Murders and Marriages

[Luned]

This directly follows The Wandering Isle (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?25225-The-Wandering-Isle) and refers to events from On the Lam (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?24406-On-the-Lam).

Warning: Contains adult content.



It was so cold that Luned's muscles creaked and her bones felt of ice, hopelessly frigid and brittle. It's so dark, she thought. Am I in the hold? The girl stood in the silence, sensing, and the stillness disoriented her. With the familiar sway and ever-present sounds of the sea absent, her purpose suddenly seemed so obvious. No, of course not. I'm waiting.

She waited a long time. Her legs grew weary and the chill never left, eventually becoming just as much a part of her as own her hair or skin. She wondered if goosebumps could be permanent, and she wondered how much she'd aged. She felt so very, very old. How many years had passed?

And then it happened. A flicker of light erupted in the distance, so far that Luned didn't think to try to reach for it, and it grew. It reached for her instead, and still she waited. There was someone she meant to meet later, much, much later, and this was the one who would bring them together. Existing was such tedious business –– one part purpose to ten parts patience –– but she was used to it.

Details took form slowly but surely. She was in a tunnel, but not like the ones of Ettermire's sewers –– this one was ancient, bricks splitting on all sides as the earth reclaimed the catacombs. Above her head, a skeletal hand of creeping roots reached for her, catching some strands of hair and stretching them like a cobweb. It cast an eery silhouette against the decrepit wall, increasingly dramatic as the light approached.

It turned the corner and Luned looked up to see an elderly man hoisting a lantern (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?25225-The-Wandering-Isle&p=206939&viewfull=1#post206939), illuminating the passage and exaggerating the fine wrinkles that etched his skin. She'd never seen him without a beard.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, stepping toward him. He seemed not to hear, glancing down the tunnel before shuffling onto the next. Soon he was out of sight, trailed by the pale glow of his lantern. "Bleddyn?"



As with most dreams, Luned didn't realize it was one until she awoke.

[Warpath]

The roar of the wind was so constant as to become ambient, instantly relegated to the back of one’s consciousness. She woke so slowly, and had become so accustomed to it in her sleep, that she might never have noticed it except that she’d never heard anything like it. It gripped her confused mind, and gave her a blessed occupation. It made the transition easier: from fever dreams into a more tangible unknown.

She was awake. She was alive. She had no idea where she was and, for a confounding second, who she was.

Some small part of her expected to hear the crashing of waves and to feel the room rhythmically dip and sway, but she didn’t know why. At first glance this looked like the interior of a ship, but the earth was still and solid and there was no sound or scent of the sea – just the steady wind, beating tirelessly on the walls.

They were wood, the walls, double-thick beams that ran horizontal eight feet up to the roof, which sloped up for another ten. They were unbelievably sturdy walls, each plank neatly fitted to the next, and between the miniscule gaps she could see another layer of unyielding wood. This was a house, not a boat, but Luned couldn’t help but feel that this structure would be just as water-tight as Aeril’s noble ship.

And it was warm.

She heard a fire crackling nearby, or perhaps more than one, but she smelled no smoke. The firelight played over her, casting long, deep shadows and making the corners ominous. She was buried in blankets and furs, and the bottommost one was thin and silky against her skin. Her neck was stiff when she turned her head, and her throat was dry.

She shifted, blinking too much sleep from her eyes, and turned to find herself face to face with a bear.

[Warpath]

Flint sat at the long table, hunched over a bowl of soup. He lifted his spoon from the bowl high, and then turned it slowly and watched the thin, greasy broth trickle back to its place of origin. His face betrayed no emotion but for his eyes. He was not impressed.

“I need meat,” he declared simply.

He was speaking to the cook, a thin, short woman of indeterminate age. She was older than he, certainly, but age had turned her wiry and hard rather than soft. She was a dark woman, swarthy-skinned, with graying black hair and black eyes, and her face was angular. The years conferred cold sharpness to her features, but there was little doubt that she had been strikingly beautiful in her youth. She wore a long tunic and a shawl draped over her shoulders, and when she reached across her cooking surface one could see the woad tattooed onto her narrow forearms. She was long and lean, and carried herself like a wolf a few weeks without food.

When she turned her eyes to him, her glare was withering. Flint endured it.

“It’s winter,” she told him in Salvic.

“I had not noticed,” he responded in kind.

“Why is your head naked,” the woman asked. “You look ridiculous. Let it grow back.”

“No.”

The woman glared at him, but he ignored her. She was alone in the world, the single person capable of out-staring him, so it was a competition he did not enter into with her. Instead his eyes went back to the soup. He sniffed it cautiously.

“Eat it,” the woman commanded, still glaring, still unblinking. “It is an insult not to eat it.”

“It was an insult to serve it,” Flint said.

“You are a rude boy. And ugly with no hair. It is no wonder you have no young.”

“It would be a good thing if my line ended with me.”

The woman glared at him in silence for a long time, but he ignored her and continued stirring the contents of his bowl. Nothing good was likely to happen after that. Flint might have tried the soup or, more likely, the pair would have resumed their argument, or perhaps their argument would have devolved into something more physically violent. Instead a tremendous white ball of hair bounded into the room and performed a dance that perfectly encapsulated the concept of uncontainable, enraptured glee.

The old woman made an annoyed noise at the beast, waving a wooden spoon at it threateningly. At first it did not notice her, but when it did it dropped its front end to the floor and feverishly waved the fluffiest tail in existence at her, sure that she intended to throw the spoon despite years of experience that suggested otherwise. Even hunched down as it was, the beast was still more than half as tall as the woman.

Still, she was ready to go to war with it until a second visitor entered the room warily, wrapped in multitudes of thick blankets, and the woman lowered the spoon slowly.

“Rauk,” she said.

Flint lifted his eyes to her, then looked to the door and immediately stood up.

Luned was alive.

[Luned]

Flint began fussing before she could fend him off. "I'm fine," Luned assured him, though she had to convince herself just as much as him; her muscles ached and joints were stiff, weakened from disuse. Eventually, she conceded to allow him to help her to a chair at the table, and she was glad for the assistance. Sitting down proved itself nearly as painful as rising had been.

The kitchen shared the rustic charm of the rest of the house, which Luned could now see did not consist of individual rooms, but rather one great one dissected by partitions which didn't quite reach the ceiling. Not an ounce of smoke hovered in the rafters in spite of multiple fires, leaving the scribe wondering what kind of chimney system such a large space utilized to keep it so warm with the air so clean. Instead, dried herbs filled her sinuses, some bundles still hanging from the beams, others carefully organized in jars of rippled glass along the shelves. The kitchen established the center of the longhouse and the a great hearth served as the main feature, its fine stonework testament to its position as the heart of the household. Several cast iron pots hung over the blaze, one large one filled with water, another smaller one with a thin stew. The cook ladled a new bowl full and set it down in front of Luned before turning away to busy herself.

"Thank you," the scribe ventured in carefully pronounced Salvic, having heard part of their conversation when she'd awoken. The cook did not acknowledge her and continued her work, filling a great stoneware bowl with various dry ingredients, perhaps to make a dough for the afternoon meal. The heavy, butcher block countertop lined the far wall with the spices, the cabinets beneath as meticulously crafted as the house itself. They needed no ornament, as the honey-hued swirls of pine were polished to emphasize natural beauty. Simple, but utterly perfect, just like the chimneys and the hearth and the wind-tight walls. There were no windows to be seen, only slats sealed tight against the cold. She imagined what a transformation the warmer months must see in such a place, walls opened to the world. For now, it seemed to exist independently from everything else she knew, its own safe little pocket dimension where she could hibernate for weeks and days and months.

While the meager soup hadn't appealed to Flint, a ravenousness Luned didn't know herself capable of set in as soon as its lackluster steam hit her nose. A storm of questions overwhelmed her thoughts, but as there didn't seem to be any impending doom, the girl allowed herself to eat first.

As she dug in with unexpected enthusiasm, the cook glanced over her shoulder and tossed Flint a pointed look. She hissed some words, but Luned quickly realized that the language she thought she'd heard through the walls wasn't the Salvic she knew; it incorporated idioms and contractions she'd never heard before, a linguist's puzzle that her brain was still too foggy to dissect. Whatever was said, it inspired Flint to finally touch his own meal, and he lifted a spoonful of greasy liquid to his lips with a dark glare.

"What kind of dialect is that?" Luned spoke up between mouthfuls. She asked in Salvic out of courtesy, but from the lack of acknowledgement by the cook, she assumed the woman understood just as little in return.

"Andvall," Flint replied simply.

"Oh," Luned said, stirring her broth. "Where are we?"

Flint swallowed unenthusiastically. "Andvall."

Luned choked, inciting the cook to glance over her shoulder with another accusing look. The girl coughed into her elbow, face huddled into her cocoon of blankets, before emerging rosy and gasping. Of course she was surprised; last she knew, she was on a ship far northeast of Fallien, and then… "How?"

"Agnie. She sent us here thinking it would be punishment, I imagine. Fortunately, I recognized the landscape, and was able to bring us here."

Having finally caught her breath, Luned frowned. "Where is 'here'?"

The man considered that question carefully. "Home," he finally answered, then buried himself back into the broth.

[Luned]

It took a long moment for that to sink in. Luned nodded and considered, wide eyes drifting between Flint and the dark, lean woman who occupied herself with her back to them. Then it hit her. "Does that mean… is that…?" she asked clumsily. How did she not notice? It was so obvious in the intensity of the eyes, distinct bone structure –– the cook was Flint's mother.

"Oh!" she gasped, standing abruptly. The blankets uncoiled and fell into the seat of the chair, nearly knocking it back with their weight. The dog barked. Flushed and rumpled, Luned stumbled around the table and approached the woman with her hand outstretched. "It's so lovely to meet you," she rambled in proper Salvic. "I'm sorry if I've imposed on you, thank you for everything. I–– what should I call you? I'm Luned."

Flint's mother stared through the flurry of an introduction. Instead of accepting the girl's gesture, her dark eyes gave her a critical once over, from her wrinkled clothing to her tangled hair. It made Luned self-conscious, and she wrapped her arms around herself as if it would protect her from such a scouring gaze. "Brigid," the woman finally offered, and with that, she abruptly turned and stalked out of the room. The dog bounded after her as if afraid it might miss a most epic adventure.

Luned staggered back to her seat, thoroughly frazzled. "You'll have to teach me some phrases," she said, looking to Flint. "So it isn't always that incredibly awkward." She slumped in her chair, somehow glad he'd already seen her soaked in sewage and gore; after that, a week's worth of bedhead should be nothing.

Without his mother there to scold him, Flint set down his spoon. He nodded, allowing the ghost of a grin to creep across his face. "Alright."

The girl reached out to touch his forearm, forgetting the armor he'd permanently donned over their most recent near death experience. She ran her hand over the hard metal until it met skin, her fingers hooking around the base of his wrist and tickling the warmth his palm. Already feeling sheepish, she finally asked the other obvious question. "How long…?"

"You slept nearly a week," he said, solemn again. Hesitantly, as if permission to touch might have been revoked, his hand moved to cover hers. It nearly surprised him when she didn't pull away.

"Oh," she said, unsure what answer she'd expected.

They shared some silence, savoring privacy as long as it lasted. But their snowy refuge was not a vacation from their troubles; it was simply a detour, and there were still things to be said and done. The chill of the cool earthen floor had crept its way into Luned's toes by the time Flint spoke again. "About what happened––"

"Flint," she interrupted, as if she already knew what he meant to say. "It's alright, I understand. You only did what you were supposed to."

Instead of relief, her words only added a new level of confusion. The man had deliberately betrayed her, but six days of sleep had apparently washed away any grudge she might have held. Part of him wanted the punishment he deserved, as if her scorn was the only thing that could cleanse him of the guilt he'd carried since the day he'd decided to keep the Swaysong for himself.

"Flint…" she spoke again, brow furrowed. Her voice seemed so small in the tall space that they nearly lost it to the lofts. "I didn't kill him, did I?"

His grip unconsciously tightened around hers. Somehow, putting that question into words realized the gravity of the situation; this detour only happened because she'd brutally assaulted Aurelius, the inevitable product of the tiefling's months of terror and her newfound power. Flint watched as Luned's free hand drifted up to the back of her neck, tracing the place where he'd used the Mark to seal her abilities before she did something she'd regret. She'd called him traitor. "I don't know," he answered truthfully.

More silence. Luned sighed, her thumb running over his fingers. She opened her mouth as if about to say something, but there came a noise from the hall, followed by a dog, followed by a wondrously strong woman bearing a large, wooden tub. Brigid paused, stared, and then set the tub down by the fire as if it was made of nothing. This Amazonian feat struck equal levels of fear and admiration into their guest, who gaped in astonishment before recognizing that the woman was staring at her.

Luned and Flint broke apart, parental presence effectively forcing a rift of propriety between them. Brigid pointed to the door, barking some sort of instruction at her son, and he reluctantly stood. When the girl sent him a panicked look, he reassured her. "I'll be back soon. She needs wood cut for later."

With the energetic ball of white fluff as company, he prepared to step out into the snowy dawn, leaving Luned precariously alone with his mother. "Come," the woman directed, filling a pewter pitcher with hot water from the blazing cauldron. She gestured to Luned's clothing, then the tub, then drew a something from her pocket. When Luned approached, she recognized the items as a finely carved wooden comb and a small piece of homemade soap. It brimmed with vibrant morsels of dried lavender and smelled simply divine.

"Oh, yes, please," the scribe cooperated happily. It was by no means to be the most luxurious bath of her life, but certainly the most soothing, as a month at sea and a week in the same clothes had certainly left her thoroughly appreciative of even the smallest comforts.

[Warpath]

Flint hesitated for the briefest moment before leaving Luned alone with his mother, but ultimately there was nothing to be done for it. It would be difficult for them both, yes – they came from two very different worlds. Any awkwardness they suffered through would pale in the face of what would happen if he tried to stay, however. Despite the barbaric clime of their homeland, Flint’s kin were a prudish and traditional lot. Any suggestion of a relationship between himself and the scribe would necessitate an immediate and strictly enforced wedding.

So he left with the dog bounding excitedly alongside him, pulled on a ragged but heavy brown cloak, and ventured into the cold. It was relatively late in the morning now, closer to noon than anything, but the sun was only just beginning to crawl up over the horizon. It was as if the cold affected even it, chilling its ascent and muting its glow. This was the way of northern Salvar, the place of Flint’s birth.

He thought he should feel something as he looked out over the rolling hills of his village, but there was nothing. It was largely the same, but for a single new house at the base of the western hill. The last time Flint had been here that place had been unfinished, but now it was whole and solid and four thin pillars of smoke lazily rolled out of its chimneys to mingle with the communal cloud, which in turn gradually flowed south and dissipated.

He looked down and east, and saw his father’s workshop just a short way down the path to the rest of the settlement. Lantern light spilled from the eaves: the only sign of life from within, as none of these buildings had windows. Glass was a commodity, traded for in jar or mug or trinket form, but no one here knew how to create or shape it. Almost everything was etched from wood or stone, so much so that for these people the two were sacred.

Flint started down the path, carefully seeking out the stone slabs hidden just beneath the snow with his boots. It was a skill he’d developed as a child and it never left him, as much a part of his blood as the frigid chill and the anger. Midway down the hill the path split, and he took the way to the workshop and the firewood chopped beside it. He thought to collect it on the sled and drag it back up immediately, but went inside instead.

Snow gave way to smoke and sawdust, biting cold to stifling heat. A large man sat at a crude wooden platform – the first thing he’d carved after building the workshop itself. Among his people he was considered a jolly giant, just less than six feet tall, with extra weight he carried well. He had a beard not at all unlike Flint’s, though grey and white instead of black, and his eyes were bright and blue and mischievous.

“How’s your girl, then?” he rumbled warmly, closing the careworn book he was perusing and turning to face his son. He could not read, but he pored over the crafting manuals Flint brought him in years past for the detailed illustrations therein.

“Awake,” Flint said, sitting himself down on a stool nearby. “She is groggy, but herself.”

“And the witch?”

“Forcing a bath on her,” Flint said, raising his eyebrows.

“Is she really, now?” the old man got a good laugh out of that, and he slapped his thigh. “That old devil never stops surprising me. I figured she was as like to bite her as feed her when you came carrying her up, but then she wraps her up like a doll and watches over her for weeks straight. She never watched her own babes like that, I can tell you.”

Flint shrugged. “Maybe she’s getting soft in her old age.”

His father grunted. “I’ll deny that for the record. If anything she’s getting harder, the witch is. I tell you I came up on her last fall skinning a drave? Just covered in blood, I don’t know where the damn thing even came from. Just found her out back one morning elbows deep in the biggest monster, got it all over her face. You know how she’ll go? She’ll crawl under the house like Madigan did, and we won’t find her till spring.”

The big white dog was sitting in the doorway, and at mention of its father’s name it tilted its massive white-maned head to one side, then straightened up again and went on panting.

“I’ll be sure to let her know you think that she’ll die like a dog,” Flint said.

“Ha! I know you will, you always tell on me. I’ll build her another herb garden to make up for it; it’ll be like I never said it.”

“Will you have time?” Flint said. “It seems like the whole town is after you. The Thodris’ roof, Old Hroth’s stable, the well, the pen. The witch says there’s talk of building a village hall now.”

The old man nodded with a sigh. “I think it’s finally time to take on an apprentice or two. The settlement is outgrowing me. It’s not even that anymore. Almost a village, can you believe that? I remember when we first came here, following your mum. She was just starting to show with you, and she was still waving that damn sword around telling us what to do. Gods, seems like yesterday, but here you are big as an ox.”

Flint grunted. “No.”

The old man smiled wide. “I didn’t even ask!”

“I hate wood. I hate building, sanding, carving, and measuring. And you’re an awful teacher.”

“Bah! You turned out alright.”

“That is a lie,” Flint said dryly.

His father smiled at him broadly, almost proudly, and then shook his head. “We shouldn’t have named you the way we did, is the thing.”

Flint tilted his head.

“Wood and stone, boy, it’s all that matters up here. Hell, they’re two steps down from holy, wood and stone are. It’s all we’ve got that’s permanent, solid, the only thing we can trust. I should have named you Tree or Builder, or something. You get the point. But you were your mother’s son, right from your first cry, so we named you after stones instead. Rauk.”

Flint blinked, and then for the first time in years his father saw him grin.

“What?”

The brute shook his head.

He had taken the name ‘Flint,’ never realizing he’d always been named for stones.

[Warpath]

Flint’s mind chewed on wood and stones as he plodded up the walkway back toward the house. There was a harness around his chest this time, connecting him to a sled over-laden with chopped wood, and so the going was harder. He dug his boots into the snow and the ice, twisting until leather met old, worn stone, and then he pushed up with his legs on and on until they burned. It felt good to be challenged. It felt good to be home.

And Luned was alive, and sane, and she did not seem to hate him.

That gave him pause, and he looked up at the house panting. For days he’d been preparing for this, fearing it and anticipating it in equal measure – fearing more that it would never come and that she’d sleep forever. Somehow he knew she wouldn’t, but irrational fear cannot be satiated with knowledge or intuition. He pushed aside his trepidation and forced his way up the hill, never slipping, never slowing. By the time he reached the door his thighs were stiff and his back ached, short-lived discomforts.

He went inside and put his cloak back where he’d found it. When he returned to the kitchen he found the tub empty, and his mother shot him a look, undoubtedly for entering without announcing himself. He scoffed at her. “You still assume that you are a source of fear for me,” he said. “You are wrong.”

She smiled at him – the most disturbing thing she ever did to anyone - but her eyes stayed hard, and it took every ounce of willpower not to smile back at her. She didn’t need words, because the challenge went unspoken between them. If not for her vows and her obsessions and the trappings of civilization she would fight him, the look said, and she thought she would win.

He turned around and walked away from her without letting anything else pass between them, unspoken or otherwise. He knew she could empty the tub herself, and offering to help would just insult her again.

[Warpath]

Flint found her in the room she’d occupied for days already, though it was still new to her. They’d partitioned it specifically for her, so it was no guest space – it was her room, set aside for her alone, as permanent as any other place in the house. These people did not have guests in the southern sense: they had temporary adoptees as cherished and respected as one’s own children. When Flint had arrived so unexpectedly, half-frozen and blue, they’d taken the sleeping girl he carried in without thought or question or care. One of their wandering sons was home, and brought with him a daughter they didn’t know they had, and up the partitions went as if they’d always been there, waiting.

This space was so much Luned’s already that Flint stopped at the doorway and took a moment to feel awkward. Like some boy from Radasanth, throwing pebbles at a pretty girl’s window. He had no pebbles, so he made a show of clearing his throat instead.

There was a long, heavy fur curtain draped over the doorway, and Luned peeked around the side of it at him. She looked relieved to see him, and pulled the curtain aside to let him in. “Your mother is terrifying,” she whispered in Trade, glancing around to make sure she wasn’t lurking behind him.

“Yes,” he said, slipping in past her.

“I guess it explains some things,” she said after a moment, almost more to herself.

Flint stared at her for half a moment. “What things?”

She smiled sweetly in answer. She was dressed in what might pass for a bath robe here, though to her eyes it better resembled a sleek fur coat, and she pulled it tight around herself and nestled into the fabric. She was barefoot, and when she stepped over to him her head came up lower than either of them was used to. When she looked at him, her face was framed by a big collar of fluffy grey-brown fur, and her eyes were bright and sharp and aware. The bath had done much to chase off days of sleep.

He started to talk, but then his mouth snapped shut and he sighed, and instead he reached up and started gently gathering the moist lengths of her hair, pulling them out from beneath the robe and running his fingers through them. She watched his face for a time, and then she leaned into his attentions, closing her eyes.

“There is so much to talk about,” he said quietly.

Luned shook her head slightly. “I told you…”

“I know, but I’m not sure what that meant.”

Luned’s brow furrowed slightly, and she opened her eyes again to look his face over. “Yeah, I’m not really sure I understand it, either. Um,” she shook her head, looking away for the briefest moment. “Something is in motion here, I guess? And there are things that are part of the plan, and whatever the plan is, this is all a part of it. I don’t know, ever since we left Carcosa I’ve just had all these impressions and feelings, like I know things I couldn’t possibly know. But there they are.”

She reached up and pressed her hand tentatively to one of his vambraces. The metal felt warm on her skin, and quite unlike any other metallic surface she’d ever touched – like it was part of him, alive, but also separate from the rest of him.

“I want to take them off,” he said.

“You said that you’d say that,” she said. “I mean, after you first…you know. You said you’d want to take them off, because you’d want…um...you said you’d want to take them off, but I couldn’t let you.”

Flint cocked his head to one side. “I did?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No,” he admitted. “I remember bits and pieces. I remember trying very hard to remember certain things I’d figured out. Sometimes I dream about it, and when I wake up I can only remember a fraction.”

“What do you remember?”

Flint shook his head. “Abstract things, difficult to describe. I saw patterns where I see only chaos now. I think I was trying to warn myself about things to come, connections between events that happened to me and things that were happening to me, despite the fact that they seem completely unrelated. They were all unimportant.”

Luned raised her eyebrows in amusement, and her lips curled. “Those all sound like important things, Flint.”

“They are…small…compared to another revelation. Something I knew before I drank the Swaysong, but I had underestimated its importance.”

Luned grew concerned now. “Which is?”

“I am not a good person, Luned Bleddyn. I have done bad and stupid things and I’ve lived among bad and stupid people. I have an intense hatred of the people I hold responsible for the evil things that have happened to me. I am cold and hard and stubborn and I can be selfish. I’ve hurt people. I’ve killed people. A lot of them. And I have every intention to keep hurting and killing people.”

Luned frowned, looking his face over. “Flint, I…”

He shook his head, and something in his eyes made her pause.

“Meeting you has confused me, Luned. At first I thought I saw something like me in you. I thought I could foster that. I thought I could make you like me. Hard, bad, angry. I wanted to justify what I’ve become by showing the world that when it pushes, it is right for us to push back.”

He reached up and traced the scars on her jaw with his fingertips. “I was wrong to think that I could do that to you. You are not like me, so I thought I could become like you. I thought I could live in Radasanth and be a good man, a simpler person. Someone you might come to love. Part of me thought I could do that for you, except I’d ruined it by betraying you the first time. I killed Ezura because it is in my nature to kill.”

“I don’t think that it is in your nature to kill,” Luned said, quietly but emphatically.

“It is possible,” Flint said. “Perhaps it is a habit then, or a way I’ve chosen, but I didn’t kill her to spite you. After what she did…”

“I understand.”

Flint nodded slightly. “Luned, I hid the Swaysong from you because if I gave it to you, you would undo the things that made you like me. I thought that without scars of your own you would find no more kinship with me. I thought if I gave it to you, I would lose you. And I left Radasanth because I could no more hide my betrayal from you than lose you.”

Her eyes softened, and she sighed. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”

“It took me more than a week to find the words to say what I’m saying now, and I’d rather be back underneath Ettermire than…do what I’m doing now.”

She almost laughed at that. “I’m not that scary.”

“No,” Flint said. “No, you are not. You told me that on the ship, and you were right. You aren’t fear.”

Luned nodded very slightly. “I’m sorry I’m not what you need me to be, Flint. I wish I were.”

“What? No,” Flint said, almost recoiling from her. “That is not what I meant. You are what I need you to be, you are you. You’re another side to the coin, another way I didn’t see. The world pushed us both, and I let that turn me into…this. You didn’t. You became something different, something I admire.”

“I don’t understand.”

Flint sighed, a noise that almost ended in a growl. This was not going the way he’d imagined it.

“I’m not trying to push you away,” he said. “I’m trying to apologize. I betrayed you, more than once, but I never intended that. I kept the Swaysong because I knew it was yours, but giving it to you would mean losing you. I drank the Swaysong because I couldn’t save you without it. I have been selfish, but…”

“Flint, I told you, it wasn’t your fault.”

He shook his head. “You sound like Shasande. I don’t know anything about fate or destiny or what I was meant to do, I only know that I made a decision and that decision hurt you.”

Luned nodded slightly, slowly. “I forgive you,” she said after a long pause. “Of course I forgive you. You know that. Flint, I don’t know if you get it, but I’m kind of interested in you. You don't have to change anything about who you are, or what you think you are.”

“I gathered that,” Flint said. “I am not completely unaware of…that. But the closer you get to me, the more you’re going to see of me, and you will eventually flinch away. You don’t know what I’ve done, what I am…”

Luned reached up and put one small hand over Flint’s mouth, and looked him directly, sternly in the eyes. “Flint,” she said. “I know I’m asking you to put yourself in harm’s away again, here. But can I make that discovery for myself? And once I see it, can I decide for myself whether or not I’m going to flinch away?”

She searched his eyes hopefully, and in turn he searched hers. A long moment passed in silence, and then she slowly removed her hand, letting her fingers brush over his lips as they went.

“Stop being stupid,” she said very quietly, watching her fingertips. “We both know what you want.”

Flint swayed on his feet, his eyes wandering over Luned’s face. “More mysterious foreknowledge?” he said with the slightest smile.

“Oh, Flint,” she chided softly, looking up at him again. “There’s nothing mysterious about it. I think I’ve had an idea since that alley in Ettermire when you called me vulnerable.”

The brute cocked his head to one side.

“I’m going to let you in on a little secret,” she said, smiling. “I always know when you’re staring. You’re not even a little bit subtle.”

“Always?”

“Always.”

[Luned]

Luned exhaled wistfully, leaning into him and resting her head on his shoulder. "As far as I'm concerned, the greatest tragedy thus far is that your mother has seen me naked and you haven't." She laughed quietly at her bit of awkward humor. They'd only just managed to come together after so many long months of tension, but any hope of privacy here seemed more farfetched than the unspeakable monsters they'd met at sea. From the way Flint groaned, he concurred.

"I'm serious," she continued. "And I swear, it's a miracle I have any skin left after that scrub she gave me. I'm raw all over, can't imagine how you survived through childhood."

At this point, Flint remained quiet. One hand made itself at home at her waist, the other drifting back up to brush some hair behind her ear. He laced his fingers through the strands at her neck, pressing his palm to her skin, and she sighed contentedly at the warmth.

"I want to hear about it," Luned said, her breath tickling his neck as she writhed to offer him more flesh. Not quite accidentally, her robe loosened ever so slightly, and his fingers ran along her exposed collarbone. "I want to know the story of Rauk 'Flint' Skovik, everything, from the beginning. Will you tell me?"

His fingertips traced back to the dip at her throat, lingered, and she lifted her head to look at him. "Later," Flint muttered. Their lips touched, his palm sliding down the center of her chest. He felt her pulse quicken, heartbeat hot against his skin. The shoulders of her robe slipped away, revealing new paleness as it crept inch by inch, and neither of them ventured to catch it. Bracing his other hand at the small of her back, he drew her closer, and Luned clutched at his shirt as her knees went weak.

And then, because dogs don't have a particularly well developed concept of things like doors and manners, a great white beast burst through the curtain to roll at their feet. A draft swept in along with it, and the two broke apart with a shiver and a sigh. Luned righted herself as they shared a look of frustration and regret. The interruption had come just in time, as an equally abrupt woman quickly followed their canine intruder. She carried an armful of clothing, chased Flint out with only a glare, and handed the bundle to Luned. Brigid said a few things, too quick and heavily accented for the girl to pick out even the common words, and then stepped back out to attend the fire.

