21. Head in the Clouds

Despite his languid attitude, Shade was a demanding teamster. He drove the group well into the warm night, taking them out of the farmland and into heathery wilderness as they ascended the Cirian Range. The track had long since devolved into a bare strip of tan earth, surrounded on all sides by clumps of spiky orange gorse. Their route wound along the mountains’ contours on a merciless incline, every step needing just a little extra effort to bring them closer to the distant clouds.

Valerios was practically nodding off astride Hayl, and both Johannes and Freija were already asleep in the bed of the cart. Lux, who had volunteered to take the first watch at camp, was also taking an early nap, leaving Caela alone with the two newcomers.

“Bad idea to camp in the orchards.” Shade was explaining, his voice underscored by cricket-song. “The damned farmers don’t like outsiders hanging around. They think everyone passing through their land is a potential murderer - or worse, a thief.”

He cackled in a most ungentlemanly fashion, examining the iuliper fruit in his palm. With a deft twist of his wrist, he tossed it to Caela, who showed it to Mene. Nose wrinkling, the wolf judged it to be most inedible, so she threw it gently to Kazzik, who was lounging in the back.

The young man inexpertly caught it in both hands. “Can’t imagine why,” he said with a raised eyebrow, placing the fruit on the pile that had accumulated in the cart bed. “What are you planning to do with twenty iulipers, anyway?”

“Why, eat them, principetto.” Shade gestured grandly. “Very good for sky sickness.”

Taking in Kazzik’s blank silence, he chuckled and continued.

“Sky sickness. It happens to those of us who aren’t used to living at high altitudes. Can cause changes in mood, headaches, vomiting and, in the worst cases, even death.”

“Good gods!” Kazzik said, taken aback. “Even changes in mood?”

“Don’t joke around, principetto,” Shade chided. “We’ll be spending ten days above the treeline, and three days of that will be above the cloud line. There are no taverns up there, no supply stores.” He smirked. “Your gold won’t do you much good up there. Everything we need for that leg of the journey, we must bring with us. You did pack the warm clothes, yes?”

Kazzik arched his back comfortably, giving the soft mass beneath him a dull thump with his palm. “They’re making a comfy mattress. Not that I can imagine us needing them. Even the nights are hot here.” He stared out into the hazy evening.

Clearly, the information in Kazzik’s little black book didn’t extend to mountaineering advice. Caela wondered just how worldly the young master really was. She suspected it would be easier to break through his irreverent affectation while the two of them were alone, and made a note to talk to him later.

First, though, she had an important conversation to have. Flipping open her satchel, she reached down to retrieve something she’d stowed safely at the very bottom. Holding it out to Shade, she couldn’t help but be reminded of when Valerios had solemnly entrusted it to her, the small velvet-wrapped bundle dwarfed in his hands.

Unsure of what to say, she found herself echoing his words.

“Here. You should have this.”

The assassin accepted the bundle automatically, though he gave her a quizzical look.

“Thank you, signorina, you’re too kind.” He bowed his head politely, turning his attention to the package. One by one, he unfolded the flaps of cloth, until they revealed a glistening blade of pure night.

Shade chuckled. “A dagger? What else to gift an assassin?” Smiling, he touched a fingertip to the mirrorlike obsidian, then recoiled with a hiss.

“È freddo,” he murmured, almost to himself.

“It’s Hellebore’s,” Caela said, taking the knife by the hilt. She was used to the feeling by now, its alien ability to suck in heat without getting warm. She turned it this way and that, watching it catch the lamplight on its glinting surface, only to disappear back into blackness. Shade followed its movements, mesmerised.

“Or, well. It was. They found it on our travels, and fought with it until they died. Right up until the last moment.”

She turned the knife and presented it hilt-first to Shade. After a moment, he took it, grimacing at the sensation in his hand.

“What were you doing with a little thing like this, Shadow?” he mused.

He looked back up at Caela, a contemplative look in his eye. “This is the weapon of a firebrand; someone who would endure the pain of wielding it for a greater end. The fact that Shadow wielded this surprises me. They must have changed since I knew them.”

Caela leaned in a little, intrigued. “What do you mean?”

“Do you believe in psychology, signorina?” Shade asked cryptically. “Certainly, I do. I can predict the way a man will fight by his personality - and vice versa. I will admit, your friend Valerios is a complete anomaly. I have never met someone with such varied mastery. Most people have preferences, and that reveals something about their heart.” He tapped his chest.

