It was with great reluctance that Giordi opened his eyes, feeling as though he had been painted on the bed and couldn’t separate himself from the warm cocoon he was embraced within. He resisted for as long as he could but the sounds of the nomad camp in full daylight could not be ignored.

  His eyes felt like he’d rubbed grit mixed with lemon juice into them and his breath smelt like a donkey’s yawn. He flopped one arm over the edge of the bed, hoping that the cool air would wake him up. It only served to make the rest of him even more reluctant to emerge from his bed.

  “You drink this.” Revna offered him a wooden mug.

  “What is it?” Giordi asked, half afraid it would be more ale and half hoping it would be to send him back to sleep.

  “Goat milk.”

  “Ugh,” Giordi held his nose and drank it, shuddering and flapping his lips as if doing so would make the pungent, strongly flavoured libation go down any easier, “I’m awake now!”

  Revna was picking clothes up that had become strewn across the tent. She smiled at him as he tried to sit up, leaning over with his elbows on his knees, nursing his head.

  “Flavour…no…herb in milk…help head.”

  “Maybe they should start putting it in the ale as a preventative measure.” Giordi grumbled. They both looked at his stomach as it rumbled angrily.

  “Hungry?”

  “I didn’t eat much.” Giordi admitted. “Roast shaggy beast was a little too strong for me.” Not to mention it was underdone. Even the thought of it made his throat spasm. Unfortunately that meant he had been drinking on an almost empty stomach. It was any wonder he’d made it back to the correct tent. Giordi tried to stand up then hissed sharply and grabbed his chest. “Ow…oh…that hurts.”

  “More scratch?” Revna asked wryly.

  “Doesn’t feel like a scratch.” Giordi lamented and tried to lift his tunic. Revna had to help him as he couldn’t get his arms above his head. She gasped and Giordi looked down. His abdomen and chest were bruised, dark purple, red and black patches mottling his usually pristine skin.

  “How…”

  “I don’t know,” Revna lightly touched one of the bruises and Giordi grimaced, “was I in a punch up last night and don’t remember?”

  “Boot marks,” Revna looked at him, her grey eyes troubled, “someone kick you?”

  “I honestly can’t recall…” Giordi winced. “It might have been a friendly sparring match? I wonder if I got any blows in.”

  Revna stepped back, worrying her bottom lip. She picked up his blue tunic. “Here, cover…”

  “Thanks.” He slipped it on, trying to keep from crying out, the bruises restricting his movements. “Oh…that bow.”

  Revna looked where he was pointing and picked the bow up. “This?”

  “Yes. And there was a quiver,” Giordi gritted his teeth as he stood up, “ah, there it is.” He slung the quiver over his shoulder and took the bow. “I should return these to Verne. I know he said I could keep them but he’s barely speaking to me and I’d rather not have that as our final memory.”

  “I make food when you come back?”

  “As long as it’s not raw meat.” Giordi begged.

  “Promise.” Revna assured him then watched him go, stiff and sore. The bruises bothered her. They hadn’t been there when she’d treated his scratches from the wild cat. It had happened at the feast or afterwards. She hoped rather than believed they were a result of a friendly fist fight. Giordi was a little too…delicate and uninclined towards violence to be goaded into something so coarse and common amongst her people.

  She sighed and turned her back from the tent flap, directing her mind to the preparation of food for her husband. She ought to have had it made before he woke but her back had ached terribly all night and Giordi, once he returned from the feast, snored. Revna had slept in far later than she ought to have.

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  She felt the weight of inadequacy fall heavily on her shoulders. Revna never quite felt as though she was enough of a nomad for her father’s liking. The other women were bolder, braver and without apology. They were proudly nomadic and lived the life to its fullest. Revna had always looked at the horizon and wished to escape to it, feeling enclosed by her life and her father’s tight rein on the clan. Perhaps if she hadn’t been so discontent, she would not have been so easily swayed by Giordi’s imposter. Revna felt the burn of shame once again as she recalled how she had lied to her father and Sten about feeling unwell, sneaking out to meet Haern and allowing him to have her.

  She had foolishly believed him when he said he would take her away from the clan and show her the world of Terra. Revna had wanted to see so much more and Haern had promised her everything.

  Revna swallowed the lump in her throat. She should have realised that her father was not just being strict out of blind cruelty. He knew the minds of young men, especially those not of the clan.

