Dorian took Melitas’ horse for himself. Then they were all mounted, laden with supplies and ready to depart.

Eris come out of her room that morning dressed like a hetairos of the City. Her hair was up in a tail. Dorian was stunned. She was curvaceous as an Elven princess at the best of times; yet wearing practical clothes and tight-fitting armor, he stared for longer than he had intended. She usually showed more skin—but this was better. There were not many women who excited him as though he were young again. Eris was among them.

Aletheia stared, too. Together they watched her prepare Sinir with help from a stableboy.

“I’ve never seen her dress that way,” he said. “Nor wear metal armor. She looks—she doesn’t look like Eris.”

Aletheia gave a look at his face, seeming to trace the location of his gaze. “I saw her dress this way once. A long time ago. She used to think she didn’t need armor, but things are different now.”

“Does she really look like that?” he wondered aloud. “Is it a spell? Is she not human?”

Now Aletheia considered Eris. They stared at her back, but a cloak soon concealed her body from behind as she tugged it over her shoulders. The memory would linger with Dorian despite its brevity. He had been with her, he had seen her naked, but something about the bulk of the armor at her hips and shoulders, combined with the narrowness of her belted waist, almost dazed him. He still saw it even when it was gone.

“She used to be skinnier,” she said. “When we met, and before Corvo. But she was just a kid.” She shrugged. “No spell. That’s really what she looks like”

“Rook was a very lucky young man,” he said.

“Mostly just patient. When I was younger, I used to wish I had her figure. And her face. And her hair. But honestly, it seems like too much work.” She fed an oat cake to her own horse and mounted him. “It’s nice to be able to talk to men without their mouths hanging open.”

“I suppose that’s likely true,” Dorian said. There was nothing to look at now except Eris’ ponytail, so he pulled his eyes away. “Depending on your profession.”

“True. But when it comes to adventuring—and fighting with swords, and finding armor that fits, and especially shooting a bow—I think her breasts would get in the way.”

“They don’t make chainmail support for women in the field?”

“That usually comes custom.” But she laughed. “Don’t give Eris any ideas. She’d probably wear it.”

She probably would have, which only made Dorian’s imagination work. Yet it was at this precise moment that Eris lifted Corvo up into Sinir’s saddle and turned, hair bouncing, toward Dorian and Aletheia. She marched their way.

“Do not think I cannot hear your voices pattering like mice feet in the kitchen,” she said. Then to Dorian. “Or that I cannot feel your judgmental eyes upon me.” She straightened herself. “I know ‘tis humiliating for a magician like me to wear armor, or a sword. But I will do what I must. So expel your jibes now and let us move on.”

Aletheia snickered. Dorian stared.

“You think we were—mocking you?” he asked.

“Were you not?” she said.

“We were,” Aletheia said. “Viciously.”

It took her a moment to realize that this was a joke. She was clearly very self-conscious about her new attire. Dorian had often wondered what to make of this woman: beautiful, confident, powerful, vindictive, intelligent, and utterly amoral. Yet to see that even she could be vulnerable, like anyone else, made her feel so much more human.

“Oh. I see.”

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“We were actually wondering what that hauberk’s made of,” Dorian said as he slipped a foot within his stirrups and heaved himself into the saddle. “Is that Dwarven steel?”

“It is Arkwi metal,” she said. “White iron, in our tongue. And yes, it is of Dwarf craft. I received it as a gift from a very generous lord of Nanos while venturing to Verarszag with my son. He made it for me himself.”

“I’m sure he enjoyed taking your measurements.”

She shuddered. “That is a story you do not want to hear.”

Alethea rode near to Dorian and whispered loudly in his ear, “He made her conjure a beard for herself with an illusion.”

Eris shook her head. “You will never know the truth. But the price was worth it, for this chain is indestructible to iron or bronze weapons and resistant even to magic. It is also very light, so I will wear it henceforth.”

At this she spun again and returned to Sinir. She seated herself behind Corvo and took the reins, and the three of them were ready to depart.

