Fire, blood, screaming.

The campfire has blossomed into an angry, roaming thing under Caj's hands, its deep hunger birthing smoke and ash that plume around the clashing figures. It weaves, sinuously, as the players spin around it, rock and wood splitting in the shuddering firelight.

The firemaster dances around Meg, who crouches and shifts in quick furious movements, her only remaining arm moving like a whip out at him and Fae. Punts of rock and trunk split and shatter sweeps of arrows and flame, the ground crackling in furious torment as the grass upon it ignites.

Around them birds lay twitching in the smoldering grass as Iaves and Tara and Hiran clash, the animals paralyzed by the pull of the two minds that fight even as their owners' bodies move. The Nature-caller weaves around his Beast-caller counterpart, flinging ice and stone, sweat glinting on his scrunched brow.

In between this thunder of snapping trunks and crackling flames three other figures chase: Finn, a small, dark streak amidst a cloud of wasps, and Lei, a barreling blur, as they trail Ben, quick, clever Ben, who kicks up dirt and turns when they expect him to twist. That white knife is out and it slashes, the orange glint of the firelight setting its edges aflame.

She is a dark shadow, a pale whisper, and she steps inside the chaos.

The first is Iaves.

Jumping high over a sudden sprout of fire, she catches his knife, sending it spinning into a nearby trunk as a chunk of ground punches up into his stomach. Hiran follows the movement up with a swoop of his leg, knocking the feet out from underneath Iaves as Tara slams into him, pinning him down.

She sees Ben slipping past her and he is next; she knows that turn of his foot, knows the way his body will twist after it, the way his heel will kick out, spraying dirt, embers, and ash up into Lei's face as the knife drives forward, out to the exposed chest.

She jumps in front of him before he can do it, kicking his foot out so the spray catches only the side of her mask; her hand clamps down onto his wrist, twisting his arm back as she rolls away from the blow. She pulls him down and Lei follows through, burying the non-Skiller's feet in rock as his knees hit the ground.

Ben's hood is back and he's got those sharp gray eyes trained on her smoldering hood as the rock melds his hands to the ground as well. Feeling the burn, Allayria pulls the mask off.

His eyes find hers, and in Ben's face is dismay and triumph.

But the ground cracks behind her and Allayria turns to see Caj and Fae still locked in combat with Meg. Allayria walks forward and their eyes meet, Meg's golden-green ones widening in the firelight.

Are you remembering all of it? Allayria wonders in that brief pause, that breath of hesitation. Are you remembering all the times we were on the same side? All the times I saved your hide and you saved mine?

And then Meg flings the shards of granite, kicking up a spray of cracking rock. Allayria twists, but feels it slice across her temple, the blood warm and wet across her face.

It is as if they have shot her again, and the hope Allayria has never known was there before—the hope that Meg would have chosen differently, that Meg at least would have resisted Ben's choice had she the opportunity—breaks. Allayria expects fury, anguish, but all she feels is leaden, and she Skills through the attack, pulling up a stream of shifting metal from the rings around her boots, melding them into the club that cracks down across Meg's face.

She crumples, and Allayria coils, flinging away the birds that Iaves, bound but still conscious, had called at her. Her foot cracks against his head and she watches as he too falls.

Movement in the far corner of her eye catches her attention, but she reacts too late as the hardened mud above Ben's hands cracks. He flings an arm out, the grasped slice of rock slashing at Fae as the other hand pushes himself back, the rock around his feet cracking ominously, and Allayria moves, shoving Fae aside, grabbing the sharp side of the rock with her palm, and falling forward too.

They hit the earth with a hollow thud, dust springing up around them as her forearm settles over his neck, her other hand planted on the ground beside his head and her knees pinning him down.

This... they have been in this position before, but under different circumstances, with different intentions, and the memories of all those times come up unbidden, because Ben isn't fighting back anymore, he isn't even struggling, and for a moment it's like—

She cracks her head against his, using the moment of disorientation to push away. Lei and Caj are at her side and they're hauling him up as she stands. They put him back on his knees and sink his hands even further into the scorched ground.

The others shift behind her, binding Meg as they did the other two, and Allayria turns to Hiran.

"Search their bags," she orders. "Set up a perimeter. Finn: call the horses."

A crimson track oozes down her face, a map of her foolishness, and she knows that behind her, bloody too, but still conscious, Ben's eyes are on her, watching, seeking, discerning. She can hear the clicking of the gears inside that head, but she refuses to look back. She walks over to the fire, one hand coaxing the flames down as the other pulls water out of a flask and lays it over the embers.