Luned looked to Flint as he hovered in the doorway, still a little breathless. "What did she say?"

He stepped back as the dog barreled through to follow its favorite back to the kitchen, from whence some more delicious smells than their breakfast emanated. "My sister's coming for dinner. Those are some of her old things. You should get dressed."

As if it all hit her at once, Luned flushed radiantly. "Yes, I suppose I should."

[Luned]

Of course Luned was grateful to finally earn a glimpse of Flint's home, it was a spectacle she hadn't expected, but the strange circumstances did inspire rather significant anxiety. Between the language barrier and his mother's oddly compassionate coarseness, she almost dreaded whatever sort of dinner party awaited. At this point, it was difficult to imagine what the rest of his family might be like. That worried her.

There was the second source of anxiety, as well: the fact that she and Flint had made a very sudden, unannounced departure from the ship, and Luned had no way of contacting anyone to tell them what had happened. Surely Aeril had enough experience as a captain to ensure the crew's safe delivery back to Radasanth, but what of her brother? When she thought she'd lost Muir in a storm, she couldn't rest until they'd found him again. It had been days now, many days longer than she'd suffered. Knowing she was alive and well when he was likely worrying himself ill felt like a cruel prank, but she had no way of righting it... not until they got back to Corone. But that was a long distance between them, and she had to take this impromptu detour one day at a time. Perhaps over dinner they could discuss journey arrangements, she encouraged herself.

Instead of dwelling on her fear, Luned turned her attention to the clothing Brigid had brought her. She spread it out across the furs on her bed, tempted simply to crawl under everything after her flush faded and the chill seeped back in. Arranging it all carefully, she stepped back so her feet could warm by the coals of the morning's fire and took stock. Brigid, and her daughter, for that matter, had been quite generous; Luned had no need to fear that she'd go cold, and even entertained the prospect of going out into the snow and getting her first real eyeful of the arctic land of Andvall. Her own clothes, which had received a washing of their own and now hung to dry over the mantle, wouldn't have held up to the legendary chill for a second.

First she donned a pair of socks so long they extended past her knees, and so splendidly warm and heavy that she barely managed to fit her shoes over them. Her toes thanked her for the gift as she sorted out the rest.

While the linen shift fit decently enough for a hand-me-down, the simple woolen gown she slipped over it ran a bit large in the shoulders, and she couldn't help but wonder if miraculous musculature ran in the family. Still, she quite liked the deep blue-green cloth, and soon discovered that Brigid had tucked in a small metal mirror into the bundle along with a couple other sundries. For someone so prickly, the woman had a surprising thoughtfulness to her. With a gracious little smile, Luned propped it up on the mantle and used its oxidized surface to braid some hair out of her face. It would have to do well enough for first impressions.

She covered up with a soft, cream colored shawl, not unlike the one Brigid carried. Something in the perfect pattern of meticulous knots inspired her to cherish the heirloom and she pulled it tightly around her, grateful for the extra layer. Perhaps if she'd been raised in Andvall, she would have grown part of the cold just as Flint had and wouldn't have even noticed how cool it was even inside the well-insulated house. But her blood ran temperate, just like Corone.

With a deep breath to steel herself against the trying evening to come, Luned gathered her courage and stepped out to join the others.

[Warpath]

Luned had scarce pushed aside the curtain dividing her room from the rest of the house when she heard a troubling din from the front of the house. She paused, listening to a cacophony of dogs barking and at least four people hollering, two of them women. When the sounds went on for another few seconds without any audible signs of panic, the scribe stepped out to investigate.

The door was just closing, muffling the barking of a pack of dogs right outside. Flint was approaching from one side of the door, and a figure in bulky winter wear was stamping snow off of its boots onto the rug. When the newcomer spotted Flint, it let out a shrill shriek and threw itself at him. He growled and turned away from the assault, so the newcomer leapt up on his back and wrapped its arms around his shoulders, rubbing the palm of one of its thick leather gloves on his bald pate.

“You’re getting snow on me,” he growled, twisting one way and the other, but his opponent held tight and would not be bucked free.

“You’re alive!” the newcomer cried delightfully, and Luned raised her eyebrows. It was a girl’s voice.

Indeed, the heavy-clad visitor dropped off of the brute’s back and drew back her hood to reveal a younger, softer version of Flint’s mother. Her lips were fuller and her hair was very short and wild, and she was clearly capable of expressing joy, but the resemblance was uncanny. She smiled with ruddy cheeks and shining black eyes, looking on her brother with a wordless kind of joy, and might have gone on staring at him stupidly if she hadn’t caught sight of Luned.

The girl took a long gasp and then shrieked again, bounded across the room in a flurry of fur and snow, and caught Luned up in a bear hug.

“Oh!” Luned said, and then, “Uh…” but then she was off of her feet being swung this way and that.

Eventually the girl mastered herself and abruptly put the stunned scribe down again, and smiled at her sheepishly. “Hello,” she said in thickly accented but intelligible Salvic. “Sorry, we rarely see anybody new here. And my brother never brings anyone home. I’m Suska.”

She thrust one big leather glove out, remembering her southern manners, and Luned smiled graciously. “I’m Luned.”

[Warpath]

Luned met Flint’s father not long after that. He was a big man, much taller than Flint and thick about the middle, with grey in his hair and beard. Luned could see now where the brute got his broad shoulders: much of his build had come from his father, but his height, countenance, musculature, and attitude had certainly come from his mother.

Suska was, in a way, Flint’s opposite. She was physically much like her mother once the bulky coat and winter wear came off: slightly shorter than Flint, and leaner, but her arms and shoulders rippled with muscle and when she smiled there was something fierce in it. In attitude, however, she followed her father. The two of them were jovial and kind and they could barely contain their pleasure at the sight of Luned, and in spite of Flint’s grumbling they doted on him constantly, touching his head and slapping him on the shoulder and hugging him whether he tried to shake them off or not.

Flint’s father was called Bear. Suska told her that his actual name was far too difficult to pronounce, but it meant “bear” so that’s what she was told to call him. When Bear first met Luned, he smiled broadly, and when she smiled back he immediately began showering her with fatherly affection. It began with a pat on the head. His hand was huge and heavy.

The four of them had a sort of conversation for a time, which concerned Luned and where she was from and how she knew Flint. Thankfully it was necessary for Flint or Suska to translate for Bear, which meant they could get away with shorter, simpler answers. Eventually the conversation drifted to other things, and Luned began to get the impression that Suska was often away from home too. Apparently she’d set out for home the moment she heard Flint was back, which was more than a day ago.

Brigid eventually began to shout from the kitchen, and Flint growled something back at her in their harsh-yet-melodic language, and Bear laughed and parted from the group, dragging Flint along with him. “She needs more wood for the fire, and will give them other jobs,” Suska said by way of apology. “But you’ve been in here for days. Come, let’s get air, yes?”

“Um…”

But Suska was already pulling her big, heavy coat off of the wall where it hung, and she draped it over Luned’s shoulders. They were not so different in height, so despite its bulk it fit her well. Suska offered her a pair of boots, Brigid’s perhaps, and then she led the scribe outdoors.

It was cold enough to make Luned flinch, so cold that even the still air stung her cheeks, but she followed Suska out without complaint. Flint’s sister wore leather pants and a linen shirt under a leather vest, and she still wore her heavy leather gloves, but the cold seemed to bother her not at all. Luned hunched down in her borrowed jacket, but she quickly admitted to herself that the fresh air, however frigid, did help.

The great white dog bounded through the snow to intercept Suska, and she braced herself so as not to be knocked over. Luned was impressed. On its hind legs the dog towered over her, and when it hopped up and put its front paws on Suska’s shoulders it seemed only natural that both of them would go down in a heap. Suska met the animal’s weight with a cheer, and they nuzzled for a moment before she capably shoved the beast aside. The dog hit the ground and twirled with a puppy’s glee, and then it bounded off to join its fellows.

Now the din Luned heard earlier made sense: there were at least twelve dogs outside the house now, all the same breed as Flint’s dog. They were chained to stakes that had been driven into the snow, and they were all busy digging out little nests for themselves. The white beast joined in on their labors, though he was not confined by a chain. Not far away from the pack was a long sled, still laden with bundles and boxes.

“The dogs are yours?” Luned asked politely.

Suska gave a bright, proud smile and nodded. “How do you say? I fuck them.”

Luned stared for a long second. “Oh, no. You breed them.”

“Yes, that,” Suska said. “What is the other thing?”

“Um, something different.”

“They are my dogs,” Suska said. “My mother gave me jewelry when I was a girl, but I traded it for two dogs, and have been…breeding? I have been breeding them since. I have very many dogs now. These are just some.”

“Do you sell them?”

“Sometimes. When I have too many I give them away, if people want them. When my father’s last dog died, I gave them White Tor. See that house? Old couple lives there, I gave them Orr when their youngest son died of fever. Too many dogs that year. Many people died, many puppies born.”

“Oh. Are they all sled dogs?”

“Most, but some are good hunters. The witch had a pack of them to help her find dragons to fight, once.”

It took a moment for Luned to follow, half because when Suska said “witch” it came out sounding more like “vitch,” and half because she didn’t know who was being referred to. “The witch?”

“Mother,” Suska said.

“Your mother hunted dragons?”

“Dragons were her favorite thing to kill. Rauk never told you? Come.”

Suska started tramping through the snow around the side of the house. Luned carefully followed, and found the easiest way to traverse through the snow was actually to step in the footprints Suska left behind. They rounded the house to the far side, which faced the village down below. Suska pointed, and Luned froze in the shorter girl’s tracks.

There was a colossal skull mounted on the back of the house, elongated and off-white. Whatever prehistoric beast it belonged to had teeth as long as a man’s forearm, and indeed, in life could have swallowed both Luned and Suska whole and hardly noticed. Its eye sockets were full of snow.

“That’s a dragon,” Luned said, breathless.

Suska smiled and nodded proudly.

“You’re saying your mother killed that?”

“The dogs helped a little,” Suska said.

“How would she…”

“There are many different stories, and the witch doesn’t tell her side, so it is hard to figure out. It was flying when it died.”

“I don’t…you…she…it was flying?”

“Yes. The dogs tracked it to a cave and tricked it out, and while the dragon chased them the witch jumped off a cliff onto its back and tried to break its neck. It was too big, so she tried to cut its throat, but that did not work because the dragon felt her and had a panic. It tried to fly up and drop her, and that is where nobody knows what happened but the witch. The dragon fell, and when men found its body, the witch climbed out of its mouth and spat on it. They say she spent all the next night sawing its head off, and then she dragged it up the hill here. There were no houses here then, it was just hills. She stuck his mouth open with a big stick and lived inside his head for a winter, up here by herself.”

“This was before she met your father?”

Suska nodded. “Long time before. The witch fought a lot of people from the south when the Swayists came. They burnt a lot of villages and a lot of people had to go up into the hills to the city, but others could not go that far, or were outlawed from there, or did not want to belong to any kingdom no matter what gods they had. So when the wars slowed down the witch started bringing people to the hills here and said she would protect them if they stayed too. Bear was one of those people, and he built all the houses for everyone.”

“All of them?”

Suska nodded. “Do you see over the ridge? You can almost see from here, but not quite. There are big trees there. My mother went every day, chopped down a tree, and dragged it back here. My father took the trees and made houses out of them. He made the biggest house for the witch. At that time the dragon’s head was just bones, so he put that there.”

“She must have liked it.”

Suska tilted her head.

“Well, she married him.”

“Oh,” Suska said, and shrugged. “The witch decided to be done killing things. She wants to be like them.”

She nodded down the hill at the settlement below.

“This explains a lot about Flint. About Rauk,” Luned said.

Suska nodded with a thoughtful sound. “He’s like the witch. Mean and dumb and strong. They do good things, though. Does he kill dragons?”

“Well, no,” Luned said, but she paused, remembering the leviathan. “Yes. I don’t know if he kills dragons, but…”

“He will,” Suska said. “Or one will kill him.”

Luned furrowed her brow, and Suska smiled apologetically. “Not for a long time. Or maybe not. The witch is still alive, and he is like her. Maybe he will build you a house on a hill.”

Luned laughed wryly, trying and failing to envision it, but she blushed a bit despite herself. “I’m afraid that’s a ways off, if ever. There’s still so much I don’t know about him. Why did he leave home?”

Suska shrugged, and then pointed back around the house and down the hill. “There is a fence. You can’t see it now, it’s buried. When Rauk was small he played by the fence, and mercenaries from the west used to come through the village that way. One group asked him to come, and he ran away with them. He wanted to be more like the witch, and she laughed at him. She is dumb. He didn’t come back until he was grown, with all his hair off. Angry.”

“He never told you what happened to him?”

Suska shook her head. “He’ll tell if you ask. We never ask. Bear is too soft, and the witch feels badly. Blames herself, yes? She doesn’t want to know how bad it was. I just don’t want to be angry like him. I don’t go so far south.”

Luned nodded thoughtfully, looking out toward the buried fence.

“Come,” Suska said, already stomping through the snow back toward the house. “Food is cooked soon. Let’s be happier.”

[Warpath]

Some small part of Luned had been dreading that dinner, but ultimately it was a relaxed affair, and she was surprised at how much she found herself laughing. Bear had a way of telling stories with his voice and hands, and words were of minimal importance. When the punch lines arrived, Luned found herself genuinely laughing in time with everyone else. Even Flint could not keep himself from chuckling, and Brigid cracked her fair share of tiny smiles, hidden behind a casually bent wrist.

Suska had brought a haunch of something. She’d asked what it was, but the beast apparently only had a name in their dialect of Salvic. When she asked Flint he furrowed his brow and said as much. What he described sounded like a cow with very long hair, bigger than a bison, with a ram’s horns and long teeth. Whatever it was, it was delicious despite being cooked rare, which was apparently the only way Brigid ate meat. Luned saw Suska and Bear put slices of the meat in their soup, which finished cooking it, so she followed their example. Flint and Brigid ate the meat as it was, and hardly touched their soup at all.

Once, when the other three were otherwise occupied with conversation, Flint whispered to Luned in Trade. “Are you alright?” he’d asked.

Luned smiled. “Of course I am…why wouldn’t I be?”

He glared at his family. “They are…strange. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

“I’m not, I promise. They’re interesting.”

Flint made a skeptical face.

“I asked your sister about why you left home,” she said. “I’m not trying to pry, but it came up.”

Flint shook his head. “I’ll have no secrets from you anymore. You’re not prying.”

“Your mother killed a dragon. She lived in its head.”

“Yes,” Flint said, as if it were a common thing for one’s mother to kill dragons. “She killed many of them. They have not seen dragons here since I was a boy.”

“Luned,” Suska said in Salvic. “Bear asks if you know anything of woodworking.”

Luned raised her eyebrows, curious, and did not have a chance to answer before Flint growled across the table. Bear smiled innocently and shrugged, and Flint explained. “He’s looking for a shop slave, since I won’t do it.”

“I think they’re called apprentices, actually,” Luned said.

“There is what they’re called, and what they are.”

Luned shook her head, smiling, and turned to Suska. “Please tell Bear that I wish I could be helpful, but I don’t know anything about woodworking. As it happens, I’m already apprenticed to a scribe in Radasanth.”

Suska rattled off a long chain of consonants to Bear, and without waiting for his response turned to Luned again. “What is this? Scribe?”

Flint interjected with another word and Suska nodded, almost in awe. “A good skill,” she said. “I know some marks for trade and mathematics.”

“Maybe I can help teach you a little more, if you’d like,” Luned said. Suska’s eyes lit up at the prospect.

“Speaking of,” Flint interjected, looking almost side-long at his sister, “we could use your help.”

Luned looked to Flint curiously.

“We are going to be missed in Corone soon. We can’t wait for spring to return south.”

Suska shifted and put her elbows on the table, her face suddenly shifting to a serious expression. This was the first time Suska hadn’t been laughing, smiling, or talking animatedly, and Luned was startled at how keenly she resembled her mother. “I can help with this,” she said at last. “I will need more of my dogs, and maybe the second sled. Can you still ride a sled?”

Flint nodded. “I’ve done it a few times since last I was here, and Luned can learn. Once we get far enough south I can set you up with some currency or promissory notes you can trade for something useful.”

Suska shrugged. “If you can. If not, I will see you again unless I don’t. There’s no trading up here for two months again, anyway.”

Flint nodded once. “When can you be ready to leave?”

“Tomorrow or the day after,” Suska said, and then Brigid broke into the conversation with a short, terse string of words.

As Suska responded, Flint translated. “She gathered that we’re leaving, and is asking if we can find word on my brother.”

“You have a brother?”

Flint nodded. “A brother and another sister. The brother was exiled sometime before I came back home the first time.”

“Exiled?”

Suska nodded, turning back to their conversation. “My sister was marrying into another family from farther into Andvall. Castle-men, but they didn’t live in the city, just close to it. Kiril killed the man’s father and hurt my sister’s would-be husband very badly, and he punched a holy man who tried to put a punishment on him. The lord put out news of his exile, and said he could not return home or to the castle-land for seven years, or he would send men here.”

Flint scoffed. “That would be foolish.” He looked at Luned and nodded pointedly at his mother. Brigid stared impassively. There was no sign on her face whether she could understand any of the conversation or not, but Luned shuddered. If this woman could singlehandedly kill a dragon…

“Why did he do it?”

Flint shrugged. “Kiril is worse than me, and speaks less.”

“And he hates the witch,” Suska said.

“Why?”

Flint looked at Suska and she looked back, and they shared a small grin. “We all do, a little. Mothering does not come naturally to her. Kiril could not accept that. He tried to fight her and lost, so he went west into Andvall proper. I heard he did some mercenary work in the city. There are rumors that Ulla’s fiancé did not present himself well, or even mistreated her.”

“You’re not even the black sheep of your family,” Luned said, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Flint chuckled. “No, I’m the favorite son.”

[Luned]

The cabin seemed to inhabit its own little island in the universe, always warm by the crackle of the fire and no windows to allow the overbearing sun to dictate their schedule. It was easy for to Luned to forget that they were in Andvall, and in the winter, night came especially early.

"What do you need to teach marks?" Suska asked as they finished dinner, leaning interestedly toward the scribe. Luned had attempted to assist Brigid with some cleaning but had been promptly dismissed, so she'd returned to her seat at the table with the siblings, looking a bit sheepish. While his wife scrubbed a cast iron pot into submission with characteristic intensity, Bear had pulled his chair up to the fire to relax, where he occupied with packing himself a pipe. Suska glanced between Flint and her new friend. "Paper?"

The other girl nodded. "That would be helpful, or a slate or something." From the look on Suska's face, she didn't recognize that word, so she simplified. "Paper would be great."

"I will get some from the workshop." Suska stood and White Tor bounced to his feet next to her, still part of the pack despite his retirement from sled hauling. Luned also followed the motion, to which Suska raised her eyebrows both in surprise and question. "Are you certain? It will be dark soon."

Luned hesitated. "Uh, if that's alright?"

Suska shrugged with a little grin. "Do what you like," she said. "Day is cold, but night is colder."

In spite of so many layers, the frigid air cut sharp and thin through Luned as she stepped out into the snow. For a moment she stood breathless, regretting her decision for a long, painful second. But the deep afternoon sunset painted such vibrant pinks and yellows in its last moments of life, so pure against the white canvas of the tundra, that she forced herself to walk out to get a better view over the ridge. The ice on the village rooftops reflected the last of the light, glinting like little jewels down below. Flint trudged out behind her and closed the door behind them.

"This way," Suska directed, and the three of them trekked their way down the well-worn path to Bear's workshop. The walk was a quiet one, their little group flanked by White Tor and the leader of Suska's pack, who bounded about them through the sparse skeletal brush and trees in play. Luned's eyes would lose track of them and then suddenly a beast would dash across the path in front of her, tailed by another, and leave her stumbling in their wake. As they reached their destination, the last sliver of intense gold glistened at the horizon, and it blinked away as they stepped inside.

Luned found the dusty workshop charming, quickly distracted from their mission as she pored over Bear's work. She held roughly sketched diagrams to the open door for light and analyzed them as if she might learn his secrets, though what she hoped to access couldn't have possibly been visible on paper. They weren't the lines of his drawings but the lines on his hands which had built an entire village from scratch, which had tamed the dragon slaying witch, and which had given the world such treasures as Suska and Rauk. There were typical craftsmen, and then there were men like these. Once upon a time, Luned had hoped she might have transcended in such a way with her work as a scribe. Now she realized that she'd strayed from that path, and a keen pang of envy hit her chest as she finally returned the documents to their rightful home.

Suska approached her from the shadows with a fistful of scraps of paper in one hand, a pencil in the other. "This good?"

She smiled. "Yes, that should do well."

[Luned]

Back outside, they caught Flint in the midst of a game: the dogs would compete to retrieve a stick and the human would throw it back down the hill, further each time. With the warmth of the sun gone, a cool blue twilight had settled over the world, casting an iciness over Flint's skin as they watched. White Tor had caught the branch this time and raced ahead to return it, and as the man lifted his arm to throw it again, he noticed that he had an audience. Instinct took over and he glared, the usual sternness returning to his face, and they couldn't help but laugh. Suska shouted a taunt in their odd dialect as he threw the prize one more time, beasts trampling each other as they raced for it, and then the three commenced the journey back up the hill.

When the dogs caught up again, they whined at Flint, but he brushed them off. Suska called him something, a phrase Luned deciphered as being remarkably close to "spoiled turnip", and took the stick to throw it herself. As she did, however, the dogs' ears perked and they twisted to face downhill, suddenly entirely disinterested in play.

A deep, mournful howl rose into the starry, indigo sky, originating disconcertingly close by. The white beasts at their sides growled deeply in response, fur prickling and muscles tensing until their previously jolly forms resembled their baying cousins.

Luned's hair stood on end as she stared down the hill after the cry, as if her eyes might manage to decipher something in the swiftly darkening dusk. A harsh bout of wind carried ominous scents and the dogs went wild, taking off downhill and kicking up clouds of snow behind them. The rest of Suska's pack on the peak rose into cacophony, their voices unsettling over the eerie peace of the tundra. Luned shivered and someone took her by the arm.

"Keep walking," Flint said, and they did.



The evening passed quiet and cozy, despite everything. Brigid set about some mending near the fire by her husband, a surprisingly warm picture of maternity, while the remaining three crowded the table with Suska's lessons. They managed to make it fun, Bear interjecting regularly with his own curiosity, but as the energy wound down and yawns became contagious, Luned began to worry.

"Will they be alright?" She looked to Suska, insinuating the subjects of her concern with a glance to the door.

The girl grinned, cheeks still merry even if her eyes betrayed exhaustion. "They are good dogs," she said reassuringly. "They will watch for us all night. In the morning I go to my kennel, and if ready, we leave. We should sleep now."

[Luned]

As it turned out, the dogs were quite ready for a journey, and Suska reappeared by midmorning with the news. Bear readily expressed his discontent that their visit had been so short while Brigid accepted it quietly, spending any energy which may have gone into voicing disappointment on packing them supplies, instead. As with everything else, she did it intensely and without help or consultation, and by the time Suska returned with the spare sled, they had a substantial stash for the trek southward. From the meticulously organized, carefully packaged parcels of food, it was obvious that Brigid had made such preparations many time before. And from the sheer amount, it appeared she might be fueling them for a dragon hunt more than anything.

Luned felt a little guilty accepting so many gifts, but Brigid had gone ahead and added the hand-me-downs to the growing pile of tight bundles in the hall by the door. For the journey, the scribe had combined her original clothing with some of Ulla's old things for some semblance of familiarity. Saving the beautifully dyed homespun dresses for another occasion, she'd donned leather leggings in imitation of Suska's weather-tested attire; atop those she wore the blouse she'd arrived in, made more substantial with heavy linen underclothes. Between that and a crown of braids, she felt a little bit more herself.

When the family came together for good byes, members old and new, Luned interrupted with a meager offering of gratitude. "After such a long rest, I couldn't sleep much last night… so I made you something." From a pocket, she extracted two pairs of tiny booklets. Each consisted of a mere few pages, nothing substantial due to their limited supply of paper, but they served their purpose well enough. "This is for you," she explained as she handed one of them to Brigid, insinuating with a glance to Bear that it was to be shared. "Flint will have the other. I know you don't write, but… here." She took a spare scrap, placed it between the pages of its twin, and closed it. "Now, look inside it," she gestured, and after some translated insistence by Suska, Brigid cooperated. The scrap had replicated itself within her copy, revealing a little sketch Luned had done of the dragon skull to solidify it in her memory. "You can pass things back and forth, anything, as long as it's small and light. So you can keep in touch." She handed the twin to Flint, and as Bear glowed, Suska laid in with the questions.

"How do you do that? Where did you learn this magic?" she asked, stealing the booklet from her mother's hands and searching through its blank pages. The scribe couldn't help but sigh in relief, glad that her talents had been received much more positively here than in the Sway-influenced south.

Instead of answering, Luned offered Suska her own little gift. "I'll keep the other one," the scribe explained, showing her the second of the pair. "So we can keep practicing those marks."

Suska squealed, gathering Luned up into a rib-crushing bear hug so similar to their first meeting. When she finally calmed and her victim found her breath again, Bear commented, earning a chuckle from his daughter. "What did he say?" Luned whispered to Flint, suddenly quite self conscious.

His sister answered for him. "He finds it quite funny that Rauk, who takes so much after the witch, has brought home a real witch." She grinned toothily, tucking her treasure away safely inside the breast of her fur-lined vest.

[Warpath]

It turned out that dog sleds were a great deal more complicated than one might think.

First they had to feed the dogs, which excited them, and then they had to wrestle said excited dogs into a complex set of leashes, straps, and harnesses. The order mattered, too, as each dog’s build, abilities, habits, and personality made it uniquely suited to certain tasks. Suska did much of the work, manhandling dogs twice her size and weight into some semblance of order. Flint helped as much as he was able, while also explaining what they were doing to Luned.

The dogs immediately in front of the sled needed to be the burliest. This was because the sled could sometimes get caught in deep snow, and it was up to the most immediate pair to yank it free. It also ensured that the strongest dogs were the first to try and build momentum for the rest of the pack. Suska hand-picked four fine canines for the two sleds: they were quiet and obedient as well as strong, and would run for days without food or complaint.

“Strong and dumb,” she said at last. “If Rauk were a dog, here is where I put him.”

Suska spent a long time picking the right dogs to fill the ranks between the back and the front, debating with herself the merits of having this dog following that. Flint was clearly unimpressed with the process, but Luned was fascinated, wondering at each choice and nodding appreciatively at Suska’s patient explanations. She knew these animals and how they interacted with one another better than most people knew the members of their own family.

Ultimately the teams were set and attached to their sleds, and by that time they were all excited to go. The lead dogs had been the easiest to pick – females both because, according to Suska, they were a great deal smarter. They also had a tendency to fight one another when put together, so putting them as leads of their own respective sleds worked out best.

Suska and Flint had already loaded the sleds while their mother had been preparing bundles. Suska’s basket was front-loaded with much of their heavy foodstuffs, while the back had been turned into a comfy riding nook for Luned. This kept her sled relatively lightweight and agile, and she had selected her pull team appropriately. Flint’s sled was quite the opposite, loaded up with their heavier supplies in the back and lighter trade goods in the front, since the man himself was heavier than both the ladies combined. His team was thus made up of the hardest workers, brawny but slow. He would follow Suska’s lead, which was for the best since he was an inexperienced musher.

It was late morning by the time they finally set out. At Luned’s request she did not start in the basket, but instead rode on the back with Suska learning the ins and outs of the girl’s conveyance. It was awkward at first, balanced on the broad runners with Suska snuggled in behind her. She kept her hands on the middle of the driving bow, while Suska gripped the outer arms of it, and the smaller girl called out commands to her dogs over the scribe’s shoulder. Unlike a horse-drawn carriage, there was no need for a whip or straps, the dogs responded to verbal commands and shifts in weight.

It was exhilarating and exhausting. The half-frozen air burned her cheeks as they sliced through it, the dogs barking and yipping excitedly as the sled descended the hill. By the time they reached the bottom the team quieted and became intensely focused, and Suska had to command them to slow down. They'd need their energy for the long trek ahead. The effort to remain balanced on the runners put a quick ache in Luned’s legs, and she could only imagine the strength needed to twist the bow and kick off from the ground when the sled began to run askew or struck a rock and needed to be stabilized.

Feeling guilty for the extra burden she realized she was putting on Suska, the scribe insisted on moving to her spot in the basket after they stopped to rest for the first time, hours into the trek. Suska shrugged, showing no outward signs of fatigue. Flint, however, spent a majority of that first break flexing his hands and stretching his legs, and there were icicles in his beard and his nose was red.

“We should have waited for a warmer day,” he muttered.

Suska laughed at him. “You said spring was too far away. Shall we go back so you can sit by the fire? Perhaps the witch has some leftover soup for you.”

He glared, and said no more.

[Warpath]

That night, Flint and Luned endured the most grievous torture ever visited upon them.

Luned had spent the day taking in the sights of north Salvar from the most unique perspective. The sled glided so low across the ground that it was akin to racing across the earth from the comfort of a dining chair…while also bundled in the thickest coat she’d ever heard of, and buried in a fur-covered blanket as deep as her torso. The air was remarkably clear here, crisp and devoid of moisture to distort the sky or the distant mountains or the looming evergreen forests. The sun took an eternity to set, casting every vague variation of orange and pink across the unbroken white landscape, and she could see birds wheeling in the sky over forests miles upon miles away.

