Feeling no less settled in his mind about leaving, Galen descended the ladder to the ground floor, said his goodbyes to his family, and followed Brin into the lowering dusk.

For a full minute, they walked in silence. Galen felt Brin glancing toward him. Eventually, she must have decided to just pretend she hadn’t witnessed any awkwardness between Galen and his family.

“We’ll swing by Voshell’s Favor and fetch Danto along the way. I’ve gotten the cooperation of Tender Hent already. Danto’s just gathering his things. Then we’ll bunk down at the militia barracks for the night before heading out in the morning.”

Brin spoke with her usual brisk efficiency, but a new purpose sparked beneath her words.

“Heading out where?” Galen’s head thudded. Thoughts slowly regathered themselves as he left behind his family—his pretend family—and attempted to get used to the idea of stepping into militia boots once more.

“Let’s get Danto, first. It will be easier to only have to explain once.”

The two of them both wore soft boots, quiet on the neatly-kept cobbled streets of Chanford Falls. From the center of town, the keep and attendant tower kept watch over carts and pedestrians moving through its streets. The setting sun cast rosy light on the gleaming white walls around the city’s perimeter and caught fire in the glittering gem of Dawn’s View Spire, the second of the town’s temples, this one dedicated to Esme, goddess of light and insight and clarity, and frequented most often by the Chanford family.

Brin guided them away from Galen’s house in the Southgate district and headed north, where the modest shrine of Voshell’s Favor sat in the shadow of the keep, out among and more accessible to the working folk of the district who preferred Voshell’s matronly affections over the more erudite leanings of Esme found within the Dawn’s View Spire. Galen had taken his inner narrator on many meandering walks through the city, so he was familiar with the craftsmen’s shops they passed. Some of those working class folks had knacks or used a little magic to aid their natural skills. Nothing made in Chanford Falls compared to the likes of the much larger city of Diairm, of course.

Galen walked in brooding silence, and at first Brin left him to it. Eventually, though, she asked a deceptively simple question.

“Did you ever tell your parents everything that happened?”

“Of course not.” Anger toward his family faded as Galen shifted his thoughts toward what he knew Brin referred to. He’d only told them anything at all about the militia mission to Gastusad Manor and the fight with the raiders because they’d have found out from gossip anyhow.

“Do they know you’ve started sneaking off to the Spire gardens sometimes?”

Galen’s steps faltered. He glanced sharply sideways at Brin. She turned her face toward his, but her brows merely lifted in question.

When he wasn’t working at the store or at home making sure his family wasn’t falling apart, Galen had spent what some might call an unhealthy amount of time trying to figure out if the Shining One had given him powers of some kind. His class still just said Militia Soldier, and his listed actions were all physical attacks—not a whiff of anything remotely magical. He’d scoured his character sheet and also couldn’t find any kind of ability or bonus to Diplomacy that accounted for the 25 that had gotten him in good with the Shining One who’d sent the snake and resurrected Danto.

He couldn’t find anything that explained the weird side effects he’d been experiencing. He couldn’t do anything. He just felt weird.

Maybe it’s all in my head.

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His entire life was all in his head now, after all.

Galen hadn’t told anyone anything. At first, he’d even tried to deny it to himself. That had failed, to the point he’d seriously considered setting off for the hidden glade where they’d encountered that ancient Shining One. But rumor said the tunnel had been collapsed, and even if it hadn’t, Galen was no tracker.

Which had left Galen to attempt sorting things out for himself. And while he wouldn’t describe his outings to the public gardens surrounding Dawn’s View Spire as sneaking, Galen certainly hadn’t gone out of his way to tell people about them, either.

“No,” Galen eventually answered. “How do you know?”

“I’m career militia now.” Brin faced forward. Her chin lifted, and a note of pride crept into her voice. “It’s my job to keep an eye on people.”

“On me?”

Brin didn’t look toward Galen again, but her shoulders relaxed. The corner of her mouth drooped, and her brow furrowed.

“Given what happened? Yes.”

What did happen? Brin of course knew even less than Galen did—about the Shining One, at least—so he didn’t bother to ask. With the passing of time, the entire day had faded into a blur featuring that voiceless voice in his head and a sharpness to his senses that made the things he’d seen seem not entirely real.

And that laugh. He remembered the Shining One’s laugh when Galen had asked if they would help, followed by a more desperate later request to save Danto’s life.

Not just save it. Restore it. He was dead.

“I still feel things.” Galen answered the question Brin was really asking or had perhaps been about to ask. His face warmed, but if anyone was going to understand, she would. “Hear things, sort of.”

“Like when the Shining One talked to you?”

Galen had asked himself the same thing, of course. The Spire gardens were not much like the wild woods where the Shining One lived. Manicured hedges and prim beds of roses and lavender couldn’t compare. Even the grass was tame, compared to the tangle of that forest.

When Galen paced along the garden path, pausing now and then to brush his fingertips against nodding flower heads, he felt something from them. He just couldn’t quite decide if it was exactly the same thing.

“Yes. But not as strong. And it wasn’t talking, really. There weren’t words. Aren’t words.”

What there was, underscoring everything, was an ongoing sense that Galen owed whatever had saved Danto’s life, a favor at least but possibly more. A sense of expectation lingered, like he was supposed to do something with or about whatever the Shining One had gifted him.

He just wasn’t sure what the gift was or what thing he was supposed to do with it. If it was even real.

Brin glanced sideways at Galen as they walked through the market, closed for the night, toward the narrower street which wound toward Voshell’s Favor.

Again, she didn’t ask, exactly. But Galen tried to answer anyhow.

“It’s easier when I’m around plants and not so many people.”

“So, the gardens.”

“Yes. When I walk there it feels like…”

Galen struggled to find the words and then to force them out.

I sound like an idiot.

“It feels like the earth under my feet has a pulse. And the plants, sometimes it feels like they… notice me? At the edges of my vision, I see things sometimes, like the plants move and form into shapes almost like animals.”

Brin’s glance came more sharply this time. “Like snakes?”

“No snakes.”

Not yet, anyhow. But it was something he’d thought about, as well. Hopefully, even. That seemed dumb. What help would a snake of dirt and roots be to him?

“But it feels like they’re looking at me. Aware of me.” Galen hesitated. In a more sheepish murmur, he added, “I tried talking to them. The plants. The earth. To see if they answer me.”

Brin nodded as matter-of-factly as if Galen had merely told her he’d had a conversation with his parents and siblings that morning and not been confessing that he talked to the flowers and trees. A tightness in his chest loosened and broke apart. If he hadn’t already been a little in love with Brin, he was then.

She shot Galen another sideways glance, brows still raised in curiosity. “And have they? Answered you?”

Just like that. Just like it wasn’t a crazy thing to consider at all.

Galen shook his head. “Or if they are, I don’t understand what they’re saying.”

They took a few more steps without speaking further. The glow of hearths and candles flickered in upstairs windows, where merchants and craftsmen lived above their shops. Few people passed through the empty market. Brin and Galen wound between unmanned wooden stalls and into the street on the far side.

“Have you seen Danto at all?” Brin’s voice turned odd, tighter and less conversational. “Since?”

They hadn’t told Danto that he’d died. On the day of, it had been more important to catch the raiders, so Brin hadn’t even mentioned that part of events to Commander Farsafe. Galen hadn’t cared enough to bring it up, either. It felt personal, not to mention too confusing for words.

Later, Galen had come to think it was just as well that he and Brin had kept Danto’s death and resurrection quiet.