Blood sprays through the air, following the arc of a gleaming sword.

A man is singing.

“In the wild is a dead doe; there does she lie, covered in white rushes. There is a lady, heart touched with spring...”

“That. Is a terrible song.”

Zsaran’s voice, between gasps for air, somewhere off to her side.

The man laughs in response, a rich, resonant sound, discordant against the gurgled cries of the dying and the incoherent shouts of men in the distance.

Ashne adjusts the grip on her sword. A warning or reprimand teeters on the tip of her tongue. But she swallows it, thrusts her blade forward.

Tonight they are unstoppable. Fire rushes through her veins, and she dances with her beloved Shenkes as if she is flying, daring their enemies to cut her down from the very heavens.

A misstep: she stumbles. An enemy dagger-axe swings down, but she is not afraid. She rolls away, springing back to her feet. The axeman falls forward, head rolling away from a wickedly curved blade; she looks up to see the mercenary, the ragged scar across his handsome face, the gold hoops in his ears glinting in the moonlight, his dark eyes fever-bright and merry.

“Careful there,” he says with a swift, predatory grin.

“Thank you,” she replies, but already he is leaping away, slashing a swathe through a knot of reinforcements, and somewhere far away she can hear Zsaran laughing, howling back verses of her own.

In her mind she pictures her: the shadow of her back enveloped in smoke, her hair loose upon her shoulders, caught in the breeze. Like a crow perched upon the railing of a bridge, wings spread.

The last refrains of the song echo through the clearing, heavily accented. “‘Ah, touch not my girdle, good sir! Let not your hound bark!’”

They are no longer in the clearing. But by a river, still earlier, its banks strewn with the dead and dying.

Zsaran grins, her arms splattered in blood and guts. “Not so bad after all, are you, mercenary?”

He eyes the sword at his throat and grins back. “High praise coming from you, river woman.”

Zsaran laughs and laughs. “What is your price?”

“He’s dangerous,” says Ashne.

“All the better!”

“He cannot be trusted.”

“Better the enemy you know.”

But that is precisely the problem, she begins to protest.

And suddenly they are gathered by the campfire: she tending the coals, Zsaran sprawled at her side, the mercenary drinking from his gourd, the red mare dozing on her feet.

“I think you will find that I am no deer,” Zsaran is saying, a sly smirk upon her face.

“No,” agrees the mercenary. “Your fangs are too sharp. As is your tongue.”

A raised eyebrow. “This, coming from the man with a serpent’s tongue?”

“Ah, you say that only because you do not know all the tricks a serpent’s tongue is capable of.”

Ashne sits in silence, distracted, listening idly to their banter. Pure silliness, whispers a voice from somewhere deep down inside, and yet perhaps it is precisely because of how silly it was that she remembers this moment so vividly.

Remembers?

“I expected more guards,” she finds herself saying.

Zsaran looks up at her, solemn now. “You thought it was strange too? It almost feels like we’re walking right into a trap.”

“It’s useless to worry about it now,” says the mercenary, expression hard as stone. “All trails lead here. We have no choice left.”

Still she cannot help but doubt. “If we are wrong...”

His gaze softens. The scar twists against the contours of his face. He reaches out, ruffles her hair. “Have I yet led you wrong?”

“No,” she admits, though the faded voice screams and screams and she feels as if her chest will burst and the words are trapped in her throat. “Never.”

The rumble of thunder. Rain cascades from violent skies. Wind whips through the trees, churning the dark waters of the lake. The metallic taste of blood. The gaunt staring face of a child.

She is cold, so cold. So numb.

When she wipes her eyes, her hands come away drenched in scarlet.

* * *

She woke to fire roaring just beneath the surface of her skin. She opened her mouth. Her throat was dry; no sound came.

“Will she be all right?” a man’s voice asked.

“Can’t say,” came the reply, low but arch. “Perhaps your employer would know better than I?”

“What do you mean?”

“Very well. I shall try to explain in terms you understand. If you had not noticed, there is something clearly unnatural about the cut.”

“An old blade wound. What of it?”

“Yes, and so near to the intestinal area. What are the odds, usually, of surviving a wound such as this?”

A long pause. “I had not wished to involve her in this.”

A sigh. “You still don’t get it, do you? Ah, well. Too late for that, now.”

“I am... willing to let the two of you go. As long as you hand over what my employer desires.”

