Michael was chosen for this scouting mission to the Obsidian Castle--I never knew they called our castle Obsidian--because of his interest in wilderness survival and camping. His interest, however, borders on excessive.

He can identify nearly every plant and fungus we come across by name; he makes three different remedies for insect repellent on our walk out of the forest--all the same slimy green goop, which he slathers on both our arms and they feel the same, but he says they smell different--and he knows magical ways to filter water (which he neglects to actually show me).

While I was unconscious, he ripped up my slippers, claiming they were useless for protection but turns out they were also useless for bandages, so he stuffed them in the pocket of his backpack to use for something later, hopefully. Then not long after we leave the cave, he makes me sandals out of smooth bark and twined plant stems. They actually fit my feet, and don't fall apart across muddy fields or streams or clearings of fallen trees.

Michael, also, just casually summons a flat bridge of mist above the raging river, dozens of body-lengths long. I just stare at it. Then I glance back at the forest we've crossed this morning, since light began leaking into the cave and I woke Michael. "Why don't you just launch an attack at the back of the castle?" I ask. "They hardly ever watch the back wall, you can just make a bridge of mist over the river and sneak up on them."

"Because most people can't just make a bridge of mist. Especially not one long enough to stretch across this whole river. And no, I can't hold this that long, so hurry up." He squelches off the muddy river bank and steps onto the mist. Like a sponge, the mist sinks under his boot, but supports his weight.

Most people can't make a bridge of mist...like how hardly any of the night warriors can shadowwalk?

Shaking my head, I trot after him, bark sandals sinking slightly into the glowing bridge. The mist curls around my toes, cool. Below us, the river thunders; if I wanted to, I could lie on my stomach and not quite poke the highest rapids with my fingers. Not that I want to. Michael's walking too fast to give me any chance to pause.

"But what about that light vine stuff you did to keep everyone from chasing me?" I ask. "That was huge, why don't you do that instead of mist?"

He stares over his shoulder at me, face all screwed up. "Those only work on Night Warriors, duh?" He turns forward and picks up his pace.

"Why--"

"Because light and dark repel each other. Wow, do you know nothing?"

"I know lots--"

"The light vines and the inherent dark magic in the night warriors clash, so they can't pass through each other. If it were you or me, those beams of light would just go through us. Or even feed us if you can suck them up fast enough." He vaguely waves a hand up at the sun. "It's just concentrated sunlight."

We hop off the mist bridge, a half-step above the rocky bank, and it disperses behind us. I glance over to our left. Behind a curve in the river, the castle sits like an imposing mountain; the bulbous tower tops look like precariously perched boulders. "Can't they see us from here?"

"Can you see anyone on the walls?" Michael marches off down the pebble-strewn riverside, away from the castle.

"No, but--"

"Then nope, they can't see us."

"--what if they blend into the walls? Or have spotting glasses?"

"Then I guess we better keep moving." Michael adjusts his backpack, same color as his beige leather boots, and also my dyed pants. "Hurry up." He breaks into a jog. I chase after him, bark sandals crunching small stones. Michael leads us away into the field, dead grasses whipping at my ankles.

"Why are we running?" I call.

"Why not run?"

I glower at the bouncing bag on his shoulders, but keep jogging after him. I hate that this reminds me of sword training, running laps around the sparring grounds in clanking armor. But at least now, without any armor to speak of, I run lightly and catch up to Michael without panting too hard. "So is this the way to the Lost...to the Fortress?"

He shakes his head. "We have to loop way around, to avoid the battlefront. Like, we'll go in a giant half circle. It's going to take a week."

My pace stutters. "We have to sleep outside for six whole nights?"

He smiles, staring at the ground ahead of our pattering feet. "Yeah."

I was obliviously unconscious the whole three days in the cave, so I technically have never slept outside my own bed before, but from the stories the soldiers have told, sleeping in the castle is apparently a luxury and the battlefront tents are miserable. And we have to do that for six nights?

"Ugh," I say.

Michael doesn't appear to hear me.

***

In our camp that night--"camp" meaning, the two of us sit across from each other between two boulders in the wide prairie--I finally ask, "So why did you save me?"

