“Where are you going?”
Ilya hadn’t heard Morning come up behind him, so light were her footsteps. Her voice was barely more than a whisper, although the camp was already beginning to stir. He glanced over his shoulder at her. Beneath her long wool coat, she was already dressed in borrowed clothes, a light sweater and a pair of green trousers that belonged to a scout. Both hung too loose on her slight frame. Even in the gloom, he could make out the brilliant red of her shoe-leather — a color generally reserved for children[1], which he supposed explained why no one seemed to have managed to find a pair of stock boots to fit her — with thick wool stockings peeking out beneath. The air was still cold enough to see her breath, but the coat and stockings should be enough to keep her warm until the sun came up, at least.
Aptly, the dawn light suited her, flattering her sky-grey complexion and gleaming on the two blunted horn-tips peeking through the dark auburn of her hair. As pretty as she was, the word that came to mind first when looking at her was striking. Her expressive features occasionally seemed too large for her face – a wide, full mouth, a long nose that was plump at the tip, prominent ears, and large eyes that captivated one’s attention. In the dim light, he could just barely make out the heavy smattering of freckles across her skin. It was hard to tell just how old she was, although her full cheeks and dramatic shifts of expression lent her a youthful aspect. Although her face was composed now, he had already seen how vividly it could convey her thoughts. The overall effect was quite charming.
Even standing over his shoulder, she did not cut an especially imposing figure. He looked back down as he continued lacing his boots. “I’m going to find those templars.”
Perhaps she had hoped for that answer, as she did not pause before replying. “I want to come with you.”
Ilya glanced up again, taking a moment to assess her state of mind. She appeared calm and serious, her jaw set and her eyes fixed and unblinking. “Alright,” he replied after a beat. “But when we’re outside the camp, you’ll do as I say. This will be dangerous, and I don’t want you getting hurt.”
She nodded, and seemed to mean it, at least for now. Although her emotions the day before were entirely understandable, they had made it difficult to gauge how dependable she would prove. By the time they had made it back to the Inquisition camp, it had been nearly nightfall, and she had succumbed to exhaustion and fallen asleep in one of the tents soon after supper. The rest seemed to have done her good, at least.
“Have you eaten?” Ilya asked, and she shook her head. “Someone in the supply tent will be up by now, go ask them for a day’s rations for two.” When she hesitated, he offered her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t leave without you.”
By the time she returned with a knapsack of supplies, he had finished getting ready, and was waiting with Kallos by the path that led down toward the road. Morning was about to say something, but stopped short with her mouth hanging open, staring wide-eyed at the dog.
“This is Kallos,” Ilya said, gently tousling his ears. She did not, of course, know that he had been shadowing them the whole day prior; when he first heard her scream, Ilya had instructed the dog to follow out of sight until called, and had been very happy with his friend’s performance. “I know he looks frightening, but you’re perfectly safe with him, I promise.”
Morning’s face remained a mask of alarm, but after some hesitation she began to inch towards them. Her trepidation was understandable; the animal was probably twice her weight, owing as much to the smallness of her person as the largeness of the dog. “It’s not a wolf?” she asked, her eyes darting to Ilya for half a second.
“No, just a dog. They’re meant to look like that – something of a fashion statement among Nevarrans, I think.”
She let out a soft huff that might have been a laugh, then – to his surprise – tentatively reached out her hand. She flinched when Kallos pressed his nose against it to give her a thorough sniff, but let out a nervous giggle at a lap of his tongue across her palm.
“If the two of us are separated, he’ll stay with you. He’ll understand what you say to him.”
Morning had moved onto cautiously scratching his ears. “Anything?”
“Well, I haven’t tried discussing politics or philosophy with him,” Ilya replied dryly, “but yes, for the most part.”
That won a begrudging laugh under her breath.
“Are you ready? We might have a long walk.”
As the sun rose above them, they spent the better part of the morning in bouts of silence and aimless small talk, testing the uncertain companionship forged between them the day before. Morning was… not shy, but a bit difficult to talk to, meeting each topic with equal parts suspicion and reluctance. That didn’t stop her from asking questions, although it was hard to tell if she was motivated by genuine curiosity or if she simply disliked the silence. He was left with the distinction impression that she was unused to friendly conversation.
“Where are you from, Morning?” he asked, a while before noon.
“The Ansburg Circle.”
“Before that, I mean.”
