Aleric opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was sky.
Moving.
Which was strange because he didn't remember lying down.
He blinked.
The sky continued moving past him at a steady unhurried pace and after a moment he realized it wasn't the sky moving.
He was.
He looked down.
Arms.
Not his.
He was being carried.
He turned his head slightly.
Maze.
Walking. Eyes forward. Expression revealing nothing. Carrying him against her side with the unbothered efficiency of someone transporting something that needed to be somewhere else and had decided to handle it.
Aleric stared at her profile.
She did not acknowledge that he was awake.
He looked at the sky again.
Then at the road passing beneath them.
Then at the town shrinking behind them over Maze's shoulder.
At the buildings standing empty and still in the way buildings stood when they had recently stopped being something else entirely. At the street with nothing performing on it. At the air sitting differently over it now. Heavier. Quieter. The specific quiet of a place that had held its breath for a very long time and had finally very recently let it go.
He looked at Lain walking beside Maze.
At the expression on his face.
At the expression on Maze's face.
The expressions of people who had seen something. Not the vague unsettled look of someone who had witnessed something surprising. Something more specific than that. Something that had gone in and stayed in and was currently being carried very carefully so as not to disturb it.
He had seen that look before.
On soldiers. On people who came back from places they didn't discuss. On anyone who had stood on the other side of something that didn't have comfortable language yet.
He had never seen it on Lain and Maze.
He looked at Blaze walking ahead of them.
She was looking at the road.
Not at her nails.
Not at anything specific.
Just the road ahead, with the particular quality of someone whose thoughts were somewhere else entirely and whose eyes had simply been assigned a direction to point in while she was gone.
Something happened, Aleric thought.
Something significant.
Something nobody is going to tell me about.
He looked back at the town one more time.
At the nothing where something had been.
Then up at Maze.
"What happened?"
Maze did not look at him.
"You were asleep."
"I know I was asleep." A pause. "What happened while I was asleep."
Silence.
He waited.
"Maze."
"You're awake now," she said. "That's what matters."
Aleric looked at her.
At the careful nothing on her face.
At the way her eyes stayed very deliberately forward.
He looked at Lain.
Lain looked forward too.
He looked at Blaze.
She was still looking at the road.
Something in her is elsewhere, he thought.
That's new.
He stayed where he was.
Being carried.
Thinking.
"Can you put me down?"
Maze put him down.
He fell into step beside her without missing a beat.
Walked in silence for a moment.
Then looked at the town one final time over his shoulder.
"It looks different."
Nobody answered.
"It feels different."
Still nothing.
He turned forward.
Walked.
"How long was I asleep?"
Lain watched Aleric fall into step beside Maze.
Watched him look at the town one last time.
Watched him turn forward with the particular acceptance of someone who had decided to file something away rather than push at it.
He deserves to know.
The thought arrived clean and certain.
He was there. He walked into that town with us. He sat in that square. He noticed things. He's not —
"Don't."
Lain looked at Maze.
She hadn't looked at him.
Was still looking forward.
Eyes on the road ahead, on Blaze's back, on the space between here and wherever they were going next.
"Don't," she said again. Quietly. Final. The tone of someone who had made a decision and was not interested in discussing its merits.
Lain kept his voice low.
"He's not incapable of —"
"He's fourteen."
"He's handled more than most people twice his —"
"Lain."
Just his name.
Nothing attached to it.
But something in the way she said it stopped him.
He looked at her profile.
At the careful composure she was maintaining.
At the hands very deliberately at her sides.
She's protecting him, he thought.
Not because she thinks he's weak.
Not that.
Something else.
Something that had to do with what they had stood in the doorway and watched and were now carrying forward one step at a time.
She doesn't want him to carry it too.
A long pause.
He looked at Aleric walking ahead of them.
At the back of his head. At the easy unbothered way he moved through the world. At the way he'd asked his questions and accepted the silence and kept walking without making it into something.
Smart, Lain thought.
Then, quieter:
Young.
He adjusted his collar.
For no reason.
Out of habit.
"Fine," he said.
Maze said nothing.
Which was, he had learned, her version of acknowledgment.
They walked in silence for a moment.
The road moved beneath them.
The town fell further behind.
Then Lain, very quietly, almost below hearing:
"…are you alright?"
A pause.
Long enough that he thought she wasn't going to answer.
Then:
"Yes."
Simple.
Flat.
The tone of someone confirming something they had decided was true and intended to keep deciding.
Lain nodded once.
Looked forward.
Seven hundred years, he thought. And she still has to decide.