He digs through his backpack. "You mean, when you came running out of the castle with people chasing you and trying to shoot you down?"

I clasp my hands in my lap. "Yes."

"Or when you were nearly bleeding out in a cave and night pests were outside hunting for us?"

"...Yes."

"Or when you needed shoes and bug repellant and a guide to the fort?"

I grit my teeth. "Yeah."

"Well." He shrugs. "You had a pretty face."

My eyebrows furrow.

"I'm joking."

"Wh--that's rude."

"Saying you have a pretty face is rude now?"

"No, joking about it--"

He tosses something at me from the backpack, and it thuds into my lap. It is...grass woven together. Confused, I pick it up, and it unfurls into a whole scarf of woven grass.

"That's a sleeping mat," he says. "You're lucky I made one while you were unconscious."

It's..." I turn it over. "Skinnier than me."

"I did make it mostly in the dark."

"But..." I drop it by my knee, then eye the boulders in the late twilight, and the packed dirt with scrawny tufts of brown grass. "So I'm just supposed to..."

"You sleep on top of it. Or you could sleep on the dirt. Your choice. And you could use these for a pillow if you want." He chucks scraps of muddy things at me. Some of them land near my sleeping scarf. And I realize they're my torn up slippers.

Then he pulls out a second, larger grass mat, drops it beside himself, and digs in his bag again. "And here, I've got some rabbit jerky if you're hungry." He holds out his hand.

"Thanks." I offer an open palm. But he doesn't drop the meat. His orange-gold eyes uncrinkle from a smirk, staring into my face.

"I saved you, One, because you're one of us. And when people started yelling and armor started crashing outside the castle, I came running. Lo and behold, you were running for your life, an arrow sticking out of your shoulder like a nearly plucked pricklebeast, more arrows flying for you. I wasn't going to watch you die."

My uplifted palm starts sweating.

"So I saved your sorry butt."

I want to wipe it on my fuzzy pants. "Yeah."

He presses his hand into mine, all the tough and leathery meat between his curled fingers poking my wet skin. But he doesn't let it go. "You're welcome."

I stare at his eyes. I think he's staring at my nose. "Thank you," I whisper.

His lips creep upward. Then his hand opens, slowly pulling away. Brain jumbled, I shove all the rabbit jerky at my mouth, the tough edges jabbing my gums and the roof of my mouth. A single piece drops from my hand to my lap and I pretend to not notice, checking the stars glittering around the boulder behind his head. There's a sword and bow constellation. Chewing noisily, my brain can't scramble up how long after sunset the sword and bow rises. A half hour?

"I'm going to find some water." His voice jolts me, but he just quietly stands and slinks away, taking only a cylindrical container with him. His silhouette disappears around the boulder.

"Bye," I say, chewing. I swallow all the rabbit jerky. I wipe my hand on my pants, remember the fallen piece on my lap, and poke it between my teeth.

I'm all alone, suddenly. A breeze whistles through the boulders. I tuck my knees up to my chest, but the wind's not that cold. Just disconcerting as a screechy spirit, in this giant plain we've walked a whole day across. With only dirt stretching as far as the eye can see, what ever stops the wind from blowing when it starts?

I pick up my grass mat and unfurl it over the ground, crawling across it to smooth out the edges, then bundling the sad slipper remnants in a heap where my head might go. I glance at Michael's backpack, and his rolled up grass mat, then waddle over and lay it across the dirt. I smooth it out. Waddle back to my grass mat.

Michael's still not returned, so I lie on my side--I can fit on the mat on my side--and stare at the gray boulder behind Michael's stuff. I don't know what color the one behind me is. But I also don't roll over to look. And even though the slippers under my head make my hair feel dirty, they don't get me to move either.

A waning moon's rising in the distance. In the castle, I would be waking up about now. It's been...I calculate slowly. I have sword training once every third night, I was unconscious for three days and half a night, then we walked for most of a day, so it's been five nights since my last bout of sword training.

So right now, in the castle, I'd have Perseverance stuck to my shoulder the whole night, until midnight meals, then I'd have shifts in the healer's hall.

