Karlani insisted on eating before digging burial holes. Jonas couldn’t blame her. The Syakaran metabolism was a boon when based at the Taither barracks or Lord Gaemil Tovias’s estate. It had its downsides when traveling, especially on a budget. Luckily for Karlani, there was a stockpile of reasonably fresh eggs, for now, at least.

  Llew asked how Jonas was feeling, and he had to admit to a loss of vigor already. She showed no distress, which he was grateful for, simply asked Elka to help them, ensuring a barrier between them as Llew replenished her blood between filling syringes.

  Stepping from the house, Karlani paused to watch. She walked closer. “Aenuks can’t heal Kara.” Her voice held the barest hint of a question.

  “But Kara can heal themselves.” Llew pressed her hand to an Ajnai while Elka lined up needle to vein for Jonas.

  “But that doesn’t fix him, does it? He’s still got the … bug … thing.”

  “We don’t know how to fight it, yet. But we will.”

  “Hm.” It wasn’t obviously dismissive, but Karlani backed up and walked off to join Rowan and Alvaro at the family graveyard without another word.

  Once Jonas insisted he felt fit enough to walk to the cemetery, Elka returned indoors to help Anya with dinner preparations, leaving Llew and Jonas to make their way across the yards between homestead and sheds, and across a paddock to a smaller fenced off area already home to several grave markers.

  The land had a gentle, rolling quality to it, meaning not a single paddock was flat. Quite different to much of Quaver, yet Jonas found he liked it. It wasn’t so easy to get around with a false leg and crutches, but there was a tenor about the land itself that touched his core and made him feel like he belonged here. He almost laughed. Him – not just any Quaven; Syakaran – feeling settled in the heart of Turhmos. It didn’t gel with his upbringing, and yet he couldn’t deny that something about this land called to him. This land where Hisham’s journey had ended, where his best friend would be committed for eternity.

  Merrid and Ard’s shrouded bodies lay beside a large, deep hole, and Hisham’s remains, such as they were, lay not far away by a narrower hole, striking a lonely figure in death. If he got the chance, Jonas would see about getting a message to Hisham’s mother, and Gilana. He thought it likely both women would appreciate the closure, if not the reality of it.

  Rowan, Karlani, and Alvaro left the small fenced off area as Llew and Jonas arrived.

  Rowan raised his shovel. “Signal when you’re ready.”

  Alvaro reached a hand out to Llew’s arm. “They were real nice,” he said, then met Jonas’s eye. “And I— I liked Hisham.” He stood a moment longer, like he thought he should say more, then continued on to wait with the other two, leaving Llew and Jonas to their mourning.

  Jonas looked on what remained of Hisham and remembered their years together. So few, now he thought on it. Not even a decade of friendship between them. They’d often farewelled each other at the Quaven-Turhmos border with brotherly love, preparing to never meet again, to return at the end of a campaign to shoulder slaps and bear hugs. It was routine to say what needed said, just in case, but they’d never gone so far as to believe it necessary. At least, Jonas hadn’t. Faster and stronger than anyone else on the battlefield, he’d had little to fear. And he knew Hisham’s abilities. Not Syakaran, no, but a talented soldier, a man always destined to put his body, his everything on the line for a greater purpose.

  But on this farm, on that day, Jonas had been so caught up in his own losses, he’d shut down, while Hisham had stood up. And Hisham had fallen. And, for once, they’d not said their goodbyes. The one time they had needed to. The one time it would’ve counted.

  Llew stepped in close, put her arm around his waist, and he adjusted his crutches and embraced her shoulders.

  “I wish I’d had a chance to know him better,” she murmured. “And Merrid and Ard … It was like having family again.” Her voice tremored. Jonas squeezed her gently.

  He didn’t know what he would’ve said had he known it would be his and Hisham’s last time. He didn’t know what to say now. Every fond memory he had of the man was now colored by the betrayal of keeping the secret of what really happened to Kierra and their child, Joelin. Hisham had been a good friend for many years; fun, and a true partner in all their adolescent mischief. But when it had mattered, his loyalty had been with Aris, not Jonas. Maybe he’d considered it as loyalty to Quaver, but Quaver would’ve wanted the child, if they’d known he lived. Aris should’ve, too, if he hadn’t risked whatever deal he’d struck with Braph coming to light. For over a year Hisham had known Jonas’s son lived, and he’d not breathed a word.

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  Llew glanced at Jonas, her eyes questioning, and he realized his anger had leaked through a tension in his arm, and likely showed on his face. He forced himself to relax, gave her a brief smile and rubbed her shoulder, just in case he’d squeezed too hard.

