Against the Empire: The Dominion and Michian by Jeffrey Quyle

see you up again! You’re tired, aren’t you?” she said as she stepped back from their embrace and looked at him. “Get some sleep and we can talk in the morning.” She guided him to his cot, and helped him get under the covers, providing comfort and maintaining a cheery disposition in the face of his depression, then left the tent in Armilla’s company, and Alec fell asleep in short order.
    He awoke at midnight, and lay in bed listening to the small sounds that still occurred in the shrunken camp, as someone snored, while a horse nickered gently and the wind flapped a loose piece of canvas. He sat up in the darkness, groped on the floor, and found his clothes. After dressing he stood up, reached to grab his sword, and stepped out of the tent. He stopped in the open street and got his bearings, then slowly walked towards the dark end of the camp where the stables were established. Alec walked among the horses until he heard one nearby nicker, and he knew it was Walnut. After taking his time to saddle the horse and add saddle bags and a blanket, he slowly walked him to the cooking tent. Alec pilfered a variety of foodstuffs to fill the saddlebags, then laboriously climbed up into the saddle again, checked the stars to get his bearing, and rode out of camp. He was beginning a journey to reclaim the healer identity he had surrendered.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 4 – Bethany’s Duty
     
    Bethany awoke in the morning, feeling alive with anticipation of the upcoming day’s ride in the country with Tritos. The stone ingenaire often lacked that sense of mischief which Bethany enjoyed and practiced, and she smiled as she thought about the times she had pushed him out of his comfort zone with whimsy and pranks. But he bore it all with good humor and patience, and in turn he helped her to be a more somber person when circumstances required.
    Today’s horse ride would be their last together before she went on her first assignment for the Water House, traveling to Frame to earn funds through service. An ingenaire was needed to reroute a creek that ran through the city; it served as a noisome open sewer, and she was to spend several days rerouting it into a covered ditch that would reduce the smell and disease it spread through a surrounding neighborhood. Not glamorous work, which is why a junior ingenaire was carrying it out in exchange for payment by the city fathers. An ordinary assignment, but unusually, Aristotle had personally interceded with the new Head of the Water House, a man named Hiron, in the Water House process to recommend Bethany for the trip; Bethany didn’t know why, but she appreciated his support for anything that gave her something to occupy her time and talent.
    The senior water ingenairii got the plum assignments, like developing fountains in palace gardens! That’s what she hoped to do someday, but for now she took the duties assigned, while remembering the adventure she had known when the Goldenfields cavalry had taken her to Bondell.
    She’d realized she probably wouldn’t have to wait terribly long to be able to carry out a few better assignments; the civil war had cruelly cut short the lives of many of the older ingenairii, and young ones like her would rise quickly. They might have to carry out great deeds and humble ones too, until more apprentices began to come into the house and train to once again take over the simple tasks.
    But all of that was in the future, and she was arising today. She dressed and cleaned and prepared, then left the water house and languidly journeyed downhill to meet Tritos at the stables. She was a few minutes late. When she got there Tritos was already waiting, with both horses out of the barn, saddled and standing patiently. He leaned towards her to peck her cheek, and they clamored into their saddles. Tritos was not a practiced rider, but he could manage adequately. Bethany’s mind slipped back again to the long journey she had made to Bondell with Alec