It was Henricks that eventually replied, glancing between the two of them with furrowed eyebrows. “Mister Mortimer has also been hired by Governor Thompson,” he said, his lips pursed. “I wasn’t aware that the two of you were friends.”

“We’re not,” Vincent replied, but even under Spencer’s mask, he could tell the younger man was grinning.

“I have the feeling we’re going to be spending a lot of time with each other now, Vincent,” Spencer laughed, sounding far too proud of himself. Vincent could have punched him, but would be the point? At least if he was there, it meant that there could be an opportunity to take back the vireen he had rightly earned for himself the other day.

Spencer was the last person he expected to see, the last person he wanted to see. He wasn’t supposed to be there. He wasn’t the kind of person to take on jobs for any authority, let alone Governor Thompson. And yet, there he was. Someone angrier at those in charge than him, on his way to New Feridian to work for the woman who ran the whole province.

“Let’s just get moving. The less time I have to spend with you, the better,” he snapped, shifting Sparks so that she could trot down the road again.

Hoofbeats against dirt followed him as the other two struggled to keep up with his sudden rush. “Don’t be like that, Vincent, I like spending time with you,” Spencer yelled behind him, sounding far too proud of himself.

“I can tell, the bruise on my head really screams ‘I like spending time with you’,” Vincent said, turning to glare at the other man. Henricks was behind them both, muttering to himself and looking far too tired to be dealing with the two of them. Vincent found it all too easy to not care what he thought.

Spencer, at least, had the wherewithal to look guilty. He caught up to him, trotting alongside him with a sad look in his eyes. It was hard to tell what was under the mask, after so long, it was easier to guess what he was feeling just by looking at his eyes. If he said as much to anyone else, they would have thought him and Spencer to be a lot closer than they were, but they never had been.

“It was necessary, I needed the money,” Spencer said, his voice calm and serious for once. “I gave you that necklace, didn’t I?”

“Yes, and I got two loaves of mouldy bread for it,” he snapped, shooting him an angry look. It was a three-day ride to New Feridian if they included breaks. That was three days he would rather not spend with Spencer. Hopefully, Henricks would see how much they didn’t get along and let whoever was in charge know that they weren’t to be stationed with each other.

Spencer sighed and ran a hand over his short black hair. Even in the heat, he kept almost every inch of skin covered, long sleeve shirts and thick black gloves covered his arms and hands. The mask itself spread to cover his ears. The only part anyone could see was his neck, which not many people tended to look at, even if they did happen to notice the stretch of dark skin just above his collar.

“You’re not the only ranger out here that’s struggling, you know,” Spencer said, looking out into the distance. “You know how it is. Working together means less food, less gold, less vireen. You had something I needed, I took it. That’s how we work.”

Vincent scoffed. “I don’t need lessons from you. I know how all this works by now, but it doesn’t stop me from being annoyed. You left me with no money to buy food for Sparks.”

“All you care about is that damn horse.”

“I’m keeping good care of her after you sold my last one!” he yelled, sneering at Spencer. It had been two years ago, with his last horse, a stallion he had named Archie that had been utterly useless. He didn’t listen to directions and would run off whenever he wasn’t tied up, but Vincent had loved him anyway.

So when he had disappeared one day, Vincent had assumed that he’d somehow gotten out of his bonds and run off. It wasn’t until Spencer had shown up with a bag of gold that he realised the truth. That had resulted in a fight that had been so bad that Spencer was lucky he’d had vireen on him to tend his wounds.

And yet, Spencer still laughed about it like it was the funniest thing he had ever done. “Please, that horse was useless and you knew it. I did you a favour,” he said, glancing down at Sparks. “I like this one.”

“My horses don’t need your approval.”

They hadn’t even been on the road for ten minutes and he was already sick of anything that came out of Spencer’s mouth. If he hadn’t stolen from him earlier that week, then maybe he wouldn’t be so angry at him and their little journey together wouldn’t be so infuriating. There was no way of knowing.

The man in question chuckled at him, far too happy to see Vincent annoyed. “I beg to differ. You might be dead if I hadn’t sold that idiotic creature. Who knows what he might have done if he got a bit too spooked,” he said.

“I know you just wanted the gold, Spencer,” he muttered, exhaustion washing over him. “There wasn’t enough in the bag you gave me. I’m not an idiot.”

“Hey, it took me a lot of effort to get him away without waking you up. I deserved that gold,” he said, but he was distracted, looking over his shoulder at Henricks. The old man was still a fair distance away, too far to hear Vincent accidentally use Spencer’s real name.

He bit back the apology that threatened to spill from his lips. “Enough about the damn horse,” he said, giving Sparks a quick pat. “What are you doing here?”

It took him a while to get a response. Spencer didn’t look at him, making him unable to tell what he was thinking. “Like I said before, you’re not the only ranger who’s struggling,” he replied, all hints at jokes gone from his voice. “You’re also not the only one who’s realised that the only way for us to get what we need is to work for Governor Thompson.”

It was still unexpected to find him there. When he thought of Spencer, he pictured him running about the rolling hills between hundreds of towns, laughing all the while and never taking any bullshit from anyone. If he, of all people, had decided to stop for the sake of money, then it meant things were worse off than they had originally seemed.

Vincent hadn’t paid that much attention if he was being completely honest. He saw the disease-ridden crops, saw how little money he was able to steal from people and how protected the banks had become. It wasn’t hard to tell what was going on, but there would have been more to it, things he didn’t care about finding. After all, if it didn’t affect him, why pay attention to it?

“You didn’t seem the type,” Vincent said and gestured to the mask. “What with your mum and all. And the mask.”

