At once, Ester scowled, catching herself and turning away to speak without looking at him. “Something funny?”

  “No!” Declan said with a laugh, seeing her misunderstanding. “It’s just…” He faltered, trying to find a way to put what he considered an endearing sentiment into words that could very well be taken otherwise.

  Declan is thinking that he remembers what you’re feeling, Ester. He used to sit and look at me like that himself, when we first set out for the capital, begging me every night to tell him more of the city.

  Ryn appeared in the light of the flames then, black form taking shape over the edge of Talo’s cave as he stepped into the light. Declan had been spinning his descriptions for so long that night was very nearly upon them, and the dragon’s climb from the hole had been muffled by the crackling and popping of the fire in their midst.

  Declan was about to ask him how he was feeling, pleased to see him up and about, when Ester spoke up indignantly from his side.

  “I’m not a child! It’s normal to be excited for something so new!” She looked around briefly, but received only grins from Declan and her father alike, and so hung her head and repeated, under her breath, “It’s normal…”

  Of course it is, Ryn told her consolingly, moving toward their side of the fire and plucking the sizeable redfin from where it lay waiting to be cleaned at Declan’s knee. Ignoring all protests, the dragon tilted his head back and dropped the fish whole, scales, head, and all, down his gullet. Ah, he sighed in apparent satisfaction after he’d swallowed. Better. He looked between the three of them. What is it we’re discussing? I’ve only just woken up.

  “Declan has been elaborating on the wonders of man’s great cities,” Bonner answered with a chuckle, waving the stone and a new root in his hands about in teasing exaggeration.

  Fascinating, Ryn answered, equally sarcastic, eyeing with interest the last perch left to be scaled.

  Declan snatched up the so-threatened fish with a glare. “We were talking—” he said poignantly “—about where it is we’re going.”

  Ranheln, Ryn answered at once, turning his defeated attention onto the rabbit Ester had finally started to skin, the iron aroma of blood mixing with the heavy scent of burning wood. We’re short on provisions, and you both need new steel.

  “I’ve already told them as much.” Bonner had returned to scrubbing his tubers clean. “We were speaking of after that. Aletha tops my own list, if it matters.”

  Ah, Ryn said, catching on. He’d given up on the hope for meat to sate what appeared to be the return of his typically ravenous appetite, and moved instead around the fire towards the mage. I would say that’s our best option, as things lie right now. Mathaleus will want to know what we’ve seen, even if he’s already aware of Sehranya’s hand in everything.

  “He knows of the Queen?” Declan asked, not expecting this piece of news. Bonner had said something to that effect as well, he realized then.

  Ryn made a non-committal shrug of one shoulder. Of her, I’m sure. There are measures in place to ensure the royal family stays informed on such matters, even if the common folk have long forgotten. Whether or not those around him have yet deduced her actual involvement, on the other hand…

  He settled down, taking up the thick stock of a mushroom whose head was the size of Declan’s open hand, sniffing at it curiously. Giving it a nibble, he made a face—his reptilian features twisting in disappointment—and set the fungus aside in favor of crunching into a finger-sized root he must have recognized more readily.

  Aletha is a good idea, but I admit I’m hesitant to make solid plans until we can figure out more of the Queen’s intentions, regarding us particularly. Our victory over the drey isn’t a blow to be discounted, but Bonner had the right of it earlier: I’m hardly inclined to think she’ll give up the hunt over something like that.

  Despite the lighthearted air with which he had spoken, Declan was put on edge by the dragon’s words. It felt like the pair of them—Ryn and Bonner both—were trying to nudge he and Ester towards an understanding without wanting to outright alarm them.

  The woman, it turned out, was thinking along the same lines.

  “You two have no doubt we’re going to be attacked again, do you?” she asked. Gone was the near-childish delight that had bloomed as Declan had related the interests of Ranheln and Aletha to her. She’d paused her bloody work to peer across the flames, expression set.

