well on you,” I said. “But if the fit doesn’t suit you, you needn’t keep it. However, since we’re posing as husband and wife, you may as well wear it a while longer.” I took his arm, resting my fingers lightly on his forearm. He gazed at my hand as though it were a foreign object. “Here.” I adjusted the angle of his elbow. “This is how you would escort your beloved, at least in Terre d’Ange.”

“Like so?”

I smiled at him. “Aye, perfect.”

Naamah’s gift stirred between us, coils as hot and bright as the molten silver roiling in the crucible.

Aleksei tensed, but he didn’t pull away from me. He returned my smile, and there was yearning in his eyes, but there was sorrow and regret, too. “Let’s find an inn, and a hot meal for you.”

“And a bath,” I reminded him.

“And a bath,” he agreed.

There were several inns to choose from in Udinsk. We found a quiet one on the outskirts of town run by a devout Yeshuite couple. They regarded me warily at first, but I kept my eyes modestly downcast and Aleksei’s earnestness soon won them over. It was too late for a bath that day, but they offered us an ample supper and a private room, with the promise of a bath on the morrow—a hot bath, if we were willing to pay extra.

“Can we, please?” I begged Aleksei. “I know we can’t afford to be wasteful, but just this once?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “All right.”

“Thank you!” I kissed his cheek, making him blush. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

It won a smile from the innkeepers. So they were not so dour after all that they could not be touched by a pair of young newlyweds in love, the shy husband indulging his foreign bride in a small luxury.

It was such a pleasant fiction, I almost wished it were true.

That evening we dined on roasted chicken generously basted with butter, the skin a crisp golden brown, with stewed cabbage and dumplings on the side. It tasted like the best thing I’d ever eaten, and when I complimented our hostess in my halting Vralian, she seemed genuinely pleased.

Even Aleksei relaxed over the meal, setting aside his abstemious discipline to eat with rare gusto. I was glad to see it. I knew what young men’s appetites were like. If I was hungry, he had to be ravenous. He was too young for the ascetic lifestyle he led. The hollows of his cheeks were too gaunt beneath those rugged cheekbones with their perfect D’Angeline symmetry, his rangy, long-limbed body too rawboned.

If he were my husband, I thought, I’d take better care of him. The thought filled me with unexpected tenderness.

“Moirin, why are you looking at me that way?” he asked.

I bent my head to my plate, knowing it was unfair to give him even a hint of false hope. “Oh, no reason.”

Once our hosts escorted us to our chamber and the door closed behind us, the pleasant fiction ended. There was one bed in the chamber, big enough for two, but with little room to spare. Aleksei eyed it sidelong, nervous as a green-broken colt shying at a fence, fidgeting with the worn blanket that had served to carry our possessions. “I….. I will sleep on the floor. I don’t mind. I’m used to it.”

“Mortification of the flesh?” I asked.

He nodded.

I was sorry, but not surprised. “As you wish, sweet boy,” I murmured, turning back the bed-linens. “Sleep well.”

FORTY

I slept.

I slept without dreams, long and hard and deep. I slept the sleep of finding respite after profound fear and exhaustions—luxurious sleep, healing sleep. I slept well past dawn and awoke to slanting sunlight and a sense of being watched.

Opening my eyes, I found Aleksei sitting awkwardly on the foot of the bed, his hands clasped in his lap.

“How long have you been watching me?” I asked sleepily.

“Hours,” he murmured.

I propped myself on my elbows. “Did you not sleep well?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Oh.” Half-awake, I yawned and ran a hand through my hair, untangling the silken strands. It had grown a few inches since Luba had cropped it, long enough to fall over my shoulders. “I’m sorry. Tonight, you will take the bed, and I the floor. You’ll sleep better for it, I promise.” I paused. “Is there some reason you’re staring at me, Aleksei?”

“Yes.”

It was one word, one syllable, but something in the way he spoke it caught my attention. That, and the way he was sitting—awkwardly, aye, and yet as still and grave as a carved saint.

I hauled myself upright, rubbed my eyes, and shook my head, trying to dispel the last dregs of sleep. “I am listening.”

“Moirin…..”

I waited. “Aye?”

Aleksei took a deep breath. “I have been thinking. And praying. And yes, watching you while you slept. Watching you at your most vulnerable, with no magic to protect and conceal you, no teasing to bait and entice me. No tales of depravity to shock me. I have been trying to see that unclean spirit in you which seeks to tempt me and lead me astray.”

I opened my mouth to speak.

“Wait.” He raised one hand, his face solemn. “I don’t see it, Moirin. I don’t. Only you, mortal and fallible, and….. yourself. Beautiful, yes. Impetuous. Uncanny, to be sure. But a girl, only a girl, too—one apt to kiss a horse on the nose, and quick to delight in a meal of roasted chicken and dumplings. A mother’s child far from home. And I have been asking myself, if it is not to fulfill my uncle’s dream, why has God set you in my path?”

“To test you?” I murmured.