I'd be making rounds of the beds with Head Healer and the others on the shift from a few hours past midnight to dawn, fixing up broken arms and bleeding chests from the soldiers who came back from the battlefront, but there might not be any coming from the battlefront tonight so maybe a whole group of cooks got burns when some soup spilled everywhere.

After my shift, I'd have to wash my healing smock and pants, probably, since it's been over a week since I did that, so I'd do that around dawn, with Perseverance tailing me, talking about some soap his wife makes that smells divine, hinting that it's a secret family recipe.

That makes me roll over, but I've half forgotten I'm on a thin mat, so my body crumples sharp grasses and I get dirt on my arms. But I sit up and snort at it, because Perseverance isn't here to tell me the ladies don't like boys who roll around in the dirt and grasses. I stick my other shoulder in the dirt and rub it around, then sit up, giggling.

I giggle at how I have a grass mat to sleep on instead of my thick bed and scratchy quilts and nice pillow, but the irony is, I actually couldn't care less because no one's waiting outside my sleeping place to drag me somewhere I'm expected to be, and I don't have healer's uniforms under my bed too easy to mismatch, or any plain boys' slippers (minus the dirty ones on my mat drifting away in a breeze already), or filthy rags from uniforms six years too small, or armor in the corner Brevity charged me to take care of each dawn before I sleep.

I cover my mouth, muffling my giggles, curling over my legs and nearly bumping the black boulder with my head. Brevity charged me to keep that armor clean. Now she's dead and the armor got dropped and abandoned on that meadow floor.

I laugh into my muffling palms, "I would be sorry, Brevity, but I'm actually not."

"What was that?"

I jerk up and spin around, hands to the smooth grass mat, and Michael's there, leaning on the other boulder, a clear container of water in his hand. "Nothing." I scoot around so I'm facing him, perched on my sleeping scarf. "I'm just thinking about what I would be doing right now if I were back in the castle."

Michael walks up, glances between his spread out grass mat and me, then sits on it. "Realistically, if you were still in the castle, it'd just be your dead body there, but okay, sure. What would you be doing right now that's funny enough to laugh at?"

I shrug, and tell him, and he chuckles at Brevity--the voice I'm mostly certain was Brevity--dying on the meadow along with the armor she told me to take care of.

"That's so messed up it's kind of funny," he says, the water container sloshing in his hands. "And also sort of poetic."

"I cleaned that armor every night for months. Now..." I shrug. It probably got picked up by the healers who scoured the field and taken back to the armory or something. But it's more fun to imagine it there in the meadow, all dirty, with tiny burrowing creatures making homes inside the boots.

His eyebrows furrow. "She made you clean the armor for months? Why? Weren't you a healer?"

"Oh. I was training to become a field medic. So, I had armor assigned to me. And Brevity taught me basic sword forms too."

He leans back. "She came out to kill you after spending months teaching you swordsmanship? Wow, Night Warriors are so...absolute."

I tilt my head. "What's that mean?"

"You don't know what absolute means?"

"No, I do--just, how are Night Warriors absolute?"

He purses his lips. "Everything is one thing, or it's not. It's good"--he plants the water container on one side of his knees--"or it's bad"--he thumps it on his other side. "You're one of them, or you're their enemy."

"Huh," I say. "And...Waiters on the Dawn aren't?" I pantomime my fingers going left and right, good or bad.

"Oh no." He shakes his head. "We're way more colorful."

"So you don't think you're...good?" My fingers pluck at grass stems growing in front of my crossed feet.

Michael laughs, and the sound makes me smirk. "We're super not good," he says. "But we also are."

"Um." My nose wrinkles. "That's just a contradiction."

"Okay, so." He sticks the water container into his backpack and leans forward. "What do you know about the Dawn?"

"It's when the sun comes up."

"Wow. Brilliant, I'm so glad you knew that--I'm talking about the person, not the thing."

"You're waiting for it."

"Wow, you utter genius. You know nothing, then."