  To their credit, Ryn and Bonner didn’t do more than exchange the briefest of glances before the woman’s father spoke.

  “No, Esteria. None at all.”

  Ester nodded, saying nothing. After a time she went back to her skinning, her distress betrayed only by the barest shake of her knife hand.

  “Can you guess when?” Declan asked in her stead.

  If only. It was Ryn’s turn to answer, taking advantage of his ability to communicate with no more than an extended thought while claiming another large bite of the carrot-like tuber. Bonner’s scrying requires specifics, and is still limited by distance, and my own senses are even more constrained, as you know. I’ll be on the lookout, but I can’t be on edge constantly, and forewarning can only go so far if Sehranya—or whatever second she’s had tailing us—decides to put another drey on our scent.

  Nothing but the fire made any sort of sound after this, the party as a whole considering the implications of such an event. What would they do, now, in that moment, if one of the foul creatures descended on them, rampaging through the woods or plummeting down through the darkening canopy above? Ryn was hurt, Bonner’s strength was limited, and Declan knew he and Ester were next to useless, even if they had had their swords. He felt helpless, a sinking sensation that drew away all confidence he’d long held in his own skills, and those of his companions.

  It was an impression he didn’t enjoy in the least…

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  It was another day before Ryn felt well enough to travel, and the group spent most of those two nights and the intervening hours of sunlight in the secure confines of Talo’s spacious cave. Though he couldn’t see the ward, Declan was sure he was able to sense its presence whenever descending through the thick roots of the pine, as well as its absence upon exiting. They discussed much of nothing, in that time, no one choosing to bring up the reality of imminent attack that hovered over their heads like a guillotine. Instead, they preferred to let their discussion linger about the subjects of provisions and the trek they had ahead of them, at the very least to Ranheln. Ryn added little to these talks, the dragon sleeping most of the time away on one of the softened pallets of moss and grass Bonner had conjured for each of them shortly after dinner the first evening. The rest of them, conversely, participated boisterously, eager for any excuse not to think of what could be waiting for them out there, beyond the relative safety of the bear’s little nook.

  Still, when morning of that second day rose and Ryn woke to announce that he felt strong enough to start the journey, no one was displeased. Better to keep moving, and not grow too attached to the illusion of safety holing up would eventually provide. In short order Bonner bid farewell to Talo while Declan and Ester saw to their supplies, packing dried fish in layers of clean leaves tight with a variety of fruits and vegetables they thought might keep a day or two. Ryn surprised them both by electing to take his wolf’s form, presenting them with a creature that was almost more dragon than animal now that Ryn had dropped the illusions he’d held firm for so long. His back was scaled and ridged, ears spined over an angular, reptilian skull that had kept its fur. His tail was true to the beast, but his legs were each tipped with curved talons rather than claws, more raptor-like than mammalian. It took Declan and Ester each a moment to compose themselves—Ryn not even noticing their astonishment—but then Bonner appeared out of the cave mouth, calling loudly as to whether or not they were ready.

  Shortly thereafter they were off, heading first upstream a ways to cross the river along a wide length of shallows Declan had found fishing the previous afternoon, then cutting a path northeast once more through the trees with Bonner in the lead.

  The day’s going was easy enough. The coolness of the coming fall allowed them to set as brisk a pace as Ryn could handle in his state of healing, and they made it till noon before the dragon requested a rest, at which point all settled in for their midday meal. Declan and Ester took the opportunity to spar again, managing a good hour of work with the branches the half-elf had held onto for them before the dragon called that he was well enough to move again.

  Evening found them some hours later, and they set up a quick camp under the stars of a clearing Ryn located just when the colors of the sky began to change. Bonner denied them any sort of fire, but made up for it shortly by bothering Declan with a cryptic request to fetch him as wide and flat a stone as could be located. Declan provided—having noticed just such an appropriate specimen not a few minutes back along the path they’d taken. Returning to the clearing with it, Bonner had him set the thing down near the edge of the trees, giving only the most obscure of answers when Declan asked after his reasoning.

