The sight made Declan swallow a lump he didn’t think he had the right to feel.

  The quiet sound of boots announced Ester’s return, and she reappeared in the ring of light not long after, a familiar travel sack in hand. “Father told me what happened,” she answered his quizzical look at the bag, gesturing to the faint glimmer of orange beyond the light of their smaller circle. “I’m surprised you were able to find anything, in that mess.”

  “Where is he?” the question raked at Declan’s throat. “Your father?”

  Inexplicably, Ester smirked, taking a seat at his side again and starting to undo the bag’s bucklings. “And they scoff at my er’enthyl blood,” she said under her breath, almost to herself. “I wouldn’t want eyes like yours, if given the choice.”

  Declan frowned, catching on to her meaning and looking around again. It took him several seconds, but at once he took back his assertion that he would never be surprised by anything again.

  No more than five feet away, a shape he couldn’t understand how he’d overlooked was distinct only in the shadows of the winged orbs of light overhead, a lump of camouflaged colors against the darkness of the glen. Its silhouette shifted with steady, slow breathing, and Declan could hardly believe his eyes when he recognized Bonner yr’Essel, curled up on his side with his back to them, hood pulled up over his bald head and knees tucked to his chest. The pattern of his strange robes looked to have reshaped itself, the original splotched markings—like fallen leaves—now striations that roughly matched the grass of the field, melting him against the backdrop with disquieting efficiency.

  Magic, Declan thought with something akin to weary resignation before addressing Ester again. “Is he alright?”

  “He’s fine,” Ester answered with a tired smile, tugging the last beltings loose and flipping open the satchel to reach inside. “He’ll be like that until morning at least, after the power he had to pour into the two of you. Spells have their price, just like—"

  She paused, eyes wide. Following her gaze, Declan choked when he made out what she held in her hand, the half-elf having just pulled a small wedge of stitched cloth free of the bag.

  There was no mistaking women’s undergarments in any light.

  For a long, heavy moment, silence hung between them. The chirp of crickets and call of frogs and nocturnal birds could be heard off in the trees, and the wind made itself known again, teasing at their hair and drifting gently over the field.

  Then Ester began to laugh.

  The sound was warm and heartening, a faint light in the thickening shadows that had suddenly appeared in the world. She laughed and laughed, clutching the smallclothes to her breast like they were a precious thing thought lost and left behind. Her smile shined even brighter in her mirth, and Declan couldn’t help but crack an unsure grin as he watched her.

  “S-sorry,” the woman finally choked out, not quite finished, while she wiped a tear from one eye. “I just—I very much needed that, I think.”

  “The laughter, or the undergarments?” Declan wheezed before he could stop himself, not wanting the clean sound to end just yet.

  Ester gave him a smirk that hid none of her little returned cheer, reaching out to flick him in the side of the head in teasing rebuke.

  “Both, ass,” she chuckled, stuffing the clothes back into the sack and pulling out the flask Declan had retrieved that afternoon. It sloshed with liquid as she uncapped it.

  “I hope you didn’t fill that with water from the pit,” he muttered, only half-teasing as she scooted closer.

  “Maybe I should have,” she quipped back, helping him lift his head and holding the mouth of the container to his lips. “But no. Father saw it full before he fell asleep. Drew a clean spring from whatever source he used to make that.” She motioned to the sinkhole with her head.

  Declan couldn’t nod, too busy guzzling the water down greedily. When he’d had his fill, he let Ester ease his head back down again, watching her take a swig for herself.

  “He’s incredible, you know?”

  “Father? I’m aware.” She nodded, capping the flask and placing it by the sack. “Still… that—” she glanced over him, and Declan could imagine she was looking the hole and the thick, limp roots that likely encircled it like the ugly petals of a flower “—is new to me. I didn’t see what happened. I can’t believe I wasn’t here to help…”

  “You were there when it mattered,” Declan grunted, shifting in an attempt to make himself more comfortable on the uneven ground. “That was your arrow the drey took in the eye, I’m assuming?”

  “Best shot I’ve made in my life, I think.” Ester’s face was pale, like the thought scared her. “I came running the moment I heard the first scream, could see the two of them fighting through the canopy, but still… What happened, Declan? Father didn’t have the energy to say, and Ryn’s been unconscious since before I arrived. Where did it come from?”

  “I don’t know,” Declan grunted, recalling the horrible sight of the drey diving from between the clouds, plummeting down upon them like black lightning. “Ryn had just returned. Told us that Estwyn had fallen to some wereyn horde.”

  Ester’s eyes went wide at that. “Estwyn? The garrison of Karn’s Gullet?”

  “The same, but I don’t know if anyone calls it that anymore.”

  “And the drey?”

  “Ryn said he thought he’d felt something behind him, and your father had just scryed out where it was coming from when the thing reached us.” Declan paused, drawing a shaking breath. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my damn life.”

  Ester nodded slowly, taking in his recounting, staring off at nothing for a long moment before speaking. “I don’t blame you. I’ve never seen anything like that.” She waved an unsteady hand behind her, into the dark, where the body of the beast must have been waiting nearby. “What… is it? How does something like that exist?”