“Not Par Vollen, if that’s what you’re asking,” she replied sourly, shooting him a sidelong glare. She had a way of bristling at questions sometimes, as if anticipating a blow. He suspected she’d had cause to obtain the habit.
“It isn’t,” he replied mildly. “I was just curious about your accent.”
Morning paused, her eyes falling to the ground. “…Oh. It’s… just how Vashoth from the Marches sound, I think. We traveled a lot.” She seemed uncomfortable with that answer, and quickly moved on. “You’re a Marcher, aren’t you?”
“From Ostwick, but I’ve visited Ansburg a few times.”
She snorted. “Well, that makes one of us. I never saw much of the city.”
He decided not to dwell on that point further for now. “You came to Redcliffe with the Mage Rebellion, I assume?”
She folded her arms over her chest. “Unfortunately.”
“Why did you part ways, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Because Grand Enchanter Fiona lost her damned mind.” She huffed in annoyance. “Some Tevinter Magisters show up at the city gates, and what does she say? Go fuck yourselves? Jump in the lake? Nooo, why don’t you come in and have a chat,” she drawled bitterly. “Talk things over.”
Ilya raised his eyebrows in genuine surprise. “What? You’re certain they were Tevinter Magisters?”
“That’s how they introduced themselves, and they looked the part. They were calling the important one… Axus, or Alessus, or something.”
His eyebrows knit into a frown. That was… troubling news, to say the least. The rebel mages must be more desperate than they had realized to even entertain such an overture. Less surprising was the notion that some Magister – if he even was an actual Magister – would be keen to exploit the opportunity. “What did they want?”
“To ‘help’.” Her mouth twisted in a grimace. “I wasn’t going to stick around to find out what the price was.”
Ah. That explained what had driven her into the lawless Hinterlands alone and unprepared. Ilya had already been certain that she had found herself in such a dire position out of necessity, not an idle whim, but he understood her sense of urgency now. If Fiona was bargaining for the chance to eventually obtain citizenship, that offer would certainly not extend to someone with qunari blood. If they didn’t kill her outright, then at best she would spend her life as a fascination, as if she were an exhibit in one of Minrathous’ grand zoos. At worst… well, trying to imagine the worst outcome for a particularly unlucky slave in Tevinter was an effort equal parts vain and depressing.
“So you left by yourself,” Ilya concluded.
“I know, how stupid and reckless of me,” she snapped, sarcasm dripping acid from her tone. “Should I have stayed there and waited to see how they’d kill me? At least if templars catch me out here, I’ll die surrounded by a couple fools and not a couple hundred, standing there vacant-eyed like cows awaiting slaughter.”
“It was very brave of you to leave,” he said gently. “Not everyone would have had the courage, even if they knew what would happen if they stayed.”
Morning looked up at him with painfully earnest surprise. It lasted only a moment before vanishing beneath an uncomfortable expression. Ilya pretended not to notice the blush gathering on her cheeks as she looked away.
“Yes, well,” she replied under her breath, “not everyone has the luxury of stupidity.” Her shoulders loosened from where they had drawn up around her neck, but her arms stayed crossed tightly over her chest.
Beside him, Kallos growled softly, then bolted ahead and out of sight around the bend in the road.
“What’s he doing?” Morning asked nervously.
“He smelled something,” he replied, his own volume dropping. “Or heard it.”
“Like what?”
Well, Ilya could hardly say for sure, but from the dog’s reaction, it would be nothing good. Helpful, perhaps, but not good. He didn’t reply, but less than a minute later, Kallos reappeared ahead of them. Ilya knew from a glance at the angle of his ears that something was amiss. The dog didn’t approach, instead circling at the bend to urge them forward. That meant there was no immediate danger ahead, but…
The pair followed the dog around the bend, and didn’t have to walk far to learn what he had found. Some ways ahead, a streak of dark blood marred the road; nearby, Ilya could make out the stiff shape of a body, half-obscured by the long grass. Morning sucked in a sharp breath.
Ilya closed the distance with a quick stride and bent down to examine the body. He was an elf, middle-aged. A laborer, not a fighter, despite the empty sheath on his belt. He’d been struck in the face, perhaps by a gauntlet; the blood that poured from his nose had dried there without any attempt to wipe it clean. The blow had likely dazed him, before they ran a sword through his belly and left him to bleed in the grass. His limbs were stiff, and his clothes were damp with the morning dew. The man had died in the afternoon or early evening, by Ilya’s reckoning.
