“It’s hard to punch a mountain.” He grunted, then looked at his hands. Strong enough for most killing business. Tough enough to get the bloody work done when needed. Scaled, like all his kind, easy enough to wash clean. “I got scared.”

  “Because you couldn’t punch a mountain?” She pointed at the rock beneath them. “Give this one a go.”

  “Nah.” He stood, feeling his joints creak all the way up, and offered her a hand. She took it, then scrambled in for a hug. Evanne clung to him, all that Vhemin strength and purpose put aside for a second. He smoothed her hair. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

  “You’re a terrible liar.” Her words were muffled against his chest. “You’re saying it like you want it to be true, not because it is.”

  “The Three cursed me with no gift for words. They gave all that to you.” He pulled her tight enough to cause a runt problems, but she didn’t seem to squirm. “I want it to be true. I don’t want to be that scared again. We lost you.”

  “I’m right here, Papa.” She pulled away, staring up at him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “And who’s the liar now?” He eased off the boulder, and she joined him as they continued toward the camp. “I can’t even get you to promise to be safe. You’re part Vhemin, and part imbecile.”

  “Hey!”

  “I meant that in a loving way.” Armitage trudged along. “Did you or did you not pick a fight with a Feybrind?”

  “It was one time!”

  “That’s my girl.” He pulled her into a hug, and she laughed. “It’ll be okay.” She paused, trailing behind him on the road. He turned, feeling the creak in his joints. “What?”

  “You didn’t lie that time.”

  He grinned, all teeth, and saw her answering smile. A little smaller than his, with less shark in it. But kinder, and warmer, because she wasn’t like him. She was perfect. “Maybe I’m part imbecile, too.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  It took three days for everyone to join them, and Tarragon hated every waiting minute. She didn’t have Evanne’s attitude to be about it then, nor the focus of the High Justiciar to defeat the enemy. She didn’t like all the new faces, or the noise they made. But mostly she hated how they looked at her. I know I’m a Big, misshapen lump. Stop seeing me.

  There weren’t enough students left to call them a handful; they clotted to the sides of the merchant’s caravan like spoiled milk. They had the confidence of Tresward training, despite not having passed their Trials. The once-fairy could see three who showed the Storm’s promise. A handsome, rakish fellow named Amir who thought very highly of himself, a stunning woman who seemed to hate herself in equal measure, and a shadow behind them, Faust. A man who said little, watched all, and made her nervous from his sheer size alone.

  She found herself wondering if she could take him on the blade, and then wondered why she wondered such a thing of her allies.

  It’s the noise. They won’t stop talking.

  Two Feybrind came with them, a man and a woman. The cats were often close to each other, but her tail lashed where his was still. It was a curious play. Amir offered that Sands Apart was lost, but found, whatever that meant. The cats were elegance personified. Even their names were beautiful. Sight of Day and Sands Apart were not like buffalo. Neither gold nor ochre eyes had time for Tarragon and her Bigness.

  So Tarragon snared a bow and headed for the nearby valley. Myryntir claimed deer grazed near the forest’s edge, and Tarragon always liked venison.

  Away from the camp she felt her shoulders unbind. She missed Evanne, but not the calamity that came with the maybe-Vhemin. I just need some time alone.

  The bow was a good one. Unless she missed her mark, it was Feybrind made. Not a single centimetre of it was out of true, and it pulled well in her hands. She fancied some target practice more than venison, so fired shots at stray boughs that dared challenge her supremacy of the woodland.

  A crack brought her up short. She felt her hand drop to Requiem, the blade vibrating slightly under her fingertips. “Hello?”

  The Feybrind woman stepped from behind a tree. She held a stick and snapped it with another crack. Ah. She announced herself. {I greet you, Warrior.}

  “Oh! Hello.” Tarragon remembered her manners. {I mean no disrespect by my voice. I greet you, Warrior.}

  {I am no Warrior. Not anymore.} Sands Apart slipped alongside Tarragon, and they continued through the forest. {Your voice does me no disrespect. It is pleasant, and you use it well.}

  “You move like a warrior. Not like me. I’m so … Big.”

