Lyara woke slowly to the soft warmth of Dradge’s lips pressed against her forehead. She drew in a breath, not wanting to open her eyes just yet, and reached for him on the other side of the tent. But he was already gone, his blanket warm and piled in a heap beside her.
She sat up with a start, tossing aside the covers. The air was cool—it stung her throat and had clogged her nose overnight—and the drowsiness faded as her heart pounded in her chest. Sleep hadn’t been as hard to find on the rocky ground as she’d expected, but she didn’t want to snooze through his sending off.
Lyara smoothed back her hair, tying it hastily with the strap she’d stored on her wrist, and crawled out of the tent, resettling her simple dress on her shoulders. It wasn’t fit for any dinner parties, but she hadn’t felt comfortable stripping to her underclothes when her walls consisted of two thin sheets of cloth, so it was presentable enough.
The camp was mostly empty, lit by a dim and pink morning sun and wreathed in fog. A few other wives sat outside their husband’s tents, tending to cooking fires. The smell of fried meat wafted into the air. Lyara muttered under her breath as she gathered her skirts up from her ankles and ran through the grass in her bare feet. A proper soldier’s wife got up before the sun and cooked her soldier breakfast; she’d remember for next time.
The line of horses paraded away from the empty corral, each man dressed in chain-mail or chest plates and armed with sheathed broadswords, loaded crossbows, or shouldered spears. She charged past them, drawing more than a few curious eyes, but she focused on that dark-haired general seated on that black stallion beside the standard-bearer.
Dradge turned back with a smile as she ran to his side, breathless. There was a certain edge to that smile, a deep joy in his eyes that only shone when he looked at her, but he seemed apologetic all the same as he pulled his horse to a stop.
“Love,” he said, “you can sleep, I didn’t mean to—”
Lyara wrapped her arms around his leg in the stirrup—the best she could do—and kissed his knee, above the hem of his boot. “Essence, shield him from the blade, guard him from the arrow, and keep him from destruction. But if he should die—”
“Hey, I’m not—”
“But if he should die, let it be with his sword in hand and his face toward home, on the field of victory.”
He gave her a soft smile. “Thank you.” He leaned down, taking her hand in his to kiss the back of it. A few soldiers farther down in the line whooped and whistled, but she and him both ignored them.
“Superstitions,” Seren, the standard-bearer, said with a laugh as he nudged his horse beside Dradge’s. “What’s next, huh? She’ll have you carrying talismans, sacrificing to Svaldan myths?”
Lyara snorted, and stepped back to look Seren in the eye. “Why would I seek the dirt’s intervention when I’m on speaking terms with the Essence that made it?”
Dradge just grinned, studying her face like she was some beautiful mystery he didn’t understand—but wanted to. “I liked that last part. Field of victory.”