They were mountain goblins, apparently: the heartier, smarter, and more sentient equivalent of the blue things we fought weeks ago. We pile them up on the edge of the tree line as the stupid Hospitality of the Road decorum dictates, and then we venture toward the three tents. Across them are a half dozen half-eaten human bodies that have been dead at least a day—though Jonas isn’t quite sure about that. We eventually find a merchant’s wagon up the embankment a little ways, overturned and ransacked with a pair of dead kyttles still hitched to it.

None of us are especially clear what to do in the face of this kind of horror. Even Meg seems at a loss, and she’s the one we all turn to in such situations. We decide to go through the wagon’s remnants, where we find a pair of money sacks and a few comfortable blankets, but nothing else particularly noteworthy. It’s mostly kitchen wares.

We stuff the things we’re going to keep in my bag, then turn toward the task of taking care of the people. I classify the larger tent as the morgue, and we slowly move each of the bodies inside the tents, wrapping them up with the less nice blankets we’ve gathered.

“Ugh,” Jonas groans, shaking his head. “Why did they eat the faces?” He puts his hands on his knees, making a move as if to dry heave, but Meg pulls him up.

“If you’re going to do that, go to the trees,” she says. “We don’t need you starting a chain reaction.”

“Yes, please don’t,” I reply. I’m still covered in Jonas’s blood and starting to be aware of the iron scent wafting off me. So far, somehow, I’m managing to keep myself focused on the task to ignore the horror around me, but it won’t take much to shatter that comfortable little state of crisis-induced denial.

“I’m trying,” he gasps, shaking his head. “This is just a lot. Today started out so normal, and now it’s just… a lot.”

“I had my fingers in your leg, you don’t need to tell me twice.”

“Keira, that is not helping,” Meg says.

I sigh, and glance over at Flynt, who offers a flat commiserating look but doesn’t say anything. He’s been very quiet since we dealt with Jonas’s wound, and I’m actually a little worried about him.

“What are we going to do with the rest of it?” I ask as we finish wrapping up the last body. We haven’t been able to find any forms of identification, and Meg says the only real hope for doing so is if someone at the tavern happens to know them.

“We’ll take down the other tents and pack them to the side in case anyone needs them, then we’ll mark the front of this one with an ‘X’,” Meg says. “We can use mud to do that. That way, anyone who comes through between now and when we’re able to stop at the next tavern can know what is going on. At least a little bit.”

We step out of the morgue tent and I stretch, looking around the quiet campground lit by the flickering fire Flynt set during the battle. The moons are out, and stars flicker in the clear sky. The vast swirl of stars looks almost like pictures of the Milky Way, but not quite. I can’t put a finger on what is different.

“Does this sort of thing happen often?” I ask, glancing between my compatriots as I drop down onto one of the large logs that has been arranged around the fire pit.

“Not so much these days,” Tyrus says, shaking his head. He has also been pretty quiet, his focus on the work at hand. “But it does. Highwaymen, creatures, they happen, even off main roads like this. I’ve never really heard of a full party of mountain goblins coming down and laying ambush like this, but these poor souls must not’ve been too prepared. Probably didn’t even set up a watch. You can’t do that here in the Loop.”

“The Loop?” I ask.

“The Marrin Valley,” Meg says, sitting next to me on the log; Tyrus and Jonas settle on one of the others. “We’re on the western edge of it right now, but it’s a break in the thickest part of the southern mountain range. The Bisect makes it absolutely beautiful, but it can be a little lawless. It’s fairly cut-off from the rest of Qeth, particularly in the winter months.”

“Gotcha.”

Flynt lingers by the fire a moment, then nods his head back toward the stream we found the opposite direction of where we piled the goblins.

“I’m going to go wash up,” he says.

“Take someone with you,” Meg says.

“I’ll be fine.” He’s already on his way into the trees and she sighs at that, glancing at me.

“He okay?” Tyrus asks, frowning. “I’d never call him chatty, but he’s been particularly taciturn.”

“I think the day was surprising for several of us,” I sigh, watching him go, a little worried. Flynt is not my responsibility, he can more than take care of himself, and I don’t especially want to give the rest of them any ammunition for teasing, but as I glance back at them, all of them have expressions knit with concern.

“He’s been so invested this whole time,” Jonas remarks. “It’s a little weird, isn’t it? Tyrus basically died and he was fine, I get a little poisoned wound and he goes off on his own into a dark forest at night with goblins around? I know I’m likable, but it’s not like he and I are particularly close. I’m not Keira.”

