The force of her own weeping wound up surprising her.

It had all started coming out once her feet could no longer carry her and she lacked the strength to withstand the inner storm.

What had she just done? She’d led her companions into danger, to escape a fate she’d once been almost entirely at peace with. She’d lied and taken advantage of a bit of kindness they were willing to show her.

Reason kept reminding her that it was a lesser demon; that they’d split up in the first place due to their faith that a single one of them could readily handle the monster. Reason also reminded her that had the demon prevailed it would have run her down already.

The heart didn’t care about reason. Her heart insisted on tormenting her.

I could have just submitted. I could have just let myself be walked back to Mistress Lumiara.

In time the crying spent her remaining strength and she simply lay prone in the forest bed. But the outpouring had served its purpose and as her energy returned so did clear thought.

What was done, was done. She’d chosen a course of action for herself and the next step was to see it through. She drew in the deepest breath possible, all the way to the bottom of her lungs. Then she let it out in a slow, cleansing exhale and stood up. And she walked.

Her body was stiff again, and with no evening meal in her stomach there was little for her to draw fresh strength from. But she walked. She walked into the full darkness of night and then walked some more.

She fought against the daze that fatigue and recent events threatened to sink her mind into, and in time her sense of direction proved its worth. She reached the road.

There she finally allowed herself to collapse again, but had to deny herself the relief of true relaxation. It would mean sleep and there was no time to waste. From this point on her plans hinged on a single wager: That Bors and Ana wouldn’t expect her to simply use the most direct and obvious route north.

She continued walking.

She paced herself with stops and never attempted to move above a plod. Fatigue became pain, as it had so many times before. Although those times her spirit had felt less like a lead weight.

Still she pressed on.

Now without even a stick or the comfort of company the deep night subjected her to its various fears and possibilities. She thought of wolves and ogres. She thought of Camdyn’s bandits, an aberration of the peace the Bright Lords had brought to the rest of the land. She thought of her friends and her mistress and her other friends.

Discipline could only endure so long in the face of fatigue, and by the time she heard the river din her mind had almost entirely succumbed. She’d nearly forgotten her name and what she was even doing. But reduced to her basic elements as she was, the simple thought of escape remained.

The light of dawn could not be far off as she stumbled back across the bridge by Vyslak, but she managed to trot down to the marina without making a noise.

She mostly had to feel around to find what she was looking for, but she managed to get herself on board one of the small boats and untie it from the mooring.

Pushing it out into the current felt like a titanic effort, but she made it. Then she just lay down into the keel, feeling the gentle rocking.

She really was reduced to her basic elements. And one of those was a desire to return to her mistress. To her service, and to her companions. And now this boat, with just a little bit of effort on her part, would bear her almost all the way to the border.

# # #

The Junmarch, it was called, the small land between West, Mid and East. The residents credited their relative independence to their own long history of grit and courage, and would hear nothing about it being due to none of the three kingdoms being willing to see another one seize it.

It stretched out before her in the near-noon sun as she crested the Ridge of Kaisen; a land without mountains or thick forests but absolutely dotted with hillocks.

She turned around, spying the river in the distance. She did feel a little bad about stealing the boat, but honour was easy when one wasn’t a fugitive.

Irina walked down the ridge, and formally into the Junmarch. As of that moment she was out of Lady Lumiara’s grasp. There was no sense of triumph. Just a relaxation of what little tension she’d had energy left for.

A few berries in a meadow returned a tiny spark of strength to her and she closed the short distance to Ynglas, reflecting as she did so on how much her body language resembled the work of an inept necromancer.

The village was remarkable only for its proximity to both the Mid and East borders, and its distance from other settlements. It was small but enjoyed relative prosperity due to the traffic that passed through in the merchant season.

Since there was no wall no one accosted her as she passed the first few houses. The Thirsty Man Inn was the largest structure in town, old and rather storied due to the merchant traffic.

She pushed the door open and staggered into a familiar air of smoke, meat, old wood and beer.

The sitting area was divided into nine sections, marked by support pillars. The central one was the cooking and serving area and firepits lay in the centre of four of the others.

Jon, Elseth and Kent hung their jaws out to dry as Irina walked in. Elseth was the first to her feet and hurried over to wrap a hug around her.

“Irina! You... what... you made it!”

“Hungry,” Irina mumbled. “Hungry and tired.”

They supported her over to their table and Jon promptly splurged on the best meat the inn had to offer as well as strong beer. She attacked both with equal relish and was yet again reminded of how one learned to treasure the simple things. They let her enjoy about half the meal in silence before Jon spoke.

“How did you escape?” he asked. “We lost you in the forest.”

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“It was a while before we found each other,” Elseth added. “We didn’t know if you’d been caught or if you were skulking about the forest. We... felt we couldn’t do any good by looking. It was like you said. We...”

Elseth looked heartbroken.

“We abandoned you again.”

Irina took three big gulps of the beer, then closed her eyes and sighed happily at feeling her stomach react to the meat.

