POV: Thalion
Thalion checked the names on the watch list as Seraphina returned from the barrels beyond the horses. She approached with her arms held close to her body. He lowered the paper and waited for her.
She stopped four feet away and looked at the list instead of his face.
He glanced down at his shirt as her eyes moved from his collar to his sleeves. His mail was being cleaned, but he would need a new padded coat before he could wear it.
He held the list out across the gap. She reached for it, then lowered her eyes to the names.
"The ground around the pit is holding. I've left two men there to watch for signs that the ground is sinking. Four men now guard the path to the waystation on the other side of the river, instead of two." He kept his eyes on the paper in her hand. "No one goes back into the pit before daylight."
"Your fire was open for a long time in the pit," he added. "I was worried demons would follow us."
"Did they?"
"A few lesser demons came out of the trees while the tents were being raised. The soldiers and paladins killed them before they reached the tents. Two soldiers took shallow cuts. Their wounds have been cleaned and bound. We lost no men."
Her fingers tightened on the paper. "Are there more?"
"None that the sentries have seen. That is why I doubled the men on the waystation path. If anything else comes out of the trees, they will call it in."
She looked up at him.
"Stay behind the front row of soldiers until you have armor again."
He wanted to ask if she was worried about him. She was looking at the list again.
"I will stay behind them." His eyes moved to her hands on the paper. "Has Corwin examined your arms?"
"He examined them before I came out. I will follow his instructions."
She held the list between them, her elbows close to her sides.
She was still angry with him for the choices he had made. He wanted to ask how much her arms hurt, but she had already turned back to the list.
He stepped back while she read, then turned toward the fire.
* * *
POV: Seraphina
Seraphina reached her tent with the watch list still in her hand. She read the names again, looking for someone who could ride beside Thalion if they were attacked. She hated how quickly she had begun planning it.
Corwin had told her to keep the fire closed tonight. If demons returned before morning, she would have to leave Thalion's protection to the soldiers.
She could go back and ask who would ride beside him tomorrow. He would answer. Then he might ask about her arms again, and she would have to decide how much to tell him.
Gavrel waited outside with his arms folded. He lowered them when she looked up from the list.
"You said you would tell me what Lucien found tonight, my lady."
"I remember."
She lowered herself onto the cot with her arms held close. As she set the watch list beside her, the smell of the pit rose from the blankets. Her arms still ached when she rested her hands in her lap. Gavrel stayed near the entrance.
In the pit, she had given him the short version. Now she handed him the slate with all eleven names. He found his name beneath Renn's and Anton's and held his thumb beside it.
"Lucien's records put those names beside their families," she said. "If someone hunting the keeper line finds that page, they will know where to look."
She named the keeper families their mothers had come from. Those families had been burned out a hundred years ago. Lucien's house had kept tracing the children who should have inherited their land, and its records confirmed that the three men carried keeper blood.
"Then they have names to ask for," Gavrel said. His finger moved back to Renn's name. "Does Renn know?"
He looked through the entrance toward the far fire. Laughter carried from the men who had heard the story about the gold.
"No. Lucien, Liora, and Corwin know. Thalion was there when Lucien read the slate. The three paladins in the pit heard what I told you as well."
She met his eyes. "And everyone at the edge saw what happened to your shields and Anton's breastplate. They may not understand it, but they saw enough to talk."
The gift was real. Corwin had seen them grow stronger near her fire, but Gavrel had been choosing men for their skill.
"I would have chosen Renn and Anton anyway," Gavrel said. "If you had told me the day Lucien confirmed it, I would still have put them at the front. They are the best I have. I did not know who might be watching them."
"You should have told me why someone might be watching them, my lady," Gavrel said. "I cannot protect them from a threat I do not know about."
Liora came to the tent while they talked, holding one hand over the bandage around her injured side. Her eyes moved to Seraphina's sleeves before she went back outside.
Seraphina was still angry with Thalion for deciding what she could be told. Gavrel had been choosing guards without knowing what she had already confirmed.
"I should have told you." Pain pulsed in her arms under the sleeves. "I kept waiting for a better day to say it. I wanted to understand more before I asked you to change anything.
"Lucien gave me the proof, and I still left you waiting. There was never going to be a day when telling you would make this easier."
He nodded once, as he did when he understood an order but did not like it.
"You said they should hear it from us. Let me tell them. I would rather they heard it from me than from someone telling a story at that fire.
"They know how I assign guard duty. They need to understand that moving them away from the front does not mean I have stopped trusting them. I will tell them what Lucien found, and why you ordered the change."
"Speak to each of them tonight, once the guards are in position," she said. "If they have questions you cannot answer, bring them to me."
"They may ask why you waited," Gavrel said.
She nearly repeated her reasons for waiting. Gavrel had heard them. Renn and Anton would have to decide for themselves whether those reasons were enough.
"Tell them I had the proof before today. They can ask me why I waited. I won't ask you to make that sound better."
Gavrel held the slate out to her. She took it with both hands and laid it beside the watch list.
Gavrel stepped outside to arrange the watch. Through the open entrance, she watched him send Renn to the rear wagons and Anton to the horses. He paired each with a man he trusted.
Then he chose a partner for himself and went to guard the area between the wagons and the horses. To anyone watching, it would look like the usual change of guards.
Suri came to the tent opening and put his head inside. His ears flattened, and he backed away before he had brought even one paw into the tent. The smell of the pit and the burning still frightened him.
Washing had not taken it all from Seraphina's skin and hair. Now it clung to the blankets where she had been sitting.
He lay down two yards from the entrance, facing her, and stayed there.
At the second hour, Yona brought the cup Corwin had promised. Seraphina drank it.
From the wagons, she heard Renn speaking quietly, then Gavrel answering. Later, Gavrel spoke with Anton beside the horses. The voices stopped, and she could hear only the horses moving outside.
She lay down. The blankets still smelled of the pit, and her arms throbbed against them. Corwin's voice carried from the wounded paladin's tent, too low for her to make out what he was saying.
Suri lay beyond the opening, still facing her.