The rest of the night wasn’t as celebratory as I might have otherwise imagined. For me, at least. Cadoc still toasted my successes, toasted my “valiant heroics” after I filled everyone in on all the details of my time alone. Most of the details. Even in my distracted state, I was selective about relaying the moments that made me out like some kind of hallucinating psychopath.

I felt most numb retelling the story of killing Nolan - his face, shocked, haunting, stuck in my imagination - but the entire talk I felt like someone else was talking, while I thought and planned.

Amaia listened with a blank expression, while Naomi’s face was an audience of its own, twisted in forms of disbelief, disgust, and, at times, something which may have been cool admiration. Lot knew most of it, and stayed silent.

More congratulations all round. More praise. Questions about my new powers from Cadoc, pointed questions about my disguises from Naomi, questions about Olsgolon from Lot. Someone answered them in my voice.

The sky was clear, the air pleasant, and our supplies nearly non-existent, so we eventually settled into chosen spots on the stony ground, sleeping in our clothes. I stared at the stars for a long time as those unknown insects continued their alien calls.

Now what? That question like a mantra in my mind.

To Naomi’s family, I thought. They’ll have some reward, something. If they are very rich… then what? Could they give me something worth a million dollars?

Maybe. Something not worth so much here, but worth a million dollars back on Earth. A potion that cures cancer. A piece of magical armor that happens to be bullet-proof. A ring that…

I reached my hand into my pocket, checked that the ring was still there. It was. I brought it out, fidgeting with it between my fingers.

A ring that lets you fall from any height, unharmed. What would the world pay for that?

I brought the ring before my face, looking at its dark form against the bright stars. It doesn’t matter what the world would pay for it. What matters is what Dimen-X would pay for it. Which, if the research faction wins out, is a paltry 50k.

And if the salesman group wins out, millions.

I sighed. “I’ve got magic powers and artifacts,” I whispered to myself. “And yet I’m still at the mercy of office politics.”

I studied the heavens. They didn’t care. The stars shone on, unphased by my problems. Unaware like I was unaware of the problems of insects.

Was that the big dipper overhead? I thought it might be, but there were simply too many stars out to say for sure, so many that perhaps patterns could be imagined where none were truly there. It could have just been my mind grasping at any hint of the familiar like a drowning man grasps for nearby swimmers.

I thought about Tom. Even if I could sell the ring for millions, whenever Dimen-X’s policy was decided, would I? Would I leave?

No one else was coming for Tom. They assumed he was dead. It was me, or no one.

Not that he needs me, I thought. If anything…

I shook my head, frustrated. “No,” I said.

But what was I, if not Tom’s shadow? A murderer?

Nolan’s face again. I shook this away, too.

A monster, I thought. A desperate beast. Someone who will do anything to get what they want. Someone who wasn’t going to take cues anymore. Someone who was going to squeeze what they wanted out of the world, whether the world consented or not.

I remembered falling, that sense of free weightlessness after tackling Nolan and dropping into the abyss. My desperation was on full display then. Nolan had died because he had underestimated it.

I smiled in the dark, laughing internally at a macabre joke - a saying I had heard once, from an international student in college. It was apparently a Dutch phrase, translated into English.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

A cat in a corner makes strange jumps.

-

I woke once during the night. Unsure what had woken me, I sat up and looked around.

All of my companions were there, sprawled out randomly. I could just make them out if I squinted - the fire had gone out. Lot far on one side, with his nameless (to me) women some distance further. Naomi and Amaia near to eachother, Naomi with an arm laid over Amaia, which had probably happened while asleep. Cadoc between where they lay and where Lot was, as if he was protecting the women from the monster, Lot.

But nothing stirring. Just one of those things, I guessed.

Only truly half awake, I got up to pee. I walked as far as I dared, obviously not wanting to pee at my bedside, but equally averse to falling off of a cliff.

Business done, I began to resettle my pants when a thought struck me. If I had been truly, fully awake, I would certainly have dismissed it for one of the many reasons that would come to a waking mind. But I didn’t. Instead of buckling my pants, I took them off entirely. Then I took off the rest of my clothes, stripping down until I was completely naked.

I brought the clothes back to my spot, and laid them down like blankets. I settled myself back down, the cool air feeling nice on my skin, hands laced behind my head.

I had only come half out of sleep, so it was almost no time at all before I sunk beneath the waves again.

It felt right. It was the first time I had slept in the nude in years, even though I’d always preferred it. Tom, after all, never slept naked.

-

I awoke to a pain in my side, and the sound of a woman’s scream piercing my ears.

My eyes shot open in a flash, and I was instantly awake. It was still dim out, the sun barely perceptible on the horizon. It was hard to even see who was assaulting me, what the situation was, and for a moment my blood froze in my veins, thinking that history was repeating itself, that misplaced Kalamuzi refugees had stumbled on our camp and re-kidnapped Amaia and Naomi.

But it was Naomi who was kicking me, yelling.

“What is wrong with you, you freak!” she yelled. A rhetorical question.

I scrambled away, hunched over, hugging my clothes tight to my chest. I must have looked like a freak, then, snarling at her, before shame overtook the reaction. I didn’t answer her, only stuttered and began quickly putting on my clothes.

