The Continent (The Continent #1)(64)

“Why don’t we just use this technique all the time?”

“Armor,” Takashi says over his shoulder. “If they’ve got thick leather on, you can’t easily penetrate it. Especially when the armor is laced with bone.”

“Exactly,” Noro says. “I want you to know this technique, to marry it to your memory, because it is quick and silent.”

We practice a few times, Noro directing my blade to the proper angle and spot.

“This is how you killed the sleeping Topi at the camp,” I say quietly.

He nods. “He was none the wiser.”

I meet Noro’s eyes. “He was kind to me. He gave me food.”

“He would have had you when the first was finished, if he’d been sober enough to stand.”

“Noro!”

His eyes grow dark, cast with the reflections of the gathering clouds overhead. “Do you grieve for the men who captured you? Do you truly not yet understand what the Topi are about?”

“I do grieve for them,” I whisper. “Though I am grateful every day for what you did.”

His eyes narrow. “Vaela, I fear for you. You cannot look upon the Topi as men.”

“What are they, then?”

“They are the enemy.”

“The enemy.”

“That’s right.”

“That may be, Noro, but they are men,” I say. “Fathers, brothers, sons—the Topi are people, just like you and me. I will not harden myself to see them otherwise.”

Yuki bristles. “I will remember you said that. After all, it might be you who one day is killed and dismembered, your head put on a pike and marched around the battlefield.”

“The Topi are not the only ones to flaunt the violence of this war,” I say. “When I first traveled over the Continent, I saw bodies—Topi dead—strung from a bridge in the south. The Aven’ei are no strangers to brutality.”

Yuki’s face is white with rage. “You would compare the Topi to the Aven’ei?”

“That isn’t what I meant,” I say. “I only—”

“If those zunupi insist on stretching their legs into our territory,” Yuki says, “they shall swing from the bridges in all their rotten glory. We do not bury their dead, nor send them off in fire. The Topi can rot—and may their corpses serve as warning to their brethren.”

Takashi turns, his usually jovial face set now with hard lines. “Vaela Sun is sentimental.”

Noro nods. “Sentiment makes for a poor weapon, and it is certainly no shield.”

“You misunderstand me, Noro,” Takashi says. “I do not chide her for it.”

“No?” Noro says. “Are you not my brother-in-battle, Takashi Yen? Have we not fought side by side?”

Takashi crosses his arms. “Vaela sees a thing that we have forgotten.”

“And what is that?”

He shrugs. “The Topi are not a faceless enemy—they have lost much as well. They mourn and grieve as we do.”

“Yet still they come,” Noro says, “when the Aven’ei would stay away. Still they come and find pleasure in the slaughter of our people.”

Yuki frowns. “Since when are you a Topi sympathizer, Takashi Yen?”

“I’m no sympathizer,” he says hotly, and spits. “I can’t acknowledge the fact that the Topi are human without being labeled as some kind of senukka?”

“Watch your mouth,” Noro says, glancing over at me.

“Watch your back,” Yuki says to Takashi. “You know what happens to Aven’ei that go soft and sweet.”

“You threaten me? You who were my childhood friend? My childhood—”

“Oh, shut up,” Yuki says.

“Please,” I say. “Stop arguing. I understand how you feel, Yuki, how much you must hate the Topi—”

Yuki fixes me with a cold glare. “You understand nothing. You dress like an Aven’ei, you toil like an Aven’ei—you may even die like an Aven’ei someday. But you are an outworlder, Vaela, and so you will always be.”

Tears prick my eyes. “I didn’t mean—”

“She knows that,” Noro says, scowling in Yuki’s direction.

Yuki throws up her hands and stalks away, not stopping until she reaches the northern bank of the stream. There, she sits, picks up a stone, and hurls it into the water.

Takashi puts a hand on my shoulder. “She’s got a hot temper. She didn’t mean what she said.”

“She’s right,” I say. “I’ve been on the Continent scarcely five months. I oughtn’t say a word.”

“I’ve heard quite enough of this,” Noro says. “Vaela, I cannot change the way you see your enemy, but I will not rest until I know you can at least dispatch a man who might kill you.”

The truth of the war has never felt so plain, so heavy in my heart. I nod, and step into the space between Noro and Takashi. I place a hand on Takashi’s back, searching for the vulnerable spot. “Like this?” I say, pretending to drive the knife upward and inward.

“Like that,” Noro says. “Exactly like that.”

Lightning rips across the sky, close enough to turn our faces white in its glow.