Her books all called this place a wasteland, a frozen desert, but now that she was here she saw otherwise. In the early afternoon they’d raced right through a herd of great shaggy beasts she had never seen the like of, and there were crows as big as dogs and condors the size of horses. There were lakes everywhere. Some were frozen over solid so that it was safe for the dogs to run across the ice, and some Suska avoided, and Luned could not see a difference between them. There were forests of naked oaks, where hardy birds and thick-furred white creatures danced among the branches, and there were small, shady forests of evergreen, which Suska steered clear of.

The sun seemed so disinterested in actually setting that Luned was surprised when the sled began to drift off to one side toward a particularly dense copse of trees. Suska would later tell her that she’d chosen it specifically because it was tightly packed: anything hiding within would make a lot of noise trying to sneak up on them. She started hollering for the dogs to stop a decent while before they even neared the trees, a command they seemed content to ignore until the moment the sled was right alongside the tree line.

Flint’s own pack was equally disinterested in stopping or following his orders, but they slowed down enough that Suska had time to leap away from her sled and grab Flint’s lead to guide her forcibly to the trees, growling and snarling until the sled came to a stop, at which point the dog became timid and subservient again. Flint held both teams still as Suska affixed them to the trees, and then she set about unhooking them from the sleds.

The long run turned the dogs half-feral, and Suska undid their harnesses cursing and wrestling the great hairy beasts. One of the middle dogs even bit into her glove and gave it a savage shake, which brought Suska to her knees before she clubbed the dog on the nose. It flinched away from her with its tail between its legs and spent the rest of the night apologizing, beseeching her for attention with drooping ears and wagging tail hung low, but Suska always turned away and pretended to ignore him.

Luned offered to look at the girl’s forearm, but she just laughed. “That’s why I wear the gloves,” she explained. “They are only good half-wild, but it makes them like men. A strong one will never want to serve.”

Once the dogs were unhooked from the sleds, Suska arranged them in pairs again between two sets of trees, much the same way she’d divided them between the sleds. Those with this kind of personality had to be kept separate from the ones with that kind so that they didn’t spend the whole night fighting or rutting. Once they were divided and chained to the trees, they all started digging themselves bowls and dens in the snow.

Likewise, the humans set about building their own shelter for the evening. Suska and Luned work together to erect a crude hide tent in front of their canine audience while Flint tramped into the copse to gather materials for a fire. The creation of a campfire was more of an ordeal here than anywhere else Luned had been. The snow was packed remarkably deep beneath them, frozen so solidly that digging to the ground below was costly and impractical. Instead they built a complex fire pit out of big rocks and wet logs, so that once the fire was sparked and the heat began to melt the surrounding snow the water did not immediately drown the flames. This also meant that the fire had to be some distance from the tent and the dogs – being wet in this temperature was dangerous.

Still, for the effort required to build it, the fire did offer them fair respite. Suska cooked a massive pot of stew, which the trio devoured under close scrutiny from the dogs. The warmth was likewise invaluable, allowing them all the chance to shrug out of their heavy coats and scarves and gloves to dry away the sweat of the day without the threat of hypothermia.

“This is why men this so far north are always angry,” Flint said in Trade, so Suska could not understand.

Luned tilted her head. “Why?”

He nodded at her. “The women are all covered up. There are no curves to admire.”

Luned blushed and smiled, shaking her head at him. “Are the women angry too?”

“Only my mother.”

“You don’t think they’re thinking about what’s under all those layers, too?”

“No,” Flint said, making a face. “Have you seen the men that live up here? Some things are better imagined than seen.”

Luned smiled innocently, sipping at her soup, and she shrugged. “I don’t know, I like what I’ve seen so far.”

Flint snuffed. “And how much do you think you’ve seen?”

The color in her cheeks deepened, and she went on smiling. “Quite a bit, actually. I mean, my sample of men from Andvall is admittedly limited, but I’ve had ample opportunity to examine a single specimen in great detail.”

“Oh?”

“Mmhmm. Invisibility is great for getting an eyeful without anybody knowing.”

“I somehow doubt you were appreciating anything that day,” Flint said with a chuckle. “You were sneaking into the most dangerous place in Ettermire, and I was half-dead and waiting to be skinned alive.”

“Someone tried to skin you?” Suska interjected in Salvic, shocked.

Flint blinked at her, and Luned smile dropped immediately.

“What?” Suska said, looking between them.

“You know Trade?” Flint growled.

“Some,” Suska said with a shrug. “Now, someone tried to skin you?”

Flint sighed, and after taking a moment for their collective mortification to fade, he and Luned recounted the story of their adventures in Ettermire. Suska listened raptly, so much so that she forgot to finish her soup and needed to reheat it halfway through the tale. When Luned recounted her horrifying encounter with Aurelianus Drak’shal, Suska growled. “I would have bitten his rotten tongue off. Bastard.”

Luned did not doubt her. For every ounce of rage she had for the tiefling, she took equal satisfaction in knowing that the girl Helethra was still alive, ultimately rescued by the scribe.

Somehow the story did not end there, but continued into a retelling of their more recent shared adventure on the high seas in search of Carcosa. When Flint told of how he’d imbibed the mysterious Swaysong, Suska lashed out and slapped him upside the head. “You drink things you don’t know? After it killed someone? It could be anything!”

“It made me stronger,” Flint complained, rubbing the back of his head.

“It could be dragon snot, or troll sweat, or god piss. You just drink it?”

“I had to. Listen,” Flint said, and he recounted his slaughter of the leviathan. Despite the matter-of-fact retelling, devoid of flourish, Luned herself found the tale unbelievable, and she was there to witness it.

Suska, however, was unimpressed. “You had to drink draugr drool to kill a sea dragon?”

“It wasn’t draugr drool.”

“How do you know? Drool-drinker.” Suska shook her head at him, and then turned to Luned. “Then what happened?”

She recounted as much of the rest as she could, up to what she remembered of her encounter with Agnie and Aurelianus, and then Flint told the rest, and Suska sat for a long time in silence digesting the story.

“We must sleep now,” she said. “Your teacher will be worried about you, and you must find your friend and make sure she is not hurt, and what of your brother, and the others? Go, go sleep, we must wake early and go.”

Suska shooed them. “Go sleep, I will feed the dogs. Go.”

The pair allowed themselves to be chased into the tent, where they arranged their sleeping material as best they could. The tent only properly accommodated two people at most, and Flint and Luned had hardly arranged their coats and furs into a viable sleeping arrangement when Suska crawled in on the other side of Luned, sealed up the tent, and ordered them to sleep.

Luned, warmly crushed between the siblings, began to offer her half-hearted concerns, but Suska shushed her in such a way that it would make Brigid proud and that was that. It was not unpleasant at first, ensconced in that snuggly oasis of body heat amidst countless leagues of bone-snapping cold, but in the course of getting comfortable Luned and Flint began to realize how close they were pressed in to one another.

The minutes dragged on but sleep would not come, kept away by other demands. Suska began snoring very quietly, back to back with Luned, who in turn found herself nuzzling in tighter and tighter to Flint’s chest. He pressed his nose against her head through her hair, and she could feel his breathing growing shallower, and though he resisted the urge with all his considerable will, his hand eventually found its way in to rest on her hip beneath the covers. She pressed her palms to his stomach and sighed, nestling her face into his neck until the collar of his shirt was pushed aside, and she let her lips glide along his collarbone, and she relished the shiver that went through the muscles of his torso. She curled her fingers into the material of his shirt and squeezed, because that’s all that stopped her from reaching lower.

“This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” Luned whispered.

Flint chuckled silently into her hair, and she felt him nod. “Worse than being skinned alive,” he whispered.

“Worse than being eaten by a giant cockroach. Or a giant rat.”

“Or a sea monster.”

“I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Any of it.”

“Nor I,” Flint said, drawing her tighter to him.

A long moment of silence passed between them, shared amidst gentle squeezes and feather-light caresses, and then Flint peeked down at her in the dark.

“I did not actually drink troll sweat…right?”

Luned stared back for a long moment. “Not troll sweat, no,” she whispered.

“…good,” Flint murmured.

“I was really relieved that I didn’t have to give you mouth-to-mouth after you drank it, though,” Luned whispered thoughtfully after a long silence. “You’ve brushed your teeth since then, right? Swished some…you know what, don’t worry about it, I’m sure it’s fine.”

Flint frowned at her.

[Warpath]

Now that the extent of their need was revealed to Suska, she drove her dogs to feats of indefatigable speed. The landscape rushed by in a blur, and Luned found a comfortable way to talk to Suska as they went, even over the scrape of the runners along the snow and ice. The miles rushed by. Suska called their first break so she could strip off the first layer of coats and pack them back up on the basket. “It’s getting warmer,” she declared. Luned didn’t feel a difference yet.

It wasn’t another hour after that when Flint’s sled suddenly appeared alongside theirs, and he pointed east. He ordered his dogs in that direction, and Suska guided their sled in the same direction without question. The brute led them across a series of rolling hills and down into a broad valley cut in thirds by a river and its tributaries, and after a long time Luned saw the cause for their detour. It was there that Flint stopped his sled and leashed his dogs.

It had been a small but relatively civilized village once, long abandoned. The houses here would have been unlike those built by Bear, incorporating more stone than wood, and they followed the southern style of architecture. There had been a well in the center, and a large naked foundation might have once been a Swayist church. Flint marched through the ruins silently, slowly, like a man resolved to a heavy duty.

Luned followed him, and Suska took up the rear after securing her own sled.

“What is this place?” Luned said quietly. The houses they passed had collapsed decades ago. In some of them there were still roofing materials amongst the rubble, but most were naked stone frames or just a snow-covered hearth, empty of ashes.

“Skovik,” Flint said.

Luned blinked. “What?”

He stopped in front of a ruin, hesitating in what was once an ornate stone doorway. The walls were long gone: it was now a half-collapsed stone face and a single pillar standing opposite, with a series of rotting wooden beams hanging overhead. Flint stepped inside reverently, and immediately turned toward a corner where the stone face met a weathered half-wall. “This village is called Skovik,” he said.

“Did your family live here or…?”

Suska furrowed her brow. “We only ever lived on the hill.”

“Your name isn’t Skovik, is it?”

“My name is Suska,” she said, confounded.

“I don’t think we have a surname,” Flint said. “The witch never talks about her parents, and Bear’s died when he was young. They were nomads.”

Luned crossed her arms over her chest. “So you lied about your name, too.”

Flint raised his eyebrows, looking away from the corner for the first time. “What? No, I…” he paused, grunted, frowned, and then motioned with his head for them to follow. “Everyone has a surname in the south. Many of them are where a man is from; when I was a boy I thought that was the way of it. Vlad of Tirel becomes Vlad Tirel, if he goes far enough from home. My home has no name, and I wanted to keep it a secret anyway, so I was Flint from Skovik. Flint Skovik.”

“But your name isn’t Flint, either.”

He had taken them out of the house through one of the missing walls, and then around back. Now Luned paused. There were three crude burial mounds half-buried in the snow here, and Flint frowned at them. Suska hesitated in the house ruins, and Luned felt herself growing uneasy too. She’d never seen him like this.

“Kentigern liked having young boys in his bands,” Flint said. “He thought they made good cannon fodder, ‘fleshed out the ranks.’ They were cleverer scavengers, never distracted by rape, needed fewer supplies, and they were easy to control. The ones that survived grew up more loyal than the men that joined older. He was just raising us in his image.

“We reaved to the southwest, mainly. It was a relatively small crew, but Kentigern was ambitious. It was not enough to waylay caravans or outposts; he wanted to take whole villages. We did have some success with two smaller places, old places with old families with little to take, but it emboldened him. He set his eyes on a proper town with a church and a small contingent of Swayist watchmen. Some of the older men dissented, but Kentigern got drunk and killed one of them, and the muttering quieted for a time.

“We attacked the town, and it was a disaster. When things started going bad, most of the dissenters broke off and ran. A lot of the others died, most of the boys. There were maybe seven of us boys left afterward, and thirteen men, maybe fewer. The watch dogged us into the countryside for weeks, and men kept slipping away in the night. The watch never caught up to us, but the slavers...

“We fought them off the first time they snuck up on us. The fourth man I killed was a slaver.” Flint looked up and out to the south. “Winter was falling when Kentigern started leading us north, maybe thinking the slavers would not follow us into the cold. He was wrong. We camped here for a night. There were seven boys left now, and six men, including Kentigern. He told the boys to stay here, in the house.

“I remember him telling me that the house was important, and that he needed me to hold it for him until he came back. He told me I needed to be strong, like a chunk of flint carved out of a mountain. The men left and night fell, and of course they never came back. The first boy died that night, the second sometime the next morning. When the slavers came, I was the only one left awake.

“They took me and two others. They left the other survivor, since his right hand was already frostbitten. The other boys they took eventually died on the road, too, but I do not know of what. They sold me alone to a gladiator school, since I kept trying to kill them and I would not speak. They gave me some name there, since I would not give mine, and eventually it angered me so much that I told them my name was Flint, just the way Kentigern wanted me to be. But they wanted to know, Flint from where? So I told them, Flint from Skovik.”

“Oh,” Luned said, turning her gaze slowly to the graves. “Then these…?”

“When I broke my bondage, I eventually returned north. On the way to reunite with my parents I stopped here to…right wrongs, I suppose. They were just bones by then, but I buried them. I do not remember their names, or their faces, but I remember that they were. Until now I am the only one who did.”

“I’m sorry,” Luned said quietly.

He nodded once, mouth set in a grim line, and turned his gaze back to the graves. Luned considered the scene with new eyes, and saw the signs that almost let a scene from the past play out in front of her. There were no loose stones here but those from the houses…he must have spent hours shattering one of the frozen walls. He would have had to dig through the hard-packed snow and ice and then the frozen earth itself to bury those small, forgotten bones, and then he would have had to move every one of those tremendous, ice-coated rocks into place – all while thinking of what could have been.

She stepped in front of him and rested her fingertips on his cheek, and then she walked back to the sleds. Suska stared at her brother for a long moment, and then followed.

[Luned]

Flint had been visibly weary as they all bundled into the cramped tent that night, an emotional day coaxing the angry lines on his face into something more pensive. His presence loomed tense and brooding in the quiet space. At the first hint of Suska's snores, the scribe's hands drifted ever so cautiously, reaching out to him in the breathy dark.

Feather-light fingertips traced the furrow of his brow, the contours of his beard and the jawline beneath. She had waited so long to touch him like this, to finally have it felt unreal. Being so close but restricted might have been frustrating, but she decided to make the most of it, enjoying what little affection she could show now that things were different. He opened his mouth to respond, but she placed a gentle digit against his lips. He swallowed his words, giving into the sensation of her wandering hands. "Thank you. For sharing this, for trusting me, for saving my sorry hide when I do stupid, stupid things…"

Her hand returned to its meandering and fingernails tickled his neck behind the ear. He inhaled sharply through his nose, suppressing a shiver as they relished the opportunity for physical contact with flustered patience. She buried a wicked little grin into his chest where his heart beat warm.

"So… does 'Rauk' stay in Andvall?"

Flint considered her question carefully. "I don't know," he answered, truthful and final.

Luned's hand crept down the back of his shirt, following his strong shoulder to the intimate groove of his spine. It surprised her to discover smooth skin. She would never forget the back she'd seen in Ettermire; in a way it defined him, tightly sculpted muscle deeply etched with mementos of his vastly violent life. Those scars charted the history of his years as "Flint". Who would the man become next, with this blank canvas gifted by Swaysong?

Maybe he'd simply been reborn as Rauk again. Luned savored the word; a book once said there was power in knowing a person's true name.

And, as fleeting as it was, she found herself deflecting a pang of envy. Once upon a time, she'd have done anything for a fresh slate. Her own souvenir from their Ettermire trauma remained a permanent part of herself, vicious claw marks on her face and neck which drew stares and judgments and fear she hadn't earned. She wasn't a fighter.

As delicious as it was to make him squirm, the girl relented, sneaking her arm around his waist as she curled against him to rest. From the way he readily wrapped his own over her, breath almost immediately growing shallow, he needed it. She joined him soon enough.



They hadn't slept long when a chilling howl resounded over their little nest, Luned's hair on end before she even registered the noise. Suska had already sat up, torso twisted toward the tightly secured entrance of the tent. From the intensity of her posture, Luned saw a resemblance between the girl and her beasts, something predatory and wholly feral in the hunch of her back and arc of her shoulders. Flint had awoken and lifted himself on an elbow, one hand remaining on Luned's waist under the mountainous layer of furs.

The dogs growled low outside, their myriad voices rising in agitated symphony. Luned nearly swore she heard a similar sound erupt from Suska, a tension low in the young woman's throat as the instincts she'd inherited from her mother took hold. The bestial girl said something in their strange dialect to Flint as if she forgot the scribe was there, drew her coat over her shoulders, and slipped outside.

"What…?" Luned asked as Flint made to follow, shivering as a draft of Andvall's frigid midnight invaded their sanctuary.

"Draves."

[Luned]

Against Flint's orders, Luned followed. It took her a long moment to find her things as she floundered in the profound darkness, but after a long moment she'd donned her borrowed cape and peeked from the tent into the moonlight.

The world was bathed in icy blue, the thicket in which they'd camped surrounded by inky, tree-obscured blackness. The frantic dogs whined like ghouls from their burrows, jewel eyes glinting in the dim light. Suska had already unleashed her favorite, and its pearly maw flickered by Luned before it turned to sprint into the abyss.

Most notably, Luned realized it had begun snowing. No, not just snowing –– it was a full on blizzard. She'd never seeing anything like it, even over her brief stint in Berevar. The heavy flakes fell so fast and thick that she could almost watch it grow off the ground, collecting in a fluffy white blanket of deathly cold. It had already obscured the remainder of their fire, now just a pile of frosty brush. And all of this was under the cover of the evergreens which lined their campsite, their immense branches offering nearly as much shelter as the tent itself. She couldn't imagine how the storm appeared with an open sky.

The snowfall made everything appear fuzzy, and a short distance away Luned could decipher Suska and Flint's dark figures busying themselves at the sleds. They checked that the coverings were secure, ropes tight, and that the dogs were all accounted for. Another howl ghosted through the trees, followed quickly by a second in a higher pitch. Luned recognized that one as belonging to Suska's pack leader.

The scribe trudged through the snow to reach them, approaching as Suska began releasing a choice fleet of her beasts. With the clarity of closer vantage, Luned noticed what they'd retrieved from the sleds: Suska bore a pair of hatchets, heads glinting where they hung at her waist, and Flint had wedged a very large knife under his arm, still in its sheath. A length of rope had been slung over his shoulder.

"You stay here," Suska told Luned, dark eyes serious.

"But––"

Suska shook her head, brushing some snow from a dog's nose as it rubbed its head against her. "Will not be long."

"This one is no threat," Flint interjected. "It sounds to be alone."

Luned frowned. "Then why the need...?"

The beast girl grinned, her unsettling resemblance to Brigid surfacing, and she stepped away to inspect the next group of dogs. Flint shrugged. "She wants to go hunting."

[Luned]

Suska had lied. A long silence followed their disappearance into the shadowy trees, eased only by the constant wheeze of the storm. Luned stood still and quiet by the tent, watching the place where they'd vanished from view and unable to relax. Snow collected on the fur of her hood and she wondered if it would bury everything.

After what felt like hours later, barking erupted in the distance. This roused the dogs at the campsite, who rose from their nests in synchronized fashion to join the song. So many voices deafened Luned's ears and she struggled to hear over them. Not quite as far away as she'd originally thought, the fight began, and the violent cries churned the pack into a rabid frenzy. Wholly shaken, Luned eventually conceded and returned to the tent, where she burrowed beneath the furs in a sorry attempt to block out the overwhelming noise.

It seemed to go on forever and Luned lost track of time. Eventually the campsite remainders tapered off, a fresh blanket of quiet punctuated by an occasional whine or yap. The scribe couldn't bring herself to rise again until she heard someone call her name.

As she climbed outside, she noticed a drift of snow had collected at the entrance, and she stepped high to cross it. She staggered out to meet the siblings, both harnessed in rope to draw behind them a wolf-looking creature thrice the size of the dogs. Its gargantuan form tumbled slack over the ground, and around them, Suska's beasts returned to the campsite panting like a flock of happy little sheep. In the afterglow of some fierce exercise, both of the siblings beamed, and Luned surprised them with a laugh.

"There were more than we thought," Flint explained as he loosened knots of rope. "I hope we didn't worry you."

Luned shook her head, the lack of apparent gore earning her immediate forgiveness.

"Luned," Suska said, bouncing over to her. "We found a den!" And then, from within her vest, she drew not one, but two balls of fur. She held the pups out by their scruffs, her eyes sparkling with achievement, and thrust them at the scribe. "Take them, keep them warm," she ordered her, and Luned did as told, pulling them inside her cape. They couldn't have been more than a few months old, still harmless, filling her arms and burying themselves against her chest to escape from the cold.

"What happened?" the scribe asked, watching as Suska checked the eyes of the felled drave. Its legs and jaw had been bound tightly and it did not move, but there was no sign of blood. "Is that still alive…?"

"No," Flint clarified. "She was the prettiest of the lot, so Suska treated her gently. We'll get good money for that pelt at the city."

A vision of the beast girl "gently" choking out the drave came to mind, and Luned abandoned it for the absurdity. "What of the others? And the pups?"

"We keep them," Suska grinned, her dogs retied and thirst for action satisfied. "Gutted the others. Sometimes they eat interesting things, but not this time. Disappointing winter for their bellies." She sighed in defeat, surveyed the dogs as they returned to their burrows, and then retrieved the pups from Luned's arms. "Sleep now," she commanded, and climbed into the tent with a yawn as if brutally slaying an entire pack of draves had been just the thing she needed to truly relax.

The scribe eyed Flint. "You two certainly are your mother's children," she teased.

Once they returned to bed, the adrenaline from the hunt proved to have made the man restless. His hands wandered and eventually Luned turned away from him, face red as she endured her own turn to squirm. But that only made it worse, as he pulled her in to spoon and gained access from new angles.

Neither of them got much sleep.

[Warpath]

Flint woke relatively late and stretched himself out long. He hesitated to stick his limbs out from under the heavy blankets, but found the inside of the tent pleasantly toasty with early morning sunlight and trapped body heat. He expected aches that weren’t there, and that made him turn his head to the left. His arm was stretched out to his side, gauntleted forearm resting on the furs, and he sighed. It was in the lonesome, quiet moments like these that he questioned what he’d done to himself, and wondered what he might become.

There was a shifting against his right side, and he turned his head to regard Luned, and the questions melted away easily. She was nestled against his side, face half-buried in the soft white fur of the blanket resting over his shoulder, still deep asleep. He had dismissed Suska’s earlier claim that he hadn’t needed the Swaysong to save Luned, and his surety created another sense of small disquiet.

He hadn’t had a choice but to drink the Swaysong, and there was no positive outcome for him or Luned if he hadn’t stolen it in the first place. The future held only unbearable loss and death, or incredible change. Even now, Flint had no idea what they’d set in motion…but the scribe was safe and alive and here.

On cue, she took a slow breath and stretched out alongside him. Her eyes blinked open as she inhaled, and as she returned to the waking world and found Flint staring at her, she offered him a content, sleepy smile and nestled herself into his neck and squeezed herself warm to him. He rested his cheek on her head and carefully wrapped his arms around her, resting the weight of his vambraces very slowly on her back. They were a small price to pay for this.

And then Suska kicked the tent from outside and hollered, “Up, lazy ones!” and the dogs yipped and howled with her, and Flint sighed heavily. Luned laughed wryly into his skin and muttered hoarsely, “I guess that’s our wakeup call.”

[Warpath]

The events of the night before had lasting repercussions into the day, and ensured that they would not be setting out until the afternoon. While Luned kept the drave puppies warm and occupied, Flint attempted to help his sister prepare and skin the beast they’d spent much of the night fighting and dragging to camp.

They originally attempted to load the carcass onto one of the sleds whole, but the sheer size and weight of the thing made packing otherwise impractical. Between the goods Suska had loaded for trade, food for the dog team, rations for the three humans, the camp supplies, and Luned and the puppies, there was little space or weight allotment left to them. In the end, Suska gave the dogs an uncommonly large breakfast and gave them the morning to digest it while she and Flint played butcher.

Luned was glad to miss it. Every so often one or both of the siblings would trudge over to the tent panting beneath sheens of sweat to drink water or scrub blood away with snowmelt, and neither of them ever looked happy about it. The scribe always covered the pup’s eyes despite how silly it made her feel.

Eventually the hide was extricated from so much lean meat, which the siblings had no choice but to leave behind. There were already ravens gathering on the branches, and the dogs growled at unseen things lurking in the woods. Once the hide was cleaned as much as it could be, and bundled, Luned helped them repack and reorganize. The sleds were a little more cramped now, and heavier both, but Suska seemed sure the dogs could handle it.

For Luned’s part, her little section on Suska’s sled was a little more cramped but by no means unpleasant: she now shared it with a pair of warm, oversized puppies. At first they were a source of frustration, yipping and dancing and struggling to frolic, overexcited at the motion of the sled and the barking of the dogs. When the novelty of the situation wore off they dozed against the scribe, and became adorable again.

Despite setting out late in the day, the trio arrived in the first village that night – a tight collective of small houses in the southern style, with tall smokestacks puffing away alongside stout wooden structures, all gathered around a circular stone well. They were able to purchase a room for the night with an old widower, which was no more private than the tent. Suska and Luned shared the bed with the puppies, and Flint slept uncomplaining on the floor.

[Warpath]

The days that followed were more comfortable and restful for Flint and Luned, but also more frustrating than ever. The villages were growing larger and closer together, and the rooms available for rent were growing comparatively more luxurious – but also more expensive. Though they were both sorely tempted to try for their own separate quarters, the would-be lovers were operating out of Suska’s purse. Ultimately prudence and courtesy demanded a shared bed for Luned and the floor for Flint, for days on end.

So they survived on lingering touches during mealtime breaks and heated stares whenever their attention wasn’t demanded elsewhere and often when it was. The air grew warmer by degrees until it was cold but not murderously so, and there came an evening when Suska looked out from the outskirts of a village and declared she could go no farther.

That night was at least less torturous for Luned, who distracted herself by whispering with Suska until the deepest hours of night. They had become fast friends and the scribe was more than a little dismayed to be parting so soon which Suska was, to her surprise, sympathetic to. Despite her fierceness, Flint’s sister seemed equally, almost girlishly troubled. At any moment, she seemed prepared to demand the right to braid Luned’s hair, and that would have been alright.

When morning came Suska was all business again, wrestling her dogs and slapping at Flint’s hands when he wasn’t packing her sleds in the optimal way. She organized the team into one huge train, terminating in both sleds lashed one after the other. The whole time she avoided any real conversation by detailing exactly where she’d go and what she’d do next – head west, trade here, buy this, return by way of this pass and across that frozen river, visiting this and that village on the way to see this tribe or that. Flint just muttered and grunted his replies, and Luned tried not to be miserable.

The time for Suska to leave was an hour past when she finally stopped dawdling and gave Luned a sudden hug. The scribe promised they’d stay in touch, and reminded her of the little books she’d created, and Suska smiled and sniffled and told her to take care of Flint. When the siblings said goodbye, it was everything Luned had come to expect. Suska stalked over to her brother and neither of them made eye contact, and then she latched onto him with her arms around his middle and squeezed hard, pushing her forehead to his ribs and giving a little growl. He returned her hug with only one arm, but he gripped her shoulder tight and lowered his face looking grim.

They never said a word. Suska parted from him and walked back to her sled, giving Luned a sad smile in passing, and he turned and walked away in the opposite direction. She gave her dogs the command, and rushed off west without a second glance.

[Warpath]

“So,” Luned said when Suska disappeared over the horizon and they were suddenly alone. “What now?”

Flint turned to look at her, paused, and then took stock of what little money Suska had left them. “We will need to ration ourselves. It will be unpleasant, but this should be sufficient to take us far enough south that we can beg or steal our way to Tirel for free.”

“Okay,” Luned said thoughtfully. “How do we get out of Tirel though?”

Flint made a thoughtful sound. “Perhaps Agnie will feel like making amends, but I do not particularly want to find Aurelianus waiting for us again. We can send word to our respective friends, and in the meantime find suitable work. Tirel is a big place.”

Luned frowned at the mention of the fae, who was largely to blame for their being so dramatically relocated in the first place. She didn’t relish the thought of that conversation, especially not if it was being had while Luned also needed her help. The thought of being stuck in Tirel for weeks trying to earn passage to Radasanth was no more pleasant, though it would give her plenty of time alone with Flint.

“Hah!”

Luned was shaken from her thoughts, and she turned to look at her companion. They’d been walking through the village square on a path of wooden slats, and to their left the local magistrate had erected a sturdy oak board suspended between two thick posts. There were writings and notices nailed all over it, and most of them were just simple pictures that conveyed basic ideas. One depicted a farmhand alongside a crude drawing of a Salvic coin, and it was signed with a family crest and an arrow pointing east, another was just an overflowing mug and a crude map of the village with a building circled in red.