  Sands Apart held her hands still for a moment. {I’ve heard your story. One touched by Cophine and allowed to begin again. A fresh start, all past problems behind you. Many would like such a change.}

  “My problems are still with me.” Tarragon scrubbed wheat-pale hair. “If anything, they’re as Big as I am now.”

  {I misspoke. I would like such a change. I have done questionable things. Not that they were wrong at the time I did them, but I now question them in the light of a new day. There are many things in this world I do not understand, and I am over a hundred years old.}

  “There are lots of things I don’t understand either, and I’m closer to nine hundred years old.”

  {Wow. You look great.}

  Tarragon laughed. “Builders do not age as others do. Old age is not how we… how they meet their end.” She brooded a moment. “I can’t even call the Storm. I know all the patterns. Every step. But something eludes me.”

  {Show me, then.} Sands Apart found a comfortable log and perched, tail over crossed legs. {Humans are the one race that may call the Three’s Light. I will not teach a human to fight. But you aren’t human. Not all the way. Let’s see if you can carry the Light, too.}

  Tarragon hmm’d. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  {Builder, I was a prisoner here, but now I’m lost. I don’t know my purpose. It seems you don’t either. Perhaps together we may find a peace that eludes us individually.} She half-smiled. {Besides. It’s not every day you get to see a magic sword.}

  Tarragon understood the Feybrind’s intent. To draw her mind to the sword, not her person, to defuse the shame she might feel at her failure. I could use the practice. She propped the bow against Sands Apart’s log, then stepped away. She drew Requiem in an easy pull, the blade casting long shadows as blue-white light hungered for foes. “Hush, now. We’re just practicing.” The blade shivered, then quietened down, a mere candle’s worth of light puddling among the trees.

  The once-fairy stepped into Five Skies Afire. The High Justiciar had talked to her about the pattern, and it felt right to do it here in this small glade. She stepped and turned, the sword a dance of blue-white light. Her feet found their level, her body its poise. And still, the Light didn’t come. She finished the stanza after its forty steps, then stood, panting and ashamed. “There.”

  The Feybrind sat, mouth agape for a moment. {That was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.}

  “The sword is a wonder.”

  {It’s not the sword.} The cat looked away for a moment. {I don’t know the ways of Knights or how they can make or break the world. But I do see what your problem is.}

  “I don’t believe?”

  Sands Apart shook her head. {Nothing about this is belief. It’s a simple matter. You’re leaning forward too much.}

  “What?”

  {Leaning. Forward. Like you’re used to being smaller, which you are, and are now trying to shoulder a larger weight, which you think you are, but not really. Humans are, like all things made by the Three, in perfect proportion.}

  Tarragon stared, then said again, “What?”

  {You’ll figure it out. Do you fancy walking some more?} Sands Apart stood. {We should get some dinner.}

  Sands Apart carried the deer while Tarragon cut through tangled brushwood and trees. It seemed a horrendous dishonour to a magic sword forged from metal that fell from the sky, but the sword didn’t seem to mind. It feels like it wants to be used.

  The sun was lower in the sky for their return journey. It was past mid afternoon when they paused for a snack. Tarragon felt hungry. She’d a few berries she’d scrounged, but they didn’t hit the spot, and she didn’t like the raw rabbit Sands Apart wolfed down. She stretched her back, heard it pop, and said, “I keep forgetting Feybrind eat only meat.”

  The cat dropped the carcass. {If the Three hadn’t wanted us to eat meat, they wouldn’t have made animals out of it.}

  Tarragon laughed. “I mean … it seems so unfair. All of you are gentle.”

  {Our nature is not to be gentle or warlike. Our nature is to be the People.}

  “That sounds very wise.”

  The cat looked away for a moment. {I borrowed that line from a friend. He is one of the golden eyes. They see better than most.}

  Tarragon eyed the sun-dappled canopy above. “It feels like the ancients made everything better than they were. Feybrind are smart and strong and kind. Fairies can work in irradiated wastelands. The Vhemin are pure muscle⁠—”

  Sands Apart cut her off, slicing the air with a hand. {The monsters were made to die. Humans made them to do that better than they as well.}

  Tarragon turned that over a moment. “You don’t hate the Vhemin?”