The silence that followed was suffocating and filled him with memories from a long time ago. The first time he had seen Spencer take off the mask, he was fifteen and quite drunk, both of them had been. It wasn’t the first time they’d met, but years after. Spencer had kept his face hidden during the first few days they’d spent together, as if he’d been worried about what Vincent would think. He had only been twelve at the time. The mask didn’t make an appearance until after Vincent had told him what it was like to live on the land, to be a bushranger.

Spencer had found him with a bottle of whiskey and demanded he shared it. On any other day, Vincent would have told him to leave, but he was far too drunk to care. It wasn’t the first time they’d had a polite night together and acted like they were something more than two people who strove to be better than the other. Within an hour, both of them were giggling like children.

The younger man had been the first to stop drinking and on that hot summer’s night, removed his mask without prompting, stating that he was too hot and tired to wear it. His dark skin had been a surprise, but Vincent tried not to show it, even while drunk. All he’d been told was that Spencer’s mother had been taken from her tribe and escaped, leaving him with his father when he was born. He put the mask on after that and neither of them spoke much of that one drunk night, even though he’d taken off the mask three more times since then.

Spencer’s story wasn’t uncommon. Vincent had seen a few people like him around the many different towns, people whose mothers had been taken from the tribes dotted around. It was always the mothers, never the fathers, and everyone knew what happened to them. It was disgustingly normal.

The wind whipped at Vincent’s hair, brushing through the leaves of the trees and making them roar. The pale brown of the trees and the muted green of the grass spread out for miles, overlooked by the bright blue sky and the occasional cloud. The birds squawked as they flew over, joining the wind and the insects in the grass as they tried to fill the silence Vincent had created.

“I don’t know,” Spencer finally whispered, pulling Vincent away from his thoughts. “I didn’t think that far ahead.”

He couldn’t say he was surprised. It shouldn’t be something Spencer had to worry about, but considering the threat they were supposed to be protecting Governor Thompson from came from one of the tribes that had populated Ilsania before the arrival of Nuran men, it was something he should have taken into consideration before he agreed.

Within seconds, Spencer was back to the way he usually was, shrugging and laughing as he turned towards him. “What does it matter? I might look like I come from a tribe, but I’m not one of them,” he said, a smile in his eyes once again. “If I have to take off my mask, then so be it. It’s not like anyone will recognise me, unlike you.”

He knew that any response he gave would only start up another round of useless back and forth teasing that would get them nowhere. Sometimes, he couldn’t help it, Spencer irritated him, but if he wanted to get through the journey to New Feridian then he had to learn to keep his mouth shut.

There wasn’t much time for him to struggle, as Henricks, who had been peacefully trodding along behind them, finally caught up. “Sirs, there are things I must fill you in on as we travel so that you are not caught unawares in New Feridian,” he said. A small thrill shot up Vincent’s spine at the use of the word ‘sir’ even though he had heard it a thousand times.

“Is this the part where you tell us that this is an arrest in disguise?” Spencer asked.

Henricks laughed, but it sounded forced. “No, but there are a few rules for the rangers we’ve hired, just to be safe,” he explained, waving a hand dismissively. “You will always be with a trained guard to keep an eye on you. The maids at the house have a list of precious belongings that will be checked daily to make sure nothing goes missing. You two are not the only rangers we’ve hired, but you are the most notorious. I hope you understand if the Governor wishes to show caution.”

It was a well-hidden insult, but one he could still understand. They were known robbers and were only being hired because there was no one else. It also meant that it would be harder to steal things like he wanted to, but he would make do. He’d dealt with harder situations before.

“It’s not a problem,” he said, trying to appear as amenable as possible. Spencer snorted next to him and Vincent waited for the inevitable insult to come flying his way, but nothing happened. At least he knew one way to keep him quiet was to mention his mother, as unfair as it sounded.

“Is there anything else we should know?” Spencer asked, turning away from Vincent. “Something regarding this tribe, perhaps? I didn’t realise they had the capacity to make such a threat to someone so important.”

Henricks sighed and drummed his fingers against the reins in his hands. “I wasn’t told much, only that a tribe not far from New Feridian has been attacking citizens and the Governor herself,” he explained. “I was then given your names by her advisor and told to find you. You’re to guard the Governor while others hunt down this tribe and put an end to the threat.”

Neither of the other two men seemed to care about what Henricks’ words meant, but the sick feeling that had been in Vincent’s stomach from the moment he’d agreed only grew worse. His own experiences with the native tribes had skewed his vision. The idea of fighting against people who had been kind to him in the past made fear well within him. If he focused on the money, he wouldn’t have to worry about it. It was all for the money.

“How bad could the attacks be if you need to hire criminals?” Spencer asked, laughter in his voice.

“Bad. A few buildings burnt down, a guard killed one night. It hasn’t been pleasant, to say the least.”

Vincent couldn’t help but feel that the burnt down buildings were a result of them being poorly built and falling apart, but he didn’t dare say it out loud. He had a job to do, and it wasn’t to theorise about what may or may not be happening in the province of Morgot. All he had to worry about was getting his gold and vireen.

Even as he thought the words, Spencer leaned over and whispered in his ear. “I’d say that’s a result of there being no gold,” he said with a chuckle. “What say you and I do some investigating and figure out where all that money’s gone?”

“You’ve never been the kind to care about that sort of thing. What does it matter to you?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

The wind was kind enough to muffle their voices as it ripped through the trees. “Aren’t you at all curious?” Spencer asked, sounding like a giddy child.

“No,” Vincent drawled and spurred Sparks on. “Look into it yourself.” But even as he rode away, the wind whipping through his hair, curiosity ate away at him. He would have the perfect view of the Governor and how she worked. Who wouldn’t want to know why the country was failing if they were in the right position to? It was a temptation he didn’t want to give in to, but one he might not be able to push away.