They left the village as the moon climbed higher.
Reerie stayed in the front, with Agnes pressed closely against her side, supported under the shoulder. Agnes leaned heavily into her — not entirely dead weight, but nearly so. Her feet barely touched the ground, her legs doing just enough while Reerie took on the rest. Her breathing was shallow and could be heard, each breath taken cautiously, as if her ribs were reminding her with every expansion that they had their own thoughts on the matter.
Behind them, Dray followed.
He moved like a man whose body had already lodged complaints that went unheard. His injured arm dangled at his side, still and ineffective, the broken bone having settled into a constant dull ache rather than a sharp pain. His steps were shaky, like someone running on the last dregs of energy — not collapsing, not halting, just using what little he had left with the careful precision of a man who understood exactly how much he could expend. His gaze remained fixed on the darkness behind them. The instinct of a bodyguard, still present even now.
They entered the trees, and the village faded from view.
The forest enveloped them entirely.
Dray's voice emerged from behind, soft and pointed. "Take a left. There should be another entrance."
Reerie adjusted her course without losing pace, veering left through the foliage, her boots gripping the damp earth.
Agnes slightly turned her head, her voice just above a whisper. "Follow Dray's lead." A brief pause, a shallow breath. "We've been here before."
Reerie remained silent. She adhered to the direction and continued onward.
The route Dray led them on was not a path in any conventional way — no cleared area, no signs, nothing that indicated it was a trail. It was a knowledge of where to go, held by those who had needed it previously and memorized it as certain things are memorized, not by choice but out of necessity. They headed west initially, then veered south, the trees closing in and the uneven ground shifting beneath their feet. The main gates of the city lay somewhere to the east, behind them and unimportant. This was the longer route. The correct one.
Dray did not elaborate further. Agnes had said all that was necessary.
Reerie listened, moved, and did not inquire.
As the city came out of the darkness, dawn was beginning to light up the eastern sky.
The streets were empty and dull with the early light, the type of light that came before color, existing solely to signal that color was on its way. Their footsteps were the only noise. Agnes had grown quieter in the last part of their journey, her breathing becoming steady, which could have been either calmness or just a lack of energy to do anything more.
Reerie pushed open the tavern door.
The keeper glanced up from behind the counter. His gaze swept over the three of them — the blood, the wounded arm pressed against the chest, Agnes struggling to stay upright, and Reerie's unreadable expression — and his face transformed into the familiar look of someone who had experienced enough of life to know when questions would be unwelcome.
"What—are you three okay?"
Dray moved forward and placed coins on the counter. "A room, please. Quickly."
The keeper's gaze shifted to Reerie. Something in his expression changed, a moment of recognition passing through him. He nodded once, accepted the coins, and handed over a key.
"Right away, sir."
No more questions.
They ascended the stairs slowly, all three of them, the wood creaking under their weight in the characteristic manner of old stairs that had supported many people and their various troubles, learning not to comment on it.
The room was tiny.
A bed. A washbasin. A window letting in grey light. Nothing more.
Agnes entered through the door, and that was nearly all she had. Dray led her to the bed, where she perched on the edge, her arms slightly away from her body, her shoulders refusing to relax into any position that didn't remind her of the pain they had endured.
Dray knelt before her.
He worked silently, his skilled hand moving with the precision of experience — locating the joint, sensing its condition, applying pressure in a careful manner that distinguished between healing and harming.
Agnes let out a low grunt, an involuntary sound of someone accepting something they had chosen to accept. She didn't pull back. She focused on a distant point and allowed him to work, trusting him to do what was necessary, just as she had always trusted him to handle what needed to be done.
When he was done, she breathed out slowly.
"You should avoid using your arms for a few days, your highness," he advised. "Let me help you for now."
Agnes gazed at him. Her expression was a mix of gratitude and reluctance, the face of someone who had always struggled to accept help. "Thank you, Dray. But I'm fine, really."
He wrapped her wounds without acknowledging her words, which was a response in itself. Then he stood and walked over to where Reerie was waiting by the door.
The burn on her calf had settled — a wide, raised mark imprinted on the skin in the shape of the musket muzzle, the surrounding flesh inflamed and red, a wound that didn't bleed but made its presence felt in other ways. Dray reached into his belt pouch and took out a small bundle of herbs, dried and pungent. He chewed them briefly and applied the paste directly to the burn with careful fingers.
Reerie remained composed. She gazed at the wall and allowed him to continue, just as Agnes had done, without any questions or formalities.
He wrapped her calf in cloth, secured it tightly, and then stood up.
He then slumped heavily against the wall, his broken arm pressed to his chest, still wearing his armor — the dent from the axe evident in the chest plate, the metal bent inward in a manner that clearly indicated what had transpired that evening. He made no effort to take it off. He had chosen not to bear the cost of moving his arm at this moment.