  Declan tried and failed to shrug, ashamed of the relief he felt, not being the only one out of the loop anymore. “Your guess is as good as mine, and probably a hell of a lot better, if we’re being frank. All I can say is it looked like someone stitched together all the worst parts of man, dragon, and beast, then set it loose on us.”

  “Horrible.” Ester glanced over her shoulder. “And what its blood did to you… Like acid…”

  “No need to remind me,” Declan said, quicker than he liked, feeling a wave of nothing short of fear wash through him at the recollection of how he’d spent the last few hours. “Let’s just say I won’t be forgetting that little trait of theirs, if we run across another one anytime soon. Made rothwort feel like a hot bath.”

  “Mother forbid,” Ester cursed with a shudder, reaching up to touch the back of her head absently. “It’s bad enough if there are draugr and wereyn in Viridian now, let alone anything else.” She met his eyes carefully. “Estwyn, though… You’re sure about that?”

  “It’s what Ryn said. I wasn’t convinced either, but he seemed to be. Heard it directly from the mouth of the Vigil, apparently.”

  Ester swore again, muttering something in an eloquent, twisted tongue, which managed to coax a grin out of Declan. She’d let slip a few choice phrases in elvish before, during their afternoon trainings.

  “Indeed,” he agreed with a dry snort. “Though I’ve no idea what the wereyn’s mothers—nor where they stick their members—has anything to do with it.”

  Ester looked astounded. “You speak elvish?” she demanded, abruptly excited, making Declan immediately regret his jest.

  “Only as much as that, along with a few more words that would get me in trouble in polite company,” he said quickly. “The Iron Wind’s quarter-master is half-er’enthyl. Old bugger who liked to explain every foul thing he called you, just to insult you twice over.”

  “Ah,” Ester said with another laugh, doing a fair job of concealing her disappointment.

  “Your mother’s teachings?”

  She nodded, then sighed. “All of which has little and less to do with the problem at hand,” she said, bringing the conversation back on track. “Wereyn pressing into Viridian… When was the last time that happened? And the drey?”

  “I never even heard of the latter before Bonner mentioned them,” Declan answered with a grimace. “As for the wereyn… It was more than two decades ago, the last time Estwyn suffered an assault.”

  “And he’s a learned man to boot,” Ester said with a raised brow, feigning being impressed. “Am I to be trounced in sword and history in turn, good sir?”

  Declan chuckled at that. “There’s a good chance you’ll always have the bow to hold over my head, so don’t be too discouraged.” Then he grew serious. “Estwyn was my birthplace. My parents and Ryn were there for the siege, as was I, but I was too young to remember any of it. Most of the town was burned to the ground, my mother told me. They’ve rebuilt and fortified since, little good as it seems to have done them…”

  Ester deflated like a torn waterskin, her amusement vanishing. “Well there’s me putting my foot in my mouth,” she muttered apologetically. Then her eyes lifted from his, slipping off into the darkness again, finding the place where the remnants of her home still smoldered in the night. “But I think I have a sense of that, now… Seeing everything you know go up in flames before you…”

  Once again, silence fell between the two of them, and Declan knew there would be no cheer to break its curse this time. He watched the half-elf’s face as they sat, quiet in each other’s company, barely detecting the strain of her lips and cheeks that he knew all too well.

  Any man-at-arms who might claim that there was no place for tears in a swordsman’s arsenal, after all, was nothing short of a liar and a braggart.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The words, shy and subdued, left him before Declan knew they’d formed on his lips. Ester tensed, looking down at him.

  After a moment, Declan decided it was best to press on, as he’d already let the greatest of his welling emotions slip. Again he felt that sadness, and again knew he had no right to harbor it.

  Not when Ester and Bonner were sleeping in the dirt, so close to the ruins of their home one could see the ashes of it burning in the night…

  “I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice stronger now. “If we hadn't come… If Ryn and I hadn't been here… It followed us. I’m sure of it. Like the ghouls. It was after us, for some reason. If we hadn't come…”

  He trailed off, discovering it much harder than he’d anticipated to get out the words he wanted to say.

  “I’d be dead, probably, and the two of you very likely right along with me.”

  Ester’s answer was so matter-of-fact, so nonchalant, it took Declan aback. He knew, too, the falsity of that confidence. The hidden pain had not left the half-elf’s face as she’d spoken. For a time, she was quiet, not looking away from him.

  Then she turned, reaching into the bag at her side again.

  “I never thanked you, did I?” she asked, pulling out one of the apples from the meager bounty Declan had been able to salvage from the house. She wiped it on her sleeve, shining it as she got to her feet. “For rescuing me. I never thanked you.”

  Declan’s brow furrowed, following her movement around his legs until she bent down to pluck her hunting knife—one of the only two blades they had left to them—from its sheath. “You did. The morning I woke up here.”

  Ester shook her head when she returned to his side, kneeling down again by his buried arm. Not looking at him, she dug the edge of the steel into the fruit and began peeling the apple distractedly. “No. I acknowledged it, but I don’t think I ever thanked you. I think Father’s doing that now, in his own way.” She briefly tipped the point of the knife at the runes traced into the mound of dirt over Declan’s torso. “He’s been hoping for the opportunity to do so since he reached the three of us in the woods, not long after the ghoul attack.”