"I didn't say--"

"So, the Dawn, who we're waiting for, is the reincarnated version of the being that conquered this whole continent way over a hundred years ago. The dark pests--sorry, Night Warriors--started a rebellion and overthrew them, then casually took control of the whole system but kept things exactly the same, but flipped. They were the good guys, right; and the ones who overthrew the wicked Sun Slaves, so it was for the common good that they stayed in power. Except they still needed an Emperor and servants and soldiers willing to die to keep the terrible Sun Slaves from returning."

"But you control the entire southern half of the continent. You took the fort."

"Yeah, because all that was over a hundred years ago. The Dawn's followers slowly built up a resistance to take their lands back, and ages later we're stuck with half the continent, with a bunch of Night Warriors still trying to destroy us"--he grins--"but we have prophecies of the Dawn that will come to eradicate the night. So we can't lose, really."

I yank up grass stems and chuck them away, thinking. "How does that make you not good, but also good?"

"Right. We're good because we're going to tear down the caste system. We're super not good, because we're waiting for the being who created that regime to come and save us. We'll throw parties and stuff when they do come back, actually."

I stick out my tongue. "So why are you fighting at all? If some mythical being's just going to come save you?"

He snaps his fingers. "Power, One. Quit thinking like one of the masses beneath it all, and start thinking like one of the people who's going to be in control when the dust settles. The army generals and stuff on our side? They're going to be rich and famous when this is over. The rest of us mistlancers and soldiers--it's not a caste system, it's based on accomplishment, even for the Dawn, really--will be recognized by the Dawn and never have to worry about our next meals or anyone hunting us down again.

"I could go wherever I want without worrying about dark pests killing me. Even in the south, the dark pests attack the coasts, or hide in the mountain caves and raid towns during the night. We'll just get to...exist."

I rip up whole grass stalks. "Power? That's it? And a...not-caste?" Still sounds like a hierarchy though.

"Yeah. Oh and the Dawn apparently can make night time just not happen. Sounds pretty neat to me."

I lean back, palms digging into the dry dirt. What would I do, with the power of daylight all the time? What would I do if I were a famous army general? Or...the Dawn himself? Wait, no, themself?

"How do you know when the Dawn comes?"

He snorts. "Should be pretty obvious, right? It's dawn. When"--he smirks--"the sun comes up."

I refuse to blush. "But what if it's, I don't know, foggy in the morning or something?"

He goes still. His lips purse. "Wow. I have never actually thought of that analogy before. Good question. But also super not good question, because you've made me want to dig through the library and read all the prophecies again. And we're still five days from the fort." He glances at the sky. The moon's high above the boulder now. "Speaking of, we should sleep."

"Okay. But what about the water?"

"The water?"

I point to his backpack, resting against his knee.

"Oh, that's for the morning." He yawns, lying on his side on the grass mat and pulling the backpack under his head.

I lick my dry lips, from the rabbit jerky. "What if I want water before sleeping?"

"Right now?"

"Yeah."

Michael sighs, but sits up. "I can go show you the puddle of water I found, come on." He pushes to his feet, just a faint silhouette in the rising moon.

I jump up after him. "Are you going to teach me how to filter water too?"

He shakes his head, shuffling toward the boulder. "It's night time."

I trudge at his side, bark sandals crushing grass. "So?"

"So I have probably enough light left to fill a cup of water, and if anyone finds us tonight, you better do something fancy because I won't be able to." He stops walking, and I startle, freezing a half-step ahead of him.

"What?"

"I forgot a cup."

I glance down at my hands. "We could use--"

He marches back to the boulder, so I just sigh, curled fingers dropping. I shuffle from foot to foot until his quiet silhouette returns. "I carved this out of a tree branch while you were unconscious." Something smooth presses into my wrist. I grab it in my other hand, fingers brushing Michael's.

"You made a grass mat and a wooden cup while I was unconscious?"

"Yes, and that's it, so don't get any ideas." He trudges off again, and I stick close to his side.

"How'd you make this?" My fingers investigate the hollowed out inside, the solid walls and thin rim.

"I had a knife. And I cut the wood. For hours. Then I used a gouging tool. For hours. That was most of day two of you being unconscious."

"Wow. It's really good."

We approach a patch of ground reflecting bits of red stars. "It looks better in the dark." He stops. The stars ripple. His silhouetted arm waves in front of him. "Hold your cup out."