  “Better for not being seen from above.”

  Then he put his hands on the surface of the stone, and in the space of a half-dozen breaths the thing began to glow a dull, hearty orange-red. Declan—to his own bemusement—found himself only momentarily speechless at the sight of the magic, now, and didn’t have to be told not to touch it.

  Seeing the dry grass along the base of the now-enchanted rock curl and smoke into a blacked ring was enough of a warning.

  “Firestone?” he asked, remembering what Ester had said about the weaved rocks that had typically kept the yr’Essel’s home warm and well-lit.

  Bonner, for once, looked impressed. “It is indeed,” he answered, giving Declan a curious look.

  “Your daughter told me of them,” Declan answered the silent question. “I didn’t realize they were this big…”

  Bonner chuckled, then bent down to snatch up a pebble from beside his boot. “They rarely are.” He closed his fist about the stone, and when he opened it again, the pebble was glowing the same amber-red as the larger boulder at their feet. “And they weren’t initially created for such mundane tasks as heat and cooking, mind you.”

  “Oh?”

  The smile Bonner gave him then was so full of mischief, Declan knew what was going to happen before it did. With the slightest strain of the mage’s fingers, the small firestone blazed white hot in his palm, only a few shades shy of Ryn’s dragonfire, and erupted into open flame. Declan yelped, stumbling back from the old man and his burning handful, almost tripping on the rotten remains of a log strewn across the edge of the clearing behind him. Catching his balance, he straightened to find Bonner laughing uproariously, and eventually joined in, the old man’s playful cheer too infectious to ignore.

  Declan, though, hadn't missed the meaning of the lesson, as subtle as it had been, and his eyes followed the pebble—suddenly returned to its original temperature—into the woods after the mage had tossed it aside.

  They dined on seared slabs of apple and fish that night, spiced with a variety of found herbs Ester crushed and lathered the foods with shortly before serving. It made for as good a meal as any Declan had ever had on the road, and for a time his thoughts drifted away from magic and dead things and the anxious weight that pressed down on all of them, dark and ominous in its presence. When dinner was done, he volunteered for first watch—his thoughts keeping him from feeling particularly tired despite the arduous day they’d had—and the others took him up on the offer with exhausted appreciation. When they were all asleep—Bonner’s snoring probably loud enough to bring the Vigil from Aletha herself, much less any nearby drey—Declan took up a comfortable position with his back to one of the trees at the edge of the glade. He looked up at the sky, taking in the moon-lit, cloudless heavens in a bid for the beauty of the night to chase his mind away from his black contemplations. He stayed like that, finding solace in the clarity of the stars and the snick of sharpening steel while he ran a stone across the edge of his hunting knife, until it came time to rouse Ester for her own shift.

  The next day passed much the same, as did the following. Ryn grew a little stronger with every night’s rest, their overall pace improving steadily as a result. A rhythm to the mornings and afternoons set in, and by the fourth day the routine was so standard the group could have gone about their chores and habits without exchanging so much as a word. Rise with the sun, break their fast on the forest’s offerings, then set out steadily north by east in search of the King’s High Road, according to Bonner and Ryn. Eventually they would halt for a late lunch an hour or two after noon, at which point the mage and dragon willingly took care of meal preparations, giving Declan and Ester some time to themselves for sparring and training. After that, their second trek of the day usually lasted hardly half as long as the first, and they would set camp in whatever glen or clearing or plain Ryn found for them, taking turns on sentry duty. It became a pleasant pattern, and there was no shortage of conversation as they moved. Bonner and Ester both took advantage of the ample opportunity to test what Declan had learned from the half-elf during his earlier stay with them, as well as teach him plenty more. He learned to recognize a variety of trees which had looked to him previously to have been all one and the same, as well as a further range of plants and herbs with varying properties, both beneficial and malign. While he doubted he’d ever match Ester’s sharp eye, he also grew rapidly more skilled at teasing out the trails and prints of a dozen different animals, from the crashing path of panicked deer to the subtle passage of foxes and forest hares. He, in turn, drew Ryn into regaling the yr’Essels with further anecdotes of the places they’d been and explored, as well as handsome retellings of some of the more memorable combat they’d seen in their time with and after their recruitment into the Alethan mercenary guilds. All were more than content with each other’s company, and the mood held true all the more after they finally stumbled out onto the High Road following a morning of half-clambering up a steep set of outcroppings they had unfortunately been unable to avoid. Even the omnipresent threat of the Queen’s wrath seemed far more distant and foreign than it had even some days prior.