  “He’d been looking for you,” Declan said with a nod, having been told as much by the mage himself during one of their morning conversations.

  Ester nodded. “I’d been gone for three days by the time we practically waltzed back into the senses of the spell he was using to seek me out. In that time, there aren’t many good options as to what could have happened to me, Declan. The best sounds like my wound would have eventually been my end, a slow death strung up like some scarecrow to tumble apart with the other corpses at my feet. Worst case—” her finger began to tremble ever so slightly, and Declan watched the knife in her hands with apprehension “—it sounds like I could very well have been fodder for that… thing.”

  The drey, Declan realized she meant, putting the pieces together for the first time. Hadn't Bonner said as much, on that first morning? That the clearing he and Ryn had dragged Ester from had likely been some feeding ground? Declan balked, his heart suddenly thudding anxiously against the sore cage of his chest.

  We were that close? he thought, a shard of ice raking down his spine as he considered it, recalling the strange, ominous cave created by the great slabs of stone, one leaning against the other. It was there? That close?

  Ester’s continued words brought him back from his dark considerations, the effort she was putting into keeping her voice even now more apparent.

  “As for you two,” she said, cutting away the last of the peel with a snick of the knife to let it tumble across her knees and into the flattened grass, “you’re probably right. It doesn’t sound like whoever’s behind these attacks gives two licks about me. They’re after you. You or Ryn, or maybe both. The drey would have been set on you regardless, and if you hadn't been here, well…”

  “We would have been done for,” he finished for her this time, knowing he couldn’t contest the point. On an even field, Ryn would have lost against the drey, he knew. It chilled him to the bone, turned his stomach, but he was sure it was true. The dragon had prevailed only with Bonner’s assistance, and even then the damn thing had persisted, a fall from a distance that could be measured at the height of the lowest clouds not enough to break its body or quell its killing need.

  “You would have been done for,” Ester repeated in quiet agreement, starting to carve a slice from the thickest corner of the apple. For a few seconds there was nothing but the sound of the cutting.

  “So,” the half-elf finally started again, firmly now, after she’d freed a sizable chunk of the fruit, picking it up delicately, “following that logic, I don’t think you can say you have anything to be ‘sorry’ for, would you?”

  Declan blinked at her in surprise. She was holding the apple out to him, at an angle that he could lift his head and accept it. He hesitated, looking past the offered food to meet the woman’s eyes. She was forcing the strength in her gaze, he knew. She was fighting to keep herself together, to keep from tearing at the seams.

  She’d lost everything she’d ever known. She’d said so herself. Her father lived, by the Mother’s will, but aside from that miracle Esteria yr’Essel had nothing to her name but a knife, the clothes on her back, and the bow laying on the grass nearby.

  He accepted the proffered morsel without complaint, chewing and swallowing as she cut him another piece. Again he took it.

  It was when she offered him a third bite that he made his decision.

  As the woman extended her hand, Declan forced his own arm to move. With a grunt and the rustling crack of caked dirt breaking, he pulled the limb free. Pain lanced into his shoulder and neck, and he saw that new, blotching scars painted his bare skin.

  He ignored all of it, and reached instead for the woman.

  At first Ester gasped, distraught as she saw the healing runes come apart, but when his fingers wrapped about her wrist the sound caught in her throat. She stared, her eyes first taking in his grip, then lifting to his face.

  She started to shake.

  “It’s alright,” he told her as gently as he could, sliding his hand up towards her palm, the knife going limp in her grasp. “Let it out. It’s alright.”

  For a stunned moment, the woman could only look at him.

  And then, with a wracking sob, she began to weep, the blade and apple falling each to the grass, both her hands moving to take Declan’s proffered one, holding onto it with a desperate grief as her cries rang dully into the open night above.

  They stayed like that for a long time, the two of them, neither speaking, each finding comfort in the other’s grasp. Eventually Ester calmed again, and with soft words Declan guided her back down to lay beside him once more. Slowly, minute by minute, the woman’s lingering, sharp inhales and spasms of empty sadness left her, and together they drifted off again, hands still held, still seeking that solace of the shared warmth of their touch.

  Neither noticed Bonner, not so far away from them, shivering in much the same way as his daughter. With his back to them, they couldn’t have seen the faint few tears that trailed down the old man’s cheeks.

  Nor the heartbroken smile lingering on his lips as he clutched at the clear crystal about his neck, whispering to it while the ethereal wash of the magical lights bounced and weaved above.

  It was Ryn’s thunderous groan that woke them all the next morning, a miraculous sound which immediately had Declan sitting up with an enthusiastic shout. Fortunately the dirt shell which had been his haven and cage alike the previous night appeared to have expended whatever life Bonner’s magic had given it, and the soil fell away in a scattered shower as he jerked upright. He scrambled to his feet—Ester and Bonner mirroring his frantic movements to either side of him—finding himself bare-chested but caring little when the three of them hurried as one towards the shifting form of the dragon.