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That was a considerably more dangerous problem.

CHAPTER SIX

Ash Camp

Kesta woke before anyone came for her.

For several disoriented seconds, she lay completely still beneath a rough woven blanket and tried to identify the sounds beyond the wall. Metal struck metal somewhere in the distance. Water hissed through pipes. A child shouted, followed by an adult voice that sounded more irritated than alarmed. No engines, no prison announcements, no boots pacing outside an imperial cell.

Ash Camp.

Memory returned with the name.

So did Dreven.

Kesta rolled onto her back and stared at the mineral lamp above the door. The copper symbols circling her wrist had dimmed during sleep but had not disappeared. She raised her arm and watched them brighten faintly with the movement.

Dreven’s claim.

Her protection, according to him.

Her problem, according to almost everyone else.

She sat up and found the sharpened piece of basin tile she had tucked beneath the edge of the mattress before sleeping. The precaution seemed slightly ridiculous now that daylight—or whatever passed for daylight beneath Kharon-Veil’s red sky—had replaced the night’s exhaustion. She kept it anyway.

Trust did not need to be instantaneous to be real.

Neither did caution.

Kesta crossed the room and checked the emergency release Dreven had shown her. The mechanism moved smoothly beneath her fingers, raising the outer storm bar with a heavy metallic clank.

She stopped.

The bar had not been engaged.

Kesta stared at the mechanism for a moment before testing it again. Still open.

A guard sat across the passage with his back against the opposite wall. He was a narrow, blue-skinned alien she had not seen before, with a short spear resting across his knees and one eye swollen almost shut beneath an old scar. He looked toward her when the door opened but made no attempt to stand.

“Morning,” Kesta said.

Her translator hesitated before offering the equivalent.

The guard’s mouth opened, revealing two rows of tiny pointed teeth. “Still alive.”

“I was hoping for something more cheerful.”

“That was cheerful.”

Kesta considered him. “I’m going to have to recalibrate my expectations.”

His teeth showed again.

A moment later Sera appeared at the end of the passage carrying folded clothing over one arm and a bowl that steamed in the cooler air. Her silver hair had been braided tightly around the bases of her swept-back horns, and the satchel hanging from her shoulder had acquired another patch since Kesta had seen it the night before.

Sera looked from the open door to the sharpened tile in Kesta’s hand.

“A weapon?”