Lieutenant Kallista Varyl sat sulking outside her commander’s office, refraining from kicking her heels only through stringent application of serious personal fortitude. Sulking was childish enough.

It had taken them long enough to get round to putting her back on the active duty roster. So long that the nest of bandits preying on this sector of the western Okreti di Vos mountains had been wiped up, the remnants carted off to Katreinet Prison. It wasn’t as if she’d been that badly injured herself. Her bodyguard was the one who’d died.

A hole opened inside her and grief poured out. It took Kallista a moment to slam the gaping hellmouth shut again and mop up all the sadness. Less time than it had taken before. Did the hole seem a bit smaller?

If they had just let her ride out with the patrols, deal with the scum who had ended his life— It would have helped, no matter what those East naitani healers might say with their “we know what’s best for you” attitudes.

She got up and started to pace, feeling the need to break something—preferably Vykon Healer’s face. But if she let her control slip, it would be two weeks—eighteen entire days—before they would again contemplate returning her to active duty. Eighteen more “healing” sessions to stare at the ceiling and listen to Vykon whine about “resistant auras” and “non-cooperation.” That’s what had happened last time. If it happened again, she really would murder him. So it couldn’t.

Finally, the door opened and Colonel Stylar’s aide beckoned her into the office. Kallista came to attention before the desk.

“At ease, Lieutenant.” The colonel, a rather indolent, but intelligent woman who liked to surround herself with handsome soldiers just out of the two-year camps, tapped the pasteboard file in front of her. “Are you ready for duty?”

“Yes, Colonel, I am.”

“The healer’s report here says you would benefit from another double-week’s healing.”

“All respect to the healers, Colonel, but they’re sniffing their own backsides.” Kallista allowed her fists to clench behind her back where her commander couldn’t see them, funneling all her anger and frustration there. “I am more than ready to return to duty.”

“And to accept a new bodyguard?” Stylar watched her closely. This was where the interview had gone wrong, a double-week past.

Kallista dug her nails hard into her palms. Vel was gone. She had loved him and he had loved her back. They’d made plans, how he would take retirement when his time came up at the end of winter and follow her where the army sent until they found a likely candidate or two for a proper ilian. It had made her too careful of him, so that she tried to do her job and his too, getting in his way, letting too many slip through the perimeter it was her job to establish. And now he was dead.

She shut down the howling grief with a hard swallow and nodded. “Yes, Colonel. I am.”

They wouldn’t let her back on active duty without a bodyguard. A military naitan tended to get too wrapped up in the magic to pay attention to the environment and personal safety, so a bodyguard did it for them. Kallista would do whatever it took to get out of this place and back on the trail of bandits and outlaws. It might be too late for this particular band, but there were always more.

The colonel studied Kallista a few moments more, then nodded, coming to a decision. “Very well. I’m going to take you at your word. We’re short of naitani, and there’s a new batch of smugglers in the Kishkim swamps.”

“There are always smugglers in the Kishkim swamps,” Kallista said. “Colonel.”

“These have been slitting throats.”

Ah. So the colonel truly did need her lightning magic. Kallista took a deep breath, inclined her head. “My new bodyguard?”

Stylar cleared her throat. “It’s probably best you didn’t rotate out last double-week. That guard drew a new assignment. He—You...would not have suited. Frankly, you’d have chewed him up and spit him out in pieces within a month.”

“A bodyguard?” Kallista doubted that, given the extensive training the bodyguard corps underwent.

“He is a competent bodyguard, but too willing to follow orders.”

That made no sense. “Aren’t they supposed to?”

“Not when the naitan is giving stupid orders.” The colonel’s eyes glinted steel and amusement. “But I think I have found one who can stand up to you.” She called her aide.

The office door opened and a man in bodyguard’s blacks marched in and snapped to rigid attention. “Bodyguard First Class Omvir reporting.”

He had red hair. Red, red hair. Red. And it curled. She could see the curl, despite the tight military queue his hair was braided in. He was tall, a few inches taller than she, and lean with hooded eyes and a hawk nose and pale redhead’s skin. And he was young. Vel had been almost forty. Was that why they’d gone so young with this one, so he wouldn’t remind her?

Kallista paid little attention while Colonel Stylar read out the orders assigning Omvir to her command and her to his care, trying to get a feel for this stranger. Silence fell and he looked at her for the first time. His eyes were blue, a lighter shade than her own. She heard herself speak, couldn’t stop the words. “How old are you? Twelve?”

His mouth twitched as if it wanted to smile but wouldn’t. “Twice that, actually. Twenty-four.”

A year younger than she. He spoke in the accent of the far north Korbin prinsipality. And his hair was red.

He cleared his throat, flushing slightly under her scrutiny, then snapped to attention once more. After a ten-count, he went slowly down to one knee and held out his hands, palm up. “Naitan, I accept your gloves.”

Pain and grief made her sway, left her numb when she battled them down. She pulled off her gloves, finger by finger. She fought back tears as she laid the soft elbow-length black leather dress gloves across Bodyguard First Class Omvir’s palms. He closed his hands around them, bowed the proper distance, then he broke tradition.

“I’ll put these away for your keeping, Naitan,” he said for her ears alone as he carefully rolled the precious gloves and tucked them into his waistpack.

He removed another pair, redolent of new leather, and held them up. Kallista had to clear her throat and blink hard before she could take the new gloves from him. And thus, she went from being Vel’s naitan to being—

“What is your other name again, Bodyguard Omvir?” At least she remembered his family name. Kallista smoothed on the new gloves, working with the soft but resistant leather.

“Torchay.” He came smoothly to his feet. “Torchay Omvir.”

“Right, then.” Colonel Stylar rummaged on her desk, coming up with a folded parchment. “Here are your orders for Kishkim. Matching report in two months. Dismissed.”

Kallista saluted and strode from the headquarters building, her new bodyguard properly just behind her left shoulder, matching her stride for stride. “See the stablemaster for horses,” she said. “We’ll head out mid-afternoon.”

Omvir let a long breath sigh out through his nose. “No, Lieutenant. We will be leaving in the morning, after your already scheduled visit to the healers to verify that your injuries are completely healed and your wrist isn’t giving you any more trouble.”

Kallista stopped in mid-step and whirled to face him. “Are you defying a direct order, Bodyguard?”

He stood toe to toe with her, refusing to back down. “Yes, Lieutenant, I am. Article Thirty-seven, Section Nineteen of the Adaran Military Code: a bodyguard’s duty to safeguard the health and well-being of his naitan supercedes other orders outside of battlefield conditions. I do no’ see a battle raging about us just now. Do you?”

She glared at him, fists clenching, all the angrier because she knew he was right. Finally, the urge to break that great, hooked nose of his went away. “I am sick to death of healers,” she muttered.

“Nevertheless.” He gestured for her to go on, toward their quarters. His things would be moved into the first of her double rooms by now.

With a heavy sigh, Kallista spun around again and marched on. “So, Bodyguard—Torchay, correct?”

He nodded, keeping silent. Smart man.

“So, Torchay—which one of us do you think will kill the other first?”

His lips did that little “fighting-a-smile” dance again. “I’d say, Lieutenant, that the odds are about even.”

Kallista let go another sigh. “I was afraid of that.”