She turns and Hiran holds out a small, black book. She takes it, flipping it open. A diagram of a child stares up at her from the yellow page and she flips the book shut.

Giving Hiran a quick nod, she pockets it.

"We also found something else," he says and there's something about his tone that makes her look up into his face. She follows him back to the packs, to where Tara is standing over something, and when Allayria halts beside her she stares down at the Pang-Sing bow, as black and delicate as ever, glinting coolly in the firelight.

Did they keep it as a trophy, as proof of what they did to me?

"Bundle it up," she orders Tara. "Give it to Lei."

"Allayria," Ben says, voice raw and cracking. She remembers that voice, remembers the promises it made. Her fingers curl up toward her palms and she wonders if they will snap from the pressure.

She walks in the opposite direction, over Iaves's prone body and out into the woods.

Whatever he has to say, she doesn't want to hear it.

The woods grow darker as she travels farther and she knows that Lei has followed her; she can hear the irritating pitter-patter of his boots against twig and leaf behind her, a constant reminder of her noisy shadow.

She wheels around and fixes him with a stare, which he returns with typical expressionlessness.

"We need to split up. You must take them back to Beinsho and Ruben."

The façade cracks at record speed: Lei's face contorts.

"What—"

"There is somewhere I must go before I return to the base," she interjects.

"And," she adds as he draws a quick breath, "it would be terribly unsafe for me to travel with them. Wouldn't it?"

His hands actually curl into fists at this and she can see for a flash the agony in his eyes, the abject fury at knowing she is right.

"I'll take two others," she says. And then, having some mercy: "It won't be dangerous. It's for a good reason, Lei, I promise. I'm going back to Solveigard City."

"Why?" he demands.

She steps a little closer, her voice lowering.

"The council is going to be there when we get back, right?" she prods. "We're all going to meet and then we'll head out again, this time for the Jarles. Someone once told me you need a network of supporters and supplies to take on the Jarles. Right now my network is in the hands of four different people with four different agendas. I might be the Paragon, but right now I'm at the mercy of what these kings and rulers will tell me. I need an independent chain of support."

His eyes narrow at this and she senses his suspicion, but she wonders if she might detect something else in his look, an unsaid knowing that speaks more to the long and painful journey it would be for her to travel back with their captives.

"You'd take Finn and Hiran, then?" he asks slowly.

"No, I was thinking Fae and Tara."

"Finn must go with you," he says immediately.

"No, Finn must go with you," Allayria counters. "It is imperative—in case there is a... problem."

He knows what she speaks of, and his jaw twitches.

"I'd be in much more danger if they managed to escape," she reminds him before he can complain.

"They won't escape," he snaps back, jaw clenched.

"Finn's our insurance," Allayria tells him. "One last surprise they'll never see coming."

"Then take Hiran too," Lei argues but she shakes her head.

"No: three go to Solveigard, three go to the base with them, one goes with the bow."

He doesn't object to that last addition—he can clearly see the wisdom of separating Allayria's former friends from their best way to kill her, and in turn keeping her far away from it too.

"Fae can come with Finn and I then," he says.

"What? Do you think she's weaker because she's a non-Skiller?" Allayria challenges. "She could shoot your nose off in the dark. Why don't you go spar her now, see how well you do?"

"I don't think that—"

"I need Fae," Allayria says. "Now that we have the Cabal we don't need to be as cautious; her family is very well-connected in the city and I could use those connections if I have her with me. Fae and Tara—Tara and Finn can talk."

And for good measure Allayria holds up her wrist as well, jingling the wooden bracelet.

"We'll have these as well."

"I don't— I don't like this," he hisses, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"No, I didn't think you would," she answers, watching him, "but it's still the best way. Even if you think my reasoning is bullshit, it's better if I'm not part of the guarding party. Surely you can see that."

He flattens his palm on his forehead, breathing deep. Allayria wonders if anyone has ever aggravated him as much as she does.

"So me, Finn, and who? Caj?" he asks.

"I think so; it's a good mix of Skills."

"And that leaves who to fend for themselves alone in the woods with the bow?"

The corners of Allayria's mouth twitch.

"Hiran."

A/N: Pai Luella's box makes another reappearance in this aptly titled chapter. The original tale can be found in the "Fireside Tales" chapter of Paragon. You might find some interesting parallels on the re-read.

Ironically, it was Ben who told Allayria a network of supplies and allies was needed to combat the Jarles in the "Believe" chapter of Paragon.