  She returned the empty smile and turned back to the bodies, thinking her own thoughts about Hisham, or Merrid and Ard, and Jonas found himself gazing on her profile. If he’d wanted proof of his friend’s loyalty, she stood before him. She, the Aenuk Hisham had protected at Jonas’s request, against his own deeply ingrained biases. Hisham’s betrayal cut deep, but it was a single failing in years of friendship. And, if Jonas pushed himself to be charitable, he could sympathize with Hisham’s position, being stuck between his friend and what he perceived as his country’s wishes. Llew was Aenuk, and Jonas had learned to see beyond that. He could learn to forgive Hisham. Besides, Joelin still lived, Jonas still had a chance to reclaim him. Hisham was gone, his own dreams gone with him.

  Jonas turned back to the remains and projected a silent apology for his doubts and his own actions that had led to the loss of his best friend’s life. And full forgiveness for that single failure.

  He raised his hand to signal Rowan, figuring there wasn’t much point prolonging things, and the three moved in to lower the bodies into the graves. Rowan jumped into the hole dug for Merrid and Ard and signaled the other two to ease Ard over the edge while he kept the descent as dignified as possible. And so the farmers’ bodies were lowered into their final resting place alongside their ancestors, or maybe even their children, and Jonas lamented they had not known the couple well enough.

  “What’s it all for?” Llew kept her voice low, the question just between them. “What did they die for?”

  Jonas just shook his head. He understood that the Turhmos troops who’d killed the farmers either did so for a cause they believed in, or simply because that was what they had been told to do. He’d been the same. He’d believed in Quaver, believed Aenuks were evil, and if not evil then too great a danger to allow to exist in any great number, preferably zero. The fact that belief had fractured the minute he’d tested it left him hollow. His life had been dedicated to that lie right up until he’d met Llew. After, if he was honest. Really, it had taken Aris revealing the full truth before Jonas had been ready to let it all go.

  Turhmos may have been right to fight for the lives of Aenuks, but not so they could live in their cages. Cages Merrid and Ard had worked to free them from.

  He had denied Llew the opportunity to run from Brurun to fight for her freedom with a full-strength Jonas at her side. He’d believed that no matter how strong he was, he couldn’t stand up to an entire nation. And here he was, broken and weak, planning to stand up against two. He looked back at the shrouded bodies and acknowledged the cost. Too high. But Merrid and Ard had been prepared to die for the freedom of Aenuks. They’d known the risk when they built their bunker and with each Aenuk they helped out of Turhmos. Hisham, like Jonas himself, had been prepared to die for their entrenched beliefs. Jonas hadn’t been prepared to die for Aenuk liberation, not even Llew’s, but Hisham had.

  What was it all for?

  “Lies.” He ground out the word. “Lies planted by Aris that the world can’t afford for Aenuks to live free. Lies upheld by both Quaver and Turhmos; even believed in Brurun, and Aghacia, and maybe farther afield.” He met Llew’s gaze. “Lies that I believed for too long. Lies that you and me are gonna rip apart, or die tryin’.”

  Llew’s eyes came alive, and she smiled. Then she pulled him into a hug. Only relying on the one crutch, Jonas brought his other arm up around her. Then Llew leaned back, framed his face with her hands and kissed him, pressing firmly, inviting him to respond deeply. He did.

  Karlani’s eye-roll was practically audible as she murmured something about this being meant to be a funeral. Funny how those with the least hurt thought they knew how the heartbroken should behave, for that’s what this was. It hurt just as much to look on Hisham’s shrouded body as it had to see him shot. And Merrid and Ard had not deserved to hang.

  After a while, they pulled back from each other, standing forehead to forehead for a few moments as they sought peace in their pain. And finally, they parted fully as Rowan clambered from the first hole and dropped into Hisham’s, whose remains were sparse and disconnected, and being buried so far from home, and yet, the Karan soldier who had greeted Merrid with such warmth on their return here would likely consider this right. He’d been raised as a ward of Quaver. Jonas believed Hisham’s mother had loved him, but he’d also never sought her out when their time had been less regimented by the army, while he’d blossomed here on this farm, eyes sparkling and a joyful conversation, even over a bowl of dishwater. This farm, so far from Taither, so central to Turhmos, was home. Not just to Hisham.

  Llew kept pace with Jonas’s hobbled stride and they returned to the homestead in silence, only broken before they stepped up to the porch as Llew turned to Jonas, pulled him in to a tight hold, and sobbed into his shoulder, finally letting go. And he held her, cheek to her hair, and gave her every ounce of strength he had to give.