  {I did.} A shrug. {So many things I took as true are not. The monster’s lot is to do the bleeding and the dying while dandies sit on feather pillows. Or so the golden eyes said.}

  “What’s with the golden eyes?” Tarragon raised an eyebrow. “Yours hold the colour of cinnamon cast as stone.” She looked at her feet. “It is wonderful.”

  The Feybrind leaned against a tree and rubbed her face. {There are always those better than others. You can fence better than some, while being slower than most.}

  “Hey!”

  {It is a metaphor. I was not being specific, but if it feels close to home…} A half-smile. {The golden-eyed People are better in all ways.} Her hands trembled a moment. {It is said they are never wrong, but I wonder.}

  Tarragon sighed agreement. “Evanne is like that. She sees everything. I have lived so much longer than her, but I’m blind in comparison.”

  {You are human. It is in your nature to be short-sighted.}

  “I wasn’t always … I mean, um.” Tarragon kicked a fallen branch. “I have never seen well. I had no Manifest. I failed my exams. I⁠—”

  Another sharp slice of the air from a fursoft hand. {And yet here you are, wielding a sword of unquestionable power, trusted by the soul keeper, comrade of spectres, and friend to the People. That last is more special than the others.} She stiffened, then whirled. {Do you hear that?}

  “I hear birds.”

  {Deaf as well as blind. There is a commotion.} The cat darted through the trees, easily clearing fallen boughs and brush. Tarragon realised Sands Apart needed none of Tarragon’s help scrub cutting as she struggled to keep up. She lost sight of the Feybrind, but heard the clash of steel. She bulled on, breathing hard, cursing her giant elephantine legs, angry at her lack of wings.

  She burst into a clearing. They weren’t at the camp yet, but the sounds of battle were nearby, and the smell of smoke was on the wind. In the clearing were five people around Sands Apart. The cat had felled two already, and she crouched, teeth bared, hands hooked and ready to strike.

  She has no weapon. Why does she have no weapon?

  The question could keep. Tarragon didn’t slow as she cleared Requiem from scabbard in a smooth motion that cut a man near her in half. The remaining pair turned, and she saw sooty faces, unkempt clothes, and patchy beards. The air was sour with their sweat.

  The closest came at her with a pitchfork, and she whittled it down to the nub with three strikes of her blade. The tines smoked and glowed as they hit the grassy ground, the haft charred at Requiem’s last cut. Tarragon took the man’s arm, then his head, cutting his scream in half, leaving silence on the wind.

  The remaining man lunged at her with a rusty sword. It was an antique, by the looks as old as Sands Apart, the notched edge showing no Feybrind craftsmanship. He was comically slow. She thought, lean back. I am not a fairy trying to lift a human’s body. I am me, and I am whole. Requiem thirsted, cutting the man from groin to skull. A charred spray of ichor sprayed from his spine as the sword hissed and spat through meat. Thunder roiled above as Tarragon held her pose in high guard, looking for foes.

  Sands Apart pointed toward the camp. {Come.} Then set off, Tarragon in pursuit. This time, the cat didn’t break ahead, and they emerged behind a wagon as battle joined around the encampment.

  Tarragon was about to head into the fray, sword high, fear in her heart because Where is Evanne? Sands Apart held her elbow, a usually gentle hand now iron. Tarragon tried to get free, but the cat was insistent. She touched her eye, then pointed across the battle. Look. Tarragon saw the big man, Faust. He was at the camp’s other border, and one of the wretched bandits was with him. They weren’t having a good time, fists raised, faces closed, but they weren’t fighting.

  “What is going on?” Tarragon looked about to see if anyone else could see, but no, Faust and the bandit were hidden from the melee by a convenient tent. She spied the braggart Amir heading their way. Amir rounded the tent, and Faust changed in a moment from arguing to murdering. In a second, the bandit lay dead.

