The retreat held through the afternoon. And I gave the report to King Bryken after.
I watched the demon formations pull back past the treeline and kept watching until the last unit was out of detection range. The General had moved them with the organized efficiency of something that understood the difference between a tactical withdrawal and a rout. They were gone but they weren't scattered.
They would come back.
Just not today.
I looked at Frostina.
"Come." I said.
She shifted to her human form and fell into step beside me.
"How long." She said.
"Before they regroup and come back with a revised approach." I said. "Weeks. The General needs to report to the demon lord. The demon lord needs to adjust the strategy. They'll probe first before committing another full assault."
"So I have time." She said.
"Some." I said.
"Enough to go home." She said. Not a question. The tone of someone stating what they have decided.
"For now." I said.
She was already reaching for my arm before I had finished the sentence.
We teleported back to Eryndor.
••••••
The gate opened and Frostina walked through it.
She stopped.
The path in front of her was not the path she had left. The settlement she had been stationed away from for months was not the settlement she remembered. The residential zone was larger. The paths ran further than they had. The marketplace hall at the northwestern corner was new, the lamp posts along its edges running warm in the late afternoon light, the sound of people and commerce coming from inside it.
The lake was visible from the gate.
She looked at the lake.
She looked at the marketplace.
She looked at the expanded territory, the new houses running along the eastern extension, the additional farm plots, the second orchard section Benneth had been building out.
She turned to me.
"What." She said.
"It's been months." I said.
"WHAT." She said.
"The marketplace opened. The territory expanded. The lake is stocked. We have new residents from Seaphero. The road to Millhaven is active. Merchants come through on scheduled-"
Frostina sat down on the path.
Then she lay down on it.
Flat on her back, arms at her sides, staring at the sky with the expression of someone whose entire processing system had encountered more information than it could handle at once.
"I missed all of it." She said. To the sky.
"You were defending Branklore." I said.
"I MISSED ALL OF IT." She said. Louder.
"Frostina-"
She started kicking.
Both legs, alternating, heels hitting the path surface in a rhythm that had nothing tactical about it and everything emotional. Her arms came up and smacked the air beside her in the same rhythm, the ancient frost dragon who had been alive for a thousand years and had personally held three sides of Branklore's defense since dawn lying on a stone path in a full tantrum.
Several residents had stopped to watch.
Gringo was standing at the edge of the path with a basket of vegetables, looking at her with the expression of someone who had seen unusual things in Eryndor and had believed he had reached the ceiling of what could surprise him.
He had not reached the ceiling.
"A LAKE." Frostina said. Still to the sky. "HE MADE A LAKE."
"Yes." I said.
"WITH FISH IN IT."
"Yes." I said.
"AND NOBODY TOLD ME."
"You were in Branklore." I said.
"YOU COULD HAVE SENT A MESSAGE."
"Through what." I said.
She stopped kicking.
Considered this.
Started kicking again.
Flame appeared from around the corner of the marketplace at a run, having apparently heard either the voice or the impact of heels on stone from a significant distance. He looked at Frostina on the ground. At the kicking. At me standing beside her with my arms crossed.
He looked back at Frostina.
"We went to the sea." He said.
The kicking stopped.
Frostina turned her head slowly toward him.
"What." She said.
Flame's expression shifted into something I recognized as the expression he wore right before he did something he knew would produce a reaction and had decided to do it anyway.
"The sea." He said. "All of us. Leigh took everyone. We swam. Azylan grilled fish on the beach. There were jellyfish." He paused. "The glowing kind."
"The glowing ones." Frostina said. Very quietly.
"Torra called them sparkle ones." Flame said. "We were there most of the day."
Frostina looked at the sky again.
"I was fighting bone dragons." She said.
"Yes." Flame said.
"While you were at the sea."
"It was very nice." Flame said. "The water was warm on that side. Joren showed me how the fishing nets work. Azylan made squid."
"SQUID." Frostina said.
"On a grill." Flame said. "On the beach. With salt."
Frostina made a sound that was not a word.
Then she rolled over and pressed her face into the path.
The sound continued, muffled now, coming up through the stone of the path in a series of thumps as she applied her forehead to the surface repeatedly.
Torra appeared at the gate behind us, having apparently followed the noise from wherever he had been.
He looked at Frostina face-down on the path.
He looked at me.
"Is she okay." He said.
"She found out about the sea trip." I said.
"Oh." He said.
He went to Frostina and sat down cross-legged beside her.
"We can go again." He said. "Brother Leigh will take us."
Frostina lifted her face from the path.
"You don't know that." She said.
"He always takes us places eventually." Torra said. "That's just how it works."
Frostina looked at me over Torra's head with eyes that were doing several things at once.
I looked at the barrier perimeter.
"The southeastern corner of Amlada's wall needs reinforcement." I said. "Flame identified it this morning. I should address that today."
"LEIGH." Frostina said.
"The charge levels on the northwestern barrier nodes also need checking." I said. "That's a full afternoon of work."
"LEIGH." She said again.
"And the Branklore barrier needs a recalibration on the eastern seam now that the General has identified the charge threshold pattern. I'll need to rebuild that section entirely. Could take two days."
Frostina stood up.
She had path dust on her face. Her hair was disheveled from the tantrum. She stood in front of me with the full composure she could assemble on short notice, which was moderate under the current circumstances.
"Leigh." She said. With enormous control.
"Yes." I said.
"I held Branklore's entire eastern approach alone since dawn." She said. "Against a Demon General, two bone dragons, and a full demon advance."
"You did." I said.
"And everyone else went to the sea." She said.
"Yes." I said.
"And I missed the marketplace opening." She said.
"Yes." I said.
"And the lake." She said.
"Yes." I said.
"And the new residents." She said.
"Sixty-something of them now." I said.
Frostina closed her eyes.
Opened them.
"I would like." She said. Very carefully. "To see the lake. And the marketplace. And I would like someone to tell me about the sea trip in full detail. And I would like." Her voice was holding itself together with visible effort. "A rum."
I looked at her.
"The rum ban." She said. "Given the circumstances. Surely."
"The ban was indefinite." I said.
"LEIGH-"
"One glass." I said.
She stopped.
Looked at me.
"One." I said. "For the bone dragons."
The expression that crossed her face was the expression of someone receiving something small that felt enormous given the context.
"One glass." She said.
"Yes." I said.
She straightened fully. Smoothed her clothes. Turned toward the marketplace with the composure of an ancient dragon who had definitely not just been lying on the ground kicking the air.
"Show me the lake first." She said.
"It's that direction." I said, pointing.
She walked toward it with her chin up.
Flame fell into step beside her.
"The jellyfish were really something." He said conversationally.
"Flame." I said.
"Yes?" He said.
"Don't." I said.
He pressed his lips together.
Frostina kept walking toward the lake.
Her shoulders were very stiff.