  Despite Declan knowing Ranheln was no more than a mere two-days’ walk due east of them, they were bogged down for a full afternoon and night by a return of the late summer storms not long after reaching the causeway. Ryn’s awareness saw them to a wide, planked bridge shortly before the rains caught them, but despite scrambling underneath it the shelter of the gapped wood was anything but ideal, and the overcast clouds sucked what little warmth had lingered in the already-cool day. Bonner got a shielding ward up for them as quickly as possible, but by the time the barrier expanded around them, cutting off the trickling fall of water from above, Declan and Ester were soaked to the bone. Already limited to what few mundane clothes they’d been able to take with them, the two resorted to huddling up against one another for warmth, their backs to a trio of glowing firestones the mage gathered up for them. Declan’s arm was around the woman’s shoulders, her hands tucked between their hips, each too miserable to bother with being embarrassed or awkward at the proximity.

  With the Mother’s good mercy, the storm at last quit sometime before the first light of the following morning. Declan was the one who roused the others, having drawn last watch as the heat of the enchanted rocks set everyone slowly at ease enough to sleep beneath the protection of the mage’s sheltering weave. After taking the time to gather their things, it was with only slightly dampened spirits that the four resumed their journey, following the High Road at a steady pace.

  Up until that point, they’d crossed with only a few other travelers, despite the breadth of the thoroughfare. Ryn had kept his wolf’s form, tolerating the curious—and sometimes alarmed—looks of the waggoneers and King’s messengers which had occasionally passed them going one direction or the other, but as they came within a day of Ranheln there was an exponential uptick in the traffic. Night saw them driving back into the woods deep enough to have their dinner away from the dirt and mud churned up by hooves and wheels after the passing storm, and to give the dragon a safe distance from prying eyes in which to transform. He elected the familiar figure of the handsome black stallion which had been his preference for so long, pointing out that he could act as a pack horse for whatever goods they made purchase of. No one voiced any complaint to this, though Declan couldn’t help but stare for a time, once again taking in the oddity of the scales and split hooves and serpentine subtleties that undermarked his friend’s equine features.

  “That’s really gonna take some getting used to,” he’d muttered to himself, earning a grin from Ester sitting nearby, who had obviously overheard and understood his disquiet.

  Still, by the time morning of what everyone hoped would be their last immediate day on the road rose, Declan found himself waking up cheerful and energized. It had occurred to him that Ryn was holding to his word from almost two weeks back, holding to his implication that he would allow Declan to see him as he was, rather than simply as the rest of the world did. Even having spent days in company with Ryn’s dragonling shape, and then the twisted forms of the “hawk” and “wolf”, this felt more to Declan a direct address of the confidence the dragon wished to rebuild, and was well on his way to doing so. He got more than one queer look from the others as they set off back for the North Road, not feeling any need to explain why he was whistling an old marching tune from his and Ryn’s days with Holden’s Guard.

  Ester, of course, was the first to make out the high, angled roofs of the city proper, rising above a hill they found themselves climbing in the late afternoon. She gave a shout at the sight, racing on ahead of the other three to crest the incline, where she waited for them with energized anticipation, one hand held up to shield her eyes despite the sun being well at their backs. Declan smiled at her enthusiasm, and left Bonner grumbling to Ryn about “youths and their impatience” while he hurried after the woman, meeting her at the top.