Eris was not an especially deft rider. Dorian knew Sinir was a calm and excellent mare from his own time with her, but Eris made her look like a stubborn nag. Yet she could ride, and she did.

They rendezvoused with Trito on the hill over town. Together they gave Bahaty and its castle on the water a final look.

“Winter’s coming,” Dorian said, as a line of fog descended over the town. “It must be nearly here.”

“That means it’s my birthday soon!” Corvo said. “And mama’s birthday!”

Dorian had learned before that the mother and son had been born one day (and twenty years) apart. It was a small detail, but one he found amusing. Sometimes it was hard to imagine Eris being born at all. Maybe hatched, or spawned, or carved from living marble. But not born. That she had ever been Corvo’s age seemed improbable. But, of course, she had.

“And how old will you be?” Trito asked from his horse. He rode without stirrups or reins; his horse had no bit.

Corvo held up three fingers on each hand. Then he reached behind him, and said, “And mama will be old like Dorian. Really old.”

She wrapped an arm around his chest. “It seems I will be,” she said. “I do not know where the time has gone.”

“Now imagine how you’ll feel when you’re my age,” Dorian said. “What? Twenty-six? You’re practically a child still.”

“You are all children,” Trito said. “Comparing numbers on a playground. But age is nothing more than that. Eris is wise beyond her years, and foolish as her own son. She will be when she is eighty as much as she is now.”

“I will try not to take offense at that, elf,” Eris said.

“You should take no offense. I only say what I think is true. It is neither good nor bad, for the same Is true for me.”

“How old are you?” Corvo said. “Are you fifty?” He said the number like it was an impossible sum to reach.

Trito shook his head. “I stopped counting long ago, young crow.” He led his horse to canter in a circle, then up the hill. “But a fair amount older than that.”

“Are you as old as mama and Dorian together?” Corvo asked.

“And Aletheia, too.”

“How much?”

He shrugged. But he wore a genial look, a sly smile, which he only had when he talked to Corvo.

“Twice as old?” Corvo said.

“Older.”

“Ten times as old?”

Trito stopped. He glanced at Eris, and Dorian, and then Aletheia, all of whom watched on with anticipation.

“I’ve been wondering myself,” Dorian said.

“As have I,” Eris admitted.

“Me too,” Aletheia whispered.

He might not have responded, but that he saw their faces, and his expression became more serious.

He nodded. “Older,” he said.

“Twenty times?” Corvo said.

Trito looked utterly serious now. He neither nodded nor shook his head. Instead he rode forward, leaving the rest of the party in silence.

“He’s even older than mama,” Corvo said.

“Who would have thought it was possible?” Eris said.

“It’s easy to forget he isn’t human,” Dorian said. “Do you think we can trust him?”

“I do,” Aletheia said.

“I do not,” Eris said. “I trust no one but Aletheia. Trito is a very dangerous creature, and we know already what he thinks of our magic. But I do not think he means poorly toward us, yet. Be that as it may—I have devised several charms that I will place over our tent at night, to make another betrayal such as Melitas’ impossible.”

Aletheia picked up the pace. She followed after the elf, saying as she went, “It’s going to be cold in Seneria.”

“Why do you think I brought such clothes?” Eris said, following after her.

“I don’t know. Maybe to impress the orc noblemen?”

Their laughter disappeared over the crest of the hill. Dorian waited longer still.

He had traveled with magicians, elves, dwarves, and more. He had never followed any toward such certain danger and death before, when there was such little hope of pecuniary reward. And the reward of Eris’ cure—it should have been his already, a month ago.

Yet he wasn’t hesitant or reluctant to go. He wanted to do anything he could to make sure Corvo stayed safe and was freed of the Shadow Man’s haunting. It frightened him how fond he had grown of the boy. Another man’s son, yet after a childless lifetime, Corvo felt like his own flesh. Like the closest he would ever get to fatherhood. And he liked it.

So he would follow Eris to the end of the earth for her son’s sake. But he was certain, after this business was settled, he wanted nothing more to do with her. These adventures wore too heavily on his old bones. She was too dangerous.

The only question was how he would ever be able to leave her son.