“Now’s not the time for that,” Meg says, frowning.

“Sorry.”

“He reacted strongly when Tyrus got hurt too,” I reply. “He just hid it better. You’ve heard him. We’re his party. He worries about all of us.” I pull off my knit hat and tuck some hair back behind my ears before I tug it back on. “One of us should go make sure he’s okay.”

“It should probably be you,” Meg says, her voice soft as she leans in toward me, shoulder touching mine briefly. “We give you a hard time for it, but you are who he’s closest to.”

“Yeah, I know.” I draw a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m just really not good at that sort of thing. And frankly, I’m probably as freaked out as he is.”

“All the more reason it should be you. Besides. You are covered in blood and he’s at the stream.” She smiles at me sympathetically.

“Yeah, alright.”

I grab her shoulder for leverage and push myself up, brushing bits of bark off myself as I cross the camp and make my way up the muddy embankment into the trees. It takes a little while to orient as my eyes adjust to the dim lighting past the fire, but I find his path pretty easily. The sounds of lightly moving water get louder as I come up on the bank.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Flynt isn’t that far from where I emerge from the trees. He’s crouched at the edge of the stream, staring into space. His coat drapes over a log alongside his bracers, and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, which balance on his knees. His short sword lays on the bank at his side.

“Now it’s my turn to ask.” My voice is soft as I come up on him. He has to be cold, but I don’t notice any sign of that as I crouch down next to him, and rest a hand on his forearm. His skin is warm and smooth; he has very little arm hair, which must be an elven thing because I don’t have any at all. The lack makes the pale tattoos a little more visible, though I still have trouble deciphering the lines. “Are you okay?”

Flynt clasps his opposite hand over mine and squeezes briefly before he nods. “Fine. Just caught me by surprise. Some reason it was worse than the jellies.” His voice is gruff, more heavily accented than usual, and he clears his throat, meets my gaze. “You okay?”

“Oh, sure. It’s not every day you cut open a friend’s leg, but I’m fine.” I shake my head. “I’m… still processing.”

“I can imagine. It was quick thinking.”

“But not exactly elegant work. I don’t think that scar is going away.”

He scoffs. “Jonas is too pretty anyway. It’ll do him some good.” His expression doesn’t reflect the humor in the sentiment, so it comes across more like something he feels like he should say. “That’s twice in a handful of days that we nearly lost one of us.”

“Or twice that we didn’t.” I offer a small smile through the dim moons’ light that streams in from through the trees, casting the area around us in a pale silver tone.

“That’s one way to look at it.” Flynt stands and picks up his short sword, moving toward a large boulder a bit back from the stream itself. “You can go back. I’m fine, I just need a personal pause.”

“Okay.” I watch him sit, then I do the same next to him, pressing my shoulder against his bicep, leaning my weight into him. “I need one too.”

We sit like that for a long moment in silence. He all but glares out across the stream into the dark forest on the other side. Little motes of bluish light drift in the darker thickets, just little specs in the dark. I barely notice them at first, dismissing them as a trick of the eye, but they’re definitely there—probably some kind of insect, though what do I know. They could even be some type of fairy.

“What’s been on your mind?” I ask, echoing him from the last time we talked like this.

“Tyrus. Jonas. What happens when it’s my turn?”

I shrug. “We fix you.” I wish I felt as sure about it as my voice suggests. “I don’t think you’re actually worried about that. At least. Not as anything more than a passing thought.”

“Or when it’s yours?” His voice lowers, eyes dropping to his clasped hands.

“Hey, this all started out as my turn, let’s not forget,” I remind him, smiling slightly, trying to diffuse. The stream, the moons’ light, the flickering fairy bugs, the sentiment… if not for the fact that Jonas’s blood is still all over me, it would be downright romantic, and I’m just not ready for that. “It’s Meg we have to worry about. I’m in the back. I’ve gotten out of the last two scrapes without being hit at all. I’ve even gone twenty-two days without losing consciousness. This whole self-preservation thing is starting to stick.”

That breaks his tension slightly, and he looks up from his hands. “I can’t believe you’ve been keeping count.”

“Of course I’ve been keeping count. It’s an important milestone.”

He looks across his shoulder at me, his expression knit. “We should return to me reassuring you. I’m far more comfortable with that status quo.”

“We all need reassuring sometimes, but I won’t tell anyone.” I nudge him again, then lower my voice. “Can we talk for a minute about how badass we both were in that fight?”