“You forget that I wish to meet with your employer. Even if I did not, that hardly seems a fair exchange.”

Another pause. Then words again, heavy and slow. “The princess. I will return her unharmed.”

“Ah, but you see, the princess is of no worth to me.”

The princess. Ashne moved her lips again, opened her eyes, tried to make out shapes in the darkness. Reached for her sword, before realizing it was not there. Then she recalled where she was. Who was with her. Why she was there. She closed her eyes again and stilled her breathing.

“But enough of that now, Master Phas. It grows late; my patient needs rest. And we have an early day tomorrow, do we not?”

The crunch of footsteps against underbrush, slowly fading.

Then, closer now, and tinged with barely concealed irritation, “Don’t bother pretending. I saw you twitching under the covers.”

When she opened her eyes, she saw the apothecary’s frowning face looming overhead. “Come on, sit up, there’s broth for you.”

She struggled to do so, wincing as she disturbed her injury. She shoved sweat-drenched strands of her hair out of her face and accepted the warm bowl he held out to her, distantly noting the slight trembling of her hands as she did so. When she attempted to take a sip, her fingers fumbled. The bowl dropped, spilling over her lap.

Ashne waited for the inevitable snide comment, but the man said nothing. Instead, surprising her yet again, he swiftly snatched bowl and covers away and helped her clean up, then refilled the bowl and knelt by her side, this time ladling a spoonful of broth to her mouth himself. The gesture was both distinctly discomforting and utterly frustrating. But she shoved aside her pride and allowed him to feed her.

“The city guard?” she asked.

“We’ve lost them for the moment, thanks to our good friend Phas.”

And they had more than enough on their hands already to bother with further pursuit.

After a few more swallows, she added, “Poison?”

He laughed shortly. “What? No, of course not.”

She tried again. “I heard you... talking to Phas. About the wound.”

“Oh?”

“What did you mean by unnatural?”

“My paralysis powder — even if its effects had not taken place immediately, which is unlikely — should not have lasted much longer than the changing of an hour. And I have yet to encounter a poison that lingered in the body for so long and yet not only displayed no visible side effects, was not even capable of finishing its intended victim. If that is what you were wondering.”

She swallowed the last spoonful of broth. “You’re right,” she said at last. “It couldn’t have been poison. But you’re right. By all rights, I should not still be alive.” A slight breeze arose, startlingly cool against her skin.

“You aren’t going to ask why?”

“I am alive. That is all I need to know,” she replied. “Besides, I do not think you will tell me even if I do.”

He laughed again, this time quite merrily. Then he said, “If I may ask, what manner of blade was it that caused this wound?”

She froze.

“You may not ask,” she replied quietly, forcefully suppressing the surge of anger that passed through her.

“Now who’s being short on the explanations?” he said, but did not seem insulted.

She thought of Hazsam. So beautiful. So relentless. Of Hazsam’s scabbard, sheathing away all that terrible cold power.

“What is it that Phas’s employer wants?” she said, suddenly suspicious.

He shrugged. “I suppose we shall have to ask him ourselves when we meet.”

“It’s the scabbard, isn’t it?”

She took his silence as confirmation.

“Why?” she said. “Why does everyone seek this scabbard as desperately as lords squabbling for hegemony? Why, when the blade is lost?”

Still he did not respond.

“I could understand the bandits. It holds meaning for them, and perhaps that is enough. But what of Phas and his employer?”

This time, he offered her an infuriating smile.

Without thinking, she lunged, knocking bowl and ladle from his hands and pinning him to the ground. He raised his hands in an empty gesture, eyes twinkling, but made no move to resist.

“You. You know where it is. Who has it now. Tell them. Give it to them. You have no use for it. The princess —”

“How can you be so certain they will uphold their end of the deal?” he said. “Can you be sure they will return your precious princess in exchange for a simple scrap of information? Indeed, can you even be sure she still lives?”

“She lives,” she hissed, ignoring the protests of her wound. The glass pendant weighed heavy against her chest. Little as she liked to admit it, he had a point. Phas had offered no proof of his employer’s identity, nor of his claim that they had the princess.

But she was so close. So close.

“If you say so,” he replied with another shrug. “Still. How many times must I tell you that I do not know anything about the scabbard and its current whereabouts before you will believe me?”

“Then what — do you suggest we do?” she said, barely managing to keep the urgency from her voice.