“Take Lux, for example,” he continued. “I have seen him spar with the big horseman. Always rushing in, like he can’t wait to clash. Even when he’s dodging, he’s moving forward, like a boxer rushing down his opponent.” Shade rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. “Reminds me of someone.”

“You, however, use the bow.” He gestured to the quiver, not far from her side. “You prefer keeping your distance, taking your time, calling your shot. But you use it even at close range, so I wonder if you’re prepared when things very suddenly get close.”

Without warning, he moved - leaning in so his face was inches from hers. Startled, Caela held still. No flinch. No blink. A death mask. Shade’s one eye searched her face, smug and expectant. After a beat, he leaned back with a shrug, evidently disappointed.

“What about you?” she asked suddenly, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of getting to her. “What does your fighting style say about you?”

Shade laughed.

“You’ll have to tell me. Anyway, I reiterate my thanks. It is an unexpected offering, although not the first time Shadow gave me a blade.”

Caela tilted her head, curious.

Shade held the tip of the glassy dagger to his intact eye, tracing the scar that arced around it.

“The last time I saw them,” he said quietly, “Shadow tried to take my other eye. Not that I blame them.”

Before Caela could speak, he reached to the bandolier on his chest, sliding the black knife into a vacant slot with practiced ease.

Caela opened her mouth - to ask what he meant, what had happened, how things had gone so wrong between him and Hellebore - when Shade abruptly straightened up, pulling the mule to a halt.

He gestured out at the clearing ahead. “Here!” he announced. “We will stop here tonight.”

Once again, just as he was beginning to open up, Shade had sidestepped out of the conversation.

The camp site was, admittedly, close to perfect - a wide, flat stretch of dusty earth with not too much thorny shrubbery to poke one awake at night.

Valerios roused the sleeping members of their troupe and began directing the construction of their camp with the precision of a military operation.

After much barking of commands and arguments over the best direction to orient a tent, he declared he was satisfied with the party’s efforts, and crouched down to begin lighting a fire while the others relaxed.

Caela watched the paladin take out flint and steel, painstakingly striking for a spark again and again, and looked up to meet Johannes’ eyes. She had definitely seen the wizard start fires with no more than a word and a wave of his hand, but the old man only winked and disappeared into his tent. It seemed Valerios was on his own.

Leaving him to it, Caela returned to her earlier investigation. She searched for Kazzik amongst the sleepy campers, but found his tent still neatly bundled. Had he slipped away while they were making camp? She warily scanned the darkness beyond the campfire for any signs of trouble, and let out a faint whistle. Mene was at her side in an instant.

“Where’s Mr Harbington?” she whispered into his tufted ear. The wolf sniffed the air, then bounded away. The pair raced noiselessly through the brush, towards the faintest smell of smoke on the breeze. Finally, behind a boulder, Caela spotted a flash of red. Stopping Mene with a hand on his thick fur, she watched Kazzik.

He was facing away from them, cross-legged, with his tail wrapped neatly around him. At first, Caela thought he was speaking to her.

“-why them?” he asked. “How did you know we have a common enemy?”

She opened her mouth to respond - then froze. He hadn’t noticed them yet. And now she saw it: his arcane tome was splayed open in front of him, a spiral of black smoke winding up from between its pages.

His question drifted up with the smoky pillar, unanswered - until a voice emerged from the air itself. A woman’s voice, rough and sardonic, with the husky croak of someone for whom tobacco was both a stress relief and a meal replacement.

“Kazzik, if I wanted to sit around answering petty questions all day, I’d become a teacher. And then you’d have permission to euthanise me, because I’d clearly have lost my will to live. Until then, the current arrangement stands: I tell you to do things, and you do them. Understood?”

“Aye, Mirazh,” Kazzik sighed dutifully.

“And it’s my lady,” the voice snapped. “No first names while you’re on the clock. Especially not when you’re being watched.”

Caela jumped as Kazzik spun around, blank eyes falling on her hiding spot. Behind him, the book snapped closed of its own accord, sending the smoky plume scattering.

For a moment, they stared at each other, unsure of who had caught whom. Caela didn’t know whether to accuse or apologise.

Kazzik broke the silence with a crooked grin and a sheepish laugh, pushing a stray lock behind one horn.

“Aha! Caught red-handed.”

“Really?” Caela replied, uncertainly. Mene pressed closer against her leg.