"Okay." I stick my arms forward. In my bark sandals, I rock slightly forward, questing for the edge of the puddle. My toes find faintly cold mud.

"Okay," Michael says, and glowing mist drifts from his exhale. It tumbles forward, mirror-imaging in the black water. "Crouch," Michael hisses, so I do, holding the wooden cup over the puddle. The mist forms a funnel on the water's surface, aiming upward; then attached to the top, a narrow slide takes shape, ending at my cup. Michael grunts. I nibble my lip, wrists trying to hold the cup steady.

Then, a faint trickle of water drips into the cup, like the tiniest rainstorm. The funnel of mist over the puddle fades, from the bottom up. But water keeps dripping into the cup. Then the tip of the slide fades apart, slowly coming closer, water dripping all the while.

The dribbles stop. The last of the glowing slide vanishes. Michael makes a sound like sighing through closed lips, like "brrrp."

I peer into the water cup. I think it's half full. "That's it?"

"Yeah, totally, you're welcome for the clean water, One!"

I stand up. "How'd you do that? What does the funnel do?"

He coughs. "That was your cue to say thank you."

I wait, a half beat. "Thank you." Then I sip the water. It's lukewarm. "It tastes good."

He scoffs. "I'm glad. This puddle smells like rotten roots, so if your water starts tasting that way, let me know."

I nod. "Of course."

He snorts.

"So how does the mist funnel work?"

He shrugs, turning and moving back in the direction of our boulders. "I made it up, you won't find it in any of the technique books. The mist squishes up like a thick sponge, and I get it to pull water up and suck foul things out. Not sure you could do it without lots of practice first."

I down the rest of the water in three gulps. It's hardly enough. I stare back at the starlit puddle, surrounded by stubby grasses. "You really don't have any more light?" I ask. "I'm still thirsty."

"Nope!" he calls over his shoulder, not stopping.

"What if...what if I charged you with light again?"

He laughs. "And have you drop unconscious again? No thanks, I don't want to drag you across this prairie."

"Is that why I fell unconscious? I thought it was blood loss."

"Probably that too!" his voice half-fades behind the boulder. "And the scant sun getting into the cave didn't help you recover quickly either, and the short periods of time I risked poking you out in the daylight obviously weren't enough. But yeah, blood loss probably kept you out extra long. Either way my point still stands, you would fall unconscious, and I'd have to drag you across the prairie for at least half a day."

I tighten my hands around the cup. "But...how else am I supposed to learn? I could try to only half-charge you."

He sighs. "You're not going to die of dehydration in the middle of the night, if that's what you're worried about. I've got water for the morning."

"Why can't I just have that water?"

"Because then we wouldn't have any right when we woke up, and I'd have to wait for the sun to come all the way up to charge me so I could filter water, when instead we could be walking--and not feeling thirsty--while the sun charges me."

Reluctantly, I shuffle back toward the boulders. "But I want to try and do magic stuff. All I've been doing my whole life is healing people, and making sticks glow. And I punched two people. I want to do more exciting stuff."

"And you will. When there's no risk of me having to haul your limp body across the prairie when you mess up."

I sigh. I lean on the boulder, and its craggy surface stabs through the thin fabric of my borrowed shirt. "So when we get to the fort, you'll teach me all that stuff?"

"Sure." He sprawls on his back on the grass mat. "Though I hope you remember that punching thing if anything weird happens tonight. Like, night warriors popping out of nowhere."

"I'll...do my best." I shuffle to my grass mat, stepping over his knees. He doesn't appear to care about my feet nearly brushing him. Licking my lips, I lie facing a black boulder, the wooden cup held close to my stomach, not bothering to collect slipper remnants scattered in the grass. A breeze whistles over us. I shut my eyes, but Michael's breathing going steady into sleep behind me whispers chills up and down my spine. A bird squalls in the distance. I roll over and stare at Michael's silhouette, but he blends in too well with the moonlit boulder to make out anything other than the rise and fall of his shoulder.

Regalia flashes in those shadows. Yet at some point, I fall asleep.