And then there were wanted posters, each depicting a passable drawing of the bounty and his or her worth and then, smaller, a list of their transgressions.

Flint was smiling at one in particular, and Luned stepped up beside him to get a closer look at the object of his amusement. She let out a yelp and threw her hands over her mouth and held them there, and then, unable to help herself, she started laughing.

There was a picture of Luned Bleddyn. It was crude, to be sure, and she’d developed some harder lines about the eyes and earned her scars, but there was no denying who the wide-eyed criminal was meant to be. Beneath the image was a name, Scarlett Harthworth, and a fairly impressive bounty of fifty thousand. Her laughter faded when she continued to read, and she exhaled slowly as her face went slack. Wanted for witchcraft, base murder of persons of noble birth, base deception of persons of noble birth, spying, sedition, and multiple counts of unlawful escape, it said. She felt cold, remembering an impressive female figure slumped in the dark with an arrow through the chest.

Flint peered at her from the corner of his eye, detecting the pain behind her chilled features. “It’s impressive enough,” he said imperiously, “but you have a long way to go yet.”

Luned blinked and turned to look at him, and he nodded his head toward another poster. Sure enough, there was a picture of a glowering bearded devil, almost more beast than man, atop a bounty of two hundred fifty thousand, and two columns of sins listed. “Oh wow,” Luned breathed, distracted enough to laugh again. “Flint, really?”

He raised his chin proudly, and the scribe began to read. “Assault, sedition, terrorism, indecent acts, trespassing, menacing, loitering, manslaughter, dismemberment, base murder of persons of noble birth, arson, blasphemy, unlawful escape…cannibalism! Did you really do all of this?”

“Of course not,” Flint said evenly. “I have never loitered.”

“Gods,” Luned said, continuing to read through the list for a moment, shaking her head with a disbelieving smile. “I mean, I knew you were bad, but…wow. Are we in danger? I mean, shouldn’t we be laying low? There’s a bounty on your head.”

“And yours,” Flint reminded her. “No. We probably shouldn’t remain here, in front of this board, but no one will be searching for either of us in villages this small, and the villagers themselves won’t be interested in bringing trouble on themselves. We are anonymous, for now. Tirel might be a different story, though…wait.”

The brute tapped an empty space on the board beside his poster, looking thoughtful.

“I need you to do something for me,” he said at last.

Luned tilted her head.

[Warpath]

Moments later, Luned slipped out of the local constabulary, nervously glancing around as she jammed her hands into the pockets of her borrowed coat. The fact that her breath fogged in front of her came as a bit of a shock now – she didn’t feel cold at all. Mostly she felt like she was being watched and angry guardsmen were about to come thundering down on her, shouting accusations.

She found Flint where he said he’d be, lingering in the mouth of an alley that ran between a flophouse and a tailor. “Liar,” she said as she approached.

He raised his eyebrows.

“You said you never loitered. You’re loitering right now.”

“I am not loitering. I am…dallying.” Flint said. “I am sorry for sending you in there alone. I realize that this is uncomfortable.”

Luned shook her head and sighed out a big cloud of steam. “No, I understand. No, that’s not true, I don’t understand, but I want to. What I mean is, I know why you can’t just walk up to a sheriff and start asking questions about other criminals. I mean…you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” Flint said with a small smile. “Did he have anything to say?”

Luned nodded. “You were right. Red Radek isn’t on the board because they caught him in Flesgrad. He’s still alive; the sheriff guessed they’d be sending him to Tirel in the spring to be hanged.”

Flint growled. “Stupid. I don’t know where Flesgrad is, we will need to procure directions.”

“It’s a little southwest of here, and it’s quite pleasant this time of year, and we should visit Sasha’s Bakery while we’re in town because she makes the only cupcakes in the region. Some say she trades with orcs for the sugar, it’s very scandalous,” Luned said.

Flint blinked at her.

Luned smiled brightly. “The sheriff was very helpful,” she said with a shrug.

[Warpath]

Flesgrad was, in fact, quite pleasant for that time of year, and Luned now saw why Suska hadn’t gone farther with them. The snow was thin and watery just an hour south of where they’d parted ways, and the scribe could not imagine how the dogs could have dragged the sleds through it. She found that she missed more than the dogs and Suska’s company, too. Compared to the carriage they’d hitched a ride on, the sled-ride had been luxuriously smooth.

The sun was hours set by the time the carriage came to a rest in Flesgrad, which was a moderately sized village. Most of the roads were dirt lined with muddy snow banks, but toward the village center the streets were paved with wood. Luned winced at the way the boards creaked under her feet, and mentally scolded herself. They were out late, but they hadn’t done anything criminal yet.

They were just planning on it.

“Maybe we should…I don’t know, scope the place out first?” she whispered.

Flint shook his head. “We must strike swiftly,” he said lowly. “Radek had not been working with me overtly for very long, so few will have connected us directly. He was not unknown, however, so the authorities will scrutinize any new faces in town.”

“That’s not good.”

“No,” Flint agreed. “The facilities here will be small and simple, lightly manned, unprepared. It will be best to capitalize on that while we can.”

“Okay,” Luned said, “but what are you going to do?”

Flint shrugged. “Kick down the door, hurt everyone inside, find a key, let him loose and run.”

“That’s a terrible plan!” Luned said.

“I am a blunt instrument,” Flint said. “It has served me well thus far.”

“I don’t think I want to help you beat up innocent small-town cops.”

“If it pleases you,” Flint said, “I will beat them up gently.”

Luned laughed despite herself, shaking her head. “I’m serious. We’re already wanted, without two coins to rub together, still miles from Tirel…”

Flint nodded. “You are not wrong. Radek is an ally, though, and this is the best chance I have to keep him from hanging. I don’t know why he was in the area, but he might have resources nearby that could be of use to us. We must do this, but I will make an effort to do it quietly.”

Luned nodded, and took a steadying breath. “Okay, so. What’s the plan?”

[Warpath]

Piotr was a fine deputy, everyone said so. He was young yet, so working with the constabulary hadn’t taken its toll on him quite the way it had with old Siestov. Piotr didn’t yell at people when he was frustrated and he didn’t sleep in the cells when it was his turn to man the hub overnight. Plus everyone knew and liked him, so even the drunks were reluctant to pick fights when he was the one to break up rowdy parties at the local tavern. People said he was a good kid, and he liked that.

Tonight was a quiet night. The town drunk was in lockup early tonight, sleeping it off on the cot that practically had his name on it. Piotr set a tin of water just inside the bars – he always made sure the prisoners always had water on hand, especially the drunk ones. He continued across the hub to the far cell with another tin, whistling cheerily.

The hub had three cells all in a row, but only two were occupied, and even that was strange. The constables were always looking after one or two drunks a night, but Flesgrad also had an irregular prisoner in the form of Red Radek. Piotr had never heard of him, but apparently he was a rotten one in the south, robbing and murdering as people did down there. Even if Piotr didn’t like Flesgrad as much as he did, he wouldn’t go down there. People were crazy down south.

Anyway, it didn’t matter who Red Radek was. He looked and smelled and talked like a man, so the young deputy put a tin of water in his cell just like any other. It didn’t do anybody any good to be cruel to him now, after all. The rumors said they wanted to hang him in one of the big cities, which always seemed pretty harsh no matter what you did.

Piotr was just about ready to settle back into his chair when there came a frantic, open-palm knocking on the door. The deputy hurried over to the door, undid the latches, and opened it a crack.

“Hello?”

There was a short girl outside with snow in her hair and no coat, hugging herself and looking miserable.

“Are you a constable?” she said.

“Oh yes,” Piotr said. “What’s wrong?”

She stopped shivering for a second to stare at him. “Somebody stole my coat,” she said at last.

“They did?” Piotr said. “Oh no! Oh! Come inside, I’m so sorry.”

He opened the door wide and the girl hurried in and paced around shivering.

“What happened?” Piotr said, closing and locking the door again.

“I was walking just up the road here, and a man came out from behind one of the buildings and threatened me with a knife until I gave him my coat, and then he ran off.”

“He ran off? Did you see where he was going?”

“Um,” the girl said. “Uh, that way.” She pointed.

“Toward the granary! That’s odd. Look, you stay here, I’ll go have a quick look and come right back,” Piotr said.

“Thank you so much,” the girl said.

Piotr puffed out his chest, stepped toward the door without his own coat, and then hesitated. “Oh, you should lock the door after me, in case he’s still out there. Here, I’ll take my key.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that…”

“No! One can never be too safe, you just stay right here.”

“But I…”

But Piotr already had his coat on, and he swung the door open and hurried out into the night. Luned sighed, waited until the count of twenty, and then walked over to the door and opened it slowly. She peeked out to make sure Piotr was gone, and then opened it wider. Flint rounded the corner, glancing over his shoulder, and then slipped inside and handed Luned her coat back.

“He took the key ring with him,” she said. “I tried to stop him, but he’s…energetic.”

She expected anger, but Flint’s expression did not change. He seemed to be thinking.

“Skovik…?”

Luned looked over her shoulder, where a shadowed figure was approaching one of the cell doors.

“Shut up, Radek,” Flint said. “Go lay back down for a moment.”

Radek obeyed without another word.

“He won’t leave the cells unattended for long,” Flint said. “Stand there, where he can see you when he comes back in.”

Luned hurried over to where Flint was pointing, and Flint, in turn, stepped in and pressed his back to the wall to one side of the door.

“Keep his eyes on you,” the brute said.

“Okay,” Luned said. “What are you going to do?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Flint said, and his voice dropped off quickly when the door rattled and then begun to swing open.

Piotr hurried back inside, hiding Flint behind the door for an instant when he opened it. He swung it closed again, thankfully without looking back at it. “Why didn’t you lock it!” Piotr said. “Anybody could have gotten inside.”

“Um,” Luned said, glancing from Piotr to Flint.

Piotr turned around just in time to see Flint for a blink of an eye, and then the brute had him by the lapels. Flint lifted him off his feet and turned, driving the taller and younger man back against the wall hard enough to rattle his teeth.

“Keys,” Flint growled up at him.

Piotr stared wide-eyed down at Flint Skovik, who lifted him higher up along the wall. The deputy fumbled in his pocket and produced a small ring full of keys, which he dropped obediently into Flint’s newly outstretched palm.

“Good,” the brute said.

Flint paused a long moment, staring at the boy, and then he glanced very briefly over at Luned. He then lifted Piotr the deputy over his head, holding him by the bunched up material of his coat in one hand and his belt in the other.

“Oh!” Piotr shouted. “Hey, whoa! Wait!”

Flint carried him across the hub to the vacant cell and dropped him unceremoniously onto the cot, which creaked alarmingly. Piotr stayed right where he was, half propped up on one elbow, panting and wide-eyed. Flint exited the cell, closed it, and then locked it with the stolen keys.

“You may now stand, Radek,” Flint said as he stepped over to the adjoining cell.

Radek rolled off of his cot and crossed his cell in two long strides, casting a pleased look over at Piotr. “Do you have a knife?” he said. “Let me see your knife, I’ll do the butcher work. I owe you that much.”

“No need,” Flint grunted, unlocking the cell and throwing it open noisily. The drunk in the far cell snorted and shifted on his cot, but went immediately still and quiet again.

Radek stepped out, glancing from Flint, to Luned, to Flint, to Piotr, and back to Flint again. “What do you mean? He’s looking right at you.”

“And has no idea what he is seeing,” Flint said. “They won’t find him until morning. By then we will have forgotten the name of this place.”

“Uh…okay,” Radek said, raising one eyebrow.

“Go,” Flint growled. Radek shrugged and marched toward the door. He hesitated and pulled Piotr’s overcoat off the wall and threw it on, and then opened the door and slipped out into the night. Flint followed, and Luned hesitated in the doorway with one hand on the knob.

She turned back toward Piotr and waved back at him, looking apologetic. “Sorry,” she mouthed, cringing.

“It’s quite alright!” Piotr said, waving back as she gently closed the door. He heard them locking him in and he sighed, shaking his head.

“Well,” he said after a moment. “At least they gave that poor girl her coat back.”

[Luned]

Once outside, they began to walk and did not stop. Luned lingered behind the men, unsettled by the strange, sidelong glances she continually earned from Flint's apparent colleague. He stood tall and wiry, with greasy hair and a dangerous darkness to his stare. She couldn't help but admit to herself that she found him more than a little intimidating, and his reaction to the way they'd handled the jail situation nagged at her. She knew what Flint was capable of and had prepared herself for the worst when she'd finally learn more of his various activities. But even so, she couldn't stave off a vexing bout of cognitive dissonance as she attempted to reconcile the off-putting airs of this associate of his with the person she thought she knew so well.

Introductions had gone awkwardly. "Hello. I'm Luned," she'd said.

The scary man seemed to ignore her until Flint growled, threatening him into some semblance of politeness. "Radek."

And now the men talked up ahead, sharing an appraisal of their respective situations.

"Fet's got a place not far from here," Radek said in a tone which implied he knew how generous he was in offering such information. "The bastard's got a baroness curled 'round his little finger, we've got the entire estate at our disposal now. Helped to have a safe house after you left us in the lurch those months ago. Boss man's still sore over it, so watch yourself." He punctuated the jab with a gratuitous snort, hacking phlegm into the back of his throat, and then spat it into the muddy snow.

Flint brushed off the tension, getting straight to business. "How far is it?"

Radek shrugged. "Only a couple hours off if we find us some horses."

That settled that.

[Luned]

Procurement of a pair of beasts went without a hitch, plenty of stables to be found in the village, and Luned avoided considering how experienced these criminals truly were to treat thieving so casually. But no one got hurt, and she was cold and tired, and she found that she was much more disappointed in herself for accepting the benefits of the stolen property than concerned over catching a glimpse of Flint's unique talents. It came worlds easier to tolerate another's transgressions than own up to her own.

They rode through the night, through snowy fields and frosty forests, and conversation was sparse. The scribe clung to Flint's back for warmth as they went, pulling her hood tight to avoid catching more of Radek's odd glances. She couldn't tell what he thought of her except that he viewed her as something less than human. It made her uncomfortable.

"Work's been slow since you left," the grisly man explained, shoulders hunched inside his stolen coat. It fit a bit short on his lanky frame. "Fet's got all these ideas, see. Wants to try something new, now that we've got Lady Essen's resources."

With all of his experience in perfecting his poker face, Flint betrayed not an iota of interest in that particular name, but he didn't have to for the mention to pay off. As if Radek had been waiting for it, he caught Luned in a moment of weakness. She gaped at him, eyes wide in disbelief, his own gaze lying in wait. He snared her in a millisecond of eye contact, an utterly abhorrent thing which incited a sneer-like grin to bare chipped, yellow teeth as she shrank away. She didn't say anything, but that would have been unnecessary anyway; he read everything in the expression on her face.

He knew.

Taking the twist of events in stride, Flint continued the conversation without missing a beat. He spoke louder, however, and commanded his colleague's attention away from the mouse at his back. She buried herself against him, as if the camouflage of their blended coats might make her disappear altogether. She desperately wished she could.

"Resources?" Flint prodded.

"Money, land, bodies," Radek said, looking ahead once more. "Got the beginnings of his own little empire, he has."

[Luned]

Creeping in under the cover of night, Luned couldn't help but acknowledge some dizzying deja vu as they plodded out from the forest and into the pale radiance of the living stronghold. Fires blazed up on the walls where scarce guard stood, watching over the sleeping castle as plumes of smoke disappeared into the starless, overcast sky. It didn't take them long to recognize their returning comrade. Open doors awaited them, and in they were ushered.

Led by a weary servant, another dispatched to bring news of their visitor, they found themselves guided into the belly of the fortress. If Flint noticed Luned's pallor exaggerate as they walked, he didn't mention it. Keeping himself between her and Radek, they navigated narrow, winding steps and frigid hallways until they reached a room sealed off by an impressive pair of heavy oak doors.

In a more humbly sized castle as it was, the great hall wasn't particularly large or opulent, but it served its purpose. Tapestries warmed the otherwise stark walls, reflecting the heat of the freshly stoked fire back into the living space. The hearth breathed life into the trio of travelers, soothing frosty extremities and stiff joints. It had been redone somewhat since Luned last visited, undoubtedly to transform it from late Lord Essen's space to something better suited to the estate's newest leading man's tastes. The feeling was more communal than formal now, the long table populated by many more chairs and benches, remnants of the evening's drink and talk still scattered over its surface in the form of empty bottles and scattered maps. But at the head of the table still sat Essen's chair, a modest throne if anything, the grand antlers affixed to its crown dramatically silhouetted against the gold and red wash of the fireplace behind it. The scribe shivered, and the hole in her stomach churned itself sick.

Well, she thought, at least it was warm.

After a few blessed moments to thaw, a middle-aged man with dark circles under his eyes entered the hall to greet them, welcoming Flint with familiar respect. They shook hands and he introduced himself to the others as Gusev. "Fet has retired for the evening. For now, we shall get you settled," he said, then deferred to the servant behind him. "Master Skovik is a good friend of the house, he is to be treated well. Ready three rooms."

"Two," Flint corrected him. This earned Luned another odd glance from Radek and she cringed.

Gusev accepted the amendment in stride and nodded. "Quickly, now," the elder man urged. The servant obeyed, a draft sneaking in as he slipped swiftly out into the cold hallway. "I hope you do not take me as rude, but it is rather late. I look forward to catching up in the morning, if there is nothing urgent about this visit," he offered a cool smile. Flint concurred with a nod. "Most excellent. Rest well, then."

[Luned]

To Luned's great relief, the servant showed them to a proper guest room nowhere near the Essen family quarters. Small but cozy, the slowly warming fire illuminated airy curtains and a scheme of various blues. It had been furnished not just as a bedroom but a plush parlor, an oasis of comfort in the stone-heavy castle. In another situation, Luned might have even thought it charming. The servant lingered for a moment, inquiring as to their other needs, then scurried away as Flint closed the door on him without a word.

And then they were alone. After months of longing and weeks of forced patience, the pair of would-be lovers had finally obtained some blessed privacy. No half-demon, nor leviathan, nor well-intended sibling stood between them… but their absences had been filled by ghosts instead.

Luned couldn't see them, but she could feel them: the Warden prone in the dungeon some yards beneath her feet; Roxanne's form slack against a tree outside the window which she dared not look out, forest floor littered with fallen prisoners; Essen's face skewered to the pillow of the bed she nearly had to share with him. Their presences chilled her and she retreated in on herself, escaping a draft that wasn't there.

"Of all the coincidences," Luned began as if hoping to find something amusing in the absurdity of the situation, but found none. She couldn't even muster a halfhearted laugh. The sickness of sorry recollection made itself apparent in her wavering voice.

Flint stepped close, wrapping his arms around her as she wilted against him in defeat. "We'll stay only a day or two," he reassured her, breath warm against her hair. "Through Fet, I can get what we need for passage through Tirel."

"I know," she mumbled into his shoulder, "it's fine. It'll all be fine." Attempting to convince herself proved futile, and she sighed with a shiver.

"Here," Flint said, drawing away to remove his coat and place it over her shoulders. Then, with a gentleness uncharacteristic from such a formidably built man, he directed her closer to the fire. She stood obediently with her toes on the hearth, holding the leather and fur tightly around her to absorb the last traces of Flint's body heat. She stared at her reflection on a vase of dried flowers which had been propped on the mantle, unseeing as she waited for the heat to dispel her illness.

Minutes passed and she didn't even notice.

"Lune." She glanced over her shoulder, surprised to hear the shortened version of her name, to see Flint occupying one side of the bed. He'd turned down the covers and sat up against the modest mountain of overstuffed pillows, chest and shoulders bare in the slowly warming room. He didn't look as cold as she felt, though; in spite of everything, he managed to make it look cozy and inviting. "Will you come to bed?"

Slowly, Luned nodded, then broke herself away from the comforting reach of the fireplace. She saw Flint's gear organized on a tabletop by the window, clothing draped over a wingback chair, and began to add her own. First Flint's coat, then hers, then the hand-me-down shawl she'd kept wrapped tightly around her neck. She felt his eyes on her and it made her nervous, fingers trembling as she reached to her back to undo the ties on her dress. Even so, she managed, and pulled it up and over her head. She'd expected to shiver, but a flush blossomed hot across every inch of bared skin. Next, she discarded her boots, socks, and leggings, leaving only the thin silk of her long, lace-lined camisole. She left it on, the one piece of clothing that truly belonged to her, and clung to it for security.

As she climbed into bed, Flint extended his arm, and she settled down into the crook of his shoulder as easily as if she'd been born to fit there.

"I'm sorry," Luned said, eyes fixed on the flickering shadows on the wall. "Yet again, I find myself wishing I could be like you. I wish I could own my fear."

His fingers stroked the bare skin of her arm, and she felt a new warmth spread from her center as they huddled under the blankets together. Flint thought for a moment before speaking. "I understand, but you have nothing to fear of this place. Relatively speaking, we are safe here."

The girl shook her head. "It… it's not that. If it all never happened, I never would have gone to Ettermire, and I never would have met you. I don't regret it anymore. I'm afraid because I'm not sure what that says about me, that I'm willing to trade the lives of others for my own happiness."

"You do realize whom you are speaking with?" Flint replied, only half in jest.

Luned rolled in closer, placing a hand on his chest and lips lightly to his cheek. "Our lives have been very different. We are very different. It's not my place to pass judgment over anything you've done when I can't even begin to comprehend what your life has been like. I'm only responsible for myself, and sometimes I can't even manage that," she sighed in defeat.

"Remember what I said," Flint replied, taking her chin in his fingers and lifting her face to look at him. "Some people experience things and let it turn them into something terrible, something inhuman. You," he emphasized, "have balanced your strength in a way most never will, and that is why you are alive. This guilt may be an essential piece of that balance, but don't let it consume you."

"I can try," Luned said with a hopeless little smile, "but I can't make any promises."

He leaned in and conversation melted away into the soft caress of hands and lips. Both showed appreciation of new flesh to explore, but though the sensation was wonderful, the hunger wasn't there.

"Flint, I…" Luned began, unsure of her words. She couldn't remember ever wanting someone so badly, but for it happen now, in this place… it seemed like a waste. She wanted something better for them both.

In answer, Flint pressed one last kiss to her lips, then settled down next to her. "We should rest," he said as he embraced her into his warmth. "We will need our energy, as I imagine tomorrow will be… interesting."

Graciously, Luned allowed herself a weary smile of relief. "Thank you."

[Warpath]

It was Flint’s habit to wake at the same ungodly hour every day, regardless of how late he fell to sleep. It was a custom born of the pits, and one of the very hardest to shake. He woke immediately and with a sigh, partially rested but completely alert. He knew better than to try and fall back to sleep. Instead he let his mind wander.

His life, he ruminated, had become a vast series of gross improbabilities. Perhaps it had been a coincidence that he ran into Luned in the sewers of Ettermire, it was no mystery how or why their paths had come together there. That they survived, however, gave one pause in retrospect. Every subsequent event gave way to another, each more unlikely than the last. It ended here, in this place that had been seminal in Luned’s development into a person who would willingly climb into bed with a man like Flint Skovik.

It ended in trust and affection, from a singularly fascinating, lovely, and wise woman to him: a monster by popular opinion. Once again, Flint felt the hand of some otherworldly manipulator, and he exhaled slowly in the dark. His mental wanderings turned dark for a time, full of doubts and thoughts of noble martyrdom, but then Luned nuzzled him in her sleep and he tightened his arms around her and buried his nose in her hair, and the decision was made.

He didn’t care what dubious circumstances brought them together, even if it was the whim of some malevolent god. Perhaps he wasn’t worthy of her, but he’d never before let what he was prevent him from what he could be. He’d make himself worthy of her. The gods and fate had made efforts to deny him before, and here he was, a stubborn thorn in a nation’s side – and he was only getting started.

Flint gently extricated himself from Luned’s arms and bundled her in the sheets, and he caught himself watching her with an amused smile as she burrowed into the warm spot his body left. He cleared his throat and straightened his back, and then set about stoking the dwindling fire while he let himself obsess over abstract plans.

He would wait here and watch over Luned, he decided at first. He had taken her into a pit of vipers, and it was his duty to stand watch and keep the myriad unseen threats at bay until they could move on together. He nodded along with these notions for a time, occupying himself with his morning exercises in relative silence. He was not alone anymore, and in partnership they would find strength.

He washed and dressed, and as the first glow of sunrise showed at the horizon his feelings on the matter shifted. Yes, they were partners, but Luned was not helpless. She’d proven that with Aurelianus – it was possible she was more dangerous than he, so how ridiculous was the notion that she needed protecting from the likes of Fet or these preening nobles? No, his strength had always been in his aggression, his relentlessness…he was fear.

Another decision was made, and Flint was Flint again - new but the same all at once. He bent down and pressed a firm kiss to Luned’s forehead, and he only hesitated for a fraction of a second before leaving the room.

[Warpath]

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I want in on it.”

Flint paused and turned to look over the tall, furred collar of his coat. Radek emerged from the long, early-morning shadows in the hallway outside the room Flint shared with Luned. From the look of him he’d slept even less than the brute, if at all.

“I doubt that procuring food is an enterprise here,” Flint said. “You don’t need to ‘get in’ on breakfast.”

“Don’t start that clever word game bullshit with me, Skovik. Don’t think I forgot how you ditched me and the boys; I’m not in the mood for your shit. You owe me, and I’m not as stupid as you and Fet seem to think I am. I know when I’m getting left in the goddamn cold and I had enough of it.”

“The fact that you feel the need to declare your lack of stupidity suggests otherwise,” Flint said flatly. “What, exactly, do you want in on?”

“The con with the girl,” Radek said. “Like I said, I ain’t dumb. I know who she is and what she did, or at least some of it.”

“Do you?”

Radek gave him a sly smile. “She’s a Harthworth. She’s practically nobility, and rumor is her uncle or some-such is laying low in Knife’s Edge. And she’s a witch to boot. What I don’t get is what you’re going to do with her and how you convinced her the opposite…I mean, if you’re turning her in for the reward, how the hell did you get her to come here willingly and…” Radek shook his head, struggling to think it through.

“Who would I turn her in to? It seems Fet runs this hold now.”

Radek frowned. “So what are you hanging around with her for?”

“I’ve grown fond of her.”

Radek stared at him for a long time, and then his face gradually darkened. “Fine. Keep your goddamn secrets, but I’m not dropping this. Eventually you’re going to have to let me in on it or kill me to get me out of the way. I’ll figure it out on my own if I have to.”

Flint watched the taller man spin around and stomp off, and he cocked his head to one side.

[Luned]

When Luned awoke, she was alone. She'd grown used to sleeping in Flint's arms and it took her a long moment to register his absence, then the strange room around her. Sunlight filtered in between swaths of heavy drapery, drawing lines of vibrant color through the shadows. It stung as she blinked sleep from her eyes.

And then her stomach sank as she recalled where she was. "No," she muttered to herself, the word catching in her throat.

The icy stone floor sapped the heat from her body as she slipped from bed and stalked slowly toward the window. Winter crept in through drafts between the panes of glass and she shivered as she coaxed a curtain aside to look out. Luned found herself grateful that they had been placed in a room which overlooked the front of the estate; a view of the forest she'd seen littered with bodies might have done her in. But still, seeing the dirt road stretch beyond low hills and scattered trees did little to comfort her. She remembered Roxanne delivering her to Essen at the end of that path, to be imprisoned along with the James brothers.

She shivered again, but this time it wasn't for lack of warmth.

At this point, Luned faced a decision. She could do as she was so sorely tempted: curl up in that blessedly warm bed, weep herself to exhaustion, and spend the entirety of their stay in hiding…

Or she could face her fear.

The scribe would never be fear, not like Flint, not even if she wished for it with her entire being. But perhaps, if she tried, she could conquer it. Allowing it to control her did her no favors, and to live like that would make her unworthy of the incredible gift she'd received from Bleddyn on Carcosa. And, perhaps even worse, it would make her unworthy of Flint.

Luned had proven herself capable of such a thing when she laid out her tormentor, the tiefling Aurelianus, and spurred the series of events that brought them here. She didn't often give credit to concepts such as "fate", but if it existed, this was it. After all, it was no one's fault but her own that they'd come to be there. This was her chance to come to terms with her past so she could fully embrace her future.

Then maybe, if she was lucky, she could learn to like herself again.

[Luned]

Washed and dressed, Luned finally emerged from hiding and into the world again. She followed the long, gray corridor to a larger one, then another, until she came upon a landmark she recognized: the entrance of the great hall. But that wasn't her destination.

Skittish, she brushed off multiple servants in her descent to the lower levels. Luned hugged the precious shawl Brigid had given close her around her shoulders, finding comfort in its tightly knit embrace. It kept her heart warm as she approached the place that had first changed her.

It occupied two floors of the castle, consisting of a moderately more hospitable set of cells over a dank, dark pit which held the true dungeon. As Luned entered the first level, she discovered it surprisingly empty, having fallen into disuse since Lord Essen's death. The estate's new charge apparently practiced other methods of keeping the people in line, methods which didn't rely on the reckless sentences of imprisonment of his predecessor. The short heels of her boots echoed on the stone tiles as she slowly, very slowly, approached the heavy oak door of the space she'd been held. Though shadow laid heavy over the hallway, she'd never have forgotten which room had been hers.