He wriggled out from under her grasp; she eased back, let him go.

“He has confiscated both your sword and my staff. My basket, too. In your condition, we can hardly gang up on him. I suppose we could try escaping, but what purpose would it serve? I do not fancy an arrow in my back,” he said, brushing himself off. “Besides, you seek this princess of yours; I seek the sorcerer. The mercenary will lead us to both. Then, we will be in a better position to deal.”

She felt inexplicably tired. Too tired to argue his logic. Too tired to listen to him twist her words around and around like a piece of knotted string.

“Fine,” she said. Then, “Leave me.”

His lips curved. “As you wish, good miss.”

For a long time she watched the stars: afraid to sleep, afraid not to. But in the end, sleep took her, and she dreamed.

* * *

Phas, who did not seem to have slept at all, woke them at the first light of dawn. They set off on the road south, the men sharing the supply packs between them while Ashne stumbled along behind. She thought of her poor kammrae, left behind in the stables of Tham. It was too valuable to be harmed, or so she tried to convince herself. A shallow comfort at most.

Fortunately, the apothecary seemed to have been correct in his assessment. No sign of pursuit appeared throughout the rest of the morning, leaving Ashne free to her own ruminations.

She considered the implications of all else he had told her or hinted at the previous night. If Phas’s employer had taken the princess captive... did that not mean his employer had commanded the Tiger? And if so, how many others, spirit or mortal, were under his command? Had the chaos in Tham been his doing as well?

The people of the city had, after all, spoken of the sorcerer in the end, despite their silent avoidance.

“Feeling better, I see,” the apothecary called back at her. She realized she had slowed to a stop, and both men had turned to watch her.

“I’m fine,” she said, and an apology nearly slipped from her tongue before she recalled their situation.

Thus did they continue, much in the same manner that they had traveled together previously, only this time it was Phas who remained distant and aloof, and the apothecary who could not seem to shut his mouth, while Ashne listened to his ridiculous chatter.

Close to noon on the second day, they stopped under a thatch of willows by a small stream to rest. The apothecary took the opportunity to examine Ashne’s wound for the sixth time since they had woken that morning.

“Tsk,” he said, quite merrily. “At this rate, it shall never heal properly.”

And whose fault would that be, Ashne was tempted to say. But even as the thought passed through her mind, she knew the fault was all her own.

Phas, in the meantime, seemed distracted and kept glancing back on the road they had traveled. Suddenly he stood, shading his eyes, squinting at the horizon. Ashne looked north with him, wondering what he had seen.

After a moment, she made out shadowed figures in the distance.

Phas grabbed his sword. “Someone’s coming,” he muttered, more to himself than to his companions.

As the figures approached, however, it turned out that Phas had worried for nothing. They were no soldiers, but a pair of women in veiled-and-beaded headdresses, unarmed, on foot. It was the fashion in Krengsra for noblewomen to shade themselves thus while traveling, and yet these two could not be highborn. Dancers, Ashne thought instead, observing their lithe forms buried beneath thin, loose layers of skirts. Perhaps the very ones she had seen passing through Tham. Phas seemed to recognize them as well, or at least judged them no threat, for he relaxed and knelt back down.

But the women did not pass by. Instead, they stopped and threw themselves onto their knees.

“Oh, please, good sirs!” cried the dancer on the right, in Dragon Court speech. She was a petite, wan creature who looked as if she were drowning in her skirts — her face caked over with sweat and days-old cosmetics; her accent, a curious mix of southern intonations. “Do take pity on us!”

Phas stood again, fingering his blade, clearly uneasy. “Please, rise. How may we be of service to you?”

“Our friends were attacked by bandits several days back. And just after we’d finally made it out from those accursed fortifications! We were separated from everyone else. We don’t even know if —” The woman’s voice broke off in a choked sob. She took a moment to compose herself, then said, “We seek protection for the road.”

“Bandits? Where?”

“Not far from the fortified city.”

“They dared attack so close? The area is fair teeming with King Wat’s men.”

He did not elaborate; he did not need to.

“I don’t know. It all happened so fast. We barely managed to escape. We were so afraid —”

Phas moved his hand away from the hilt of his sword. His face was lined with exhaustion. Resignation. He said slowly, “Where are you headed?”

“South. To the old capital,” said the woman, a hint of barely disguised hope in her voice.