He didn't say that either.
Some things were better filed away.
He was getting good at that.
They walked back into formation.
Three steps behind Blaze.
Slight angle left.
As if nothing had been said.
As if nothing needed to be.
Aleric waited.
He was good at waiting.
People underestimated that about him consistently and he had stopped being surprised by it. He looked twelve. He acted unbothered. He called people sis and asked questions with the open curiosity of someone who hadn't yet learned that curiosity was something you were supposed to manage carefully in the presence of dangerous things.
He had learned.
He just didn't perform the learning.
So he waited.
He watched Blaze walk ahead of him.
At the way she moved through the road the way she moved through everything — like the road had been placed there for her specific convenience and she was willing to make use of it. At the way her hair fell straight and absolute behind her, black against the light. At the red flower catching the air slightly as she walked. At her eyes, which were aimed at the road but not really seeing it.
She's thinking, he thought.
About what.
He counted twelve steps.
Then drew level with her.
Not touching.
Just — there.
Beside her.
The way he usually was.
She didn't tell him to move.
He took that as permission and kept walking.
Ten more steps.
Then:
"Sis."
Quiet.
Careful in the way he was never usually careful.
Blaze did not look at him.
But she didn't not look at him in the way she usually didn't look at him — the active indifference, the pointed elsewhere. This was different. This was the not-looking of someone who was aware of exactly where he was and had made a specific decision about their eyes.
He tried again.
"I'm not going to ask what happened."
A pause.
"I already decided not to."
Nothing from her.
"I just want to know —" He looked at the road ahead. Chose the words carefully. More carefully than he usually chose anything. "Was it necessary."
Silence.
The road moved beneath them.
Somewhere behind them Lain and Maze walked in their careful quiet.
The town was a shape in the distance now. Getting smaller.
Then Blaze spoke.
"Yes."
One word.
Flat.
But present.
Actually present in a way her words weren't always present — usually they arrived from somewhere slightly above the conversation, looking down at it. This one arrived level.
Aleric nodded.
Slowly.
"Okay."
He meant it.
That was the thing about him that people kept miscalculating — when he said okay he meant okay. Not as acceptance of something he would push at later. Not as a placeholder while he planned his next approach.
Just — okay.
He walked beside her.
Six steps.
Seven.
Then, very quietly, almost to himself:
"Were they at peace. After."
The question landed in the air between them and stayed there.
Blaze was quiet for a long moment.
Long enough that Aleric had decided she wasn't going to answer and was already making his peace with that.
Then:
"Some of them."
Two words this time.
Still level.
Still present.
Aleric absorbed this.
Turned it over once.
Set it somewhere careful inside himself where it would keep without rotting.
"Good," he said quietly.
And meant that too.
They walked.
The silence between them settled into something that wasn't uncomfortable. That was the particular gift of being beside Blaze — silence with her was never empty. It had texture. Weight. The specific quality of a quiet that had been earned rather than defaulted into.
Aleric stayed in it.
Didn't push.
Didn't fill it.
Just walked beside her the way he always walked beside her.
Close.
Not too close.
Just there.
After a while he looked up at her profile. At the veil. At the red flower. At the icy blue eyes looking at the road ahead with something in them that wasn't quite what he'd seen there before.
Not softer.
That wasn't the word.
Just.
Present in a different way.
Like something had been confirmed that she'd already known and the confirming had cost something small anyway.
She cares, he thought.
She would never say that.
She would find the suggestion offensive.
She might actually kill me if I said it out loud.
He looked forward.
Said nothing.
Smiled very slightly where she couldn't see it.
Kept walking.
The gap opened naturally.
Nobody planned it.
Blaze walked ahead with Aleric beside her and the distance between them and Lain and Maze simply — grew. One step. Three. Enough that the conversation ahead became inaudible and the road behind became its own separate space.
Lain let it stay that way for a moment.
Watched Blaze's back. The straight fall of her hair. The red flower moving slightly with her pace.
Then looked at Maze beside him.
She was watching the road.
He cleared his throat.
Quietly.
"Can I ask you something."
Maze said nothing. Which was not a no.
He took it as permission.
"You've been with her a long time."
Still nothing.
"You know her." A pause. Careful. Framed correctly. "How she thinks. What she responds to. What —" He stopped. Adjusted. "I'm not asking out of curiosity. I'm asking because I want to be useful to her. Actually useful. Not just present."
Maze walked.
The road moved beneath them.
Lain waited.
