I listened to the sound of the rain and shivered.

There was sticky blood all over me. My face was pocked with tiny wounds. As I touched my cheek, I found a bit of rock embedded in the skin below my eye and picked it out. There was drying blood from my nose and mouth, and my head ached, the pain pressing against my skull from the inside out as if my head were an overfull wineskin ready to burst.

It seemed like a very long time to me before Eugenides returned. When he did, we took the coat and my own blue tunic and arranged them under the blanket, their bright colors peeping out to catch the light of a lantern if the guards looked in on us.

It will do. He nodded with eerie certainty. Don’t be afraid. He might have meant that I should not be afraid of the Medes, but I think he meant that I should not fear him, either. I did, though. He was terrifying, even more than he had been when he confronted the Pent. I was more frightened than I had been when he learned the grain wagons had been burned. I still followed him out from under the side of the tent into the dark.

In the pouring rain, even two figures as strange as the king and I were anonymous as men hurried past with their heads down. Eugenides confidently led the way across the camp. There were two guards at the entryway to Bu-seneth’s tent, and we circled around to the back. The stakes that held the walls down were meant to keep out the wind, not trespassers. When Eugenides lifted the fabric, I pushed underneath it, afraid to meet the general on the far side, but more afraid to disobey. I came face-to-face not with the general, but with the man who’d saved me. He lay on his back only a foot or two away, his eyes closed and his chest soaked in blood. I scrambled away from him as quickly as I could as Eugenides rolled in after me.

“Ion Nomenus,” he said, speaking aloud, though quietly enough not to reach the ears of the guards outside. “He should have stayed in his pigpen.”

Sickened, I turned away. The whole tent reeked.

Eugenides said, “If there is a hue and cry, hide yourself behind the chests again. No one will expect to find you here, and I will come for you when my work is done.” Then he was gone.

I settled tentatively on the cot where I think Ion Nomenus had probably slept. It was behind a partition made by the campaign trunks and Bu-seneth’s traveling desk. There was a stool near the head of the cot holding a miniature set of household gods and three small plain figures, two men and a woman, mementos of his family, probably. I swallowed, wondering who would miss him.

There was a sound, something wet and intermittent I had not heard at first over the drumming of the rain. Ion Nomenus’s eyes were partly open. He blinked.

“Water?” he whispered.

I fetched him a cup of watered wine from a carafe on the desk, dipping the end of my sleeve in the cup and dribbling the wine on his lips. The wound in his chest sucked and bubbled. He blinked again, his eyelids growing heavier.

I wanted to tell him he would be all right, but we both knew he would not. All that was left was for him to make some sound loud enough for the men standing by outside to hear, and I and the king too would be prisoners again. I hated to think of covering his mouth.

He tucked his chin, trying to see the wound in his chest.

I shook my head at him. Don’t look.

His head fell back. The wound sucked.

He could have called out—I think he had enough strength. I don’t know if the guards would have heard him. I know he didn’t try.

He whispered, “I always looked out . . . for myself.” He drew another painful, burbling breath. “No more of that now.”

He was staring at me through the narrow opening of his eyelids that was all he could manage. “So . . . just once I can . . . choose a side for better reasons.” He coughed and squeezed his eyes shut, knowing he must swallow the blood or let it out. It ran down over his chin.

“Tell my king . . .” he whispered, then changed his mind. “No, don’t tell him,” he said. “. . . no more of that now.”

It was the last thing he said.

When Eugenides returned, he found me still crouching there next to Ion Nomenus.

Come, Pheris. He lifted the edge of the tent for me. Miserably, I crawled around Ion Nomenus to join him.

There was a distant sound of shouting. The king nudged me in the opposite direction as men hurried by, their eyes passing over us. I don’t know if they didn’t see us or if they didn’t care. We walked, unnoticed by anyone through the city of tents. It seemed to go on forever, and when we finally reached the edge of it, my heart sank even lower. Terrified of being caught, I had not even considered how far we had to go.

“Courage,” said the king in my ear.

We passed the Mede pickets, again without being noticed. Perhaps the king guided us away from the sentries; I never saw them. We stumbled out to the empty land between the two enemy camps, through the scrub and the churned-up mud, sinking into the marshy ground and wading across the shallow streams. The king paused several times to look back, but he seemed expectant, not fearful.

The rain had stopped and some of the clouds had cleared. I fixed my eyes on the distant light of campfires. The king was limping more heavily, and I worried with every step that my leg might give way entirely. The king began to utter the most outrageous vulgarities. Traveling with soldiers for weeks, I had not heard such language.

At last we approached a copse of trees, difficult to make out in the dark, and the king fell silent. Leaning more heavily on me, he bent to find a stick and knocked it against a tree trunk, alerting the sentry that we were almost on top of him. We heard him scramble to his feet, and the sing of steel as he drew his weapon.

“Halt,” he said in the dark ahead of us.

“We did,” said the king.

“Password,” said the unseen soldier, very officious, no doubt embarrassed that we’d come so close without him noticing.

The king asked me if I knew it.

I shook my head. It had been “sword of Clemon” the day before, but it would already have been changed.

“Get your officer,” said Eugenides to the soldier.

“The password,” insisted the soldier.

“GET YOUR OFFICER!” the king roared. There was a crashing in the bushes all around us as soldiers drew weapons and raced in our direction. The man on picket directly in front of us finally unshuttered his lantern. His officer, stumbling into the lighted area, shouted, “Who’s there?”

“Attolis Eugenides Eugenideides,” said the king. “By the will of the Great Goddess, annux over Hephestia’s Peninsula, king of Attolia, king over Sounis, and Eddis, king from the Macheddic Mountains to the sea, king from the Melenzetti Pass to the River Lusimina, and by my oath to my god, now and for my life, Thief of Eddis.”

They took him away from me. They brought him a horse and helped him mount, and he rode off. Soaking wet, aching all over, I watched him go. When someone behind me dropped a blanket over my shoulders, I flailed in panic.

“Sorry, sorry,” the man said, steadying me. He came around to where I could see him, as he gently tugged the blanket tighter. He put his hands on my arms and waited for my nod before lifting me into the arms of someone on a horse who bent down to take me. We followed the king back into the camp.

The soldiers lined our path and cheered, some firing guns into the air, spending precious ammunition to celebrate. When we reached the council tent, it was aglow in the darkness, all its lamps still burning. In front of it, Attolia, Eddis, and Sounis waited quietly, surrounded by the royal councilors who had been debating through the night. As Eugenides carefully dismounted, Attolia stepped forward. She might have taken him in her arms, but she hesitated, and that opportunity passed. “Welcome back, my king,” she said very formally.