  None of them would dare touch Revna but Giordi, Haern as he was, was bold, charming and unafraid of her father. How she had welcomed his attention and hoped, by giving him what he wanted, that he would understand that they were married, bonded permanently together.

  Yet he had vanished on a hunt, taking his belongings with him and striking out for the horizon…

  …and Revna had grieved for her loss.

  When she finally began to scrape the pieces of her heart together, she realised she was with child. There was no hiding her deflowering once it was discovered. Revna had stood before her furious father who raged like she had never seen him berate before. She had said nothing, terrified beyond all measure.

  And then, her father asked if she had been forced.

  It seemed so simple, so easy a lie that would deflect some of the blame.

  Yes, Revna had lied, she had been forced.

  She wasn’t sure Sten believed her but then, he’d always hated the Terras that they traded with. He despised their ways and looked down on them. He had been the one to tell her father she was flirting with the minstrel. Not because he was kind but because he hated that one of those Terras had been allowed into their camp and was welcome at their table.

  Her father took her at her word yet even then, she felt the blame that she had allowed it to happen to her. And all the women talked about it, whispering as Revna passed by in the camp. She was soiled and used. No nomad would have her now. Not when she was tethered to a Terra. She was shunned in her own camp. Not even the young women who had claimed to be her friends had anything to do with her now, kept away by their cautious mothers and fathers.

  It had been an extraordinary shock when she was dragged before her father, told that Giordi Gavoli had the gall to revisit their clan. Revna had not been able to fathom just who it was that knelt before her father. Though similar, Revna had the imposter’s countenance engraved on her heart and she knew it was not he. Yet when he looked up at her, seeing her swollen belly, there was guilt in his eyes as though he was responsible.

  They recognised the shame in each other’s expression and were now bound together because of a single man’s cruel deception.

  Giordi Gavoli was handsome and kind but in a sea of nomadic grey, brown and cream, he was gold and white, blue and bright.

  He didn’t belong there.

  Yet there he would stay.

  Revna closed her eyes and shivered.

  “If only I had not…” She swallowed and shook her head. “Enough now. You are wife. You must look after husband.” She breathed out and lifted the cloth over the grain she had ground. As she did so, a single arrow tumbled free, caught on a thread. “Oh…” Revna picked it up then struggled to her feet. It was one of the arrows from the quiver that Giordi was returning.

  Revna swept her shawl over her head and shoulders and across her face as a makeshift veil, hastening out of the tent, grasping the arrow in her hand. She went down the natural steps in the hillside, shivering in the chill. Soon her father would move their camp north to the winter settlement. In a few weeks, it would be too cold to remain where they were.

  She skirted the stone pillars, heading directly for the eastern clan’s tents, knowing which one was the Terra’s. She drew the flap aside and peered in, catching the attention of Giordi’s companions.

  “Revna?” The white dreadlocked young woman approached her. “Can we help you?”

  Revna held out the arrow. “Missing arrow. Giordi…he…return to…Verne?”

  “Yeah?” Revna turned and saw the raven haired archer coming into the tent alone. “Someone wanted me?”

  “Revna was looking for you.”

  Verne looked at Revna with startling blue eyes that seemed to convey a certain animosity she could not comprehend. “What do you want?”

  “Arrow,” she blurted, holding it out to him, “Giordi want return arrow…I find.”

  Verne took it, confused. “I told him to keep them. Why return just the one?”

  Now Revna was confused. “No, Giordi return all arrow.”

  “No, Giordi not return any arrow.”

  Revna looked around, troubled. “He come. Just now. He come. Return arrow and,” she mimed the word for ‘bow’, at the very limit of her understanding of their language.

  “Revna,” Aalis said gently, “Giordi has not been here this morning.”

  “No come?”

  Aalis shook her head. Verne folded his arms. “Then where in Maul is he?”

  Suvau swore. Yolana huffed at him. “Language!”

  “I was afraid of this. Giordi nearly got beaten to a pulp last night between the meeting hall and your tent.” He said to Revna. “I saw some of the younger nomad lads leaving just after us and didn’t like the way they skulked.”

  “Giordi bruised,” Revna gasped, gesturing to her chest, “today.”

  “They got in a few kicks before I interrupted them.” Suvau looked at all of them. “Chances are, they’re trying to finish the job.”

  “We’ve got to find him and quickly!”

  “Someone get Judd!”

  “Revna, where are you going?!”