"There has to be something," he continued, keeping his voice level. Professional. The tone of someone making a reasonable strategic inquiry and not at all the tone of someone who had been thinking about this for considerably longer than was strictly dignified. "Some approach. Something that —"
"Lain."
He stopped.
Maze still hadn't looked at him.
"I'm going to tell you something," she said. Quiet. Even. The tone of someone delivering information they have no personal investment in but have decided you need to have. "And I want you to hear it properly."
He waited.
"Drop it."
A pause.
"All of it. Whatever you're building toward. Whatever approach you think exists. Whatever information you believe would help you get closer to her." She paused again. Just briefly. "Drop it."
Lain's jaw tightened slightly.
"That's not —"
"You survived the abyss," Maze said. Still even. Still quiet. "You came back. You're walking on this road." A beat. "Focus on continuing to do that."
Silence.
The road moved beneath them.
Somewhere ahead Aleric said something and Blaze didn't answer and the silence between them had the specific texture of a silence that was somehow also a response.
Lain looked at Maze.
At her profile. At the careful composure she maintained without apparent effort. At the eyes that stayed forward with the focused patience of someone who had learned a very long time ago exactly where to aim them.
Seven hundred years, he thought.
And that's her advice.
Stay alive.
He wanted to argue.
He had several arguments prepared. Good ones. Reasonable ones. The kind that addressed the actual question he had asked rather than the question she had chosen to answer instead.
He didn't use any of them.
"Fine," he said.
Maze said nothing.
They walked back into formation.
Three steps behind Blaze.
Slight angle left.
As if nothing had been said.
Lain looked at the back of Blaze's head.
At the red flower catching the light.
Stay alive, he thought.
Very carefully.
Every single day.
The village arrived quietly.
No gates. No announcement. Just the road narrowing slightly and the smell changing — ink and pressed paper and something dry and clean underneath it all — and then buildings on either side and people moving between them with the purposeful unhurry of a place that had decided on its identity a long time ago and never reconsidered.
Paper. Ink. Brush.
Everywhere.
Stalls lining both sides of the road with rolls of parchment in varying grades and weights, bottles of ink in colors that went beyond black into browns and deep blues and something almost red, brushes hanging in neat rows by size, seals and stamps and all the small instruments of documentation laid out with the pride of people who understood that the tools of writing were themselves worth appreciating.
Scholars moved through it.
Travelers stopping to resupply.
A man at a corner bent completely over a piece of parchment, brush moving in careful strokes, entirely unbothered by the foot traffic around him.
Aleric looked at all of it with the open interested eyes of someone who had just walked into a place that was exactly his kind of strange.
Blaze walked through it the way she walked through everything.
Like it had been arranged for her convenience and she was willing to tolerate it.
Her eyes moved once across the stalls.
Adequate, she thought.
My ink supply was getting low.
She kept walking.
Aleric slowed at a stall near the middle of the road.
Not enough to fall behind.
Just enough.
A small stack of books sat at the corner of the display, slightly apart from the paper and ink around them. One in particular had a handwritten sign beside it — something about a life recorded, something about an ordinary person and an extraordinary account, something about how many copies had sold in the last season.
He picked it up.
Opened it.
Read the first page.
It was fine. Competent. The writing of someone who had lived an interesting life and had the basic presence of mind to write it down in the right order.
He set it down.
Looked at Blaze walking ahead of him.
At the veil. At the red flower. At the icy blue eyes that had looked at something falling from the sky and for one moment had no category for it.
He thought about the town.
About being carried by Maze while the air behind them sat heavy and different.
About Lain and Maze's expressions.
About the one thing Blaze had told him and the weight it carried for something so small.
He looked at the book.
This person, he thought, wrote about their life and became famous.
A pause.
I travel with her.
Another pause.
I have better material than this person has ever seen in their entire life.
He put the book down.
Looked at a stall across the road.
Ink. Paper. Brush.
He was already moving.
He found a good brush first.
Flexible tip. Good weight. The kind that responded to pressure rather than fighting it.
Then ink — a deep black, properly dense, the kind that didn't fade when it dried.
Then paper. Several sheets of good quality and a small notebook with a plain cover that sat right in his hand.
He gathered everything.
Carried it to the stall keeper.
Reached into his coat.
Felt around.
Reached further.
His hand found the inside pocket.
Then the outside pocket.
Then the other inside pocket.
He stood very still for a moment.
I don't have any money.
A pause.
I have never had any money.
Why did I think I had money.
He set everything down carefully on the stall with the dignified composure of someone making a deliberate choice rather than suffering a humiliating realization.
Turned around.
