The instant the sun broke the horizon, her companion sat up. He dragged both of their bags to him and began rummaging industriously. Qanath rolled onto her side while she watched him take things from his bag, examine them, and put them in hers. At first, she thought he was trying to even the loads, but after a minute she decided he had raided the larder and was making certain she had a share. When she realized why he was doing it, she sat up.

“That’s it? You’re sending me home?”

“I’m not sending you anywhere,” he replied, eyes on his hands. “I’m leaving. You can go where you will.”

“You’re what?”

“Leaving, I said.”

“But, but, but,” she sputtered. Then she snorted, making it as scornful as she could. “Oh, I get it. Now his hand’s off the leash, it’s back to your old crutch.”

“What?”

“I assume you have a habit, to have gotten yourself so badly in debt. Was it gambling or booze?”

“I never acquired a habit for drinking,” he said absently, attention on what he was doing. “I can picture myself drinking myself to death at a young age and I imagine Xar could too: he never let me acquire a taste.”

“So was it horses or dice?”

He glanced at her, brow furrowed. “We wagered with each other, but the forfeits Xar was after never involved coin. Why are we talking about this?”

“I’m trying to figure out how you got yourself in debt. What you’re so eager to get back to now you can.”

“I’m not in debt, why do you keep saying that? Last time I was free, I was still young enough to receive an allowance.”

“Then why did you sell yourself into bonding?”

His face went wooden, all expression falling away. He was still for one breathless second, then he scrambled on hands and knees toward her, and he closed so fast she didn’t have time to get away. Grasping her collar in one fist, he bared his teeth in her face, so close she could feel the heat of his breath on her dew-cold cheek. “You stupid bitch, what makes you think I did that to myself?”

When he released her, she rose to her feet in reflex and staggered back until she caught herself against a tree. “You cannot mean it was against your will.”

Havec turned away from her, making himself busy again with their things. She had the sense that he regretted the emotional outburst, and his response was flippant: “Why not?”

“It’s illegal!”

“You know, it’s funny,” he replied, and the mocking tone of voice was strained, “I tried to make that argument to the bonding-broker and never got much traction. Perhaps your laws don’t apply to foreigners?”

“Why did you never tell Xar anKebbal? No one would have dared to refuse him if he asked for his money back.” That hadn’t come out quite the way she intended and she said hastily, “I meant because the transaction was illegal. He could have brought the politzqa down on that broker if he knew.”

He wanted to remain aloof, but that spun him around, and she couldn’t read the raw look in his eyes. When he turned away again, he muttered, “Have you ever wondered if your mother thinks you have no future in politics because you’re too naïve?”

Qanath stared at him for a long time afterward, while he fussed about with the backpacks and pretended not to feel her gaze. She wanted to scoff. She wanted to tell him this was all a bunch of bullshit and she wasn’t buying a turd. Xar anKebbal had been a great man, he can’t have known. He would never have been party to so monstrous a scenario. And she had seen this man strolling about his house as though he owned the place. He’d been healthy, pampered, dressed in jewels, not locked in the basement in a cage.

She had witnessed their final moment, though, and she had thought at the time, even through the shock, that something was going on. Something more convoluted than goodbye. She hadn’t been close enough to eavesdrop on their murmured conversation, but she had heard Xar anKebbal speak one intriguing word, which was ‘bargain.’ She’d watched him give the barbarian that farewell kiss, she’d noticed Havec trying to resist, she’d seen his master use his strength to force it on him.

She had sensed that something more tangible than emotional nuance passed between them when he did.

She drew a breath as she remembered the scene, that heartbeat when their lips met and everything went dark. It had passed faster than an eye-blink, and she had convinced herself it was nothing. A delusion, a symptom of her fear. But there had been an instant where blackness descended, darkness so dense it was as if light had ceased to exist, and in the void left behind, something watched. She sucked in another breath and let it out in a sigh, settling back to the earth.

“That was Kebbal? He gave it to you?”

“He thought it would be well-suited to me,” he replied indifferently.

Another memory struck her, of his sudden appearance in that room as she was about to die, the way he leapt from the stairs with the deadly confidence of a raptor stooping. She had watched him fight but failed to understand. “He didn’t just give you the Legacy, he’d been training you for years.”

“Since I was fifteen.”

“You were his pupil. His heir. Not his servant.”

Havec went still. Quietly, he said, “Oh my god.” Without ever glancing at her, he went back to work.

“What? You had the run of the place, you were his protégé. He must have thought of you more as a, a lover…”

Now he did twist around to look at her. She couldn’t tell if he was searching for words or struggling to take hold of his temper, but it was several uncomfortable minutes before he said, “Xar wasn’t a fool, so I don’t imagine he ever let wishes blind him to the truth. He knew when he bought me I would always consider him an enemy. He proposed a deal the moment we got home, before he took the fetters off.”

“Fetters? You were a criminal? The bonded don’t—”

“Typically wear restraints,” he interrupted, “because they aren’t typically captives hell-bent on escape. And before you ask the next stupid fucking question I know you’re going to ask: no, no one noticed and thought it was odd and informed the authorities because angry wide-eyed children trussed up like convicts are the norm when you’re buying flesh under the table from the specialty dealers.”

Qanath looked at him and wondered what to say. “This deal?”

“If I was a good boy and didn’t fight him every step along the way, he would teach me how to get my revenge on the people who handed me over to the bonding-broker in the first place.” He thrust a thumb over his shoulder. “So if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do that now.”

He stood, slung his pack over one shoulder, and walked away. Qanath stared after him until he vanished around a curve in the trail, too astonished to react. Then, cursing under her breath, she grabbed her own things and took off after him.

When she caught him up, she demanded, “You’re the, the embodiment of vengeance and you’re not even going to try to get revenge for the man who made you what you are?”

“He wasn’t the person you thought he was, do you still not get it? Doesn’t the Empire have laws about when children become grownups and are allowed to do grownup things? Things like, for example, have sex with scary old men?”

“Are you asking about our age of consent? Seventeen.”

“So, he was officially a child-molester. Cheers.” He stretched his legs, less an attempt to run away from her than make it uncomfortable to keep up.

“But he must have been like a father to you.”

“If that were true, I would hate him even more.”

“You don’t even want to know why?”

“Maybe it was the Cilian League,” he said lightly. “Aren’t they the ones pushing for a return to the good old values of the Empire of yore?”

“That isn’t funny!”

Havec made a rueful face, as close to a smile as she’d ever seen him get. “It kind of was.”

Qanath hissed in anger, searching for further arguments.

“Why do you want me around so badly, anyway? You like me even less than I like you.”