“Again, there was nothing you could do,” she said. “Don’t feel bad. I will just feel bad in turn. I...”

She thought of Ana and Bors and gazed down into her mug.

“I... made my own way. The only way that could deliver me here. I will tell you about it later. Now I... I really need rest. I’ve travelled for a day and a night and half a day more. I will finish this later.”

She tried to bring the eating bowl with her as she stood up but her weak, trembling fingers dropped it on the floor.

“Come,” Elseth said and took her arm in support. “Jon, do pay for her bed.”

Kent took her other arm and she was already half-asleep when they tucked her beneath a blanket.

“Rest as much as you need,” Elseth said and patted her arm. “I’m... we’re so glad to see you!”

“Yes,” Kent said with a wry smile. “We’ll actually get paid.”

Irina managed to smile at him before her eyes closed of their own accord.

# # #

Irina slept, made use of a chamber pot, then slept some more.

The second time she woke she actually felt somewhat refreshed. For a while she contented herself with lying still, ignoring the world and its demands as she pondered.

Irina thought about her life, her decisions, what she’d left behind and what lay ahead and reached no conclusion about any of it.

She touched her neck.

Footsteps approached, and she saw lamplight beneath the door to her room.

“Hello?” she said.

Elseth entered.

“Did I wake you?”

“No. How long have I slept?”

“It’s near midnight.”

Elseth entered and closed the door.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“I think it will be some time before I can answer that question in any meaningful way,”

Elseth nodded.

“I suppose that can be expected. Look... we’ve been taking turns checking up on you. And there is still the matter of that meeting.”

“Prince Walder,” Irina muttered.

“Yes. That meeting is to be tomorrow afternoon, here at the inn. And it is all to be kept rather quiet. Small retinues and no use of titles. Do keep that in mind.”

“Well, he is the one paying us,” Irina said. “How much is he paying for all of this, anyway?”

“Six hundred rils. One hundred and fifty for each of us.”

Irina made an impressed little sound.

“That is... we’ve never had nearly that much.”

“It was all a rather special job,” Elseth reminded her.

“It certainly was.”

Irina touched her neck again and chuckled weakly.

“And it took me three whole years.”

“Did you and the prince make a special arrangement I wasn’t privy to?” Elseth asked jokingly.

“Yes, this was all an elaborate master plan like no other,” Irina replied with a tired smile.

“I’m going to get some sleep myself,” Elseth then said.

“Right. Dream well.”

# # #

She ate breakfast with Jon, Elseth and Kent. They discussed old friends, difficulties and victories. They reminisced about the tomb of Rus, the Night Bull and the Glittercaves. They also updated her further on the things she had missed out on during these three years. It was all very familiar and yet somehow alien to her.

“So the prin... our client just wants me to describe my experience?” she asked.

“He didn’t lay out his list of questions, but that was the gist of it,” Jon said.

“It is funny to think that technically we are earning a lot of money for a conversation,” Elseth mused.

“And speaking of the money, have you decided what you’ll do with your part of it?” Irina asked.

The three looked at one another.

“There is no shortage of options, is there?” Kent said.

“We could... buy the best equipment available,” Jon said. “Or hire help. Or just live off of it in comfort for a couple of years.”

“Or amuse ourselves on the Alderi docks for a couple of months,” Elseth said with a grin.

“Or spend it all wisely,” Irina said.

Jon intertwined his fingers and laid his elbows on the table.

“Or we could do that.”

“One only leaves the life...” Irina began.

“... early or dead,” Elseth finished.

The table was silent for some time.

There were old adventurers, sure enough. Men and women who ran taverns decorated with trophies, or landowners with battle scars, or simply farmers who had nothing to show for all their troubles save stories. But all of them had decided enough was enough while they still could.

Death waited out there, in dark temples, lonely woods and deep caves.

“Do you think you’ve had your fill, Irina?” Jon asked carefully.

“I am thinking so many things right now that I don’t know what I am actually thinking,” she admitted.

“Right,” he said, though she doubted he actually understood.

Then he sighed.

“I have been doing this long enough that I am not sure how else to live,” he said. “The highs of terror and joy... they become quite the habit.”

“Believe me, I know,” Irina said. “But peace does have its own appeal.”

“So poets tell us,” Kent said. “The calm, warm cabin in the distance.”

“Aren’t they referring to the afterlife with that one?” Jon asked.

The conversation went on to meander this way and that, as general chat between friends tended to do. The rest of the day was mostly spent in waiting. The group replaced the travelling equipment they’d had to leave behind while fleeing the bandits. She bathed. She carved herself a new stick from better wood, and then largely just roamed about, hoping to silence her mind.

At one point, up on a hillock just outside of the village, Irina looked south and mused that Lady Lumiara would most likely reach Vyslak late in the afternoon. That ought to properly shock the locals, given their reaction to Ana and Bors.

She smiled in a melancholic fashion.

After that she simply continued wandering about in circles, lost in thoughts and memories. The day inevitably wore on, and the meeting that was the reason for her being here drew near.