“Are you going to answer me? Huh? Why were you naked?” She pointed at me accusingly.

“It was warm,” I said, pulling my pants up and blushing but trying to act unaffected. “Is it illegal to sleep naked?”

“Yes!” she said. The others were roused, started to wake up, rubbing their eyes, yawning. “It’s like, public indecency!”

“Leave me alone,” I said, the shame cooling. “If you didn’t want to see it, then why did you look?”

Now it was her turn to blush. She looked away, huffing. “Animals. I’m surrounded by animals. First Nolan and his girl having sex in the dungeon, and now this pervert.”

I finished dressing, vaguely aware that my armor was little more than ragged strips of leather. I’d need a replacement, ASAP.

“What is going on?” Cadoc said. He had gotten up quickly, and was standing beside me, sword in hand, before I had even noticed him coming. He kept glancing at Lot, even though Lot hadn’t even fully risen yet.

Amaia was up as well, and stood beside Naomi.

“It’s nothing,” I said. “Naomi tried to see me naked, again.”

“Oh,” Cadoc said, sheathing his sword. “A pity. I thought it was an attack.”

Naomi didn’t answer, only stomped off, whispering something to Amaia. Amaia looked back at me with a sympathetic look as she left - or what passed as a sympathetic look, for her.

And then Cadoc drew his sword again. I turned, but it was only Lot.

“Put it away, Cadoc,” I said. “He’s a friend. Look, go walk over there if you can’t stand to be near him. See what our surroundings look like. Maybe you’ll spot that ambush you’re hoping for.”

“If I must,” Cadoc said. “But I will never agree to keeping company with a monster. My honor cannot allow it, friend. We will talk on this.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Lot said with a bow. “I will be leaving.”

“What?” I said, looking back and forth between the two. “Why? Cadoc isn’t going to kill you, OK? We’re all friends here.”

“Good riddance,” Cadoc said. “The quicker you leave, and the further you flee, the safer you will be, fiend.”

“It isn’t that,” Lot said. “Though I must admit I do not always feel particularly welcome in this party. Perhaps it is the constant death threats. Or maybe I simply do better alone. Who’s to say?”

“Then what is it?” I asked.

“The women,” he said, pointing. “They think they know the way back to their homes from here. They want nothing to do with Coernet. Too far east, they said. Apparently the east is quite unpleasant to you overlanders. Alas, I am ignorant on the matter.”

“So?” I said, waving them off with one hand. “Let them go.”

“I cannot.” He looked at Cadoc now - perhaps the first time he had ever looked him straight in the eyes. “I, too, have some small bit of honor, for whatever it is worth coming from a wretch like myself. If they go on their own, they will surely perish. With me, perhaps they will have a chance.”

Cadoc said nothing. “But,” I started. “But what can you do? You don’t even have magic.”

“No,” he said, nodding. “But I am, as your fine companion so elegantly put it, a monster. A fiend, even. That comes with certain benefits, if you can call them that. I can fight. Or intimidate.”

I shook my head. I liked Lot. I realized that I didn’t want him to leave, not really.

“The town they’re from,” I started, cautiously. “Is it…rich?”

“No,” Lot said. “From the sounds of it, it is quite poor, distant, and half destroyed by, well…” He didn’t have to finish the thought.

“You,” Cadoc said. “There will not be peace until every last monster is run through with a pointed spear or blade.”

“Not I,” Lot said, “But some of my vile brethren, yes. I’m sure you can’t tell the difference, but we are different. If I run into any of them, I’ll pass along your message, and run a couple through for you.”

Cadoc sniffed. “It’d be the most noble deed you’ve ever committed.”

“Perhaps.”

“Wait wait wait,” I said. “Is there, is there any way I could convince you to stay? Could we convince - what’s their faces - could we convince them to come with? What choice would they have? I’m sure Coernet is safe, however far east it is. Naomi’s family lives there, after all.”

“I tried,” Lot said. “But they are set. Talking to them will do you no good.”

I was actually going to get Naomi or Amaia to talk to them for me.

I sighed. “And then what are you going to do? Settle down? Find a wife, have some kids?”

Lot sneered. Then, realizing that I was joking, gave a little laugh. “No. My plan, as it stands, is, after delivering the women to their homes, to be chased out of the town by a mob of angry peasants who will wrongfully blame me for kidnapping the women in the first place.”

“Great plan,” I said.

“It cannot compare to crossdressing and skinwearing,” Lot said with a thin smile. “But not all of us have your genius, Miles.”

There was no convincing him. Cadoc was elated, and Naomi and Amaia didn’t particularly care one way or another. Naomi wouldn’t talk to me quite yet, and Amaia only shrugged.

So, with no one else taking my side, I could only accept it.

Before he left, I did say one last thing.

“When you’re done,” I said. “And they chase you out of town.”

“Yes?”

“Come to Coernet.”

Lot stared at me for awhile. Finally, he nodded.

“If the peasants don’t have my head, I will come to find you.” Then he looked at Cadoc, and flashed a toothy grin. “After all, I must deliver my head to Cadoc, so that he may do the honors of slaying me.”

I’d known him only a short time, but still, as Lot walked off, those three unimportant women walking behind him, I felt a pang in my heart.