  Amir spoke, but his words were lost against the clash of steel, and both headed back to the battle. Sands Apart pointed in their direction. {Say nothing.}

  Tarragon bit her lip. What’s going on?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Amir sat on a log. It felt good. Companionable, almost. No rough edges to sand his ass, and a non-rotted sturdiness that belied the age of its lichened exterior. It was a good place to sit, because he was outside the camp proper, and the associated chores that came with cleaning up a battleground. There were always weapons to stack, bodies to bury, and rites to be said.

  Usually Amir would have chipped in, but today he wasn’t feeling it. When he’d joined the Tresward, he’d been so … sure. He’d travelled far to get his beating at the hands of the High Justiciar and welcomed the lesson. I wanted to be a Knight. Hold the Storm on a leash and defeat the enemies of the world. But the more the Light touches my blade, the less certain I am.

  “Sup.” Evanne sat with a grunt.

  Amir stifled a small scream. “You move quietly.”

  “Your thoughts were loud enough to be heard a world away. It’s no wonder you didn’t hear my footsteps over all that noise.”

  “Hmm.” Amir faced the thatch of trees that stood between them and the encampment. “You seem to have escaped the battle unscathed.”

  Evanne drew a wicked-looking machete with an air of satisfaction. “I think I’m getting the hang of this.” She brought the weapon overhead at some imagined foe, then sighted down the blade. “You beat on fools until they stop moving.”

  “That is the essence of it.” Amir held out his hand, and after a moment she handed the blade over. He bent, elbows on knees, and examined it. Fine craftsmanship, but with no maker’s mark. He straightened and gave the weapon a flourish. “Heavy about the blade. No cross guard. This weapon seems unsuited to one who sings so sweetly.”

  Evanne’s eyes narrowed. “Say it plain, Knight.”

  “It’s a brute’s weapon.” Amir handed it back. “All offence with no room for … negotiation.”

  She slipped it back in its sheath. “It is the Vhemin way.”

  Amir shook his head. “You are no monster from the blasted plaguelands. You are a,” he tapped his temple, “thinker first. You carry your mother’s blood, too.”

  She gave him a sideways glance. “You’re not my father⁠—”

  “No, I am not.” Amir stood. “I am naught but a sellsword whose ragged past left him with many regrets. I assure you there are plenty of monsters that walk the halls of men. Vhemin have no sovereignty over power from strength at another’s expense. They learned that at our feet, I think. Children brought into our world by wicked men who were tired of dying for their own causes.”

  She looked away, perhaps uncertain this was the right log for her anymore. “If that’s true, a brute’s weapon would do just as well for a human hand.”

  He sighed, slumping back to the log, and fished out a small metal flask. He took a pull of honey whiskey, then handed it to her. “You’ve the right of it, of course. All I meant is your course is yours. You own it. If you are born poor, change your stars and become wealthy. Ignorance can be turned to wisdom. Weakness can become strength, and power can become a gift shared among all.”

  He heard her swallow, then give a satisfied ahhh as the whiskey hit. “You speak as if your life was much different not so long ago.”

  Amir gave a bitter laugh. “My life was worthless before I found the Light. The man I was saw a path to the man I am. And here I sit, sharing whiskey with⁠—”

  This was where the hidden watcher at the back of his mind said, move, asshole, and so he stood, turning a perfect half-circle, blade coming to hand as if it was thirsty again already. A woman half-crouched behind the log, silent as whisper fog, hooded face twisted in anger and surprise. She lunged, but not for Amir. Her blade went for Evanne’s back, still turned away, because bards were not known for speed or combat prowess.

  Something is not right. Why is this one assassin here after a battle with bandits? The question needed an answer, and one person might have it, so rather than running the assassin through, he stepped into the path of her blade, linked arms with a surprised Evanne, and tumbled over the log, taking the bard with him. He tossed her into the mulch five metres away and rolled to his feet.

  The Vide lunged past him, so he slapped the flat of his blade on her backside, and as she turned, offered her now angrier face a wide, welcoming grin. “Slept in, did you? Missed the battle and wanted blood on your steel?”