Aleksei spread both hands. “If that is so, I have already failed. I have betrayed my uncle to aid you. Does it matter how much farther I fall?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I.” His chest rose and fell as he took another sharp breath. “And so….. so I am thinking, I will never know if I do not accept what you offer. And I believe strongly enough in Yeshua’s forgiveness that I am willing to risk damnation in pursuit of truth.”

I laughed.

I couldn’t help it, I laughed aloud for the sheer joy of it; and I flung myself forward, putting my arms around Aleksei’s neck, kissing his face. “You mean it?”

“Yes!” He pushed me away, blushing furiously. “Only not this very moment, all right? Give me some time to grow accustomed to the notion.”

“All right.” I sat back on my heels, beaming at him.

He scowled. “You needn’t look so pleased.”

“Why ever not?” I asked. “I am pleased.”

“To have won?”

“No!” Gods, he was as infuriating as Bao in his own prickly way. “No, of course not.” I took one of Aleksei’s hands and kissed it. “Your choice makes me happy, sweet boy. That’s all. I pray it will make you happy, too.”

It mollified him, and restored a sense of brightness to the day. In the common room, we broke our fast with brown bread and fresh-churned butter. Our hostess promised a hot bath would be made ready in a few hours’ time, so we set out for the marketplace to begin purchasing supplies for the journey south.

I was happy, happy with Aleksei’s choice, happy that he wasn’t fussing about me needing to conceal myself today. Those bedamned chains had been a weight on both our minds. And in truth, he needed my counsel to provision us for the journey. I saw to it that we spent our coin wisely.

In a rag-merchant’s shop, we bought a canvas satchel, a spare blanket, and a change of clothing for both of us. A leather-worker sold us a pair of generous waterskins, and also a pair of well-made boots for me to replace the shoes Valentina had given me, which pinched my feet and gave me blisters. We purchased several tallow candles and a flint-striking kit from a chandler.

Other than a sack of barley we bought, we decided food supplies could wait a few days. Aleksei reckoned it best if we gave it a week before heading south. Still, we identified a smoke-house where we could purchase dried meat, and a baker and a cheese-maker for additional, fresher fare.

Our greatest expense would be horses and tack, and both of us were eager to have the matter settled and our escape secured. There was one horse-trader in the city, a squinty-eyed fellow. I didn’t like the look of him, and I liked him less when he offered to sell us a sway-backed mare, an elderly gelding, and a spavined pack-horse for an outrageous price.

When Aleksei glanced at me in inquiry, I shook my head. “Walk away,” I murmured in D’Angeline. “Don’t argue, don’t haggle. Just walk away in disgust.”

He did, me at his side.

The horse-trader ran after us, protesting and apologizing, claiming that he had merely been testing us to see if we were any judges of horse-flesh.

It took the better part of an hour to conclude a deal with him, but in the end, we struck a bargain to purchase a trio of sturdy little horses, as well as tack and grain. After living on the steppe, I could tell that these horses had Tatar stock mixed in their lineage, and I knew full well how swiftly and willingly they travelled. After some more haggling, the squinty-eyed fellow agreed to board them for another week for an additional fee.

“Well, that’s done, then,” Aleksei said after we left the horse-trader. He looked pleased with himself. “Are we finished?”

I shook my head. “We’ll want a tent. Mayhap there are sail-cloth merchants along the wharf who make such things. And a pot….. it might be best if you returned to the smithy alone. We don’t want him linking my face to those chains. And a bow and arrows, if we can find a fletcher.”

“Ah…..” He hesitated. “I’ve never shot a bow, Moirin.”

I smiled. “I have.”

“You?” Aleksei looked dubious.

“I’ve shot for the pot since I was ten years old,” I told him. “Believe me, after days of dried meat, you’ll be grateful for fresh when we can get it. Besides, I’ll feel safer with a bow at hand. One never knows what one might encounter on the road.”

It seemed there was no fletcher in the city of Udinsk, but our inquiries led us to a camp of Tatar traders on the outskirts of town. Given my history with the Great Khan, I was reluctant to approach them; but Aleksei didn’t speak the Tatar tongue, and I was determined to procure a bow for myself.

The sight of felted gers with smoke trickling out of the holes at the apex of their domes made me feel nostalgic. A young woman at the first ger we tried greeted us politely and directed us to seek out a fellow named Vachir, a renowned archer.

“He may have a bow to sell you, or he may not,” she said. “I do not know.”

I thanked her. “May your herds prosper, my lady.”

We found this Vachir some distance away, squatting outside his ger and working on the very thing I coveted, a fine-looking bow. I began to greet him in the Tatar tongue when he glanced up, and my heart skipped a beat.

I knew him.

His eyes widened, and he rose to his feet. “You!”

“Moirin?” Aleksei said behind me. “What is it?”

“I know him,” I said helplessly. “Or at least I’ve met him. More to the point, he knows who I am.”

Another man would have sworn; Aleksei’s voice tightened. “I knew this was a bad idea!”

The fellow came forward, unfinished bow in one hand. I took a step backward, bumping into Aleksei. The renowned Tatar archer Vachir, who happened to be the last man I’d defeated in an archery contest, smiled quietly and clapped his free hand on my shoulder. “I am pleased to see you alive, lady,” he said with a gentleness that reminded me of Batu and Checheg.