As Luned rested her hand on its chilled, deeply grained surface, she finally allowed herself to exhale. She hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath until her chest had begun to hurt.

It had been here that she'd drugged Bernd, Lord Essen's son, and convinced him to take her below where she could free her companions. It had been there that they killed the Warden. Her proximity to that hell brought everything back in vivid detail, and for a moment she could still feel the man's last putrid breaths against her face as he bled out.

Luned leaned heavily against the door, choking back a sudden urge to vomit. She coughed and it reverberated off the walls, dizzying her as her own voice rang in her ears.

Then there was a click and a shuffle as the door of the next cell opened, a tall young woman in plain clothing the culprit. She carried a tray of tableware and closed the portal carefully behind her, locking it with a key that was secured with heavy hardware to her belt.

So it isn't as empty as it seems, Luned mused silently.

When the girl noticed Luned, her eyes narrowed and lips pursed white. "How did you get down here? Just who do you think you are, lurking there?" She set the tray down on the floor and stomped after the scribe, reaching out to grab her by the arm. "When Lady Essen hears––"

And then she gasped.

"Oh," she tittered, "oh, I'm very sorry, miss. We heard you arrived last night, but I suppose I expected a lady of your stature to… well, look different. I mistook you for a kitchen hand in that old dress." She laughed it off, but the humor didn't reach her impossibly dark eyes.

Luned wasn't sure if she was offended or not. Lightheaded from her nerves, she allowed the servant to guide her back upstairs. The strong-shouldered girl introduced herself as Inge, explained the off limits nature of the lower floors, and delivered her directly to the entrance a rather opulent drawing room.

Within it sat Lady Essen herself, the same regal, middle-aged woman Luned remembered, busied over an elegant writing desk with pen and paper. "Oh dear," the woman gasped as the scribe allowed herself to be ushered in, setting down her work. "Miss Harthworth, you look rather worse for wear after traveling with those ruffians." As the satin-clad gentile approached for a cordial welcome, she suddenly held back, nose wrinkling. "And I say, you do rather smell like a pack of wild dogs."

The scribe sighed. "Under these new circumstances, I'm afraid I should come clean. I'm not––"

Before she could finish, the vexing woman placed a cool fingertip to her lips, sealing her confession within. "I knew you weren't who you said from the moment we met back in Tirel, my dear. But please, don't let that spoil the game." This might have eased Luned's concerns somewhat, but something about the glimmer in those deep green eyes wasn't very playful at all.

"When I heard Fet was here, I didn't expect to find you as well," Luned played in. "To be honest, I'd wondered if the estate had been taken by force."

"I still appreciate what you did for me those months ago, assuring that the estate fell to me after my late husband's unfortunate… well, you know," Lady Essen crossed her arms loosely, gaze transfixed on that of her unexpected guest. "But that young man did so seduce me with his idealistic prattle. Bernd doesn't like him, but Bernd doesn't know what's good for him."

Luned swallowed back her first, less polite, response to that name. "Is he here, as well?"

"Oh, yes. He very much looks forward to catching up with you, my dear. Have you had breakfast?"

The scribe shook her head, resigning herself to whatever social catastrophe awaited. "No."

"Let us get you civilized again, shall we," she took one last look of poorly veiled disgust at Luned's road-weary ensemble. "And please, call me Konstanze."

[Warpath]

Flint found Gusev without further interruption. They had some understanding of one another by that point, so upon putting eyes on the brute, Gusev stopped and sighed in mild irritation. Normally he’d work and talk at the same time, but he’d learned early on that Flint demanded a certain level of attention.

“Master Flint,” he said by way of greeting.

“Where is Fet?”

“Master Fet will be meeting you for breakfast, with your companion and the lady of the house, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Where is Fet now?”

Gusev gave a thin smile, and hesitated before nodding. “Very well. If you’ll follow me…”

[Warpath]

Flint ascended the staircase behind Gusev. They were in a spire or tower on the far side of the main building, set apart from the standard living quarters, which meant their surroundings had become nondescript and basic. Flint let his mind wander, and decided he was hungry – hungrier than he expected to be. He’d been hungry since they’d arrived in Salvar, now that he thought about it, hungry since he’d tipped the Swaysong down his throat. He wondered if he should be worried. Again.

He noted the chilling of the air as they ascended, just before they rounded the spire and found that the stairs terminated in a low ceiling, with a thick wooden hatch set into it.

“You’ll find Master Fet above,” Gusev said.

Flint nodded, and stepped aside so the manservant could turn and leave.

“Gusev,” Flint called after him, without turning around. Gusev’s footfalls stopped. “Thank you.”

The servant didn’t move or say anything for a moment – staring at Flint’s back, perplexed, he had no doubt – and then the footfalls resumed and faded. The brute reached up and lifted the hatch, and then climbed out into the cold morning air. He let the hatch drop behind him, and then considered his surroundings.

He found himself atop a stout, round tower, which looked out over the Essen estate and the low-hanging sun beyond. It was a pale morning, and the chill bit even through Flint’s coat. He noted it, but did not shiver. In fact, he couldn’t remember being genuinely cold since…well.

He was not alone. Fet was there, leaning out between two crenels, clad in thick black furs. His hair was longer than Flint remembered, and it took him a moment to realize it had been a few months.

“Hi Flint,” he said, rising up on his elbows to rub his gloved hands together. He didn’t take his eyes off of the foggy sunrise.

“You are moving up in the world,” Flint said.

“Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten my friends.” Fet smiled.

“I would not call us friends.”

“No? Why not?”

“You would try to cut my throat without thought, if it would somehow legitimize your name,” Flint said thoughtfully. “Friends do not slit friends’ throats.”

Fet laughed quietly, flashing teeth whiter than the snow caught in the curls of his hair. “I don’t know if it’s as dramatic as all that, but fair enough. Allies then. And besides, I was trying to jab at you about ditching Radek and disappearing for two months.”

“I know,” Flint said. “I ignored it. I am your ally, not your employee.”

“That’s a small distinction. I think we’d both be happier and more effective if you were my employee.”

Flint made a dismissive noise. “I would not fit in. Your employees do not like me.”

“You mean Gusev? You read him wrong. You just confuse him, Flint. You treat him like a man instead of a tool, like a commoner, and yet you demand respect from him, like a noble.”

“I require respect from all men, regardless of birth. It has nothing to do with my lineage compared to his, anymore than it does mine to yours.”

“Oh, I understand that,” Fet said, pushing himself off the stone to turn and face Flint, pulling his gloves tighter on his hands. “Try explaining that to him, though. Tradition is an overbearing thing, Flint. Not all of us have an easy time ignoring it the way you do.”

“Not even you?”

Fet’s smile softened. “You said it yourself Flint. I’d cut your throat if it meant having my father’s name, or being born to his wife instead of a cook.”

“No,” Flint said. “I said you would try.”

Fet laughed, and Flint allowed himself the smallest smile. “Fair enough,” the bastard said. “I’m glad to see you, Flint. Are you taller?"

Flint glared silently, and Fet stared back blankly.

"I’m a little confused at your choice in traveling companions," Fet continued eventually. "I’m sure you can see why her arrival here is a little…er…uncomfortable.”

“Yes. I could say the same. When do we kill the woman?”

“The witch? I suppose that’s up to you.”

“She’s not a witch,” Flint said, a little sharper than he intended. “And that’s not who I was talking about. The Essen woman.”

“Why would I kill her?”

“I imagined you might kill her for the same reason we have killed dozens of other nobles.”

Fet shook his head. “You killed dozens of nobles. I just gave you resources to make it happen.”

“Were they not your enemies?.”

“Yes, but not just because they were noble. I don’t know how many times I have to explain it to you, Flint, I’m not trying to burn the world down here. They were the staunchest opponents to my being legitimized. They took my birthright away from me out of old, petty jealousies, and because a handful of stodgy priests told them the Sway made me a bastard for a reason.”

Flint narrowed his eyes. “And this Essen woman would support your claim to nobility?”

Fet smiled. “Something like that. Look, I’m famished. Come, let’s sit down to breakfast, and Konstanze and I will try to explain everything.”

Flint’s mind wanted to argue, but his stomach would hear none of it.

[Luned]

With her traveling clothes sent off for laundering at Konstanze's insistence, Luned found herself back in her scholarly blouse and skirt from their time on the ship. She'd discovered them pristine and perfectly folded in one of the bundles Brigid had packed for them, a sprig of dried lavender tucked inside. The thoughtful gesture had made it doubly comforting to finally wear her own clothing again, though that relief didn't last long under the stress of breakfast.

Clustered around the communal table in the great hall, Fet headed the meal in the former lord's antler-bearing throne. To his right sat Flint and, quite close by, sulked Luned –– or rather, Scarlett, as Konstanze insisted on calling her. The woman sat at Fet's left, her body language relentlessly doting. Next to her, and conveniently across from Luned, sat Bernd.

The boy had grown some since they last met, puberty adding an inch or two in height and noticeable breadth in his jaw and shoulders. While his sister had inherited most of their father's physical characteristics, he looked more like Lord Essen than Roxanne ever had with the dark stare he offered the scribe over their bacon and oat-crusted bread.

"The wedding is in just a few weeks," Konstanze beamed. "Do tell us you'll stay, my friends would simply love the novelty of meeting legends such as yourselves." Gratuitously mascaraed eyelashes fluttered in Flint's direction and he stared back, unblinking.

"We have obligations," he declined, "and must leave with the first Corone-destined ship out of Tirel that we find. What is this about a wedding?"

"Konstanze and I," Fet spoke over his fiancee's pout of disappointment, "have decided to form a partnership."

Luned tossed the woman a pointed look over the table, then settled her gaze on her newest acquaintance: Fet, whose first impression now consisted of a shameless power grab. What had happened to the independent Konstanze with whom she'd empathized? Unlike herself, she failed to veil the cynicism in her words. "A partnership?"

"I do not believe you are in a position to criticize anything between a man and a woman," Bernd jabbed, his lip curled sourly as he slathered a slice of bread with at least half of the jar of honey. "Or have you forgotten?" This earned a glare of the overbearing mother variety from the woman next to him, but he ignored it. "I'd keep an eye on her, if I were you," he said to Flint, then took a bite.

Without warning, Konstanze cuffed him in the ear, causing him to choke on his bread. "Bernd," she hissed, "don't––"

"I only said what everyone else was thinking," he coughed at her, then rescued his breath with a few gulps of tea.

"At the risk of derailing delightful discussion of our wedding plans, I must admit, I think I'd like to hear your version of the story, Miss Harthworth." Fet leaned forward curiously, elbows resting on the worn table. "I've heard several renditions, as you can imagine, but the one I'm curious about is yours."

Luned blinked at him, glanced down at her mug of tea which she pressed between her palms for warmth, and then back up at the charismatic man. "Now?"

He nodded, and no one argued.

The girl took a deep breath.

"Lord Essen had accused me of some crimes –– witchcraft, conspiracy, maybe something else."

"Assault. You assaulted me," Bernd interrupted, "or have you forgotten that, too?"

"…Yes," Luned continued, "and assault.

"Anyway, when Roxanne found me, I was traveling with two brothers. They arrested all three of us, and since they'd defended me, the men got the worst of it. I saw an opening when they left me in a cell with Bernd; I drugged him so he would help me free my friends from the dungeon.

"That didn't go as hoped. We had a run-in with the Warden before I could release the brothers. Once he was… indisposed, we three regrouped, and they asked me to get Lord Essen alone in order to 'negotiate' our escape from Salvar. That part had never been my idea, but they were the muscle, so I didn't have much choice but to follow their plan.

"I went back to my cell until Roxanne returned. That's when I told them I was a Harthworth. I could tell Essen was desperate to keep the barony secure with all the unrest; it wasn't a good lie, but he fell for it because he wanted to.

"One thing led to another and I got him alone in his bedroom, just as my comrades had requested of me. But things got messy when Roxanne barged in," Luned's voice wavered. "She killed him because she knew she could finally be rid of him and pin the blame on us. But from there it turned into mayhem.

"We knew we had no choice but to make a break for it, but one of the brothers was insistent that we release the other prisoners on our way out. Using Roxanne as collateral, we made it out, but in the chaos…

"I watched her die, and then I ran. I never saw the brothers again. There was a bounty out on us quickly enough; Konstanze helped me escape on a ship out of Tirel on the condition that I made sure ownership of the estate fell to her instead of the next male heir."

During her explanation, Fet had listened intently through Bernd's incessant interruptions to correct her and Konstanze's hushing. "That isn't quite what I expected," he replied simply.

"I suppose I should apologize for the disappointment," Luned shrugged. "I'm no revolutionary, nor am I worthy of the rumors that have built up around the name that doesn't even belong to me. I'm just a nobody scribe who made some stupid mistakes that got some people killed."

[Warpath]

Each of them had a servant standing just behind and out of sight, lingering in the shadows. Bernd and Fet were appropriately oblivious to them: when an extra piece of silverware was needed, it simply appeared. Luned and the Lady Essen were more gracious, smiling and thanking their attendants when tea was poured for them and used plates were slipped away.

Flint’s chosen hand was the hapless one, and seemed ready to die from anxiety ten minutes into the meal. The brute willfully poured his own drinks and leaned into the servant’s way. While Luned told her story, Flint shoveled a small mountain of scrambled eggs onto his plate, and the man behind him whimpered. This pleased the bald brawler.

What did not please him was Bernd. When Luned finished her story, the boy opened his mouth to say something snide, and Flint very suddenly snatched up a large fork and then buried its tines in the wood of the table with a thunderous bang. Bernd stared at him wide-eyed, and he stared back while he chewed, and the message could not be clearer.

Konstanze dispelled the tension masterfully. “All dreadful business,” she said, wistfully sad. “All blessedly behind us. And – and I regret the truth of this, but it is true – all regretfully necessary and for the best. I can’t tell you how mortified I am that you fell into this, you poor thing, but everyone here owes you the highest gratitude.”

“There are wanted posters all over that say otherwise,” Flint said around a mouthful of eggs. He could not remember tasting anything better, and he could not recall ever being this hungry. His mother had starved him, he decided.

The Lady Essen sighed and shook her head. “You can thank the kingsmen for that,” she said. “Despite Scarlett’s exemplary work, there have been challenges to my authority in the region since my husband’s passing. Certain factions in Salvar’s higher government have been pushing for sanctions against me until I agree to this ridiculous demand or that, and the neighboring baronies have been undermining my authority. Those dreadful posters will be the first thing to go after the wedding, I can assure you.”

“What sorts of demands are they making?” Luned said, frowning. Flint glanced over at her and resisted the urge to grin. He wondered if she was asking as a point of professional pride. She had, as a scribe, arranged Lady Essen’s sole inheritance of the barony, after all.

“Marriage, mostly,” Essen sighed. “This is a relatively modest barony, but it isn’t insignificant. The neighboring fiefs have a lot to gain by absorbing us. If I were to be married to this son or that, our lands would end up in someone else’s hands. My family’s authority here would end completely.”

“And so you see the benefit to our partnership,” Fet cut in, smiling at Konstanze. “It’s genius in its simplicity. I can’t inherit, but my bloodline is well established. By marrying me, Konstanze ensures the sovereignty of her barony, and gains the support of the sizable military force I’ve managed to accrue over the years. Together, we’re more than capable of holding our own against the kingsmen and their ilk.”

Flint stared at the pair, and his chewing gradually slowed as he worked through the implications. “It does not bother you?” he asked of the Lady. “Turning your authority over to him? You speak of my ‘legend,’ so you realize what I have done for him. You know the lengths to which he has already gone for legitimization.”

Konstanze’s smile never faltered. “I know who and what you are, Mister Flint. I don’t know if your friend has fully explained to you what kind of man my husband was, but I’m not a silly thing. I wouldn’t be alive today if I were. I know exactly what I’m doing. This began as a cold arrangement, but I can assure you it has quite organically grown into something more. Fet and I are kindred spirits, and we agree completely on the direction of this barony. I trust him implicitly.”

Flint nodded slowly. “And when you have children?”

The man behind Flint made a strangled noise, and Luned had to hide her smile behind her hand. Bernd’s jaw dropped, and Fet laughed, but his face reddened noticeably.

“I’m not sure what…”

Flint pointed at Bernd. “Imagine you have a son, yes? What becomes of this one? Who inherits?”

“I admit the lines of succession will be confused, but…”

“That’s not new,” Bernd grumbled. “Don’t you worry though; we’re getting really good at throwing troublemakers into dank holes.”

Luned raised her eyebrows, staring at Bernd sharply. For her his outburst suggested one thing, but to Flint it sounded like a threat.

The brute smiled, and then turned to Fet. “I wish to kill the boy.”

Konstanze stopped smiling for the first time. She sat up straight and looked over at Fet, wide-eyed. He raised his hands, palms out. “Nobody is killing anybody,” he sighed.

“I remind you that I am not your employee,” Flint said, staring at Bernd, who began glancing around the table.

“No killing,” Luned said chidingly, and Flint sat back in his chair growling. There had been half a moment of doubt that he’d listen to her, but the immediacy with which he had made her feel appreciated.

“I think what Flint is trying to say is that, well, from what I’ve heard Fet has been pretty anti-nobility. I think we’re just wondering where everything goes from here,” Luned said gently, and the tension gradually faded again.

Fet shook his head. “I know how my history looks, but I’ve been motivated by the need to make things better. I’ve seen and experienced how corrupt and ineffective Salvar’s government has become, and it’s always been my goal to make things better. Konstanze and I agree on that. My methods have been extreme because that’s the only avenue I’ve had to effect change, but now…” Fet shook his head. “We’ve been talking a lot, Konstanze and I, and I think there’s a lot of good we can do here. We can make the lives of hundreds of people better, without bloodshed, and once we’ve established those changes here, we can work on expanding them outward. Peacefully.”

“There will be no change,” Flint said, sneering. He pushed his empty plate away from himself. When the man behind him scurried forward to try and collect it, he growled, picked the plate up, and moved it to the far side of the table past Luned and then glared over his shoulder until the servant backed away again.

“There will be no change,” he said again, “unless the lords die. They are ill, and they spread their illness by action and by blood. This woman is ill, and so is the boy. You can see it on them. Their illness is in the walls. If you marry this woman it will seep into you, and all your intentions will be for nothing. There will be no difference between you and the man that sat in that chair before you. Things got better here because the old bastard died, and they will get worse until you die, and the boy, and the boy’s son, and every other lunatic in this bloodline.”

Flint reached out, poured himself an overflowing glass of milk, and then drained it in three massive gulps, and then he dropped the mug on the floor. The servant started forward, almost entirely on instinct, and at the first scuff of his boots Flint kicked the mug across the room, stood up, and leaned forward toward Fet with both fists on the table. “If you want to make things better,” he said slowly, “kill them all. That is the way. That is the only way.”

And then he pushed his chair over and walked away.

There was a long moment of silence where awkward stares were traded across the table, and then Luned drummed her fingernails on the edge of the table. “Um,” she began. “Sorry, I’m…yeah.”

She hopped up, mouthed her apologies again, and then scurried off after Flint.

“Your friends are crazy people,” Bernd told Fet, and Konstanze slapped him upside the head.

[Warpath]

Luned caught up with Flint in a long hallway. She called after him twice before he slowed, stopped, and then turned around just as she caught up to him. The scribe crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him for a moment, and he stared back – albeit without his normal intensity.

“I…it might be a good idea to explain to me what just happened,” she said at last, “because it didn’t sound great.”

“I advised Fet to kill the Essens,” Flint said.

“I gathered that part, Flint,” Luned said, raising her eyebrows. “That was the part that didn’t sound great.”

“You know what I do,” he began.

“No,” Luned said, cutting him off. “No, I don’t think I do. I mean, I knew you’d done some troubling things, but you’re…gods, Flint, I just need you to make sense of what you just said for me.”

“I said what I meant. The nobility in this country – in every country – is a cancer. I kill them, and I will continue killing them with or without Fet. They deserve nothing else.”

“You can’t mean that. I’m not saying Konstanze is a paragon of holiness or anything, but they both seem sincere about this. I believe them when they say they want to make things better here, and you know Fet. He’s still defying the people you’ve been fighting against. He’s not your enemy.”

“He will be if he marries that woman.”

“Listen to yourself,” Luned sighed. “You’re not this ignorant, Flint. I know that. People aren’t good or bad just because of when and where and to whom they were born. They choose, and if this is how you make your choices, I’m a little worried you’re not who I thought you were.”

Flint’s eyes softened for an almost imperceptible instant, but Luned was developing a talent for catching the emotions that passed over his features before he could bury them. He was hurt, and she frowned as she searched his face for other signs of humanity.

“You are…closer to me than anyone else has ever been,” he began slowly.

“Is that because you kill your friends when they get married?”

Flint exhaled through his nose and stood up straighter.

“I’m sorry, that was…sorry, I’m just trying to make sense of…”

“I know them,” Flint said firmly, locking his eyes on hers. “I know them. They are…inhuman. The lives they live twist them, blind them…it makes them cruel and monstrous, to a one, without exception. They deceive. They learn what words to say to gain power, and then they use that power to abuse everything and everyone they see as being beneath them.”

Luned sighed. “Flint, I know there are corrupt nobles here. There are corrupt people in power everywhere….”

Flint shook his head. “You haven’t seen…”

“No, I haven’t,” Luned said. “I haven’t seen the things you’ve seen, or experienced the things you have. I know that, but I’m never going to know those things until you talk to me about them. That’s beside the point. The point here is, I sincerely hope you’re not the kind of person that would kill a woman, a sixteen year old boy, and your friend or associate – or whatever he is to you – just because of how and where they were born, regardless of their actual intentions. I want to believe you’re a good person who has done bad things for good reasons, but right now…”

“They are still breathing.”

“Be honest with me,” Luned said darkly, “is that only because I’m here?”

Flint opened his mouth, and then closed it again, brow furrowing.

“Flint,” Luned sighed, shaking her head. “Rauk,” she said softer, “I’ve been growing…closer to you. And I know you’re not a saint, but I need to know exactly who I’m falling for, here.”

The brute frowned and raised his hand to touch her cheek, slowly, lightly, and then stopped just before making contact. He was reminded of the first time he tried to touch her, in the sewers of Ettermire. Just as he had then, he let his hand drop away unsatisfied: it was an ugly thing, a killing thing, and it did not belong so close to something he cared about.

“I told you,” he said quietly. “I have no secrets from you. Never again. Ask, and I will tell you.”

Luned searched his face silently. “I can’t do this right now,” she said. “I’m afraid of what you’re going to tell me.”

Flint nodded very slightly and took a step back. Luned walked past him and continued down the hall with her head down, arms still tightly crossed under her breasts.

He watched her go.

[Luned]

Something Luned fully understood about Flint was that this level of closeness was all new to him. It would take time for them to learn how to communicate effectively, and she was –– at least thus far –– willing to try to make it work. But that kind of pressure only added to the inherent tension of her presence there, something she now knew Bernd wasn't about to let her forget.

And, on top of that, something he'd said about 'dank holes' caught her attention. Who were they keeping in that cell down below? They must have been important, she mused, to warrant a designated servant.

Instead of dwelling on her quarrel with Flint, Luned decided her energy would be better spent on investigation. As awkward as his outburst had been, it gave her a small window of time she might not otherwise have found to snoop; she imagined, once recovered from their stressful breakfast, that Konstanze would demand much of her attention while Fet continued to catch up with his old comrade. Especially if she'd been caught down below before, she wouldn't be allowed the free time to make that mistake again.

Luned slipped away to their bedroom where she closed the door and leaned back against the cold surface. She shivered as she pulled up her sleeve and pressed her fingertip to her pale wrist, recalling a spell she hadn't used in some time. All she needed to remember was the first character of the ancient Raiaeran script; muscle memory covered the rest as she traced it against her skin and willed the magic into being.

Just as intended, she donned the cloak of nothingness and vanished, her limbs and clothes fading away before her own eyes.

She opened the door, checked that no one was watching, and slipped out again. As long as no one visited to check in on her, no one would be the wiser.

The scribe crossed paths with Inge as she neared the dungeon, incidentally intercepting a chamber pot run. The intimidatingly built woman grumbled to herself as she stalked down the hall with the covered ceramic vessel, then vanished down another passage. Luned descended the final stairwell and crept to the third door down, the one which contained this mystery prisoner.

With as much stealth as she could muster, Luned pressed her ear against the wood. Minutes passed and yielded nothing but silence, the small viewing window nailed shut. It only intensified her curiosity.

More minutes passed, and as Luned waited, her nerves gnawed at her once again. The longer Inge took, the more likely she'd be found out when Konstanze eventually went looking for her. "Come on," she mouthed without speaking, staring intently down the hallway.

And then, finally, the servant woman returned. She carried the pot on one hip and wrestled the keys from her belt as she approached the door with a sigh. Luned stood just barely off to the side, holding her breath; no matter how many times she used that spell, her heart would always race as someone's eyes passed unseeing over her, afraid the spell wouldn't hold.

But it did, and to Luned's great fortune, she caught a brief glimpse of the room within. Fine furniture filled the space, its style reminiscent of the heavy mahogany woodwork she'd seen in Lord Essen's bedroom. Simply just to make that connection was enough to send her stomach churning. As she continued to scan the cell, her gaze fell upon a haggard figure propped up at a desk, reading from a book in the meager light which spilled in from the short, grate-secured windows which studded the walls just below the ceiling.

The person looked utterly wretched, but through the shorn hair, gauntness, and missing limbs, Luned knew exactly who it was.

"No," she choked.

[Warpath]

Flint recognized that he was panicking. It was an unfamiliar sensation, but not so alien that he did not see it for what it was.

What he couldn't figure out was why and how to make it stop.

He was in the room he'd shared with Luned, pacing, fists clenching and unclenching. How many times had his situation been desperate beyond hope? He'd led men to their deaths - Fet's men. He'd been trapped, hunted, chased, and imprisoned. He'd been threatened and he'd been lost. Never before had he panicked.

And then it clicked, and he stopped pacing, staring wide-eyed into the fire. He'd also never come so far. The better part of a decade was sunk into his campaign against the Salvic nobility, and he'd made the most progress over the last couple of years. Fet's resources had changed everything. If the bastard intended to commit his army to the defense of this backwater hellhole...

The brute shook his head slowly, staring still into the flames. How could they not see...?

[Warpath]

Luned was not alone in thinking the baron's room a place of bad memories. Upon returning to the keep, Konstanze had ordered it boarded up without ceremony and was content to never think about it again. When Fet arrived, however, he convinced her to unseal it. She had agreed only with the stipulation that all the furnishings within were to be gutted from the room and burned, which Fet acquiesced to.

Now, in a carefully calculated move, he used it as a study. The old baron's ghost haunted him not at all, but it did keep Konstanze at bay when he needed his privacy. One day, the specter would fade from the walls and from the minds of the family he left behind, giving way to Fet and only Fet. In the same way, his status as bastard would be lost to history, too.

He was penning letters when the door thumped open and three bodies entered without invitation. He did not deign to acknowledge them until he finished a full paragraph, and even then he did not look up when he first spoke. "It's considered polite to knock before opening a closed door, Master Bernd."

The boy hesitated and shifted his weight, nearly bumping into one of the two armed guards that flanked him. At feeling the soldier's presence, he cleared his throat and stood very straight. "I'm here to discuss your guests," he said, raising his chin.

Fet began to write again. After a long moment of silence he paused and glanced up again. "Well?"

Bernd huffed. "Well what?"

"Are you going to discuss them?"

Bernd narrowed his eyes. "One of them killed my father by her own admission."

"Forgive me, but I believe you might have heard her wrong," Fet said. "I'm fairly certain she said Roxanne killed your father. Which, if I remember right, corroborates what Roxanne herself told us."

"She was an accomplice!"

"An unwilling one. No, I believe your mother was quite clear. That woman is to be pardoned of all crimes, as far as this barony is concerned."

"Fine," Bernd spat, "but the other one threatened to kill me in front of a dozen witnesses, yourself included. He even intimated that he would kill my mother, who is the standing regent of this barony."

"That is a grave thing," Fet agreed, sitting back in his chair and nodding solemnly. He stared up at Bernd, and remained silent until the boy couldn't maintain eye contact anymore. Whenever he visited, Bernd couldn't help but glance toward the far left corner of the room.

It was where the baron's bed had been, once.

"This man Flint should be seized at once, and put in the dungeon. Threats like that are a serious thing, especially after what happened to my father."

Fet nodded slowly, as if considering it. "Bernd," he said at last, "you're the son of a baron and one day you stand to inherit all of this, when your mother deems you ready for the responsibility. It's important for you to understand power as it pertains to rule. These men with you - they were your father's men, weren't they?"

Bernd glanced up at the man to his right. "Yes. Yes? I think so. What does that have to do with anything?"

"He has served your family since he was a boy younger than you. It's all he's ever known. He's taken vows, sworn oaths. He was raised by similar men, men who swore loyalty when they were younger than you. Men who died for your father and your father's father. They are bound to this place, to your name. It's something ancient and powerful, something greater than any of us. Do you understand?"

Bernd nodded very slightly. "I think so," he said quietly.

"Then you must realize, if you are your father's son, it is within your right to set your will upon this barony. These men are the hands, the fists, the cogs and gears guided by the will of one man - the man that rightfully rules this land."

"It is my barony by right," Bernd said imperiously.

"So why are you telling me what should be done, instead of doing it?"

