Page 30 of Thief of Hearts

“Exactly.”

Why did I find that charming?

“There are Daemonians here,” he said, his head tilted in their direction.

Daemonians? I had seen them fight against the Carians in Ilion. That could be a problem. I wasn’t sure how well I’d be able to hold my own against them, even with my gift.

“But they don’t compete,” he said. “They’re trained to fight to the death and they kept killing other competitors, which is frowned on. They were given several warnings and didn’t stop. So now they come and watch and seethe.”

“Seethe?” I repeated.

“Take a look at their faces. Seething.”

He was right. The Daemonians looked ready to kill someone.

Zain pointed to a new group. “Sasanians. They ride elephants into battle.”

I didn’t know what an elephant was and I was not about to admit that to him.

“They all have the same tattoo on their right wrist.”

That I knew about from Rokh and Suri.

“And they wear their wealth—their jewels are stitched into their clothing. You would not believe how easy it is to steal . . .” His voice trailed off, as if he’d remembered who he was speaking to.

Someone who did not think his thievery was admirable.

He cleared his throat. “Over there is the lone Epirian.”

“You’d think there’d be more than one.” My experience with them was that they tended to travel in packs.

“You never want a group of Epirians. For me, it’s bad for business, but for everyone else, they will steal an inordinate amount before they leave.”

I agreed with him. My experience with groups of Epirians had been a lot of death.

There was something I had always wondered about with Epirians. Perhaps Zain had the answer. “What are those lines?” The Epirian had thick black lines that swirled all over his skin.

“That you’re curious about?” he asked with a laugh. “All Epirians have those tattoos. It’s a gift from their god. One appears for every time they’ve managed to successfully steal something.”

“Every Epirian? What about infants?”

“They have at least one.”

How would they be marked? “What do babies steal?”

“Their mother’s hearts the moment they are born,” he said.

That was sweet, and I didn’t want to think good things about Epirians. “It seems counterintuitive to me that Eramis would mark his people. Those lines advertise that they are thieves.”

“If they can’t steal in spite of their marks, then they’re not very good thieves and they lose the ability to worship their god and be rewarded by him. It’s a way for Eramis to challenge his followers.”

“There are only two things I know about Epirians,” I said. “The first is that I’m never to marry one.”

“What?” he asked, sounding delighted by this.

“My grandmother always told me, ‘Never marry an Epirian.’ I don’t know why she felt the need to say that when they are our enemies. I obviously wouldn’t marry one.”

“What’s the second thing?”