“Aye,” he said cheerfully. “You got me. Had to make a little call to the Boss, and she really doesn’t like people listening in. Thought I’d save an awkward conversation and do it out here.”

“I see,” murmured Caela. “That was Lady Mirazh? Your… relative?”

“Indeed, Miss Caela, that’s the old battleaxe. She’s a hard mistress, but you can’t choose your family, I suppose.”

Caela couldn’t imagine having such an unpleasant old woman as a family member, even a distant aunt, but she was keen to steer the conversation well away from the eavesdropping incident. “I just wanted to ask if you needed any… outdoorsy advice for next week,” she said, clearing her throat. “This is your first ascent, isn’t it, Kazzik?”

“Call me Kaz,” the tiefling replied, with a friendly nod. “That’s right. This journey’s going to be full of firsts for me. Should be fun.”

“You haven’t been travelling on behalf of the Lady for long?”

“A couple of years, so it depends if you call that long. What about you?”

Caela looked out towards the hillside, and the dusky countryside beyond. Points of firelight scattered out from the bright mass that was New San Aria, becoming more spread out the further they got from the city.

“This is my first time away from home.”

Kazzik nodded sagely. “I remember. Your quest.”

“It’s not really a quest,” Caela replied, a little too quickly. “I was just worried about the people back home. Lux is the one who calls it a ‘quest’. He’s very passionate about that kind of thing.”

“Is he, now?” Kazzik mused, briefly letting his gaze drift over her shoulder.

“What about you?” Caela asked, sensing an opportunity to find out more about this stranger . “What made you leave your home? Are you also worried for your family, like Ms Mirazh?”

Kazzik chuckled, the laugh travelling all the way through his body to an amused flick of his tail. “Not exactly,” he smiled. “The boss can take care of herself. And as for the others…”

He let out a sad, barking laugh that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“There’s not much for me to go back for.”

For a moment, Caela saw his face soften. He looked terribly young. Vulnerable, even. Then he blinked, and the expression vanished - back to his usual confident smile.

“Enough about the past,” he said smoothly. “We should focus on the future. I think our little coterie is going to do great things together.”

—

As the group finished setting up camp for the night, Caela could almost see what Kazzik was talking about. The ring of tents felt like a bulwark against the darkness, a canvas fortress with a golden hoard at its heart. Freija and Valerios were dividing up rations as the mule grazed on the scrubby grass, and Kazzik and Johannes consulted their spellbooks on opposite sides of the campfire, occasionally eyeing each other warily.

Caela was glad to finally reunite with her bedroll. The shabby wool had been her first companion on her journey from Ardelign, and by some miracle it was still with her. It had been laid out in dozens of camping spots on her journey, including a dry river bed that had turned out to be not so dry by the time she woke up. It’d then survived contact with the campfire while she was trying to dry it out. Despite all the abuse she’d put it through, it still smelled like home.

She stretched out, and breathed in the familiar scent of wool and pine. Her eyes flickered closed. Just a few moments rest, and then she’d go outside to join the others…

Caela didn’t remember falling asleep, and so was surprised when a faint clattering stirred her awake. She pushed the canvas flap aside to find Lux sitting on a log, staring into the campfire. Gemstone droplets of water hung from his hair, nose, and stubbly chin. Beside him, a bucket lay upturned in a dark circle of earth.

He jumped when she joined him beside the fire.

“Damn!” he hissed in surprise. “Sorry. I woke you, didn’t I?”

“It’s alright,” she replied softly, glancing up at the night sky. “It’s almost time for my watch, anyway.”

Lux followed her gaze. Beyond the bristly tree branches, an almost-full moon hung in the sky like the end of a colossal pendulum.

“‘Last full moon of summer’,” Lux quoted. “The next time the moon’s this full, we’ll be on the other side of the mountains, meetin’ your mysterious contact. If we get there.”

“We’ll be alright,” Caela reassured him, patting his shoulder. “This is nothing compared to what we’ve been through. We’re a team, after all.”

Lux grunted in amusement, but didn’t look at her. Instead, he began examining his calloused hands. There were a few new scars there, mud beneath his fingernails.

“See, that’s the thing,” he muttered. “How much of a team are we, really?”

She opened her mouth to protest, but Lux had a case to make.

“Freija can’t hardly look at Johannes these days, and when she looks at me, it’s always…” He sighed. “She looks at me like I’m a busted wagon wheel. No use ‘cept maybe for kindling.” Caela felt a pang, but she couldn’t argue. Freija did treat Lux differently now. She hadn’t even wanted him to come.