Bernd blinked and glanced toward the left again, swallowed, and then turned to his escort. "I order you to detain the man Flint, and place him in the dungeons at once!"

The pair stared down at the boy for a beat, and then turned their helmeted heads to regard Fet.

"Did...didn't you hear me?" Bernd said. His face was reddening. "In my father's name, I order it!"

Meanwhile, Fet emptied a glass of wine with a happy sigh, and then set his empty cup at the edge of his desk. "Actually," he said, "it happens that I am out of wine. If someone could kindly fill it."

The closer of the two guards stepped around Bernd, delicately lifted the bottle, and poured a fresh cup for the bastard. "Thank you," Fet said, lifting the cup to his lips and locking eyes on Bernd while he drank.

"So," he said as he lowered the cup again, "do you feel that you've learned something about power today...boy?"

[Warpath]

On cue, Flint appeared in the doorway, looming massive within the tall fur collar of his coat.

"Get out," he said to Bernd and his escort.

He stepped into the room and then aside and stared at them expectantly. Bernd, already red-faced and furious, puffed up his chest. A heavy, gauntleted hand fell down on his shoulder and forcefully guided him to the door before he could say anything.

"Power, Bernd," Fet called after him, smiling wide.

Flint shoved the door closed behind them while he advanced on Fet.

"Do what you want with this backwater," the brute said, "but give me men."

Fet shook his head.

"A platoon," Flint growled, slipping into fierce and quick-tongued Salvic. "I don't need a legion. It doesn't need to be many. A platoon, Fet. I can do so much with just a few."

"I'm sorry, my friend, but the answer is no. I can't."

"A squadron, then. Twenty men. Eight veterans, the rest can be green. I can train them."

"I'm about to enter into a political shit-storm with the high government of Salvar, with small enemies on every side. For the first time, I have the law behind me. Even if I could spare a single man - and this keep is hardly fully staffed with what I have - I cannot have men of my service working alongside you anymore. It would risk everything. I'm sorry, Flint. No."

"You're sorry?!"

The brute twisted at the hip and swung, reducing the door of a fine armoire to dust and splinters amidst a thunderous crack. Fet did not flinch. "We had only begun!" Flint roared. "They were beginning to fear us! The Church, the crown, all of it! We have them on their heels, you preening fop, and you'd throw it away for this! For THIS?!"

Flint threw his arms out to his sides, turning slowly to indicate the dark, damp room and its sparse decor. "This isn't power. This isn't a platform from which you can change anything. This isn't even safety. It's not legitimacy. It's not the love of your father, or a family, or even a name. You're going to let it all fall apart for nothing!"

"You're wrong, Flint," Fet sighed. "I know you can't see it yet, but this...this little barony is my miracle. It is legitimacy, and it's the beginning of something good in this gods-forsaken country. And even if it weren't, I still would go no farther down your road. Here I've found the love of a good woman, and some level of peace. The way you'd go..." he shook is head solemnly. "There's nothing but chaos and corpses down there, Flint. I won't go there with you. I wouldn't, even if it meant I died a bastard. I'm sorry. If you need an army, you'll have to build your own."

Flint's face twisted furiously for an instant before he could bury the passion again, but it still burned in his eyes when he leaned forward. He gripped the arms of Fet's chair and leaned in close, jaw straining and teeth clenched as he choked out the words: "I will. I want you to remember that you could have been part of it. I want you to remember when I burn this stone shack down around you - when you're just another one of them. I'll come for you soon. I want there to be some small piece of sanity left in you...something that recognizes what you were turning into...what I'll kill you to save you from."

He forced himself to release the arms of the chair - now cracked where he'd gripped it - and then he stepped away, turned, and left. The door slammed with enough force that it snapped in two places and went crooked in its frame.

And only when Flint's footsteps faded out of hearing did Fet let himself exhale.

[Luned]

In her state of upset, Luned's invisibility trick wore off before she reached her room again. This didn't surprise her –– she was just grateful to have been alone at the time –– but the person she bumped into next made her regret the entire ordeal all over again.

"Well, well," Bernd clucked from the top of the narrow, twisting stairwell. "Look who's skulking about unattended."

Luned stopped her ascent several steps down from him as he placed a flat palm against each wall, blocking her way. She felt the unfamiliar anxiety of claustrophobia creep up on her in the already cramped passage. "Please let me by," she requested as evenly as she could muster.

"My mother and her know-it-all boy toy might trust you, but they weren't here last time," Bernd sneered. He took a couple steps down, pressing his hands to the walls as he towered over her. "I know what kind of woman you really are."

It took no small amount of courage for Luned not to simply turn and find another route. She knew full well that if she showed that kind of weakness, this would only be the first of many painful encounters with the young man. "No, Bernd, I don't think you do," she finally replied, staring up at him. The tiny windows that studded the outer wall of the stairwell offered meager light, gray shadow cast over much of her insignificant figure. "I'm not the same person you met those months ago. You need to understand that… and take caution."

He cackled. "And Flint, does he take caution? Does he know what you do to men in your company? Because I haven't forgotten. I refuse to choose blindness as the rest of these morons have."

The girl sighed, falling into a moment of thoughtful silence. When she spoke, her voice sounded small within the cold, stone embrace of the stairwell. "What do you want, Bernd?"

"I want you gone. All of you –– Fet and his men included. He trusts Flint, and Flint trusts you. I know the manipulation you're capable of. You will do this for me."

"Or else…?"

Bernd took another step downward and leaned over her. As much as this infringed upon her personal space, Luned remained still, staring back up at the boy's face. Frustration had knotted it into a tantrum. "Or else I'll do to you what you did to my father," he threatened.

Luned snapped.

"Your father was a cruel, depraved man who was nothing but a caricature of all that is corrupt here," she hissed. "He did nothing for this barony and its people but run this estate into the ground. He abused you and your sister and made sure there was nothing in your futures except bankruptcy and blood. Is that who you want to be, Bernd? Is that the 'could have been' you're defending right now? Because that is truly sad."

The boy lashed out, grabbing a fistful of Luned's hair by the scalp and pulling her toward him. She stumbled on the stairs and winced as she caught herself, inhaling sharply through her teeth.

He scowled down at her. "I know you helped my mother take control of it when it should have been mine, and that will be undone," he spat. "She is weak. She is allowing that man to do whatever he likes––"

Luned reached up and grasped Bernd by the wrist, applying pressure with a strength she didn't know she had. He gasped, letting go of her hair, but she didn't release him. "You're scared, but you should be grateful," she began, stepping aside and pulling him down to her level. It was his turn to stumble, and as he caught himself on the step below hers, he again was the terrified child she remembered at the very end of their last acquaintance. His shoulders may have broadened and his voice may have deepened, but that fear remained. He pried at her vise-like grip, but it only grew more insistent. "They're trying to build something from your father's ruins. In just a few years you will be legal heir to everything, and by then it might actually be something worth inheriting. But you have to be worthy, too, Bernd. Do you know what will happen if you aren't?"

Bernd offered nothing but a puzzled stare in return.

"You will be dead. You will join your father and your sister because, somewhere, there will be someone stronger and smarter than you, and they will take that power for themselves. You are entitled to nothing, Bernd, and when it comes down to it, not even your mother's love will save you. If you want the barony, earn it."

She finally relented, releasing his wrist, and he drew it to himself with a muffled whimper.

Luned turned and ran up the stairs before he could muster a response.

[Luned]

Luned was breathless by the time she discovered Konstanze down the hall from her room.

"Ah, I've been looking for you," Luned bluffed. "Do you happen to have a Salvic-Trade dictionary? I'm afraid I'm a bit rusty."

"I am sure we have one somewhere," the woman smiled, eyeing Luned with playful suspicion. "Have you tried the library, perhaps?"

"Not yet," Luned stumbled, realizing how silly she likely sounded. The scribe kicked herself for thinking no one would notice her absence; it appeared that Konstanze had thought she'd been in her room the entire time. "One more thing… have you seen Flint?"

"I believe I saw him heading toward our quarters, probably to speak with Fet. I can have Inge take you up there if you'd like."

Luned shook her head. She knew exactly what rooms were up there and had no intention of returning, no matter how well she'd convinced herself that she needed to face her fears. Some memories weren't worth revisiting. "No, thank you," she said with a gracious smile. "I think I'll take some rest for now. If you do see Flint, could you please tell him where I am?"

The woman nodded with a bob of jeweled earrings. "I hear tell of a lovers' quarrel earlier and thought I might check up on you. Is everything alright? You seem awfully perturbed, my dear."

Of course she'd heard about it. "Your concern is appreciated, but we'll sort it out. I think I just need a moment to myself to cool off." Luned offered another weak smile.

"Understandable. Rest well, and we will do tea later, yes?" The question turned out to be a rhetorical one, as the woman spun and continued down the hall without waiting for a response. "And do not fret, I will be sure to send Flint along in a little while so you can make up in privacy." With a wink, the perplexing woman disappeared around the corner.

Luned contained a sigh of relief as she concluded her own journey, slipping into the room she'd shared with Flint. With her back against the closed door, she looked down at her hands and flexed her fingers. They didn't appear any different, but they felt different –– there was no doubt in her mind that Bernd's arm would show the beginnings of a nasty bruise in the next hour. Would that mean trouble for Flint and herself? And where did that strength come from?

In her distress, she'd almost forgotten what had brought them to Salvar in the first place. Carcosa's power still coursed through her veins, and she had yet to fully understand what this meant. She was capable of great things, and restraining a prickly teenage boy was just the tip of the iceberg.

The only thing Luned knew for sure was that she felt so very tired. The primly-made bed welcomed her with gentle warmth and before she knew it, she fell into twilight.

[Luned]

Luned blinked awake to the cool light of late afternoon, stirred by a draft of winter air that had seeped in with a howl around the heavy windowpanes. It disturbed the even heavier curtains, which had been drawn aside to let in the sun. Had she slept that long?

She heard the click of a latch and rolled over to watch as Flint entered the room. She sensed hesitation, even if he didn't show it. "Konstanze heard about our argument… as I'm sure half the castle did," Luned said.

Flint shrugged unconvincingly.

The scribe sat up. "She wrote it off as a 'lovers' quarrel'. We were talking about murdering her family. What are these people, sociopaths?"

He cracked a grim smile. "She is a character," he concurred. After a pensive moment, he set about collecting his possessions which had found themselves strewn about the room. "We're leaving."

When Luned failed to respond with enthusiasm –– or at all, for that matter –– Flint looked up from where he'd been stuffing clothes inside a pack. She remained still on the bed, watching him with wide eyes. "But… why?"

"Fet and I are no longer… on the same page, as you might say." His pause was short, and he went back to packing.

"But… we can't leave. Not yet."

It was Flint's turn to be baffled. "And why is this?"

"I… sit with me for a minute. Please?" Luned moved over to make room next to her. Flint cooperated and occupied the space she offered, though with the addition of palpable tension. "I saw something earlier," she began, nearly in a whisper.

He simply stared back, waiting for elaboration.

Luned leaned in close, speaking as softly as humanly possible. "Roxanne isn't dead. They're keeping her in the dungeon, locked away in secret. Oh gods, Flint, the state she's in… she used to be beautiful. Terrifying, but beautiful. Now her hair, it's… and the scars. Her arm, and I-I think one of her legs, they're just… they're gone." She rubbed at her eyes, as if to recall the image pained her.

Flint sighed. "Roxanne was the noble who arrested you and your friends, was she not?"

The girl looked up, blinked, and nodded. "Yes, but…"

"And this woman murdered her own father and pinned it on you, did she not?"

She frowned. "Flint, doesn't this strike you as strange? What are they keeping her down there for? It's… she's the product of her father's abuse, I can't blame her for anything that happened. What they're doing to her is inhumane."

The man understood her obsession with fixing things well enough that he didn't have to guess; he just knew. "You want to help her."

Hesitantly, Luned nodded. "Yes, I do."

"Alright, let us think this through together. On our way out, we miraculously manage to abduct this deranged individual from the dungeon without incurring the wrath of Fet and his men, who have us grossly outnumbered. This assumes she wants to come with us in the first place. Do we drag her through the Salvaran winter with us? Will you be the one to carry her on your back? And now we must find passage for an extra body to Radasanth, all the while not calling attention to ourselves. I imagine that will be a real challenge while we cart around a living corpse."

Luned crumpled under Flint's harsh stare. "It's my fault that this happened to her," she said, eyes and chest burning. "I could have saved her from this, but I didn't. I need to make it right."

Something softened in Flint's expression. "You cannot resurrect the dead, Luned."

"But she's not––"

Flint grimaced. "Roxanne should be dead, and as the rest of the world is concerned, she is. What do you honestly believe you could do for her now? If it was my choice––"

"I know what you would do, Flint," Luned glared. "You can't kill everyone."

"And you can't fix everything, Luned," Flint said through his teeth, then stood to finish packing. He took out some frustration on his pack, tying it so tightly that the cord strained to contain it. But, after a moment of silent brewing, he put his thoughts into words she might understand. "There is dignity in death."

But, when he turned to see if she had heard, she was gone.

[Luned]

It had been too much. Luned had drawn her knees to her chest and buried her face in them, hiding her tears. She was angry, not at Flint, but at herself. She knew that, at least this time, he was right.

She missed the library so much it hurt. As she allowed herself the first sob, she imagined herself back in Corone, where winter was milder and Bleddyn's magic kept the hearths warm and hallways bright. She missed her room and its east-facing windows, where she could look out and just barely see the glimmer of the river on the horizon. As she thought about it more, she almost swore she could smell the dried feverfew that Resolve had collected from the courtyard and crafted into fragrant bouquets. Her friend had hung some in each room to fend off moths, and it had worked.

But no –– Luned really could smell it. She felt the draft again and so she wrapped her arms around herself, but her fingers found goosebumps in place of cloth. Luned lifted her head, puzzled, and blinked the eerily quiet room into focus. Flint wasn't there, and the window had shifted and multiplied. She didn't believe it at first, but when she heard the familiar chime of evening bells in the distance, she knew it was real.

Luned was home, leaving Flint, Salvar, and her clothes all behind.

"How…?"

[Warpath]

A sudden, powerful gust of air threatened to drag Flint in toward the middle of the room. Flames leaned alarmingly into the room from the fireplace, and the windows rattled in their frames. The brute knew instinctively that this was no natural wind: it wasn't coming from without, it was the air already in the room shifting to accommodate some rapid change in the atmosphere.

The cause was obvious. In one instant there sat a woman, and in the next there was a void that needed to be filled.

"Luned...?"

Flint glanced around the room, fingers twitching nervously at his sides. "Are you...?" He strained his ears for sounds of her breathing. It wouldn't be the first time he'd seen her render herself invisible, but even so...he had a strange, absolute, and immediate sense of being painfully alone. This seemed to him the emptiest room he'd ever beheld.

"Lune...?"

He approached the bed cautiously. Magic was at work here, and he did not understand magic at the best of times. He wracked his brain. Had she been about to give him some important piece of information - had someone stolen her to protect a secret? Was Fet punishing him? But no, Fet didn't trust magic any more than Flint did. The Essens, then...?

He shook his head slowly. They were too poor to have a mage at court.

The sheets were tangled where she'd been sitting, whipped up by the vortex she'd left in her wake. He cautiously smoothed them, afraid of what he might find, and he almost flinched when he discovered something. There was a tightly wound wad of cloth there, still warm, and as Flint worked at it he realized it was her clothing.

He backed away and let his mind work. It took too long for him to come to it. Of course it wasn't possible to destroy or steal away a human being with such precision, which meant the magic hadn't come from someone else. That left one possibility, and when he let himself accept that he felt his shoulders droop.

She hadn't been stolen.

She left.

[Luned]

As Luned stood, the room spun, and she leaned against the footboard for balance. Exhaustion nagged at her with each unbalanced step that she took toward the wardrobe.

This familiar weariness felt just as it did after she'd attacked Aurelianus. It was then she'd discovered the first of the new abilities that Bleddyn and Carcosa had gifted her; she had power and didn't know how to use it. What she'd just done had been an accident, just as her assault on the tiefling.

But, unlike that outburst, this proved to be a convenient one. As Luned pulled an old dress over her head, her foggy mind began to piece together what this meant.

"I can send the ship a message so they know what happened to us," she muttered to herself in relief, fingers fumbling with buttons. "I could…" she trailed off, unsure what it was that she truly wanted. She didn't dare try to bring someone with her until she had Bleddyn's guidance in how to use this new talent properly –– she couldn't be responsible for whatever harm might fall upon them if things went wrong. At this point, she understood just how silly she'd been to have thought she could help Roxanne in the first place.

She just knew that she needed to get back to Flint. Was he worried?

The scribe staggered down the steps of the empty library, bare feet cold against stone. She knew Bleddyn wouldn't be there and forced that ache from her chest. She would manage. First she'd find his book and send her brother a note to assure him of their safety, then she'd pay the safe a visit for some sorely needed gold.

After that, as much as she hated to admit, would come sleep. Luned needed to recuperate to have the energy to pull a trick like that again. All she could do was cross her fingers that this rest would be shorter than the last.

[Warpath]

Flint sat on the edge of the bed, bent forward with his forearms rested across his knees. There he sat and ruminated for what felt like hours, and it was. Only now, upon looking back, did he realize that he'd been standing at a crossroads. He hadn't been panicking about losing Fet and his support - he'd been panicking about losing Luned.

Now that he'd taken the wrong turn, at least, the feeling of dread and loss had passed and left only a cold numbness. With the test failed, there was nothing left to weigh on him.

The light outside was fading, and the fire had burnt itself out to snapping cinders. He sat upright and lifted his hands to stare at the palms, and he began to formulate plans. Fet would have to die, that much was clear. The bastard's men knew Flint, and if pressed Radek would help keep them in line. The more he thought about it, the more assured he felt that he could control them.

They would need incentive of course, and the Essens provided it. If Fet's corpse was discovered, it would take minimal effort to see the blame foisted upon Bernd first. There had been two witnesses to the altercation between Fet and he, but none to Flint's outburst and threats. Flint would lead the charge to seize the boy, and see him hanged from the tallest window in the keep. Konstanze was smarter than she would have anyone believe - she'd stay out of the way and work her own plots, certainly. Flint would see her quietly confined to the dungeons with her daughter, and then disposed of once his grip over the men was cemented. Perhaps he'd leave them both down there, and then set the keep afire when he marched for the nearest neighboring barony.

Flint meticulously worked through his plans, and then crafted escape routes for each step. At the very worst he would have only his revenge for Fet's betrayal, at the best he'd have a full force of fighting men by morning. Either way, the crusade would go on.

The brute moved to his feet and moved through the room, pacing as he finalized the details. He was on the offensive again, and it felt good. This was who he was, unfettered. His humanity was a cancer that grew inside him, diluting his potential - his power. He was fear, unbridled, unhindered by petty attachments.

That is what he told himself, over and over, as the room continued to darken and chill, but it wasn't working. He couldn't shake the feeling of wrongness, the emptiness, the loss.

Finally he turned and looked over his shoulder at the place where Luned had been sleeping, hours and an eternity ago. He'd faced a dilemma then, too, to stand beside her or to go on the offensive, and despite himself he felt he'd chosen wrong.

A new option occurred to him, like a spark in the dark, and it pushed the numbness aside.

It wasn't what he wanted to do. It wasn't what he thought was the best plan, and it wasn't what the man called Flint was known for - if he did it right there'd be no screams, no fire, no fear but his own.

Still, he resolved to do it, and he was surprised to feel stronger than he ever had before.

[Warpath]

Flint found him in the servants' quarters, defacing an otherwise sturdy wooden table with a knife and looking sullen.

"Still want in?" he said from the shadows.

Radek jumped, switching his grip with practiced ease and glaring into the shadows. "Who's that? Eh? Flint?"

"Who else talks to you?" Flint said, glancing around the room before slipping in and closing the door behind him. "I am short on time, answer me. Do you still want in?"

"Of fucking course I do," Radek hissed.

"As fair warning, I may have lost Fet's good side."

"What the hell do I care? Little bastard's gone soft for posh gash, he can burn in hell for all I care."

Flint stared at the thug for a beat, then said, "We will need horses. I hid two supply packs in the kennels. Collect them. Procure horses from the stables, fresh ones, load two of them with the packs and leave them beside the east wall. Take a third and anything else you need, go to Rubble Town and set up camp in the old place. Get my chest, meet me in Tirel in a week. No, sixteen days. If you have any men loyal to you over Fet, you may bring them. Only ask those who can keep quiet."

Radek nodded readily and sheathed his knife. "What about the Harthworth witch?"

"She has served her purpose."

Radek narrowed his eyes.

"I have no interest in explaining every detail to you," Flint sighed. "She is gone. Are you in or out?"

"East wall?"

"East wall."

Radek smiled, and it wasn't pleasant.

[Warpath]

It was apparent that the Essen barony did not see much in the way of visitors. The chambers down the hall and across from Flint's own were empty and had been for some time. He was watching the hallway from inside, door opened a minuscule crack. It did not take long before a troop of Fet's guard arrived, hands on hilts.

They hammered on the door, and for a moment Flint worried that Luned had magically reappeared inside and would answer. It didn't happen. Instead, the guards forced the door open and entered with torches held high. A long moment passed, and then one men began to give out orders to the rest.

"They can't have gone far," he said. "You, give the room a more thorough search. It's a mess in there, Skovik might have left something behind in his fury and haste. You two guard the door in case he should return. Don't try to apprehend him, just sound the alarm. You, report to Lord Fet. You, question the staff. The rest of you with me to the stables."

So far so good. It had been a joy to trash the room, and it encouraged them to imagine him angry and unhinged. They would discover the missing horses first, and Fet would certainly send a detachment along the road to Tirel first. When Radek's tracks toward Knife's Edge were discovered, they'd have to send more men down that way, leaving a skeleton crew to patrol the keep.

Flint closed the door and whiled away an hour and a half, pacing the room and doing press-ups. Every so often he would hear heavy boots thumping up and down the halls and shouted orders until, gradually, the frequency of the noises died down.

Time to move.

The keep's halls were cold, quiet, and mostly empty. Fet had wisely kept a heavier guard than Flint expected, and the brute had to hand it to the bastard: he knew his friends better than one might have guessed. The sight of so heavy a guard standing around the way to Fet's quarters might have caused dismay, but Fet wasn't the target tonight.

The dungeons were entirely forgotten, save for the woman that appeared suddenly at the top of the stairs. Flint ducked into the shadows and watched as she turned and locked the access door, and then returned the thick ring of keys to a secure place on her belt. He cursed inwardly, wishing at once he'd brought Radek after all. Radek could have deftly extricated the key ring from the woman's possession without her noticing...

...but he was more like to slit her throat than make the effort. Flint frowned and looked down at his hands, flexing the bone-breaking fingers there. He tightened them into fists and lowered them, and forced himself to watch the woman walk away.

He counted to three hundred, and then stalked over to the door. It was solidly locked. The brute let himself think it over for a long moment, and then put his hand against the door just to the side of the lock and gradually pushed. The noise was quiet at first, little snaps that grew louder with every passing second as the door groaned. Flint sighed and shoved, and the door came loose with a thunderous crack.

Shouts came immediately from down the hall, and Flint ducked into the stairwell as swiftly as he was able. He closed the door behind him and held the knob with one hand, and used the other to hold the door closed. It took a painfully long time, but the voices grew louder until they were surely right outside the door and then, at last, someone tried the knob. Flint held it still as the man outside tried to turn it, and the door did not budge when the guard tried to push it in.

The brute held his breath, and then the pressure stopped. "This one's good," the guard said. "Try the next one."

The sound of footfalls receded down the hallway, and Flint let himself breathe again. It was possible for a second sweep to come through, but it was also possible they could keep checking and double-checking doors until morning. Eventually the woman would return with her keys, and she might wonder why the door wouldn't open for her either.

No choice but to move on.

Flint turned and peered down the stairwell, and felt a chill.

[Warpath]

These stairs had the weight of history: memories that Luned had related to him in such horrid detail that he knew them upon sight. He could almost smell death here, and hear the ghosts of men he'd never seen alive or dead. He descended, and part of him actually expected to find a grotesque corpse at the bottom.

Of course, there was nothing there. The hall was long but quiet, the cells left empty now that the keep had fallen into the hands of someone a great deal less bloodthirsty than its previous master. One door was soundly closed, though, and an anemic light reached out across the floor from beneath it.

Flint tried the door silently, and was unsurprised to find it locked. A quick glance around showed no keys hanging conveniently within reach, and the jamb and its casing were hard steel. He wouldn't be forcing this lock, not like he did upstairs. The brute removed his coat, exposing his arms and his metal-clad forearms. He would have to pray that the dungeons were deep enough to muffle the clamor he was about to create.

He raised his right arm high, like a blacksmith at his forge except that he held no hammer, and then he brought it down fiercely so that his vambrace struck the knob with a spark and the scream of torn metal. The knob clattered on the stone floor, and he heard the other half of it doing the same from within the cell. He need only step aside and watch the door slowly swing open.

Roxanne Essen was as wretched as Luned had said, or more. She was propped upright in an overlarge bed and dressed in scant burlap rags, as if her captors were loathe to waste resources as fine as wool on her. That she hadn't frozen to death was a wonder, but it was sufficient to keep her decent. This mainly because there wasn't much to her anymore: she was alarmingly gaunt, her yellowed skin clinging to the contour of every bone. Flint could almost make out her individual teeth through her lips, and her eyes were black, sunken pools inside a parchment-clad skull.

She was on a tremendous four-poster bed of fine mahogany. Indeed, her cell was full of finery and furniture: a vanity, a writing desk, a jewelry chest, a lit candelabra, portraits and tapestries. Every piece was a mockery. The bed was fine, but the mattress looked to be poorly stuffed with soggy straw, and she laid under a single stiff burlap sheet, if it could be called that. Flint guessed it was what was left of a sack, cut open. The tapestries were all moth-eaten and tattered, the vanity had no mirror, the portraits were all of beautiful, sneering women, and every book in her possession was ancient and swollen with water damage.

She stared up at him, skeletal chest rising and falling laboriously. Her hair was black and shorn tight and patchy to her scalp, and it was troublingly thin.

"This was a waste of time," Flint said quietly as he looked the room over. "You are already dead."

"Assassin?" she croaked.

His eyes flicked back to her and narrowed. He was surprised she could speak at all, but he didn't show it. "Not today," he said.

Her lips immediately curled into a tight, tiny, wry half-smile, and her eyes fluttered closed for a second. "Savior," she croaked, and he could only just detect the dry amusement in her voice.

Flint grunted. He nodded at a tray of food left untouched on the desk: an overflowing bowl of fruit, a tall glass of water, a slice of fresh bread with butter, and a fine cut of horsemeat. "Poisoned?"

She nodded slightly. "Started again when the man came."

"Fet tried to poison you?"

She frowned. "Doubtful. Bernd probably. Maybe Mother. Maybe Inge. Inge did it before."

"To what end?"

"Won't break," she said firmly, and a sudden fire came into her eyes. "Won't renounce my claim. Never. They die or I die."

"If you do not eat, it will be the latter."

"Latter likely," she wheezed, "either way."

Flint nodded slightly, looking her over. "I can take you out of here," he said. "I...you might not be strong enough to leave."

She stared at him in silence for a long time. "Don't want to die here," she whispered at last.

Flint crouched down beside her and gently lifted her upright, and he spoke softly in Salvic. "Then you won't," he said.

[Warpath]

He went searching the other cells and storage closets, and pieced together an amalgamation of warm clothing. At first he set the clothing down for her and turned his back to preserve her modesty, but after a long moment of struggle, she quietly demanded his help. She stared at the far wall while he helped her out of the burlap, and he could feel her tremble in relief as he put her in real clothing - maybe the first she'd worn in years.

"Shame is good," he told her. "Your spirit has not left you yet."

"Infections," she croaked, and there was a new pain behind it. Flint understood. Her left arm and right leg were gone, severed at the knee and elbow.

"How?" he said. "I know you took an arrow, but I was told it was to the chest."

She nodded. She pulled the collar of her shirt down - she'd already been robbed of her modesty - and showed him a puckered scar above her breast. "Missed my heart by a thread," she said. "Tried torturing me after. Warden was dead, they didn't know how. Cuts got infected."

"And yet, you still want to be one of them," Flint said, wrapping his coat around her shoulders.

"Not like them," she said firmly. "Was strong. Stronger than Father."

This seemed to please her, and that tiny smile returned again - genuine this time. Flint knew she was reminiscing about his death, and he knew why it would give her pleasure. "He had the illness, too," Flint said. "In the mind. Do you not worry that it is in the blood? That you were born with it, too?"

She shook her head slightly. "All monsters. Poor, rich. Your family, mine. Not just Essen blood. All blood. Mine. Yours."

Flint stared at her for a long moment, the dark places in his heart singing. She saw it! She understood! And wasn't it possible she was right? Yes, he'd seen the nobles do horrific things, but what about lowborn people like Radek? Maybe the sickness wasn't just this kind of people or that, maybe it was in everyone.

He shook his head slightly. "No," he said. Not everyone. Not Blue, or the captain. Not his father, or his sisters. Not Muir. Not Bleddyn.

Not Luned.

And not in him, either.

"Hold on to me," he told her, bending down and gathering her up in his arms. She was impossibly light, and when she wrapped her one whole arm around his neck he realized the futility of it. She couldn't hold herself upright or against him if her life depended on it. Instead she collapsed against him like a sleeping child, head lolling against his shoulder.