After a long pause, Phas replied, “It is true that we are heading in that direction as well. However, we do not go as far as you.”

He did not ask which old capital she referred to.

“That’s all right,” the woman said quickly, after a glance at her taller, silent companion. “Anything will do. As far as you go, at least. Or until we meet up with some of the others. If it is not too much of a burden on you —”

He shook his head gravely. “For as long as we can,” he said, then gestured to the food laid out on the ground. “Eat. You look like you need it.”

The apothecary, who had been watching all this unfold with lips quirked in smug amusement, burst out laughing. When Phas turned and gave him a look, he simply shrugged.

“Quite the pushover for the ladies, aren’t you!” he said, still chuckling. “I am thoroughly shocked!”

At first Ashne thought Phas would ignore him, as always. But when the dancers stopped giggling and drifted off to the side to partake in the midday meal, Phas stepped up to him with a dark but subdued expression.

He spoke only one word before moving away again, so softly Ashne could not be sure whether or not she had imagined it.

“Caution.”

* * *

“Your friend is very quiet,” said the apothecary to the dancer, later that evening, as he checked Ashne’s wound for the seventeenth time that day (she had not yet lost track) — carefully shielding her from the others’ view, and for that, at least, she was grateful. Phas was scouting the area, while the taller woman prepared a campfire and boiled water for the night.

The dancer raised a sleeved arm and tittered. “She is... very shy.”

The apothecary raised an eyebrow. “How very endearing.”

The dancer tittered again. Close up, Ashne could make out the faint trace of tattoos behind her veil and the caking paint that covered her face. From her speech and bearing she seemed curiously well-educated for a woman of the river tribes. That, or well-traveled, perhaps.

The other woman, on the other hand, was of similar height to Ashne, and had mostly kept to herself throughout the day. Ashne supposed she must feel awkward, in the company of strangers who did not even speak her own tongue. For she perhaps had not realized yet that Ashne was also a woman, and a daughter of the Turtle.

And yet she did not move as if she were nervous. Her steps, though quiet, were the long, steady strides of a confident clanswoman.

There was something familiar, too, in her movement. And the sharp look of her eyes, even shadowed. Ashne closed her own eyes. Tried to remember. The entertainers back in Tham — no, there had been something looser, easier, scattered in their walk then. But that had been in a crowd.

The smaller woman was saying, “You are quite the curious fellow yourself. I have never seen a man so young, with hair so white!”

“Tsk. How rude of you to presume my age so easily,” replied the apothecary, though he did not seem at all offended.

“Oh, but you must admit I have a good eye.”

“Indeed you do. I suppose you have had much experience in making such judgments on account of all your traveling.”

“Perhaps.” She paused deliberately. “I have many brothers, you see.”

“Oh? Am I to take that as a warning?”

“Six in all,” she continued with a smile, counting off on her fingers as if she had not heard him. “There’s the drunk, the merchant, the scholar, the soldier, the married one...”

“That’s five.”

The woman laughed and shrugged. “Eldest Brother is Eldest Brother.”

Behind her, the taller one finished with the water and looked over. Ashne ducked her gaze and realized that the apothecary had finished rebinding her wound.

Despite the immense pain it continued to cause her, it had not reopened since the night at the capital, nor had it begun to fester and stink.

She supposed she ought to be grateful for that, as well.

When she looked up again, the tall woman was sitting with her back to them, staring silently into the flames.

* * *

Her wound troubled her that night. Ever since their escape from Tham it had troubled her, but she had thought it only natural then, an inevitable consequence of pushing herself so hard.

She did not like to think of what had happened in Tham.

But now, as she lay on her back, drifting in and out of sleep, listening to the rustling of the wind, attempting to ignore the intermittent sharp pangs, imagined or real, that throbbed at her side, she could not help but wonder if the apothecary had been deliberately sabotaging her healing, rather than helping her as he had claimed. He had, after all, taken a peculiar amount of interest in the wound in recent days.

Though she had been injured before, she had always been swift to recover. But this wound had struck too deep, perhaps. Too deep, and too close. She should have died. Had expected to die, for all that she had struggled to cling on. She had seen men die from less, and remembered, still, how shocked the twins had been, some years ago, when a young soldier of their acquaintance succumbed to what had seemed at first a minor arrow wound. For all the unspeakable horrors they had witnessed on their flight from the north, they had been too young then to truly comprehend them; or perhaps their experiences had rendered them incapable of understanding the lesser cruelties of life, the pitiful fragility of mortal flesh.

