The Heroes

hoping that Aliz was all right, and made herself stop. That was a waste of hope, and she had none to spare.
    ‘How should one feel when one’s wife has been taken by the enemy?’
    ‘Utterly desperate. I hope he will be all right.’
    ‘All right’ was such a useless, stilted expression. It was a useless, stilted conversation. Hal felt like a stranger. He knew nothing about who she really was. How can two people ever really know each other? Everyone went through life alone, fighting their own battle.
    He took her hand. ‘You seem—’
    She could not bear his skin against hers, jerked her fingers away as though she was snatching them from a furnace. ‘Go. You should go.’
    His face twitched. ‘I love you.’
    Just words, really. They should have been easy to say. But she could not do it any more than she could fly to the moon. She turned away from him to face the wall, dragging the blanket over her hunched shoulder. She heard the door shut.
    A moment later, or perhaps a while, she slid out of bed. She dressed. She splashed water on her face. She twitched her sleeves down over the scabbing chafe marks on her wrists, the ragged cut up her arm. She opened the door and went through. Her father was in the room on the other side, talking to the officer she saw crushed by a falling cupboard yesterday, plates spilling across the floor. No. A different man.
    ‘You’re awake.’ Her father was smiling but there was a wariness to him, as if he was expecting her to burst into flames and he was ready to grab for a bucket. Maybe she would burst into flames. She would not have been surprised. Or particularly sorry, right then. ‘How do you feel?’
    ‘Well.’ Hands closed around her throat and she plucked at them with her nails, ears throbbing with her own heartbeat. ‘I killed a man yesterday.’
    He stood, put his hand on her shoulder. ‘It may feel that way, but—’
    ‘It certainly does feel that way. I stabbed him, with a short steel I stole from an officer. I pushed the blade into his face. Into his face. So. I got one, I suppose.’
    ‘Finree—’
    ‘Am I going mad?’ She snorted up a laugh, it sounded so stupid. ‘Things could be so much worse. I should be glad. There was nothing I could do. What can anyone do? What should I have done?’
    ‘After what you have been through, only a madman could feel normal. Try to act as though … it is just another day, like any other.’
    She took a long breath. ‘Of course.’ She gave him a smile which she hoped projected reassurance rather than insanity. ‘It is just another day.’
    There was a wooden bowl, on a table, with fruit in it. She took an apple. Half-green, half-blood-coloured. She should eat while she could. Keep her strength up. It was just another day, after all.
    Still dark outside. Guards stood by torchlight. They fell silent as she passed, watching while pretending not to watch. She wanted to spew all over them, but she tried to smile as if it was just another day, and they did not look exactly like the men who had strained desperately to hold the gates of the inn closed, splinters bursting around them as the savages hacked down the doors.
    She stepped from the path and out across the hillside, pulling her coat tight around her. Wind-lashed grass sloped away into the darkness. Patches of sedge tangled at her boots. A bald man stood, coat-tails flapping, looking out across the darkened valley. He had one fist clenched behindhim, thumb rubbing constantly, worriedly at forefinger. The other daintily held a cup. Above him, in the eastern sky, the first faint smudges of dawn were showing.
    Perhaps it was the after-effects of the husk, or the sleeplessness, but after what she had seen yesterday the First of the Magi did not seem so terrible. ‘Another day!’ she called, feeling as if she might take off from the hillside and float into the dark sky. ‘Another day’s fighting. You must be pleased, Lord Bayaz!’
    He gave her a curt bow. I—’
    ‘Is it “Lord Bayaz” or is there a better term of address for the First of the Magi?’ She pushed some hair out of her face but the wind soon whipped it back. ‘Your Grace, or your Wizardship, or ‘your Magicosity?’
    ‘I try not to stand on ceremony.’
    ‘How does one become First of the Magi, anyway?’
    ‘I was the first apprentice of great Juvens.’
    ‘And did he teach you magic?’
    ‘He taught me High Art.’
    ‘Why don’t you do some then, instead of making men