FrostFire by Zoe Marriott Page B

tent I get interrupted every two minutes. I can’t even eat without someone running to me needing attention. And speaking of food, Luca left you some breakfast. You must be starving.”
    I shuffled to the edge of the pile of rugs and disentangled myself from the fur wrapped around me. “I … you said Luca carried me here. I didn’t stir at all?”
    “Not a murmur,” Livia said, clearing off a space on the table and moving a wooden tray onto it.
    I had been a light restless sleeper since I was a child. Habit and necessity would have made it so, even if my nights weren’t plagued with dreams of running and howling and sharp white fangs. But Luca had held me in his arms, and I had not woken. My cheeks burned.
    I hurried over to the table and sat down on one of the chairs, busying myself by taking the lids off all the covered bowls on the tray. There was a cup of milk, a bowl of round fluffy pastry things, some sort of egg dish and small stuffed flatbreads that looked crispy and golden, as if they had been fried. When I popped one in my mouth, the flatbread turned out to contain spiced roots and onions. The pastries were sweet: flavoured with nuts and honey. The eggs tasted of green leaves – like spinach, but stronger – and peas, and more onions. The food was very spicy, setting fire to my mouth, but very good. I tried to slow down, but I had only eaten one stingy, tasteless meal the day before and my belly would not let me. I was used to stuffing myself when I could, to make up for the times when meals were poor or even non-existent. Besides, if my mouth was full, I didn’t have to speak.
    Not that Livia seemed to expect me to. She was scribbling away at her papers, dripping ink everywhere, sneezing whenever she tapped her nose with her quill. Her relaxed posture and the concentration on her face were reassuring, as if there was nothing strange or awkward about sitting here with me. Yet, the last time she had seen me I had been locked up in a cell. Then I had escaped, and the hill-guard captain himself had gone after me. And now I had spent the night in the captain’s tent. What must she be thinking?
    As I washed down the last spicy crumbs with the last mouthful of milk, Livia put aside her quill and went to a chest at the end of the bed. She drew out a large, folded drying cloth and a bar of soap, and offered them to me. As I stood to take them, I noticed for the first time that Livia was taller than I was – by at least an inch. That was rare enough in men, back in Uskaand. The Sedorne seemed to be a long-legged people.
    “I’m supposed to get you outfitted with a uniform and everything else you need today, but I think you should clean up first.” She added some clean clothes to the pile in my arms. “These are mine, just for the moment.”
    “Do I smell that badly?” I asked, mortified.
    “You don’t stink, but I can tell you’ve been sleeping on the forest floor for a while. I’m afraid we don’t have a bathhouse. I’ll walk you down to the river.”
    “I’ve never been to a bathhouse,” I admitted. “At home we had hot springs.”
    “Well, that’s a relief. If I have to listen to one more new recruit bellyaching about the lack of hot water, I might brain them. I don’t understand why they sign up if they want luxury.”
    “Is that what I am?” I asked tentatively. “A new recruit?”
    The hare in Livia’s tattoo seemed to leap as she frowned in thought. “Seems like it. I suppose you’ll do. Can’t say you’re lacking in gumption, anyway. And I never knew him to be wrong about anyone before.”
    As I turned over her words in my mind, she pushed back the tent flap. I followed her outside into early morning sunlight and a businesslike swarm of people.
    By day the hill-guard camp was a different place. My head nearly swivelled off my shoulders as I struggled to take in everything that was going on. I followed Livia through the centre of the camp, past a cleared circle of ground where