Lux continued. “Besides her, the newcomers don’t trust each other, and Valerios don’t trust them neither. Not that l can blame the big lug. The way Shade talks about Hellebore is darn shameful. That fella probably thinks ‘personal attachment’ is a fancy term for a pair of handcuffs.”

The campfire popped and crackled before them, counterpoint to Lux’s bitter words.

“Shade’s not so bad,” Caela protested. “He’s acting tough, but the news must’ve torn him up inside. That’s why, whenever we talk about Hellebore, he can’t hide his interest.” She thought about the pale scar around Shade’s eye. Clearly he and Hellebore had left a mark on each other in more ways than one.

Lux’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t trust him. Not a lick. He looks like ten miles of bad road.”

Caela cocked her head. “What does that mean?”

Lux sighed. “He looks like he’s been chewed up and spit out. All those scars, Caela. He looks dangerous.”

“Oh.” Caela felt that familiar coldness rising up again. Unconsciously, her hand rose to her cheek to trace the spiderwebbing lines of ridged skin.

“Do you think I look dangerous, too?”

She watched realisation hit Lux like a hammer. “Aw, hells.” He blustered into a storm of half-formed apologies. “Caela, I’m sorry- I didn’t figure that through- I didn’t mean it like that, I…” He stopped himself.

Caela saw his downcast expression, his big blue eyes full of guilt, and couldn’t hold it against him. “It’s alright, Lux. I know you didn’t.” She folded the feeling away, telling herself not to take it personally.

Pulling her knees up to her chest, she reached for a change of subject, looking back on her encounter with their other new arrival. “What about Mr Harbington?”

“What about him?”

“We know much less about him than we do Shade,” she countered. “Even if he’s been just as helpful.”

Lux shrugged.

“Kaz’s alright. Bit highfalutin’, maybe. When we were settin’ up camp, he couldn’t wrap his head around us not having a leader. Reckon he thinks we’re all out of kilter, with no one callin’ the shots.”

His eyes were fixed on a point somewhere within the flames. Caela could see the idea being turned over in his head.

“You agree, don’t you?” she asked. She held up seven fingers, counting the members of their party.

“You obviously don’t want Shade in charge, and I can’t see you listening to Kazzik’s orders either,” she said, lowering a finger for each. “Valerios doesn’t seem to want the job - I suppose we don’t have the makings of an army. Johannes is happy pursuing his own goals under someone else’s command, and Freija’s far too chaotic to be a stable figurehead. That leaves…”

She looked at her two upraised fingers with mounting dread. She turned to see Lux looking gravely at her.

“Oh, no, Lux, you can’t mean…”

“I stand by what I said before. You’d make a good leader. Folks like you, Caela. More than that, they trust you. None of us’d be here if it weren’t for you. We’d all follow your lead.”

“But why not you?” Caela protested. “You’re the hero of San Aria, even if most people don’t know it. You always stand up to people doing bad things. You’re always giving everything for the sake of what’s right.”

“Exactly,” Lux broke in. The word seemed to spring forth unprompted, surprising even him. Caela examined every inch of his tormented expression, and finally asked the question that she’d meant to ask as soon as she’d opened her tent flap.

“Why are you soaking wet, Lux?”

He sighed, tipping the bucket back upright and wiping droplets from his hair.

“I told you ‘bout my brother, didn’t I? Way back when.”

Caela nodded.

“When he… when he pushed my head underwater, when my lungs were fit to burst, that’s when I first heard it. The voice. Plain as day. Asked me to make my oath, and I did. I did, Caela.”. He sighed. “Ever since then, I just need to put my head underwater to hear it again.”

“It talks to you?”

“Kinda. More like… guidance. Sometimes it’s just words of wisdom, other times it’s more specific.”

He scowled.

“‘Cept now, it won’t give me squat. It’s happy that I transformed in the lab. Now, it says, I’ve got everything I need to be a do-gooding folk hero.” A sterner tone crept into his voice. “But it’s not enough. Not when people are still dying around me. I’ve travelled three hundred miles from home, and I’m exactly where I started.”

Caela reached out a hand, hesitantly, but let it drop back into her lap.

“I’ve got to give more, Caela, else all that hero talk is just that. Talk.”

Caela paused, watching his weary face outlined in firelight. She remembered the boy she’d found in the river, ready to throw himself in front of a monster to protect her. Then. And every moment since.

