Five more days of traveling and Brick’s mood had been the lowest I’d ever seen it, but I understood how he was feeling.

He and Bastion had always been together, and yet Bastion had left him behind with nothing but a letter to say goodbye. I was worried for him too, and I didn’t mind letting Brick use me as a distraction when he really needed one.

During the day, it was different. Our focus was spent on covering ground and we barely had time to think. During the night we had the wind, the owls and endless silence to think about everything we could have done differently.

It was all I could do to try to kiss the darkness away when I saw shadows rising in the depths of his eyes and cast Sleep on him to make sure he actually rested.

It was just a shame that all of this was happening so soon after I’d gotten together with Nightfall. Although they’d known each other as teammates in the past, sharing a girlfriend was a challenge they’d never thought they would encounter, and Nightfall was only seeing Brick’s grouchy orc side.

I wished Bruiser was here to help me figure out how to make the whole ‘harem dynamic’ thing work. Of all of us, he was the only one who’d had experience being part of a successful harem.

I wished Bastion was here instead of hurtling headfirst towards danger once again. I could almost hit Bruiser for leading him away and into danger.

I stroked Brick’s hair as he desperately clung to me in his sleep. It was as though his subconscious was terrified that I would slip away as well.

A bird started its early morning song and Brick began to stir.

“Is it morning?” he grunted blearily, still half asleep.

“Yes, sweetheart,” I murmured. “It should be first light soon. Do you want to start packing the tent up?”

He nodded and wrenched himself off his makeshift pillow, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

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“We better get a move on. If I know Bruiser and Bonaparte, they’ll be early risers as well. I’m not sure if we can make up the ground.”

I caught his cheek with my hand and planted a kiss on his mouth before getting up as well. I didn’t feel like I was getting nearly enough sleep, but peaceful dreams were scarce when I was so worried, and it was impossible to cast Sleep on myself. I hoped things would end soon.

While Brick started dismantling our tent and rolling it up to fit in our pack, I went to wake Nightfall and Jackal.

Nightfall was already sitting cross-legged in his bed, dark circles under his eyes. He met me with a grim expression.

“I trust you are well?”

I could tell his neutral expression was masking a deep hurt. I’d offered to help him sleep with magic, but he had insisted I didn’t, wanting to hear if I needed assistance. Listening in to my nighttime activities in the next tent over probably didn’t help his mood either.

“Of course,” I said. “We should get moving soon.”

I handed him a cinnamon roll out of my bag and he took it grudgingly, chewing while staring at the floor.

“You know I love you, right?” I said, laying my hand on his knee. “I’m sorry I haven’t had time to give you much attention with this whole adventure and everything.”

“I am not some kind of puppy who needs constant attention,” Nightfall said grumpily. “I do not mind your distraction, which is perfectly understandable given the situation. What I mind, dear heart, is the kind of attention you allow the orc to give you. I fear for your safety every night.”

“He’s more respectful than he seems when he’s dragging me away,” I said, knowing better than to laugh. Every evening Brick had ended up hauling me off to his tent when the anxiety got too much for him, which I knew wasn’t a promising look. “That’s like… it’s like a game we play. He would stop if I told him to.”

“Stay with me tonight. Please.”

“I… Okay,” I promised. “We should wake Jackal up, so he has some time to eat.”

I ruffled his hair with my fingers, and he blinked his eyes open and looked around in confusion before noticing me.

“Emma?” Jackal said, sitting up and focusing on me. “Emma! Are we getting married today?”

“Not today,” I laughed, giving him a cinnamon roll as well. His intelligence was only 2/20 and through a couple of miscommunications he believed me to be his girlfriend, that we were going to get married at some unknown date in the future and that this entire huge adventure was actually a date. I’d tried to correct him the first few times, but in the end, it just made life easier to go along with it. So long as he kept his hands to himself, there wasn’t a problem.

We made hasty work of packing up our belongings and got back on the road. With any luck we would reach the headwaters of the river that separated us from the body of land the necromancers had claimed as their own.

I only hoped we would not be too late.