The girl. The bandit. Neither of them had seemed aware of their own actions, or indeed even in control of their own bodies.

How easily the magistrate had died. For all his scorn, he must have realized how precarious his position was. How carefully he must tread.

Yet even he had been willing to risk it all for a mere scabbard.

During one of her disoriented flights of fancy, she came to realize that the quality of the rustling had changed. Too loud and abrupt to be the wind, she thought, and tilted her head to the side.

A shadow loomed beyond the dying embers of their campfire. Another moment of confusion passed before Ashne recognized the figure.

The taller dancer, bent over their packs, rooting silently through their contents.

Was she planning to make off with their supplies? What would be the point? Two defenseless women could hardly make it far on their own.

Unless they were not so defenseless as they had seemed. Or had realized, somehow, that Phas could not hope to pursue them and keep an eye on Ashne and the apothecary at the same time.

She rolled onto her side, careful not to make any noise. Phas lay some distance away, sword unsheathed at his side. He had apparently succumbed to weariness at last, for he did not stir at all.

Only then did she notice that where the apothecary had been sleeping, nobody remained.

Suspicion ballooned within her. All seemed suddenly, terribly clear to her.

How false and cloying the smaller woman’s voice seemed now in her memory. The accent uncomfortable. Disguised.

The familiarity in the taller one’s movements. Her silence. Eyes like dark amber.

The apothecary’s words.

She rose, searching for a stick, a weapon, anything. Saw none. Dismissed the plan entirely and, instead, ran.

Despite Ashne having the element of surprise, the dancer sensed her coming and raised an arm just in time to block her fist. Ashne did not hesitate, following immediately with another well-aimed kick.

This time the dancer dodged and drew a shortsword from within the folds of her skirts. But instead of counterattacking, she held back, watching. Then ran.

Ashne ignored the pain in her side and followed.

The dancer led her on a merry chase through the matured bamboo grove by their camp, twisting and turning past the tall stalks, swifter and more agile than one might expect her clothing to allow.

But not fast enough. Ashne caught up and lunged. The dancer whirled around and thrust her blade forward in response. Ashne slipped past the movement of the blade and struck out blindly.

Her hand caught against the dancer’s headdress. It clattered to the ground, confirming what Ashne had already begun to suspect.

The dancer was no woman.

Without missing a beat, Rahm leaped back, colorful skirts swirling about his feet, ruffled hair tumbling down about his ears.

“You!” said Ashne, despite herself.

He grinned wryly, as if to say, Oops.

Then he kicked off the outermost skirt, letting it billow towards her in the wind, and fled once more.

Leaving Ashne gaping stupidly after him as she swiped aside the skirt and let it fall to the ground in a fluttering heap.

Footsteps. She turned and saw Phas, hair coming undone from a hastily pinned twist, expression unreadable, but for the dark circles under his eyes. In one hand he carried his own blade; in the other was hers, still sheathed.

“One of the bandits from before,” she said, taking pity on him. There had been no rest for him since their flight from Tham. And despite his involvement with the princess’s kidnapping, he was not unkind. “The chief’s lieutenant.”

She suspected, too, now, that the “dancers” had drugged his food or drink earlier in the evening. Both had had ample opportunity, and the apothecary certainly had ample supply. The drug had either taken less effect on her due to her lack of appetite, or they had not bothered with her, thinking her wound enough liability.

There they had miscalculated. Had it not been for her wound, she would not have been so restless tonight.

“Are you certain?” Phas demanded after a long pause.

“His swordplay is unmistakable.”

“What a fool I was!” he muttered then.

She, too, had been a fool. For all her suspicion and distaste, she had — not trusted the apothecary, no, but she had believed she knew him.

It seemed she would never learn.

“I must go after them,” said Phas.

Her fist clenched. The apothecary had been lying about the scabbard all along. He must have made a deal with the bandits. The chief had certainly liked him well enough, for certain standards of admiration. A deal was not so far from the realms of possibility.

But for what purpose had he struck the bargain? And for what price?

She said, “I’ll go with you.”

Phas looked at her. Nodded, slowly, and tossed back her sword.

She closed her fingers around the hilt, tied it firmly about her waist, carefully positioning it beneath her wound.

The scabbard for the princess. This was the only way.