“It was never ‘talk’ to me.” Her voice was small, slipping between the cracks of his frustration to touch something deeper. His face softened.

“You always know what to say,” he said. “That’s why I need you watchin’ out for me. Not the other way around.”

“Okay,” Caela said slowly. “I’ll be the leader.”

Lux had already begun to smile, but she pressed on. “If,” she continued, interrupting his reply, “If you promise to look after yourself. I can’t do it by myself.”

He stared at her, blue eyes unsure, before nodding. “Sure. Whatever you say, boss.” He was smiling as he said it, but Caela still felt a pang of uncertainty.

“Now get some rest,” she said, looking back up at the moon dangling overhead. “It’s almost my watch, and you need the sleep anyway.”

“Alright, Caela. G’night.”

Caela watched over her shoulder as Lux crawled into his tent, feeling herself relax once he was safely inside. She caught sight of her own bedroll, and sighed.

Just a few more hours, and they’d be together again.

—

The dawn arrived with the bellow of a creature in distress.

“ARGH! Get off me, woman!”

Caela popped her head into the morning air just in time to see one of the other tents implode into a turbulent mass of canvas and poles. A half-dressed Shade was launched from the melee, swearing vigorously. He hopped barefoot over the sharp twigs littering the campsite, his eyepatch clutched in one hand and the other clamped over his empty socket. Reaching a safe distance from the tent, he balanced on one leg, securing the patch back onto his face with a scowl.

As Caela looked around frantically for the source of his alarm, another person crawled out of the collapsed tent. Freija stood, primly brushing the dust from her skirt and patting her wild mane back into shape.

“I don’t see why you’re so mad,” she pouted. “I just wanted to see what was underneath.”

“Then you should ask, strega,” Shade growled, “before you take off a man’s eyepatch!”

“I did! And you said no! That’s why I waited until you were asleep.”

A peal of laughter came from Kazzik’s tent. “Glad it wasn’t my tent you crawled into.”

“Yours would be the last one I’d pick, sex minion!” Freija yelled back, receiving a snort of louder amusement in reply.

“Now now,” Lux said blearily, scraping up the last of his morning porridge beside the burnt-out firepit. “You’ve gotta learn to respect people’s personal space.”

“Says who?” Freija shot back, apparently without irony.

Lux gestured towards Caela with his spoon. “Ask our leader.”

It was too early in the morning for embarrassment. Caela yawned.

“Freija, don’t touch people without their permission,” she said sleepily.

“Caela, honey, I was only-”

“Especially if they’re an ex-assassin. Or did you forget that part?”

She hadn’t meant the comment to sound like a threat, but it was effective. Freija opened and closed her mouth a few times, then decided to look for something useful to do - as far away from Shade as possible.

Lux gave Caela a knowing look.

Told you so.

—

The days began to bleed and mix together like watercolours, painting their journey towards the treeline in broad strokes. True to Shade’s warning, the temperature dropped with every passing day. San Aria’s humidity had been a thick soup of a thousand ingredients that sat heavy in the chest. Here, the air was thin and fast, barely slowing down to provide one a nourishing breath. The crowded orchards and thorny wilderness were long gone, replaced with dark green alpine shrubbery that clawed at the rocky terrain for drops of sustaining moisture.

Despite the disharmony Lux had warned her about, Caela judged that the group was getting along well enough. Shade and Freija were (mostly) behaving themselves, and Kazzik was making an effort to get to know each member of the group. His interview of Valerios had been a sight to behold, as the poor tiefling desperately tried to parse exaggeration from fact.

One morning, Shade’s route took them along a narrow road that clung to the mountainside like a sheer dress. It was scarcely wide enough for the cart, with absolutely no margin for error. On one side, the track disintegrated into a hundred feet of loose scree. On the other, the mountain climbed at an impossible degree right up into the clouds.

To pass the time, and possibly to distract them from the precarious path, Johannes regaled the group with grandiose descriptions of their destination. He told them of Aegiswood, the city within the silver tree, and its denizens.

“What are they like?” Caela asked him excitedly. “The highland elves, I mean.” She hadn’t heard much of elves beyond her own woodland kind, especially not those in the impossibly distant high elven city.

Johannes twirled his moustache indulgently.

“An interesting sort, to be sure. Capable of great things, both brilliant and terrible. I have heard that those living in the Cirian Range are a gentle and wise sort, while those living in Aegiswood are sadly indoctrinated by the Mages’ College.”

“And this College is somewhere you want to visit?” she asked dubiously.