This makes him chuckle. “I don’t understand why or how having a bad ass is a good thing, but it seems to be.”

“A very good thing.” I grin. “Like that spell you did with the ground? That was incredible to see.”

“Thanks. I’ve been wanting to work up to that one for years.”

“How do you make it so it doesn’t affect Meg?”

“It’s just directing the energy,” he says in the way people do when it is a big deal, but they want to play it humble. “As long as I’m able to predict where she’s moving I should be able to keep her out of the effect. There’s also this method for, uh, channeling Essence. It imbues the magic with what the mages call Intentionality. I’m not very good at it yet. I still got Tyrus with the force wave. But I think I’m getting better.”

“You seem to have more Essence than you used to. Those feel like pretty big spells to be casting right after each other.”

He nods. “We’re all getting stronger. More bad ass.”

“Badass. One word.”

“If you say so.”

“I think I may be on the verge of figuring out the Essence thing,” I say, tentatively. I’ve been trying to decide how to introduce the idea that all of a sudden Keira can just do magic, and I figure I’ll offer the least amount of information while still acknowledging it’s a development. “I’ve been experimenting. I think there’s a way to imbue my arrows with it.”

“Definitely,” he agrees. “I’ve seen it done. You just have to figure out how to tap into that side of your abilities.”

“I think I may have.”

“Have you tried it yet?”

“Not yet. I’m going to for our next fight, though.”

“Just be careful,” he says. “It can be really draining at first. Make sure you don’t do too much too quickly. You might reset that run of yours.”

“Run?”

“Of days without losing consciousness.”

“Ah, right.” I laugh softly. “Hey, Flynt?”

“Yes, Keira?”

“You don’t happen to have any reserves left, do you?”

“Reserves?”

“It’s just that I have a lot of blood on me and that stream looks really cold. I really don’t know how else to…” I hold my hands out in front of me, glancing over at him. His expression is creased with amusement, and he shakes his head. “Help?”

“I think I have enough for a cleaning spell. We should just get you a wand made.”

“They can do that?”

“Almost anything can be a wand if you have enough money.”

“Huh. Good to know.”

He stands and holds a hand out, pulling me up to my feet, then encloses my hands in his. He chuckles again. “You are ice cold.”

“Maybe you’re just really warm.”

“Maybe both.”

Flynt rubs my hands gently between his, smiling slightly, whispering the words that I’ve heard a half dozen times now and still can’t begin to recreate. Maybe one of these days he can just teach it to me—but maybe I just don’t have the skill necessary.

The gentle, magical warmth coasts over me; my clothing dries, the scent of blood lifts as the stains rise up and break away into dust. His gaze holds mine as it happens, the moons’ light turning his steel gray eyes silver, and for a moment there, I’m positive that he’s going to take the chance and kiss me. My pulse speeds up at the thought, and I’m not sure if it’s out of anticipation, anxiety, regret, or what.

He releases my hands and clasps my upper arms briefly, then pulls me into an embrace, his arms firm and warm around me. I can’t help but return it, my head resting against his chest. He smells like wildfire incense, sweat, and something else, something that I’ve come to associate with his magic: it’s sharp and electric and understated in the way only real power is. I close my eyes and knot his shirt in my hands. Tears threaten to choke me as I let go of some of the fear I’ve kept bottled in my muscles.

“We’re all okay,” I say, my voice soft and a little muffled. He tightens his hold and bows his forehead against the top of my head.

“I’m afraid we’re out of our depth.”

“Maybe. But we can’t hunt thorgs and gather flowers forever.”

“I know. And risk is part of the job.” He sighs, letting me go. He steps back a pace or two, raking a hand back through his hair before bending to pick up his discarded gear. “We should get back before they come looking for us.”

“I don’t know that’s something we have to worry about, for better or for worse, but you’re right. It also should be about time to make dinner and set up our tent.”

“Dinner?”

“Right?” I raise an eyebrow at him as we start walking back. “I can’t believe after all that I’m actually hungry.”

“You can have my share.”

“You say that now, but once Tyrus starts cooking, you’re going to take that back and you know it.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

“By the way. I claim first watch tonight. Alone.” He moves to protest but I shake my head. “It’s my turn, Flynt. It’s long past my turn.” At that, he holds up his hands, keeping quiet until we find our way back to the campfire, where Tyrus is already starting to set up the meal supplies.

“Keira has first watch,” Flynt says. “It’s her turn.”

“Well past it,” Tyrus agrees. All I can do is laugh.