POV: Seraphina / Thalion
SERAPHINA
Seraphina woke before the bell.
The lamp had gone out in the night, and Suri lay sleeping in the bend of her knee. The inside pocket of her coat had no letter in it now, and the ring stayed on her finger where she had moved it before sleep.
Outside, someone stepped on the packed dirt and stopped.
Liora.
She sat up with the shawl still over her shoulders and pushed the flap aside.
Liora stood at the canvas with a hand at her belt. The watch had stayed hers since the prints were found, and no one had taken it off her. The mud below the flap still held what she had read by lamplight: two prints where someone had stood facing the tent, and a drag past them from a heel turning in the moment of leaving.
"Did he come back?" she asked.
"No, not yet." Liora kept her eyes on the line of tents past the prints. The watcher was not there now. Liora was watching for the next time he came.
She put a hand to her own collarbone and found the fire-scar warm but holding where it had stopped after the storm.
"Yona will be by in a quarter."
"I will be here."
She let the flap fall.
Yona came at the quarter with a slate under her arm and a roll of bread in her hand. She stopped at the prints and looked at Liora without asking.
"One more anchor here, under the bench at the south wall," Yona said. "Gavrel cleared it before dawn."
"How much."
"Less than yesterday."
She nodded once.
"Eat," Yona said, and put the bread in her hand.
She ate as she walked. The chapel ruin was on the path between her tent and the south wall. She went past the seam where they had crouched together yesterday. The dirt around the stone was packed flat now, and the line had gone smooth. Thalion had sent one of his men to deal with it before first light.
She did not stop.
The bench sat against the south wall where the orchard met the stone, and the leaves had been brushed clear. She set the iron-bound staff to the stone, then put her palm flat beside it.
The fire came without trouble this morning. The heat moved across the stone and held at Yona's mark. She kept her palm on the stone until it was steady, then sat back on her heels.
"Clean," Yona said.
She looked at the line, which had not gone past Yona's mark. The mark of the storm fire was warm under her shirt but had not spread.
"Clean."
Liora found her at the water barrel after the noon bell.
"Walk with me."
She walked, and they went past the line of carts to the rope she had set up for the spare staff. Liora stopped where the rope put them out of sight of the camp.
"I measured them at first light."
"And?"
"Stride is shorter than column standard, and the heel sunk farther on the right. Tread pattern is supply line, not paladin issue."
A dozen men had come up the supply line that morning.
"And?"
"I would know them on sight, but I am not naming them yet."
Seraphina looked past the carts. Men moved between the supply wagons with sacks over their shoulders and knives at their belts, ordinary enough to disappear into the work. One of them might have stood outside her tent last night. One of them might have watched her through canvas and lamplight.
Her hand tightened once around the staff.
"You are sure?"
"Sure enough to wait."
She nodded.
"Nothing to Yona, nothing to him," Liora said.
"Nothing."
They walked back.
Late in the afternoon Gavrel had checked the inner perimeter twice and the estate was clean. Tomorrow they rode at first light.
Yona gave the men the hour after supper, and Gavrel called it a bonfire. The pile went up at the inner ring before sunset.
She washed her face in the basin and put on the shawl. She put a thumb to the ring without thinking and stopped when the metal came up warm.
Suri was at the door with his head pressed to her wrist.
"Come on then."
Seraphina went out into the dark with the cub at her ankle. The fire stood taller now at the inner ring, with voices around it and someone laughing.
Liora was at the perimeter of the firelight, hand on her belt. Edrin came up the line beside her with a tin cup in his hand and said something she did not hear. Liora answered without turning her head, and Edrin laughed once, low, then set the cup in the crook of his arm and stayed.
Yona was on a turned log at the side, a sip of wine in a tin cup, looking at the firelight on the men's faces. Corwin was at the fire telling a story, and the men around him were laughing.
She came into the firelight.
Across the fire she saw him.
Thalion sat at the long log past the supply line with a slate balanced on his knee. He looked up and found her, and the slate did not move.