“Yes!” Johannes smiled, mischievously. “I wish to see for myself whether the rumours are true.”

“Why do they have a Mages’ College, anyway?” Caela asked. “And why a Guild in San Aria? After all, you didn’t get your spells from a teacher, and I don’t think Kazzik did either. He definitely isn’t the type to listen in class.”

Johannes put a hand over his heart, crying out in mock jubilation.

“Ah! Caela, if only everyone was as rational as you. You’re quite correct. These organisations are pure bunk, made to siphon money from fools. True mastery only comes from personal study - that’s what I say.” He patted the shape of his spellbook, carefully stowed behind him.

A harsh cry from the front of the group cut off Caela’s reply. A shadow flitted across the pale sun, and Caela immediately pressed her back to the rocky cliff face, squinting up with a grim sense of familiarity.

The shape came hurtling out of the sky, with the sun at its back. Hayl reared up, snorting like a demon, as Valerios fought to keep his steed under control. Instinctively, Shade hauled on his own reins, the cart jolting to a stop as the mule whinnied in terror.

The winged creature landed heavily on the mountainside path, cutting Caela, Johannes and Freija off from the others.

Shade vaulted off the driver’s bench, taking cover behind the cart. Kazzik was frozen in surprise, although his hand was inching closer to the black book sticking from his waistcoat pocket. Valerios, still trying to keep Hayl from stumbling, was too preoccupied to recognise a familiar foe. Lux, however, had known it immediately. That was clear from how his glowing sword trembled, just a little.

The griffon opened its razor beak, letting out a piercing cry that echoed ominously off the rock face.

They were a long way from the site of their first griffon encounter, and Caela was glad to see that this one had not been subjected to Vozloc’s experiments. It held its eagle head up proudly, the feathers on its torso a glossy field of gold. Its claws, perfect lacquered hooks, dug for purchase on the cramped pathway.

It was a portrait of nature’s majesty. It was also clearly hungry. As the beast lowered its torso to the ground, Caela could see the leanness of its belly. Taking a low stance, it prowled towards the frenzied mule.

Mene gave a warning bark. The griffon turned to snap its enormous beak in his direction, as if to say don’t worry, you’ll be dessert.

Lux stepped between predator and prey, his sword half-raised. Caela felt her heart in her throat as he called out with all the braveness he could muster.

“Go on, git!” he commanded the creature, uncertainly. “Go on, now.”

He flicked his sword, but the griffon was not impressed. Its gaze was locked on the mule.

Thinking quickly, Caela sprang towards the animal. Lowering her head, she ducked under its wing, feeling it recoil as it noticed her, the muscles tensing to strike. She dashed past Lux and clambered into the bed of the cart.

Kazzik leaned out of the way. “What are you doing?”

Lux kept one eye on her and another on the advancing creature as she desperately rifled through their supplies, before finding what she was looking for.

“Catch!”

She hefted a salted pork leg in both hands and hurled it towards the griffon. It snatched the spinning hunk of meat out of the air like a well-trained pet, immediately pausing its advance. The creature appeared to consider its options, assessing the stringy mule and the spiky-looking human in front of it. Deciding to secure its winnings, the griffon turned and launched off the cliffside. The onlookers were momentarily arrested by the graceful beating of its gigantic wings as it wheeled away into the distance.

“That was an expensive road toll,” Valerios rumbled, as the group reunited. “Food is at a premium here.”

“Right, and so is the half of our supplies we’d have to leave behind if we lost the mule,” she pointed out.

The large man gave her a searching look, then nodded, satisfied. “Of course. I should have seen it. A small sacrifice to protect the greater prize.”

“I don’t know if it’s that deep,” Caela replied diffidently. “Just doing what’s in everyone’s best interests.”

Valerios laughed, threatening to trigger a small avalanche.

“Ha ha! A rare quality in this band of warriors. Perhaps you may be the right person to lead us to victory after all.”

“Maybe,” she smiled. “I think I still need some of your confidence.”

“Correct,” Valerios boomed. “Do not worry, though. I, too, have qualities in need of improvement.”

With those words of dubious encouragement, he kicked at Hayl’s flanks, sending the warhorse trotting along the cliffside once again.

That was his life, Caela realised. Charging along the narrow track of ambition, towards a goal even he couldn’t see fully. Was the path comforting? Or did he feel his oath hemming him in on both sides?

Did Lux feel the same way?

22. Friendly Fire >>