Accidentally crushing her seemed like a real threat and he felt that if he dropped her, her bones would scatter dryly across the floor and that would be that. So he carried her delicately, and waited to feel her last breath shudder out of her. When they reached the top of the stairs he asked if she was still alive, and he almost jumped when he felt her nod.

"We must be silent," he told her quietly. "They are already looking for us."

"Like a ghost," she breathed, and he could hear the bitter smile on her lips.

[Warpath]

The empty, cavernous hallways of the Essen keep seemed to take every breath and footfall and amplify them a million times, echoing up and down their lengths like a madman screaming alarum. It had been important not to get caught when he was getting down to the dungeon, the success of his mission depended upon it. Now if he was discovered, it would mean Roxanne's death. He couldn't run without breaking her, he couldn't fight holding her, and there would be no safe way to lay her down without hurting her or getting overwhelmed.

Despite what she was and what she'd done, he couldn't stomach the thought. He would do everything in his power to save this wretched woman, or at least ensure that her last whisper was in fresh air.

They were close now, only a short way to the servant's quarters and the kennels, and the nearest exit to the east side of the keep where the horses waited for them. His strides grew longer, and he felt less compelled to dart into every shadowy doorway and peer back over his shoulder - they were almost there.

And then he tensed and his blood ran cold before he realized why: there was an inhuman sound piercing the late-night silence, a banshee's scream that reverberated in the bones. It came again and again and Flint's head turned this way and that in a panic, until his eyes fell upon the source.

To his right was a tremendous mirror set into the wall, framed by silks. He looked into the mirror and saw Roxanne in his arms, small and frail and on death's door and shrieking at the top of her lungs as she stared at her own reflection.

Someone shouted from down the hall, and the now-familiar sound of thundering boots came echoing from deeper in the keep.

[Warpath]

They were huddled on the far side of a cold hearth in the shadows of an empty room, and Roxanne was wailing against his neck. "It was me," she cried, over and over.

"You have to be quiet," he whispered to her harshly. "Please be quiet."

She didn't hear him. He lifted her and forced her to look directly at his eyes. Despite her grief she was more alive than he'd seen her yet, her cheeks reddening, her eyes larger and clearer now that they were full of tears. "It was me," she cried at him tremulously. "What did they do? What did they do to me?"

"They hurt you," Flint growled. "And if you keep screaming, they will find you, and they will kill us both. If you want to punish them, you have to be quiet."

Her eyes roamed, as if she was pleading for something from the heavens, and then she buried her face in his shoulder to muffle her sobs. They rocked and wracked her entire body with bone-shaking force, but she cried silently. Flint closed his eyes and pressed the back of his head to the hearth and listened.

He heard them everywhere, shouting and running, arms and armor clattering. They were searching the servant's quarters and the kennels, sealing the doors there no doubt, posting guards. They'd wake up the reserves soon, and begin searching room by room once more. Every time they ran past he heard snatches of sentences. They said things like "horses" and "dungeon." Had they discovered that Roxanne was missing? Had they found the horses? Had Radek been run down - was he spilling everything?

Flint's mind raced, searching his memory for a way out. Those that weren't too obvious were too far. He tried to decide which exit would be the safest to fight his way through, but no scenario ended with Roxanne in his arms.

Then he heard her mutter against his shoulder.

"What?"

"You have to get me out of here," she said. Her voice held all the conviction in the world, and she forced herself upright to stare at him, verve and savagery in her sunken eyes. "Get me out of here and I'll find some way to repay you. Anything. Everything. Please."

Flint searched her face. "There is only one way," he said slowly.

"Then that's the way we're going. Now."

"I do not know if you will survive it."

"I will."

[Warpath]

The guards didn't search this way because the stairs spiraled up.

Flint kept near the right wall and walked slow, letting his back bump the stones every so often to keep him oriented. They ascended slowly, and the air gradually chilled, until eventually Flint could sense something solid above them. A ceiling or...

"Hold on," he told her, and he felt her arm tighten around his neck. There was new strength there. He hoped it was enough.

He reached up and let his fingertips glide along the stones, until the stones gave way to wood. He searched the wood for a long time until he found the metal ring and the lock beside it, and then he pushed upward until the hatch lifted.

They were out atop the tower now. It would be some time still before the sun started rising in earnest, but already he could see the silhouettes of trees, and he could almost make out the shapes of clouds in the earliest morning sky. It wouldn't be long now before Fet came up here for his morning constitutional.

Roxanne shuddered in his arms, but twisted away from him to look around.

"The tower?" she said, dismayed. "There's no way out here."

Flint approached the crenels and peered over the side. "There is," he said. "Perhaps nobody has taken it and survived, but there is a way."

"You're insane."

"I will survive it," he told her, and looked at her expectantly.

"If you can, I can."

"I cannot hold you and climb at the same time. Not reliably."

"I can hold on."

"There will be times..."

"I can hold on."

Flint nodded slightly. "Okay."

He stepped up into the crenel, and he waited for Roxanne's arm to tighten around his neck before he bent down. He only hesitated for a moment before swinging his legs out beneath him and over the edge of the wall, and he caught himself with his right hand. Despite his warning, he wrapped his left around her waist and held her to him, and for a breathless second in time they just hung from the edge of the tower, surrounded in the cold, inky black. The ground might have been just beneath his toes, or it might have been an endless abyss that waited for them.

"Hold," he hissed at her, and she tightened her good arm around his neck fiercely and threw what was left of the other over his shoulder. He hesitated, sure he was about to lose her, but she could only squeeze herself to him for so long.

He braced his legs against the wall, and then shoved himself along the stones to the right. He felt her breath catch, and realized in freefall that he wasn't breathing either. He stretched his hand out into the dark, snatching at nothing - had he overshot? Undershot? Surely he should have reached it by now, and if he'd missed it then they'd fall and fall until the snow rose up to meet them, and he had a nightmare flash of being found by Fet's men in the morning, frozen to death with broken legs beside the east wall.

And then he felt something brush his fingers, and he grabbed at it with one hand. It was cloth, and the ice and cold made it slick so that it slid through his grasp. He lashed out with the other hand and scrambled and slowly, gradually, his descent was halted and he felt his boots slap against the wall again.

Fet had hung a banner over the side of the tower - his own sigil - and now Flint was hanging from it. Roxanne's arm was trembling, but she held fast to his torso, twisting her body so that her weight rested on his thigh, and she wrapped her leg lamely around his hips. At any moment, she was going to slip away from him and he knew he could not hold the banner with just one hand.

"Hold," he growled at her.

She renewed her grip on him, whimpering with the effort, summoning up strength from muscles she didn't have - strength enough to snap her brittle bones and crush the lungs in her chest.

Flint shoved away from the wall to the right, pushing himself - almost running along the vertical surface - until they swung as far out as the banner could reach, and then the pendulum swing brought them in again, and he kicked out at the wall once to keep them from battering their bodies against it. The banner wrapped around the tower, swinging them with neck-snapping force, and at the apex of the swing Flint released his grip on the banner and let it fall away from him. For another painful moment they hung in the abyss with the wind howling in their ears, and then Flint caught the edge of something on the stone with his fingertips.

The sudden stop tore Roxanne away from his body, and threatened to tug him off of his handhold. At first he reached to catch her, but he quickly realized the futility of it: if he did not use his free hand to catch the wall, they would both fall and she would die anyway. He grabbed the ledge with both hands and roared, "Hold on!"

Roxanne slipped and slid down along his torso, and she yelped and scrambled, and at the very moment he lost hope and prepared to watch her fall into oblivion, she lashed out and curled her skeletal fingers into the material of his shirt. Her eyes met his, and then she matched his roar with one of her own.

It was impossible. She was eighty pounds of skin and bone, battered, broken, poisoned, destroyed. She had no chance, no hope - no gods to pray to, no right to live. She had no friends, and her family had done this to her. She had been ground into nothing, nothing.

And Flint watched her drag herself up by one twig-like arm, screaming her defiance into the black. Her entire body shook with the effort. Her tendons threatened to rip the marrow from her bones. The veins strained to bursting. And when she was high enough, Flint pushed his leg up under her and she threw her arm around his neck again, and this time she bit into his shirt. She held onto him with everything she had.

He let himself drop once, and caught the ledge. She grunted, wheezed, growled, but did not slip. He dropped again.

And then his boots met the ground and he fell to his knees panting. She hung loose in his arms, and when he raised his eyes to look at her she smiled at him, exhausted to the edge of her life.

"Told you," she whispered. "Told you I could..."

And then her head rolled slowly back against his armored forearm and her eyes fluttered closed.

[Warpath]

The road to Tirel was not easy.

They'd made their escape with no food or money. Flint stole eggs from a farmhouse on the first morning, and cooked them on a fire built from a stolen wagon. Roxanne devoured them, and promptly vomited them back up again. At first it seemed her body was determined to kill her, but they pressed on. The next time Flint found food, he fed it to her slowly. This time she kept it down.

He expected to wake up in the mornings that followed to find her dead. It was a struggle at first, but she woke up every time. Against all odds, she improved. She got stronger.

They sold the horses in Tirel, which left them enough for food but not enough to travel. Flint had a safe house there on the docks. Fet had set it up for him, but he didn't see another choice. It wasn't large and it wasn't safe, but it was warm and Flint's allies knew where to find him.

Radek showed up before he was supposed to, but he brought the chest he was meant to bring. In it was more money, almost enough to buy passage for one to Radasanth. Instead, Flint spent it. Roxanne needed better fare to recover on, and clothing, and he had a decent crutch built for her, a peg leg, and at her request he bought her an old rapier. He gave her his knife, much to Radek's chagrin. It was a good knife, and the cutthroat had had his eyes on it for years.

When Roxanne found out who had put Flint up to saving her, she'd laughed until he thought she was going to drown in tears.

And when he thought nobody was looking, he stared at a piece of parchment paper covered in two distinct sets of handwriting, and thought up countless words that were never quite good enough.

[Luned]

She dreamt again. It drew out long enough that she questioned her own reality, and when she awoke, it took a moment to remember herself again.

The feverfew grounded her. At first, the spice of dried flowers half convinced Luned that she would turn her head to see Brigid working in her chair by the hearth. Instead, she saw her desk, the top still cluttered with abandoned projects. Afternoon sun winked at her through the window just above, the whistle of Radasanth's blissfully mild winter bringing her to the rest of her senses.

The room felt chilly and Luned lifted herself to spy the cold ashes of the fireplace. She didn't know how long she'd slept, but in the end, in didn't matter. Her next actions wouldn't have changed if it had been a day or a week. From the creak of her muscles, she assumed it had been somewhere in between.

Luned made tea and it eased the tumult that grew in her stomach. She collected her things: a fresh journal for communication, and of course, money. Abandoning her usual blouse and skirt, she chose a heavier dress. And as she drew the familiar warmth of her old uniform's cape around her shoulders, she drew a deep breath for mental fortification. Just days ago, she never would have willingly returned to the place that had changed her so irrevocably, but what she'd told Bernd wasn't a lie. She'd changed.

The scribe clutched her possessions to her chest, closed her eyes, and imagined the keep. To recall it in the necessary amount of detail incited a shiver, and her mind shied away to cling to what she really wanted: Flint.

She focused on the creak of well-worn leather, the weight of his presence, the reassuring confidence of his voice. Luned strengthened her grip on her things, willing them along with her. She squeezed them as if to make them part of herself, all the while grasping desperately for the man she needed on the other side of the world.

Something in the room stirred around her, a mysterious draft pulling at the curtains and sending parchment fluttering to the floor.

She vanished.

[Luned]

Flint had been teaching Roxanne some light exercises to nurture her strength. In just a few days, sharpness had returned to the woman's stare and the faintest color to her cheeks, though those may have been simply to the credit of simple luxuries such as warm clothing and the allowance of personal dignity.

They planned much of her training around her artificial limb; though she had proved stubborn enough to make it work from day one, hobbling around their hideout until she collapsed from exhaustion, it required practiced strength and balance to be truly useful. Flint worked with her on this and her dedication pleased him.

This morning, Roxanne insisted on ditching the crutch, but Flint still imagined all those harshly visible bones to be as brittle as plaster. "You cannot afford a fall," he argued, standing against the far wall of the hovel.

"Then I will not," she retorted in minimalist obstinacy. Roxanne lifted herself from her chair as if an arthritic elder, but even as her knee trembled, her noble posture persevered. Never did she let her chin droop, at least not before they'd properly pushed her to her limits. She tested her weight on her peg leg, still a foreign pressure against what was left of that limb, and she swayed.

Flint stepped forward but met obstruction, stopped in his tracks as the air within the dark, cramped room unsettled. As he registered the figure that materialized before him, it fell into him, and wrapped his arms around it.

"I'm sorry I left," Luned muttered against his shoulder. "How long was I gone?"

His fingers found themselves at home in her loose hair. "A few days."

She sighed, lifted her head, and blinked the room into focus. She could see a small wood stove, the leftovers from breakfast sitting atop, and a heavily bolted door. Only the small fire offered light and the air was dry and laced with smoke. All of the packs had been stacked in the corner by the door and she found herself surprised to see hers there along with them. "Where is this?"

"Tirel."

"Ah," Luned said, as if she should have known. "Oh! I have something…" She unraveled her arms under her cape and was pleased to find the objects still there, though her knuckles felt numb from her death grip. The coins spilled to the floor in a thunderous rain of gold; apparently she'd remembered to bring them, but not the purse. From the odd feeling of stockinged feet on the cold floor, she'd forgotten her shoes, too. That new trick of hers would take some practice. "I hope it's enough."

"I should think so," Roxanne piped up from where she stood, as stubborn as she was unsteady. "Hello, witch."

The scribe reeled to view the unexpected company. "How…?"

Flint stabilized her with a hand. "I could ask the same."

[Luned]

They all had a seat, Roxanne in the chair and the couple on the cot, and they talked. Luned explained her half of things, bringing some relief along with the funds. The sense of urgency diminished knowing that their comrades now had an explanation of their disappearance. In return, she got their story.

"Fet hasn't come looking for you?" she pried skeptically.

"It is only a matter of time. Now that we have the means, we should depart as soon as possible. Ships leave for Radasanth most days," Flint recalled.

Luned glanced to Roxanne. "And what about you?"

"I have never seen Corone," she said, eyeing her back.

"Well… would you like to?"

"No," Roxanne replied with a hint of wryness.

Flint leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "You will go with Radek to Knife's Edge."

The woman nodded in silent approval, apparently finding that plan much more suitable than Luned's halfhearted invitation.

"You could go with them," Luned looked to Flint, brow furrowed. "I have a way back now. I don't want you to feel obligated."

The man simply shook his head, and she found herself both surprised and relieved. From the corner of her eye, she caught Roxanne's curious glance between them, but chose to ignore it. "They will go establish themselves in Rubble Town," Flint replied plainly, "and I will catch up with them later. For now, I have business in Radasanth."

Luned soon realized just how hungry she was, and Flint offered her something while Roxanne practiced walking the length of the short room with her hand on the wall. Not long passed before a patterned knock sounded at the door, bringing Radek with it. A stern glare from Flint silenced any questions he had about the witch's reappearance and they set about making plans.

The scribe fell asleep with the bowl still in her hands.

[Luned]

By some miracle, Flint managed to wake Luned long enough for them to catch a ship. She experienced this transition through a foggy haze, one which ended as soon as she hit the sheets of the bed in their cabin.

When she awoke again, the last of sunset blazed quietly through the small window. The familiar creak of rope and wood met her ears in comfortable symphony, and for a second, she honestly believed she was back on the boat with Muir and Blue and Gasper –– back before their unintended journey through Salvar, as if it all had been nothing but a dream.

But this cabin, along with the bed, were bigger than the last, and the occasional, muffled shouts were unfamiliar. Flint sat at a desk underneath the window, using the last of daylight to scribble something on a piece of paper. Luned sat up, saw what it was, and smiled. "How is Suska?"

He glanced over to her, then finished what he was writing with a few more marks. "Well, I assume." He held it up, and though dim, she made out a crude sketch of a wolf-like puppy playing with something that might have been mistaken for a woolly sheep, save its unmistakable maw. "They appear to be getting along."

Luned scooted to the edge of the bed and lowered her feet to the floor, stretching her legs. Flint offered her some water before she thought to ask and she gladly accepted it. "You surprised me back there," she said.

"You were right," he admitted with a readiness that told her he'd practiced this conversation already. "And she will be useful."

This response appeased her, but only somewhat. "You trust Radek with her?"

"No. I trust Radek with Radek," Flint clarified. "Fet will never have him back now, so he will work hard to keep my favor. No one else will want a miscreant like him. And I have a feeling she will keep him on his toes," he added with the smallest grin. Luned could sense him plotting already.

She frowned. "Are you sure you want to come with me? I can't help but feel… I mean, I'd hate to think I'm holding you back. Even if we don't always agree on things, I don't want it to be that way. I'm afraid that we're going to get back to the library and slowly but surely you're going to resent me, and that I'll have earned it."

The man shifted in his seat, his knees brushing hers as he turned to face her. He replaced the empty glass on the table before leaning forward, slowly, and brushing some hair from her face. "That will not happen."

"Promise," Luned insisted. "If you ever think it might not be working, for whatever reason, promise that you'll talk to me."

"I promise," Flint said, watching her face. "No secrets."

Luned smiled tentatively, then leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, where she relaxed into his warmth with a sigh.

[Warpath]

Flint curled his fingers in the scribe's hair as she melted against him, and she made a small, surprised sound against his shoulder.

"What is it?" he said, brow slightly furrowed.

She shook her head and smiled up at him apologetically. "This new trick takes a lot out of me, I guess. Just...lightheaded?"

Flint nodded slightly. "You did not eat much before you fell to sleep again," he said. "I am starting to worry that it is becoming normal for you to sleep away days and weeks at a time."

"I hope not," Luned said, frowning.

Flint shook his head, banishing the notion as a joke immediately. "It is a consequence of testing your limits," he declared. "The more you do it, the more accustomed you will become to it, like exhausting a muscle. Sleep is how you recover, and food. I will get you some."

Luned grinned. "You're an expert on magic taken from weird, dimension-hopping islands now?"

Flint grunted, giving her a look. A few months ago she might have worried that she'd offended him, but experience told her otherwise and she smiled a little wider. "Do you want food, or not?" he said.

She nodded, and with some effort - and a little reluctance - she pushed herself upright again. He slid to his feet in front of her, and there was an instant there before he stepped away that her heart fluttered in her chest. She was mostly recovered by the time he reached the door.

"Um," she said, running her fingers sleepily through her hair and shaking her head as if to quickly cool the rush of heat from her cheeks. "Is there a washbowl somewhere?"

Flint nodded, hand on the doorknob. "Across the hall, here. We share a privy with the captain, but he will be asleep by now."

Luned's mind wandered over everything she must have missed, and she laughed wryly. "You must have carried me on board. How long was...? You know what, I don't want to know. What did you tell them?"

Flint smiled. "They are Salvic. I told them you are a witch."

The scribe raised her eyebrows. "Is that safe?"

He shrugged, and seemed even happier about it. "It is amusing. They tell stories about how your mind wanders while your body rests and you can see everything they do. They think I am ensorcelled to protect you, and they are all afraid you will do it to them, too. It has bought us a wide berth."

Luned laughed at that. "That's...ridiculous," she said, ruminating for a fraction of a second the superstitions of Salvar and all the trouble she'd been in because of them.

"Is it?" Flint said thoughtfully, almost to himself, and without waiting for an answer he slipped out of the room.

[Warpath]

Luned lifted her head from the washbowl, towel pressed to the lower half of her face, and she peered at herself in the small looking glass mounted on the wall immediately in front of her. She expected to see someone ragged and worn from too much time spent on wave and road, followed by far too much time in bed. She expected more scars to add to her collection, dark rings around her eyes, bruises and signs of malnutrition. That wasn't who looked back at her.

Her eyes were steady, bright, and clear, and her shoulders were strong and straight. She was leaner and harder than she'd been when Bleddyn had sat her down and first broached the subject of a voyage to mythical Carcosa. She couldn't be sure, but she thought she was haler, firmer even than she'd been when she woke up in the far-flung north with a small white bear smiling in her face. She'd told Bernd that she'd changed, but it was still the same small, intrepid scholar looking back at her. It was only that some of the pliancy and confusion was gone, burned away by the harsh cold of Andvall.

Her trials couldn't make her Suska or Brigid, or even Konstanze. She was no closer to being Roxanne. She wasn't fear, and she never would be. She was still the little scribe from Radasanth. But she saw that there were parts of her that weren't unlike parts of them, for better or worse, traits that had always been there. They'd been cultivated, brought to the fore, and now...

She'd told Bernd she'd changed, but maybe she hadn't at all. Maybe she'd just gained a facet, and a little focus. Maybe she just understood herself a little better, and maybe she had a better idea of what she was capable of.

Maybe she had a better idea of what she wanted, and how far she'd go to get it.

But her heart skipped a beat at the thought, and a little thrill went up her spine, and she felt completely and perpetually in over her head because she was still Luned Bleddyn.

[Warpath]

She found three bowls of food waiting for her in the cabin: walnuts and cashews, salt fish, apple slices and cheese, all bathed in the warm light of a single oil lamp. She'd been looking for Flint, but her stomach overrode any and all other thoughts and so she sat right down. The food was gone before she knew it, and she hadn't realized how pressing her need had been until it was satisfied. She'd thought she had felt good before dinner.

Now she was full of energy that demanded to be spent, and she was on her feet poking around the room restlessly while she waited for the brute to come back. By the time she decided he wasn't coming back, she'd tidied the desk, cleaned up her dinner, made the bed, and thoroughly appraised the stationary and writing utensils available to her. She only paced for a couple of minutes before she braved the rest of the ship.

It was a tremendous freighter, she discovered, heavier and steadier than the ship that had taken them to Carcosa. When she stepped hesitantly out onto the deck barefoot, she saw that it was full night, and only three lamps were set out at a low burn, one at each mast. The cries she'd heard earlier must have been the crew packing in and anchoring for the night, which explained why she saw no crewmen above decks. Good honest Swayists hold the firm belief that the night air is full of toxins and avoid it if at all possible, even miles out to sea.

And they were well out to sea, she saw, which was a strange sensation. She'd been aboard this ship for at least a day, maybe three, and it was completely unknown to her. A frigid breeze played over the deck and tossed her heavy dress around her ankles, chilling her naked toes.

The moon was full enough to provide its own light, and it was by that she finally saw Flint. He was leaning across the railing staring out at the darkling horizon, arms spaced wide. She came up silently behind him and wrapped her arms low around his waist from behind, bold and decisive. She pressed her cheek to the curve of his shoulder through the thin cotton shirt he wore, and closed her eyes, and let the ship rock them.

"Avoiding me?" she teased after a long, long moment.

She sensed him shaking his head. "Giving you...space," he said. She could hear and feel his voice inside his back. "You have been through so much. You deserve some time alone."

Luned turned her head slightly, nuzzling her nose and forehead against his back, and then she slid around to the front of him between his body and the railing. She leaned back against it and looked up at him, palms pressed flat to his stomach now. "I don't want to be alone," she said.

"No?"

She shook her head very slightly, searching his face for a brief moment before turning and nestling her back in against his chest. Mindful of his vambraces - she could almost feel him bury a surge of frustration - he wrapped his arms slowly around her, one across her shoulders and the other low around her stomach. She sighed contentedly, turning one cheek against his chest. "Cold?" he murmured, as another chill Salvic breeze swept over the deck. His fingers curled into the material of her dress over her shoulder and at her stomach, and he pressed his nose gently down into her hair.

"No," she murmured. "But hold me a little tighter anyway."

[Warpath]

For the first time he could recall, Flint lost track of time. He didn't think. There were no schemes, no looming threats, no vendettas or hurts or regrets. For so long he would sulk and seethe, hating himself for not being good enough, hating the universe for giving him a heart and the desire for something that he didn't deserve. Now he was holding in his arms all that he pined for, living the moment he'd so doggedly dreamed of. The sky could fall and the sea could boil and his enemies could win uncontested - it didn't matter. Nothing mattered but that moment. There was no present beyond this quiet ship, no past of consequence, no future beyond the immediate extension of the now.

So when Luned explored the curve of his thigh with the palm of her hand and squeezed through the leather, his gasp was full and sincere. He couldn't see her face, but he somehow knew she was smiling. That's all it took to awaken him to something beyond the now, and his breathing got a little shallower.

Long-suppressed desire stirred, and she must have felt it, because she pressed her body a little tighter back against his. The hand on his thigh came up, and she wrapped her arm lazily back around his neck, and then turned her cheek against his shoulder to look up at him. Their eyes only met for the briefest instant before he leaned down and brushed his lips along hers in a lingering kiss. Now it was her turn to gasp.

The kiss gradually deepened, until even the all-overriding importance of the present began to fall away in favor of the near future. Luned twisted in his arms until she was facing him again, the better to crush her lips up against his in an effort to work them apart, and success won her his tongue. Her fingertips traced the contours of his chest on their way upward, and then she ran them up into and through his beard to caress his cheeks.

His hands, for their part, journeyed down along her back, squeezing handfuls of her dress every so often. He traced the shape of her through the thick material, palms gliding down along her sides and across her hips, and when he took a handful of her backside she parted her lips against his and made a low sound, amused and stunned in equal measure. She leaned in again with a small, pleased smile, and let her lips brush teasing-light against his.

When she was sure he could tolerate no more, Luned wrapped her arms up around his bull neck and drew him close to her. She leaned up and nuzzled her nose against the side of his head, eyes closed, and she whispered oh-so soft against his ear. "I changed my mind."

His grip on her loosened, unsure, and her smile widened just a little. "I do want to be alone," she whispered, running her hands down along his arms, squeezing him hard at every other curve until her fingers could entwine with his. She began to back away from him, drawing his hands along with her.

She looked up at him as she began to guide him very slowly away from the moonlight and the sea and the wind, lips glistening in the pale blue light. "I want to be alone with you," she said.

[Warpath]

She turned and lead him by one hand across the deck. He could come and go as silently as a moth, she knew, but now his booted footfalls were steady but audibly heavy. Her bare feet slid across the well-worn wood of the deck like a whisper. She could feel his eyes on her, watching, needing, searching for every scant suggestion of her curves - he was oblivious to all else. When she noticed a lone sailor watching them from a shadowed staircase leading below decks, she almost laughed. She turned red instead.

She led him down the shadowed hallway. She'd forgotten which doorway was theirs, which was the privy, and which was the captain's quarters, but it didn't matter. She'd gone as far as she could without tasting him, so she was in his arms again, nudging the tip of her nose along the side of his and drawing the very tip of her tongue along his lower lip. He lifted her effortlessly with one arm wrapped around her waist, and she steadied herself by throwing her own arms around his neck. She stroked the top of his head, letting her fingertips run over the light stubble on his scalp. He hadn't been able to tend to it since fleeing to Tirel, and she'd never seen him with even the slightest bit of hair before. It felt a little like sandpaper, but it wasn't entirely unpleasant.

Somehow, he found it in himself to multitask. They kissed while he pushed the door open with his free hand, and he carried her over the threshold. She gently bit his lower lip, eyes lightly closed, and she let the pressure increase until he moaned. She let him go and slid away, only a little unsteady on her feet, and she backed away from him while he closed the door without ceremony.

He followed her, peeling his shirt off over his head as he came on. It caught on one of his bracers for an instant, and he tore it free with an alarming rip. If he cared or noticed, there was no sign of it. Backed against a naked wall, and she let the back of her head rest against the wood. Her breath caught as he loomed over her, pressing his right forearm to the wall high to the side of her, and she felt her heart hammering in her chest.

She looked up at him, and heard the voice of every scolder, goodwife, nanny, and pearl-clutcher she'd ever known: how well do you really know this man? He outweighed her twice over and more, and she'd seen what he could do, and how many people had been put in this position before her to their great detriment?

She didn't know, but she could guess she was the first to feel something other than fear. His eyes held steel for the whole world, except for those moments when they fell on Luned Bleddyn. For her, steel was soft as silk and sweet as sugar. He leaned down to her and she met him halfway, her hands coming up uncertainly to explore newly exposed skin: things she'd seen but never touched. Their kiss was soon molten, their bodies twin knots of scarcely-contained desire, and their voices came in constant, breathy chorus of sighs and soft moans.

Their lips parted, and there was the lightest suggestion of a complaint in her voice when she moaned into the empty air. He pressed delicate kisses to her chin, and his beard was softer than she expected when it brushed along her cheek. Flint nipped at the line of her jaw as he followed it back, and his lips traced the scar on her cheek as soft as a velvet feather.

Her palms came up along his chest squeezing, and she rested them on his shoulders as she tossed her hair and turned her head to the right, exposing the side of her neck to him. He took the invitation without pause, pressing hot, wet kisses all down the side of her neck toward her shoulder. She gripped at overdeveloped trapezius muscles and let out a long, tremulous moan, and for a moment she doubted the ability of her legs to keep her upright.

Flint's mouth continued greedily downward, his tongue drawing wet lines all down the edge of her neck, searing hot and then almost unbearably cold in his wake. His left hand came up and he hooked his fingers in the collar of her dress, pulling it gently down and outward across her shoulder. He kissed at her clavicle, inside to out, and she watched him from the corner of her eye with her teeth in her lower lip, unconsciously kneading at his back and shoulders.