Found Blaze
She was standing near a stall of high quality inks, examining a bottle of something very dark blue with the focused attention she usually reserved for things she had already decided to acquire.
Aleric approached.
Fell into step beside her.
"Sis."
"What."
Flat. Immediate. The reflex of someone who had learned that when this particular voice said her name in that particular tone something was about to be required of her.
"Can I borrow some money."
Silence.
Blaze set the ink bottle down.
Picked up another one.
Held it to the light.
He is my cook, she thought.
He has been cooking.
Cooking is labor.
Labor receives compensation.
This is basic logic.
Also his spicing is considerably more competent than the last three people I employed for this purpose combined.
I intend to keep access to that spicing.
This is entirely practical.
Her sleeve swung once.
The motion so small and casual it barely registered as a motion at all.
A pouch appeared in Aleric's hands.
He looked at it.
Heavy. Solid. The specific weight of more silver than he had held at one time in recent memory.
He looked at her.
She had moved on to a third ink bottle.
"Sis," he said.
"Don't."
"I just —"
"I know what you were going to say." She examined the ink against the light. "Don't."
He closed his mouth.
Smiled.
Didn't say it.
Lain had watched all of this from four steps back.
He watched the question.
He watched the pause.
He watched the sleeve swing.
He watched the pouch appear.
His mouth was open.
He was aware his mouth was open.
He closed it.
He asked her for money, Lain thought.
He just.
He walked up to her.
And asked.
For money.
And she.
A pause.
That is a full pouch.
That is not a small amount of silver.
That is a considerable.
I have been with her longer.
I have been more useful.
I have fought things.
I went into an abyss.
I faced a shadow wearing my own face.
I came back with information.
He.
Cooks.
He looked at Maze.
Maze was watching Blaze move to the next stall with the expression of someone who had understood something three exchanges ago and had been waiting for the rest of the room to catch up.
"Did you see that," Lain said.
"Yes," Maze said.
"She just —"
"Yes."
"He asked for —"
"I know."
"And she —"
"Lain." Quiet. Even. "He fed us last night. And the night before. And every night since he joined." A pause. "Think about that."
Lain thought about it.
...oh.
That's.
That's just practical.
She's being practical.
It's not favoritism.
It's resource management.
He nodded once.
Adjusted his collar.
It's favoritism, he thought.
Blatant. Obvious. Completely unacceptable.
I went into an abyss.
Aleric bought everything.
The brush first. Then the ink. Then the paper. Then the notebook with the plain cover that sat right in his hand. He paid without negotiating because the pouch was full and he was in a good mood and the stall keeper looked like someone who had been standing there for a long time.
Then he crossed to the food stalls.
The others followed at their various distances.
He moved through the stalls with the specific focus of someone who already knew what they were making and was now acquiring the components in order.
"Okay," he said, to nobody in particular and therefore to everyone. "So tonight I'm thinking a broth base. Something clear. With the —" he picked up a bundle of dried herbs and smelled them, "— yes, with these. And then something heavier alongside it. There's a grain here I've been wanting to try with —"
"Aleric," Lain said.
"The spicing will be simple but the layering is the point, that's where most people go wrong, they add everything at once instead of —"
"Nobody asked," Lain said.
"The bread is the question. I can do flatbread quickly or something with more structure if we stop early enough which —" he looked at Blaze, "— depends on her."
Blaze was examining a roll of parchment at a nearby stall.
She was not listening.
She was thinking about the dark blue ink and whether it was worth going back for a second bottle.
The bread, she thought vaguely, had better be the structured kind.
The flatbread last week was adequate.
Adequate is not the same as good.
"— and then something sweet at the end," Aleric continued, moving to the next stall, "nothing complicated, just something to close it properly because ending a meal without something sweet is —"
"I will pay you," Lain said, "to stop talking."
Aleric looked at him.
"You don't have any money."
Lain closed his mouth.
Aleric turned back to the stall.
"— is just wrong," he finished. "Culinarily speaking."
Maze stood at her position.
Said nothing.
Endured it.
700 years, she thought, for the second time in recent memory, and this is what finishes me.
Aleric added one more thing to his basket.
Looked at it.
Looked at Blaze still examining parchment across the road.
She gave me money, he thought.
Without being asked twice.
Without making it complicated.
Something warm moved through his chest.
Simple.
Uncomplicated.
The way most things were with him.
He didn't say anything about it.
He didn't need to.
He just added the ingredients to his basket and went to find the rest of what he needed and thought about what he was going to make and felt, quietly and without announcement, grateful.