The foothills of the Crags cast long shadows on the path as they rode toward the sun.

They had survived some of the most arduous terrains in all of Ardelym. The horses, sniffing the salty air, trotted happily toward the wide expense of sea.

When they reached the bottom of the hill, their optimism quickly abated. A thick spill of lava, glowing red at its center and misting with pungent smoke, blackened the path connecting to Pendulum Road, the shortest distance back to Oran.

Starlex felt Bonn's muscles tense as he reined in Stellarion. Through the ripples of heat pouring off the lava spill, she could see the beginnings of the flatlands, and her heart leaped. The sandy plains told her she was closer to home. Still, they had a long journey ahead of them, and now this latest setback.

With a creak of the saddle, Bonn swung his thick, muscular leg over the stallion's withers and dismounted. Leaving Starlex in the saddle, he walked a few paces behind to consult with Leiffen. Starlex gazed up at the cloudless sky for any sign of Raki. She hadn't seen the rare Lila bird in days and desperately hoped she hadn't been injured (or worse) during the dragon attack.

Bonn walked back to the stallion, his sword clanking against his bronze studded belt, and wordlessly grabbed the reins.

"Where are we going?" Starlex asked as Bonn led the horses off the road into the brush.

"To the shore," he said. The high grass lashed at his bare legs. Starlex turned to look at back Leiffen, who still sat atop Emberfall. He had pulled a reed pipe from his saddlebag and began to play a jaunty, upbeat tune. The horses stepped in time to his playing as they entered the white sand.

They followed the shoreline for half a league when they discovered another lava spill, a hot smoking stream of it, cutting the shore and funneling into the sea in an acrid black cloud.

"We can't even get the horses to swim around it," Bonn said, squinting into the rising sun.

"We can leave 'em here and swim around it ourselves," Leiffen suggested with little enthusiasm.

Bonn looked out to sea, turned and ran his eyes up and down Starlex's slender frame as if accessing her physical abilities, and then to Leiffen said, "No. We'll have to sail around."

Leiffen shrugged, popped his pipe back into his saddlebag, and slid off the Roan's back.

"Sail on what?" Starlex asked, thinking about her abandoned skiff in the belly of Oran's inner harbor. How she would have loved to get her hands on it now.

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"It will take us a day, maybe two, to build a raft," Bonn said, offering Starlex his hand as she dismounted.

"I don't see much lumber around here," she said, her legs turning to jelly as she landed on the soft sand.

Bonn shrugged. "There were some trees in the glen when we left the crags." He swung back into the saddle and turned the stallion around. From Starlex's vantage, the Skaard warrior looked impossibly tall, a dark silhouette against the bright sky. She wondered why he wasn't as exhausted as she.

"You and Leiffen stay here." He turned to his Skaard companion and called something in their mother tongue, causing both of them to chuckle as Bonn rode off.

"What did he say?" Starlex asked Leiffen, who was already setting up a small camp on the beach in the shadow of a large boulder. "He told me to get us some vittles and to keep you out of the sun," he added with a giggle. "He said you were about to melt."

"Oh, really?" Starlex challenged. "I'm perfectly capable of helping us find food."

"Suit yourself," Leiffen replied. He removed his doublet and shirt and his worn boots. Starlex noticed his torso and back were littered with tattoos, all Illymium symbols.

"Are you an Illymium like me?" Starlex blurted, hoping he wouldn’t find the question rude.

Leiffen cracked a smile. "Like you, Princess? Na." He pulled his shaggy hair back to reveal pointed ears, "But Illymium all the same."

"I don't understand," she said, blushing. "Isn't your name Skaard."

Leiffen rolled up his pant legs and headed for the surf carrying the short, pointed staff Starlex had seen bouncing on the side of his saddle. "I become a blood brother to the Skaard's when I was just a lad. But I'm Mynimium born, same as you." He waded into the surf. "But unlike most of our kind, I've got some practical skills, like catching us some dinner."

Looking down at her torn gown, a frilly mockery of green silk and lace, Starlex had a sudden thought. Grabbing a layer of the skirt in both fists, she quickly tore it. "Wait!" She chased after Leiffen. "We can use this as a net. We're not all impractical."

Her heart quickened when she saw a glimmer of respect light up Leiffen's violet eyes.

Leiffen trained beneath the shallow water. "What do princesses of Oran like to eat?"

Her mouth watered as she recalled the sumptuous banquets that were laid out before the royal family during any given day. Ignoring his mocking tone, she said, "My favorite food of the sea was crab. They were plentiful along the shores of Oran."

"Then crab it is, milady," Leiffen said. "Give me your net there."

She tossed it to him. He handed her the staff in exchange, and with a leap, he disappeared beneath the water.

Starlex held her breath, waiting for Leiffen to surface. At the exact moment when she had to breathe or else faint in the surf, Leiffen emerged triumphantly with six fat crabs trapped in the lace piece from her dress. Her knees weakened at the thought of food.

By the time Bonn Skaard returned, dragging logs behind the stallion to build the raft with, Leiffen and Starlex had prepared a small but satisfying meal of crab, boiled in a small pot from Leiffen's saddlebag, wild yams sprinkled with salt, and the last of the wine which they passed around while they ate.

Her belly filled at last, Starlex stetched out on the soft sand in the shade of the Nazeer capes Leiffen had fashioned into a lean-to. She told herself she would only rest only a little while as the two men began to hack at the tree, but try as she might to stay awake, her eyelids dropped again and again until the sound of the surf and the song of the seabirds lulled her into a deep slumber.