Agnes was already in a deep sleep. Her breathing had become steady the instant she reclined, her body yielding as soon as it was allowed.
The room fell into quiet.
Dray reached into his coat with his good hand and set a small leather pouch on the table.
"Thank you for helping me with this mission," he said. His voice was rough from fatigue but steady. "Here's the gold coin, as promised."
Reerie walked over to the table and picked it up. She felt its weight — the distinct, solid weight of something that had been promised and was now tangible — and tucked it into her cloak. The coin pressed against her ribs like a heartbeat.
Dray observed her for a moment. Then he spoke softly, so as not to disturb Agnes.
He told her they needed someone like her. Not just anyone useful in a general sense — but someone like her specifically, who could do what she did, in her unique way. King Adam was not an ordinary man. Dray had witnessed what he was capable of, what he could offer his soldiers, how he could transform ordinary men with enough power applied to them. With only Dray and Agnes, taking him down was impossible. He stated it plainly, without embellishment.
He informed her that King Adam had conquered Mandormon.
Their kingdom.
And they intended to reclaim it.
The words hung in the air like certain phrases do — not loud, not dramatic, but heavy. Kingdom. Conquered. Reclaim it. Reerie heard them, and they resonated within her, finding something.
Gobifrakan.
The thought came uninvited, the name surfacing from wherever she kept it and pressing momentarily against her chest. She did not pursue it. Did not allow it to expand into anything more than the instant it took to acknowledge it and set it aside. She said nothing. She never could.
Dray regarded her for a moment longer. Then he said, "It's getting late, Miss Ghost. You should probably go take a rest. Once again, I appreciate your assist on the matter."
Reerie turned toward the door.
Agnes stirred.
Her eyes opened partway, heavy with the first pull of real sleep, and she turned her head toward Reerie. Her voice came out rough and small, worn down to its most basic register.
"Ghost." A breath. "Was it?"
Reerie stopped.
"Thank you." Agnes's eyes were open enough to be sincere, and they were. "For coming. For fighting." She moved one hand slightly, a gesture that took in her own battered body, the whole of what remained of her, what was still here when it might easily not have been. "For everything."
A pause. "And I'm sorry. For kicking you. I thought—" She stopped. Shook her head slightly. "I didn't know."
Reerie looked at her.
She held the gaze — direct, level, nothing deflected or turned aside. She could not arrange her face into the shapes that feelings were supposed to make. She could not speak, could not smile, could not produce any of the signals that told another person they were heard and forgiven and that none of it was being held.
But she could look. She looked at Agnes with nothing withheld, and the look said what it needed to say. She had never taken it personally. She never could have.
Then she looked away.
She opened the door and stepped into the hallway. Behind her, Dray's head had fallen back against the wall, his eyes already closing. Agnes's breathing deepened again into sleep.
The door clicked shut.
Dawn was spreading across the rooftops when she stepped outside.
The streets were beginning to find their color, the grey of early light giving way to something warmer, the city waking in increments. Her leg marked time with every step, the burn beneath the bandage a steady and insistent presence. Her clothes were stiff with the soldiers' dried blood, the fabric holding the shape of what the night had been.
She moved through the empty streets the way she always moved — unhurried, taking no more space than she needed, a shadow that the early light had not yet decided what to do with.
The coin pressed against her ribs.
She noted what it meant — weeks of survival, a security she had not known before in any real sense — and moved past it. Her mind was already somewhere else.
It was on the blue light.
The way it had gathered in Dray's palm as if it belonged there. The way it had found the iron chains and broken them like they were nothing, like the material reality of locked metal was simply a suggestion that power had politely declined to follow. The way it had traveled through bone and left nothing standing.
She had seen steel do terrible things. She had seen fire. She had seen what a person could do to another person with enough skill and darkness and time.
But this was different. This was power that did not depend on strength or speed or the particular advantage of a shadow at the right moment. Power that came from within and went where it was pointed.
She wanted to understand it. Not as a passing curiosity — as something with weight and intention, something that had lodged in her and was not moving. Magic was a tool. And Reerie had always known exactly what to do with tools.
Her room above the tavern looked just as she had left it.
She set her dagger on the table. She sat on the edge of the thin mattress for a moment, her hands resting in her lap, as the quiet of the room enveloped her. Then the exhaustion hit. It was heavy and complete, without any negotiation.
She lay down.
The coin pressed against her ribs.
Sleep overtook her before she could finish the thought that was forming.
Outside, the city continued to wake. Somewhere in a small room above another tavern, Dray slept against a wall in dented armor, and Agnes lay with her arms carefully at her sides, as the night they had all just endured began to slowly fade into the past.
Inside, Reerie slept without dreams.
There was only darkness, silence, the weight of the coin, and somewhere beneath it all, quiet as a held breath — the memory of blue light.