He stood up straight slowly, as if his own body was the heaviest thing he'd ever lifted, and before she had an inkling of his intentions he had handfuls of her dress at the shoulders and collar. He growled, the same way he did when crushing something that vexed him, and he tore her dress open, pulling the collar outward until it rent all down the front and back. Luned inhaled sharply, surprised by the abrupt savagery and the rush of cold air. The upper half of her dress fell open and away like the petals of a flower, the tattered remains and the bottom half still clinging to her hips by a thin belt.

[Warpath]

She panted, resisting the urge to cross her arms over herself, and turned her eyes up to watch his face. She bit her lower lip, watching his appraisal of her with tense interest. Her cheeks were already unbearably hot and getting warmer by the second. Even the briefest moment of silence was intolerable, and she started to explain her lack of a slip - she'd been so focused on teleporting her dress that she hadn't given much thought to her underwear and -

But she hadn't even found her voice yet before his hands were on her hips and he lifted her up along the wall and pressed in tight against her. She closed her eyes and moaned, wrapping her legs around his waist with only a minor struggle with what was left of her dress. Her weight was rested down on his left forearm, and he had a handful of her left breast already.

When he leaned in she wrapped her arms around his head and pushed her shoulders back against the wall, arching her back and presenting her chest to him. He dragged his tongue over her nipple once, hard, and forced a sharp cry out from deep inside her. He kissed and licked and nuzzled, and he pinched her between his lips and made the little cabin spin and spin - the ship could have been caught in a whirlpool, she didn't care, couldn't care. She hugged him to her chest and she rolled her hips hard against his stomach, groaning her encouragement deep and loud. He tried to echo the sentiment, but his voice was muffled against her flesh.

He rained sweet, wet torture down on her breasts for what seemed like wondrous, dizzy centuries. The ache between her legs tightened, and the heat of her radiated against his stomach as she eagerly ground herself against him, panting and quivering and gripping at his shoulders and upper back. It was too much from the beginning, now it was something else, and she wanted it to never stop and couldn't bear another second of it, all at once. She grabbed his shoulders and pushed.

[Warpath]

Flint found himself forcibly removed from the object of his overwhelming desire, and despite resisting it he found himself stepping backward in half a stumble. It wasn't sudden, enough that Luned had time to use him to keep herself stable as she put her legs back under her, but when she looked up at him he could see that she hadn't expected it either. He didn't care. He stepped in again, but Luned put her hand in the middle of his chest, and once her back hit the wall she held him there at arm's length.

She looked down at her own arm, then up at him, wide-eyed.

"Are you...?" he blinked at her, possessing far too little blood in the brain to make sense of it.

"Um," she said, "that's...new. All right, this is new..."

There was a look in her eye he'd never seen before, but he liked it. She pulled him in by the waist of his pants, just a little, and then she stopped him. He grunted, smiling as he looked her over. Her new-found strength was not effortless - he could see the flow and tightening of muscles in her upper arms and shoulders - but there was far more to her now than sight could see. Was he really so weak with desire, and she so strong with it? It didn't seem possible.

And then she reached up with her free hand and pressed her palm in on the distinct shape pushing out from behind the leather between his thighs. He stopped thinking, and he didn't care after that.

She looked up at him while she stroked at him, red-faced but hungry, and he had to press his palms to the wall to either side of her to hold himself upright. He pressed his forehead to hers and she smiled up at him, releasing him to undo the belts and straps and ties that held his leathers to him. He made a low noise as they loosened around his hips, and she used a surge of her new strength to pull them roughly open.

She pressed herself in tight against him, chest to chest, flesh to flesh, and she slid her hands in between his hips and his pants, down and then back to squeeze hard at his backside and pull his arousal firmly against her stomach. "Gods I've been waiting so long to do that," she growled against his shoulder.

He moaned in response. It was all he could do.

He wore some form of Akashiman loincloth under his pants. She'd seen pictures of something similar in her books, but she couldn't recall any instructions on how to undo them, which seemed like a gross oversight on the part of the authors. She struggled, and she was victorious, pulling the loincloth loose enough to expose him. She pushed the waist of his pants down a little more with some effort - they were tight there - and then she had him in her hand.

He could feel her eyes on his face, but he couldn't open his eyes to read her expression. His arms shook as he held himself up off the wall, and his breathing was ragged and shallow. She slid her fingertips up along him and he shuddered, lips parting wide, and he lifted his chin and groaned weakly.

His state precluded him from being fully aware of what she was doing, so when he felt himself being steadily drawn into a moist, tight heat, he cried out deep-throated. His fingernails scraped the wall where he struggled to grip the wood, and his knees threatened to quit on him. He forced his eyes open to see her bent down over him, her hair a veil to either side of her face. Her head was bobbing slowly down and then up with soft, wet sounds. She had one hand on the wall of his stomach and the other on his thigh, and when she moaned he could feel it traveling up his spine.

[Warpath]

She felt his fingers curling in her hair, gentler than ever before - weaker than his wont. She drew back and let him slip away, and then she reached up, and she had him in her hand literally and figuratively - hers. She tossed her head to throw her hair aside, and looked up at him, smiling tentatively. He shuddered, and looked down at her with half-lidded eyes.

"I can't," he whispered, and he breathed a curse in Salvic. "I'm going to fall, I..."

She squeezed him and he moaned delightedly, fingers tightening in her hair. She slowly lifted herself to her feet again, nudging and nuzzling her nose against his chest and his neck. She kissed him there, smiling wider against his skin, and she stroked and squeezed painfully slow - tormenting him the way he'd tormented her.

She felt the tension in him, a bowstring pulled taut to the point of snapping, and it was only her touch that held him at bay. Catch a lion by the toe, the rhyme went...

So she let him go, and he gasped and shivered. She wrapped her arm around his middle, mildly concerned for a heartbeat that he would fall, but he swept her up in his arms and turned, carrying her only a few short steps toward the bed, where he set her down on her feet again.

He dropped to his knees in front of her so heavily the floorboards creaked under him, and he looked up at her as he reached up under the over-fold created by the torn remains of the upper portion of her dress. He undid the thin belt there, slow and deliberate, eyes locked on eyes, and she shivered as what was left of her dress slid off of her and left her naked.

He reached up for her thighs but she backed away from him with a teasing smile. She bumped against the edge of the desk and her eyes never left his. She licked her lips, and then she bit the lower one, lifting herself easily up onto the edge of the furniture. She hesitated and a fresh, angry red flush ignited across her cheeks and her chest. She felt wild and dirty and crazy and like she was crossing a line, but she moved her legs gradually, coyly apart anyway, pushing the chair aside with her foot as it went.

[Warpath]

Flint was on his feet again, kicking off his boots as he approached. He took her in as he came on, and he could feel her doing the same, bashfully but blatantly eyeing him from top to bottom. He felt self-conscious, some small voice in the back of his mind worrying at what she saw when he pushed his pants down along his legs until he could step out of them. It was unfamiliar, these doubts, and he tried to push it aside.

It wasn't easy at first, but then he slid down to his knees again and looked up at her. She was close to the lamp now and he could see, in sharp perspective, the cut of her shoulders, the curve of her breasts, her lean stomach, thighs hard from months of walking. He turned his head and gently pressed his teeth against her inner thigh, flicking his tongue over the lean muscle there, and then he dragged his lips upward.

He breathed in, and the scent of her chased away all thoughts and doubts and left only a deep animal yearning. She was propped up on one arm, and she pressed her other hand to his head as he leaned in. He looked up at her, and found her looking back down at him, face flushed bright and lips parted, breathing deep, cautious anticipation in her eyes. When he dragged his tongue along her, she inhaled, and her hand slid along his head, drawing him tighter to her.

He explored her with his lips and tongue, hands on her thighs, every breath driving him a little more wild for her. He followed her moans and gasps, seeking out every spot that made her sing, and after a time she started guiding him too. She found him to be a quick learner, reducing her normally extensive vocabulary down to "don't stop" and "yes" and inarticulate prayers to any and every god.

And when he was sure she was half-mad with it, he forced himself away, gathered her up in his arms, and tossed her onto the bed.

[Warpath]

Luned hit the mattress and bounced, and she recovered quickly as Flint began to crawl up onto the bed after her. He was in the process of moving up on top of her, but she pressed her hand against the front of his shoulder and leveraged her new strength and pushed with everything she had. He was determined, so it wasn't easy, but he wasn't himself either. He went over with a surprised grunt, and she rolled up on top of him.

She was stronger than ever before, but no heavier. He was already sitting up again, lifting her as he did, and she made a high-pitched and delighted sound and pushed down on his shoulders to force his back down to the bed. It should have been a more desperate battle, but she knew exactly how to take victory in one maneuver: she reached back and wrapped her hand around him.

He froze and tensed and curled his fingers in the bed sheets, and she smiled down at him even as she bit her lip. By then she'd been blushing so long it felt like her cheeks were bruised.

She didn't tease him - or herself - for long. She slid backward and leaned forward, eyes on his, and pressed him against her. They groaned in unison and then slowly, so slowly, Luned took him into her until she was well and fully impaled to the base. She pressed her palms to his stomach and moaned his name - his real name - and she relished the rush of warmth and tenderness in his eyes.

And then she began to ride him.

[Warpath]

Luned Bleddyn: scribe, reader, healer, magician, fixer, sometimes avenger. She was mousy and soft-spoken, mild-mannered and gentle, the best kind of friend. She was a diligent student. A librarian.

The things she cried out as she ground herself down on him would have made a whore blush.

She dropped herself on him again and again, a sheen of sweat on her chest and shoulders. Her hair swung wild and free and clung to her cheeks and she didn't feel it or didn't care. He pinched her nipple harder than he thought he should have, but she cried out for more, more, always more.

He started to tense, gasping and begging her not to stop, but of course she did. Her eyelids were opened in thin slits, just enough to see him through her eyelashes, and she smiled. He had never seen her smile like that before. If he had, they would have done this so much sooner.

She pushed down on his shoulders to pin him to the bed, and she denied him the vertical thrusts he craved, rolling and grinding her hips in circles instead. She danced on him, looking down at him through heavy-lidded eyes and moaning his name with intensity that increased right along with his need for more.

She found his limit, and cried out her delight as he suddenly twisted in a way she didn't fully understand and pinned her to the bed under him - none of her new, unnatural strength could stop him. His hips pumped feverishly, but she begged him, "harder," over and over, and then she pressed her cheek against his ear and growled against it, digging her fingernails into the flesh of his back. "I'm not going to break," she hissed desperately. "Harder."

Against all logic, she did not break. In fact, she soon tensed around him and her breath caught in her chest, and then it hit her in a tremendous wave he could feel, rhythmically squeezing and kneading at him even as he plunged in and out of her. Even Flint would have trouble pulling the bed frame out of where it had impacted the wall, come morning.

She bit down on his shoulder and held his flesh between her teeth as she rode out first her orgasm, and then his, and then he pressed his face into her hair and it was all he could do but just...breathe.

[Warpath]

They wore sweat, a thin sheet draped over their lower bodies, and each other.

Luned had her head rested on Flint's prodigious chest, tucked under his chin. She was drawing circles on his skin with her fingernail. He dozed beneath her, his steady, deep breathing punctuated with contented sighs. She was sure he was out and would be until morning, but he surprised her by reaching up and running his fingers through her hair. He pressed an uncharacteristically tender kiss to her hairline. "Had enough sleep already?"

She nodded very slightly. "Seems like it," she murmured. "That's probably a good thing."

She could feel him nodding, and then there was a long moment of silence. Just when she was beginning to think he'd drifted off again, he spoke. "I did not think I was your...type."

"No?" Luned said, and he could hear the tiny, teasing smile on her lips. "I didn't know I had a type."

"Muir said..."

Luned made a noise. "You know better than to listen to Muir. Besides, I didn't think I was your type."

Flint was quiet for a beat. "I was prepared to follow you into hell when I thought you were a ghost," he said finally.

"In Ettermire? You told me you came with me because you thought Swanra'ann wouldn't attack you in my presence."

"I lied," he said. "I told myself that. I had no reason to believe it. I followed you because I did not want to imagine you hurt or alone. I cared about you then. Immediately."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Flint chuckled warmly, and Luned rode the rapid rise and fall of his chest. "You are clean and intelligent and capable. You are beautiful. This still feels like a fantasy. I could not expect you to see anything but a thug and a dullard. I do not deserve your affection."

"But you're not, and you do." The scribe lifted herself up over him, and their eyes met as she ran her fingertips through his beard. "There's more to you than all the brutality. You proved that with the Essens. You proved that tonight. And I'm not saying that to try and change you, I'm just..."

She shook her head, and then paused, struggling to articulate the epiphany she'd had before dinner. "I'm starting to figure out who I am," she said at last. "I keep telling everyone I've changed, but I haven't. I'm just coming to terms with things and figuring out what I want, and what matters to me. I'm not comfortable with all the things you do, obviously, but when I look at the man himself..." She pushed her palm gently against the center of his chest, and let her eyes say the rest.

Flint searched her face for a long moment, and then he scooted toward the edge of the mattress. One of his arms searched the floor under the bed at an awkward angle, and then he pulled something out from beneath with a scrape. Luned immediately recognized a chest from the safe house, though she could not have known it was the one Radek had delivered. Flint opened it one-handed as she looked on, and he fished around in it before producing something.

She saw that it was a small book or manifesto, crudely bound by nine steel rings and an iron clasp. Flint hesitated for a long moment, drumming his fingers on the cover of it, and then he handed it to her. She sat herself up on the mattress, gathering the sheet up around her chest as she did, and she set the little book down in front of her and beside him, and glanced over at him questioningly.

"You were right," he said. "Death and violence are not the answer to every question. I cannot kill everyone. I cannot burn everything. I think I always knew that, but this...when I collected and wrote these things, I told myself it was so that I would not forget. Instead, I have used it to keep myself angry. It is how I keep the wounds from healing, and that must stop."

Luned glanced from his face to the book and back again. "What is...?

He undid the clasp. "I must apologize for ruining the mood," he said.

She paused for a beat, and then opened the book delicately and began to read. It was difficult to categorize: part journal, part collection, part scrapbook. The first page was a table of contents and inventory all at once, written in Flint's bold, utilitarian script.

The first section was a collection of advertisements all on small pages. Many of them had holes at the tops where they might have been pinned to a board, and they were all yellowed and faded with age. Each one boldly declared a separate event in Old Salvic, and it took Luned a moment to translate the first in her head. It was some sort of prize fight or gladiatorial event, she decided, and with growing horror she translated the details. The first advertised a battle between a wolf pack and, if she deciphered the euphemisms correctly...children.

There was an order to the advertisements, though it took her a great many pages to figure it out. Children fighting wolves. Children fighting "savage women." Children fighting a bear. The euphemisms for the children gradually shifted, implying a small army at first, and then a troop, and then a pack, until they spoke of only "the biter" and "the one who cannot die," "the wolf boy."

Flint had written names above the ring names and the euphemisms, after a point, humanizing what the advertisers had dehumanized. The posters never specified an exact location, instead promising, for example, "A Struggle of Epic Proportions Hosted by Your Friends in the Manor of Gilded Fangs." Here, too, Flint would sporadically write the names of regions, noble houses, or castles in the margins.

See the Wolf Boy die to Ganek the Slicer.

Will the Wolf Boy prevail over Donal the Raper?

Can He lead the pack to victory over Gapmaw the Grizzly?

Tonight the Biter Dies!

It went on and on, until the wolf boy became the savage, and then the first poster came that declared him Flint. There were dozens, and then hundreds, each more depraved than the last. Bloodbaths followed by orgies, rapes, and executions, sometimes all featuring the same people. All manner of beast, freak, and monster was promised, placed in increasingly creative matches and events, challenged by ever-more insidious pitfalls and traps. Flint had fought in a ring of fire, suspended over a tank of stranglers, in a pit of spiders and snakes, doused in mild acid, clad in armor or naked. He'd struggled for his life against better-armed foes in superior numbers while being fired upon from the stands. He'd been publically humiliated and abused.

On and on, until she found herself pressing a trembling hand to her lips. "I'm so sorry," she whispered finally, pushing the book away from herself. "I can't read more of this."

He solemnly closed it and clasped it. "Neither can I," he said. "I want you to take it. Keep it in the library. Maybe someone who matters will read it, and can think of some way to change Salvar in a more peaceful way."

Luned nodded slowly, frowning as she stroked his cheek.

"No secrets," he said, smiling apologetically. He patted the book. "This is everything. It is no excuse for what I have done in revenge, but it is a reason."

"I knew you had a reason, Rauk," she whispered. "I never doubted you had a reason."

He grunted. "I thought it could be something to live for, but I was wrong." He pushed the book off of the bed, and it slapped down on top of the chest. "You aren't asking me to change. You are saving me."

Luned looked his face over for a long moment, and then she slid back down on the mattress alongside him. She pulled the sheet up over them, and she hugged herself to him tight. She sniffled and pressed her face into his shoulder, and against all probability, she fell to sleep.


(Click Me! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eMyAbg6CWQ))

[Warpath]

For two weeks, clothing had been reserved for brief outings above decks. There was an hour's travel between the docks and the library once they made landfall in Corone, and already Luned felt confined by her heavy dress. Her mind wandered through possibilities for when the carriage stopped, and not one of them involved her being clothed.

Flint stared pensively out the carriage window on the seat across from her. Even with his forearms draped over his knees, his shoulders threatened the sides of the little vehicle. She wondered if it was her imagination or if he was bigger. Or perhaps she hadn't quite had the social sanction necessary to openly stare at him until now.

She followed his gaze, and watched the familiar streets rush by framed narrowly. The scribe was struck immediately by now little had changed, though she was actively watching the city move on without her. How long had she been gone? And there was the same fruit vendor, the same jeweler, the same butcher, the same cooper, all walking their timeworn routines.

On the one hand it was disquieting and sobering, on the other a comfort. She hadn't worn her own safe, comfortable groove into the fabric of the day-to-day, but she was acquainted with so many that had. Perhaps they, and the city itself, were her routine to return to as much as selling jewelry or hawking newspapers was theirs.

She was still musing on that when the carriage slowed, and she looked out and up at the library's stately profile. She made a relieved, excited sound and leapt free of the carriage's confines, almost forgetting to pay the driver before hurrying to unlock the gate. Flint tarried behind for the luggage, and carried it in after her without complaint. To be fair, most of it was his.

He found her standing just inside the landing, arms wrapped around herself.

"What is it?" he said, setting the luggage down carefully. He flexed his fingers, ready for trouble.

"It's...empty," she said.

Flint frowned, nodding slightly. He did not feel it instinctively, but he trusted that she did. As he understood it, Bleddyn had not left the library for a very long time - possibly since before either of them were born. There was something otherworldly about the old man, and Flint never claimed to understand the otherworldly. He only gave it due respect.

"It is still home," he said to her, softly. "And a responsibility he entrusted to you."

She nodded almost imperceptibly, and leaned against his side. He wrapped his arm around her delicately, and pressed his nose against the side of her head. "Why are you holding your breath?" he murmured at last.

"Because I feel like something's about to happen," she whispered to him, almost conspiratorially. "Aurelianus is going to show up, or Agnie, or Rez, or a giant spider is going to pop out of the oven, or the sky is going to start falling. I'm waiting for the next adventure."

Flint shook his head. "No more adventures," he said. "Not for awhile at least."

She grinned, closing her eyes and melting against him. "Promise?"

"I swear it," he said.

"What about Knife's Edge?"

"It can wait," he said.

"But your...projects."

"I am rethinking them," he declared, lifting his head from hers. "In the meantime we will get this place in order, hmm? I will help. We will restore what has been neglected. It would please him, I think, now that he is not here to be disturbed by all the activity."

Luned let out a short, wry burst of laughter, following his gaze as he appraised the library. "Okay," she agreed at last. "But not today. We'll start tomorrow."

Flint tilted his head, looking at her sidelong.

"I've had enough of clothes for one day," she said decisively.

[Tusk]

Epilogue

The wind howled monstrously, and Suska had to brace herself against it. Even with her fur-lined hood up and a thick scarf over her mouth, the arctic's breath pierced her to the bones. She endured, if only for appearance's sake.

She led them to the mouth of a large cave, curled up around itself like a troll around something shiny. There was an overhang so deeply coated in snow that the mouth of the cave was nearly invisible, shadowed from the far-north's perpetual twilight. There she'd built a sturdy gate out of wood, and her father would have been proud. She undid the locks and the pins and threw her weight to force the heavy gate open.

There was a small fire inside, still burning, the smoke gathering against the cave ceiling and crawling its way deeper underground where it dissipated somewhere, and the temperature rose rapidly. Out of the punishing wind, she threw back her hood and pulled her scarf down around her neck, and shoved the end of a torch into the flames until it caught. With a nod back at them, a signal to follow, she delved in.

They did not have to go far.

The cave had a number of chambers. Some were full of big old bones, shattered and stripped clean. Some were full of supplies in crates and bundles. One even had a little pond, fed by a torrent of droplets from the ceiling. Deeper in the cave, where it was warmer, they passed a chamber full of bullish sled dogs, who eyed the procession silently.

In the largest chamber, though, was a lupine beast that dwarfed even the Andvallan mastiffs. She lifted her tremendous white head, eyes gleaming in the firelight, and made a low sound that vibrated in the chests of everyone in earshot. The beast ceased when she recognized Suska, and instead began to pant.

The canine colossus was curled around a squirming litter of dozing puppies, newborn, and the smallest of them would have come up to Suska's thigh.

"I don't lie," she declared. "Mim is the first, but you can see it in her pups too. They'll have all the size and strength and intelligence of a drave, but the speed, endurance, and - and this is important - the obedience of a mastiff. And Mim here? She breeds like a rabbit. She was rib-high six months ago, no bigger, and now she's whelping. You see what I'm saying, yes?"

She turned, smiling proudly and lifting her torch as she looked back.

The firelight reflected red off a pair of eyes in the dark, set inside a hulking shadow. "You do not lie," it rumbled, voice like a boulder grinding glass into dust. It moved forward, each footfall a heavy thump of metallic thunder. "How soon can the first pack be trained?"

"As hunters, trackers, war dogs?" she shrugged. "Three months. As mounts? Six, at least for the smallest of you. All I ask is that I never a see a one riding against my kin. So. What do you say?"

The shadows melted away, revealing an olive-skinned hulk clad in hide and crude iron armor. Throm reached up to stroke his chin, and flicked his gleaming red eyes from the girl to the hybrids and back again. He grinned behind his tusks. "We have an accord, Suska Hound-Mother," he rumbled, "as of this moment and for as long as you breed for the clan, you and yours are of the clan."

She thrust her gloved hand out, and the orc reached out and clasped her forearm delicately. His palm so engulfed her arm that it would have been more reasonable for her to try and shake one of his fingers. It was the thought that mattered.

"I'll need kennels," she said. "And food. The more meat they get, the faster they'll grow, the stronger they'll get, the more pups we'll have to work with. I'll need help. Orcs that won't mind taking orders from me. I'll need battlefield advisers so I know what to train them for, leatherworkers for harnesses, tools for keeping them in line, grooming them."

"I can provide all," Throm said, taking another tentative step forward to examine the pups. He was not the only monster in the room.

"Well then," Suska said happily, "where are we going that's so far away you need mounts?"

"Does it matter?"

"So long as you don't say Andvall, no."

"A glorious war is coming," Throm told her. "Your children will carry us to victory in the south."

"The south?" Suska said, raising an eyebrow. "Where in the south? There is nothing to the south."

"All the human places are in the south," Throm said. "Tirel. Knife's Edge. Ettermire. All shall fall."

Suska stared at the orc for a long moment. "Sulgoran's Axe is in the way," she said at last.

Throm looked down at her and smiled. "Then that is where we will ride to first."

"That's...a tall order. I don't..."

The orc grunted dismissively. "Come, Hound-Mother. Let me show you what there is on my side of the bargain, before you doubt..."

He stared wild-eyed at the hybrids. "You will find that I don't lie, either."

[Philomel]

Thread Title: Thread Link (http://www.althanas.com/)
Judgment Type: Condenscened Rubric
Participants:



Plot: 23/30

All comments apply here to all:

From the start the story its captivating and beautiful. The plot itself, though long, flows very well together from scene to scene, and phase to phase. You manage to cover many genres including adventure, romance, suspense and even comedy at the beginning when concerning Flint's family. There were many surprises also in the piece, from finding out Flint's past and his family to them helping out Roxanne and Radek, and a great attention to small details, especially in post 26 and the excellent part starting, "And then there were wanted posters...". Though written by two (three) people with your characters completely interracting you seamlessly create a story that it enchanting and reads like a novel, or of one writer. It is well paced and told well. The small detail by Tusk also was a hidden treasure with his excellently finishing off epilogue.

In some way, however, it would have been nicer to see this as a smaller story, maybe broken up into two or three threads to make it easier to read and also not so extensive a story. The various adventures could have been separate ones, such as a story about Luned meeting Flint's family, then another about Radek and Roxanne for example.

The setting itself was very good for the piece, with the simplicity, but also complex nature of the story, however it could have done with more development, with more particular details. The landscape could have been used more to make metaphors, extended and short, to express the character's thoughts upon, more. In general it would have been good to see it used more.

A note to Tusk: An excellent ending with an appealing cliff-hanger. A really good way of bringing in Saska and making the reader feel suspense. Generally well written as far as skills go also, with a good talent for description and slow revelation of what exactly is going on.



Character: 21/30

For this I have concentrated on you as individuals and your individual characters:

Warpath: You capture the heart of your character well, and it was very interesting to see a backstory to Flint, of where he came from and what his family is like. Most especially captivating is the nature of his sister, Suska, as a secondary character, and her personality. Their relationship is very well written, in particular in the subtle actions of her hitting his hand when he does not do as she wants or, "slapping at Flint’s hands when he wasn’t packing her sleds in the optimal way." What is great is the way you hint at a tough but loving childhood, and a simple need/want for compassion and care between the two of them. You can see it could be where Flint gets his compassion for Luned from, and a clear gentle heart is shown between the tough exterior. Through your description and words you create a loveable character. Sometimes it would be good to know what his thoughts are, to be allowed into the mysterious man that is Flint, however. Try to think of this when next developing him. Else, well done.

Luned: A reader can only fall in love with Luned here, from her kind nature to her ability to fight. Even when she is ill she apologies, saying, "I'm sorry I left," to Flint, showing a depth of humanity and goodness. Despite this, it is also clear Luned is able to take care of herself and has powerful stamina. By the way she speaks, from her suggested tone to the words, it is clear she knows who she is and there is no denying that. She has a strong personality, and at first is relatively shy towards Flint's family but soon is able to interract with them, which is a very realistic portrayal of a character. Which is exactly what you want to make her relatable and a favourite of the reader. It could have done with a little tightening at times, to almost (dare I say it) reign in some of Luned's more sporadic decisions, but otherwise very well done.

Tusk: As an ending this is excellent, and you continue on with the same excellent portrayal of Saska. Tusk himself, Throm, is also shown to be a tough and intriguing individual, with secrets and mystery, which is befitting a cliff-hanger character at the end of such an epic. His voice sounds powerful in the words he says and his actions convey his interest into the dogs. Perhaps a little too mysterious, however, as it is almost as if we do not see enough of him before the post ends. Perhaps use a few more ambitious adjectives to send his presence out and you have an excellent winner!



Prose: 22/30

Again as with Story I am commenting on this together for Warpath and Luned as the story is written almost together:

Your use of metaphor and similie is fantastic in this piece, giving a sense of the setting and the scene you want. In particular, one that worked especially well was, "fell open and away like the petals of a flower" to describe Luned's dress in post 70. As part of the romantic nature of the piece - flowers are often a symbol of romance - and also being used to describe the gentle character of Luned it fits well, and the peaceful calm atmosphere of the scene. Mechanics themselves are also very well formed, with no obvious spelling mistakes and good sentence structure. It is also a very clear story with no real deception or confusion in the plot.

At times a paragraph break would have helped to make reading easier. This is a particular weakness of yours, Warpath, and could easily be helped by just reading aloud some of your posts to see how they flow as if read in that way. Also, posts themselves could be of regular size. Though this is a difficult thing to remark on, and perhaps extremely fussy, it can make reading easier. Luned yours are better structured here, though it would have been nice to see a balance between you both on this as you already write so well as a pair.
Also, Warpath, you have a tendency to do a lot of short posts in the one day (most noticeable on page 21). Though this amount of writing is commendable you could merge some of them into larger ones.

Tusk: Similar strengths apply. Perfect, perhaps except it would have been nice to see more of a mixture of short and long sentences, for some diveristy and to make your description more enticing.



Wildcard: 7/10

As mentioned in Plot what was especially impressive was your combined ability to provide many genres under one plot, and thus your points in Wildcard are awarded respectively.



Final Score: 73/100


Warpath receives:
8275* EXP!
730 GP!

Congratulations!


Luned receives:
4090* EXP!
410* GP!

Congratulations!


Tusk receives:
130 EXP!
15* GP!

Congratulations!

Warpath and Luned both gain a level, well done!
For more information, or more individual analysis please feel free to PM me.

*includes minor amounts of discretion.

[Alyssa Snow]

EXP & GP Added!