Once Dorothea and Rhys had escaped the market rows relatively unscathed and reentered the calmer roads bridging the circumference of the city, they were able to talk normally, reinstating the proper amount of space between them.

“Please don’t take what I’m about to say the wrong way,” Rhys said, laughter in his voice again.

“That depends entirely on your choice of words.”

“Fair. Well… You’re not exactly what I expected. I thought the leader of Sirpo would be more…”

“This is the part where you’re trying to choose your words carefully, right?”

“Can you tell?” He laughed. “No, it’s just you’re kinder than I expected.”

“What?” Dorothea frowned, confused. “Why wouldn’t I be kind?” She knew how foolish the question was the second the words were out of her mouth. It was obvious why Sacerians would think that. Neutrality in the eyes of soldiers had to be akin to complacency and apathy. If the Sirpoans had all run away from conflict in the first place, how could they be expected to care?

Rhys put it more nicely than that on the surface. “Well, Sirpo is just so…distant.”

“We try to be.” Dorothea felt the need to defend Sirpo’s people in the face of someone who had fought and killed for a cause. War had previously been waged to earn the right for neutrality, but that seemed to be easily forgotten. “We won that right. Or our ancestors did.”

Rhys studied the ground beneath their continuing footsteps. “If it were us who had come to your village today demanding you join us instead of the Ghurians, would you have gone to them for aid instead?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure we would have been able to.” With Shark next to her, she at least had an insider’s help in regards to Sacer. Ghuria was completely uncharted territory.

“I see.” Rhys smiled faintly after letting out a sigh. “It’s funny to think of how easily things could have been different.”

Dorothea smiled back, relieved to be with such a reasonable and even-tempered person. It was admirable. “Yes. I’m glad.” Especially where her magic was concerned, things could have been very different. If she’d made some other choice, she would never have gotten the chance to speak with Rhys, one of many who had so far survived a war a decade in the making. Wait… A decade?

“Excuse me for the sudden change in topic, but how old are you?” she demanded.

“Twenty-three. You?” Rhys frowned as he tried to judge for himself..

Twenty-three. That was how old Shark was. “Eighteen. Technically. I think? Yeah. Should be,” Dorothea replied, thinking it through while she spoke.

Rhys laughed. “That was awfully noncommittal for such a straightforward question.”

“Well… I’ll put it like this. See, my body doesn’t get back time accrued. For instance, if I reversed time to a year back from now, the world would get that time back but I, who would have had to pass through time in order to get back to that point, would not get that year. I would still be the same age I was when I performed the reversal in the first place.”

He looked puzzled, and it took him a few moments to think through it. “I had no idea. So you can’t be careless with things. Huh…”

“But that wasn’t my point. You’re twenty-three, you said. If you don’t mind me asking, how… Um, how long have you been a soldier, then?” If Rhys and Shark were the same age, then they would have entered training at the same time, likely. “Do children in Sacer still start their training young? Sharkie, Shark I mean, they’ve told me a little about it.”

He glanced down and studied her face before smiling. “You don’t need to concern yourself with us or the war, Dorothea. After we work a few things out with helping you, you can go back home and resume your normal everyday routine.”

“I understand that, but…” There was a restlessness brewing inside her that she couldn’t quite comprehend.

“But what about you? Isn’t it the same? You’re very young to be the complete leader of one of the three territories.” He paused, eyes widening some. “Not that I’m not sure you’re capable. I’m just saying we’re in slightly similar positions.”

Dorothea couldn’t help but chuckle. “It’s fine.” But his words didn’t exactly ring true. They were worlds apart, weren’t they? “Well… The Atlin line was handed leadership of Sirpo after what my ancestor, Mischa, did to establish it in the War of Blending. The job was just kind of thrown at me when my turn came. I had to learn quickly.”

In the midst of her grief way back then, she’d barely been able to grasp the full scope of her responsibility. Ophelia Atlin had died in the year 260, and her husband Seam had passed only a year before that. There were no other close relatives, as the Atlins had a slight tendency to die young and Seam had been the only person in his family to choose life in Sirpo rather than to stay in his homeland of Ghuria. That had left it all to an eight-year-old Dorothea with Sil as her main advisor, and the council had been stubborn enough to pass a vote to keep the prior system of leadership in place.

In the end, it all came down to this: “I can only do my best for the sake of what I’m meant to protect,” Dorothea stated.

Rhys nodded. “That’s the mentality a lot of soldiers take too. Even when the circumstances aren’t the best, we do what we have to for our people. To put it simply.”

It was too simple, in fact. This was one of those moments where Dorothea realized how much she didn’t know about the world, and it was fearfully humbling. “Is that what Ghurian soldiers think too?” she wondered aloud.

Rhys tilted his head. “Come again?” His tone wasn’t angry, but Dorothea still cursed her slip.

She spoke quickly. “Well, I was just thinking that maybe that’s why that woman from Ghuria—Johanna Marley, that was her name—threatened us. That if you say that’s what the Sacerians are fighting for, maybe the Ghurians are the same way. I don’t know.”

“I think I understand what you’re getting at,” Rhys said slowly, “but it’s a bit different. See, from the start of the war, the Ghurians have been trying to seize our territory through any and all means while we’ve been trying to defend ourselves and take nothing from them. With neither side gaining any ground, we’ve gotten to this point where we…” He shook his head. “It’s not something to trouble someone from neutral territory with. All you need to know is that we’ll protect you, especially now that the Ghurians have had the gall to up and attack a population that was maintaining that very neutrality.”

“The struggle has gone cold, correct?” Dorothea pressed. “As both sides run out of soldiers.” In wartime, people died far more quickly than they could be replenished; this was only natural. It was strange how the human cost of that fact had never truly sunk in, not before she had talked to an actual resident of Sacer. It was real now, breathing and warm.

Rhys frowned. “How do you know that?”

“How wouldn’t I know? People from Sacer and Ghuria alike come to Sirpo to start a new, safe life. They bring information with them, updates. Besides, just because we’re neutral doesn’t mean we feel safe in our ignorance.” It would be plain stupid to not stay abreast of current news.

“Makes sense. Still, we’re more under the impression that Sirpoans don’t care how things go down here.” Rhys smiled apologetically. “Nothing against you, of course.”

She wanted to protest but honestly couldn’t. Before today, before this moment, she’d have said she resented every single one of them for keeping this war going. How much did she really understand? Nothing. Nothing at all.

“No. You haven’t said anything unfair,” she insisted.

Unexpectedly, Rhys smiled. “Yeah. You’re kind, Dorothea. I’m glad we’ve gotten the chance to chat. I feel like my perspective has broadened.”

“Thank you. Likewise.” Dorothea said this with a sincere, appreciative smile, but there was still one thing she couldn’t allow herself to forget no matter what.

He could only say she was kind because he didn’t know who she truly was.