It was one look across the fire.
Then he looked back at the slate.
THALION
Corwin was at his elbow before there had been a sound to mark his coming.
"You are working at a bonfire."
"There is a slate to do."
"There is always a slate."
Thalion did not look up.
"It has been three days." Corwin set a tin cup on the log beside the slate. "She has been hard to get near these last weeks. Three feet from her every night, four men deep around her at supper."
The corner of Thalion's mouth moved a small amount and stopped there. Corwin had not grumbled like that before tonight.
The slate did not move under Thalion's hand.
"Live a little." Corwin took the slate off his knee, set it on the log behind them, and put the cup in Thalion's hand instead. "Tomorrow's slate is tomorrow's, and wine first."
Corwin turned his back on him and crossed the fire. He went to her by the firelight and held out his hand, and she took it, and they walked into the firelight with the men making room around them. Corwin's voice carried across to where Thalion was, loud enough to be heard over the fire.
Thalion sat with the cup in his hand and watched.
At the woodpile past the firelight, Edrin was still standing on Liora's line with the cup in the crook of his arm. Liora was looking down at the firelight. Edrin laughed once, low, and she did not laugh back, but she did not move away either.
Thalion saw it and looked back at the dance.
A weight pressed at his boot.
He looked down to find the cub had come out of the dark and was pressing his head to the leather at his ankle. Suri had come past Liora's line without a sound. The cub looked up at him with eyes catching the fire and then nosed at his trouser cuff.
Thalion bent and picked the cub up, and Suri tucked his head against his throat.
He looked across the fire to her in the firelight, her hand on Corwin's shoulder. She was laughing. He had been telling himself he was not watching for this.
"Look at how happy she is there," he said to the cub.
He stood and started walking. There was no plan in his feet until he was already past the woodpile and past the inner ring. The orchard wall came up at his left, and the path past it went down to the creek.
The bank was dry. The water moved slow at the bend, and the stars showed above the slow part. He lay down on his back at the bank with the cub on his chest, and Suri tucked his head against him again.
The bonfire orange showed past the orchard wall, and the voices reaching him were faint. The water at the bend ran low against the stones.
He breathed out.
The flare came up at his throat as it had for four months whenever she was close. At this distance from camp it meant only that she was somewhere near the firelight, and he kept his eyes on the stars.
A footstep on the bank.
He still did not turn.
"I was looking for Suri."
He looked up.
She was standing beside him with the shawl over her shoulders, the ring on her finger catching what light there was at the bank.
"I knew he would be with you."
She came down to a kneel without asking, sat back on her heels, then sat in the dirt beside his shoulder with her knees drawn up. The cub did not move from his chest.
He waited a count.
"Did you enjoy your dance with him."
He kept his voice even and did not turn his head.
"Mm." She kept her eyes on the stars too. "He is a good man, and he knows how to make a woman laugh."
She said it plain.
A sting went through his heart, and he shrugged it off.
She moved her hand on the dirt, and he felt it before he saw it. A bird went up off the orchard wall behind them, and they both turned their heads at the sound at the same time.
Their faces were closer than either of them had thought.
She did not pull back, and he did not pull back either.
His hand was on the dirt beside his hip, and her hand was beside her knee. The dirt was cool under his palm. Her hand slid forward, whether she had meant it or not. The side of her hand brushed the side of his.
Her skin was warm against his, and he held his breath.
Neither of them moved the hand away.
He had carried the pull at his throat for months. She had come down the bank for the cub. She had sat in the dirt at his shoulder anyway. The pull was climbing.
He could turn his head two inches and put his mouth on hers. She was watching his eyes, then his mouth.
He did not turn his head, and she did not turn hers.
Suri's purr was steady against his chest. Past the orchard wall the bonfire was going low and someone was singing. The stars above had not moved since he lay down.
Her hand stayed against his.
The pull at his throat flared.
Neither of them moved.