His eyes followed the path of boot-crushed grass from the side of the road into a thicket, where Kallos was now waiting for him, agitated. He sighed, then glanced over to Morning, who was still staring down at the body, her hands covering her mouth. “There’s more,” he said quietly. “You should wait here.”
Behind the thick brush, out of view of the road, a woman’s body lay face-down on the trampled grass. Her throat had been cut, and her blood had left a dark stain on the earth and grass beneath her cheek. She wore what must have been a favorite dress, with small blue flowers painstakingly embroidered along the bodice. The work must have taken days to finish. It was torn now.
Ilya saw no point in disturbing her body further, and instead let her be. He had no unanswered questions.
Still, he took time to survey the scene. Not far away lay a plain rucksack, where ants swarmed the half-eaten cores of a few discarded apples. The grass was well tamped down where the templars had eaten and rested. Someone had forgotten a glove, the sort worn under a gauntlet; he picked it up and held it out to Kallos, who had silently trailed after him.
“This is who we’re looking for,” Ilya said. “Follow them.” Kallos answered with a wag of his tail, no doubt pleased to be tasked with real work at last, then trotted back towards the road.
When Ilya turned around, Morning was there, staring at the dead woman with a complicated expression, horror and pity and something else. She was remarkably good at moving quietly. After a moment, he started back towards the road. The templars had dallied here for some time; they wouldn’t be quite so far ahead as he had feared.
“We shouldn’t leave them like this,” said Morning, so soft the sounds of the woods around them almost swallowed her voice.
Ilya stopped to look back at her. That had been thoughtless of him. He shouldn’t be surprised that she, too, would care about that sort of thing. “We’ll come back,” he promised. “Once those templars are dead. The longer we wait, the harder it will be to find them again.”
She finally tore her gaze away to meet his eyes, then swallowed hard and nodded.
After they reached the road, they walked for a few minutes in silence.
“Yesterday,” Morning began eventually, her eyes fixed on the ground in front of her, “you said they would be begging for death.” It took her another few moments to find her words. “I wish they would.”
Ilya looked down at her, assessing. He’d had little time to take her measure, and even less when she wasn’t under tremendous stress. The murders had clearly touched her deeply. No doubt part of that was a visceral reminder of her own mortality and the fickleness of fate, but her outrage and disgust seemed to run deeper than that. She’d fought before, she had said, so death and pain were more than abstracts to her. There was a seething anger beneath her tone, but she was calm now. This was more than an outburst of emotion; this was premeditation.
More than that, she was growing attached to him. She was both elf and qunari, and bore the prejudices of both races, and was reviled as a mage besides. She had not so long ago belonged to one of the prisons they called Circles, and now she had not even those bonds to her name. She was friendless, homeless, frightened. And she owed him. He could be certain — nearly certain — that she would not betray his confidence.
His pity had no weight in the calculation, but it tugged at him all the same.
Finally, after a long pause, Ilya answered her. “Alright.”
Morning blinked, then looked up at him, perplexed. “Alright?”
“If you have the stomach for it.”
Her eyes fell away from his, and she let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh, low in her throat, an accident of breath and emotion that wasn’t meant for him. The shape of her mouth wasn’t quite a smile, either. “I do.”
As curious as he was, he didn’t ask. “Very well. Then we’ll make them suffer.” He gave her another look. “But this stays between us. No drinking stories. What neither of us need is a reputation.”
She nodded. “Between us.”
“It would be simplest if you could incapacitate them first. Do you know any spells that can do that?”
She considered it for a moment. “Yeah, a couple.”
“Good. You said you’ve fought before?”
“When we broke out of the Circle. I killed some of the templars. We met some bandits on the road, too, as we traveled down from Amaranthine.”
Wonderful. A bit of practical experience meant she would be less likely to balk. As intrepid as she had shown herself to be thus far, the stress of a life-or-death situation could cause a fresh soldier to lose their nerve, let alone someone who had spent most of their life under a covered cage. He nodded. “Until they’re incapacitated, you must stay calm, whatever happens. I’ll be relying on you to keep the situation under control. My life may be in your hands. Do you understand?”
He expected another irritated remark, but Morning simply nodded. In the light of the midday sun, the deep red of her eyes shone scarlet as she watched him, wide-eyed and solemn. “I won’t let you down.”
“Your priority will be to keep as many of them as possible under control. Ideally they’ll be close enough together that you can use a single spell, but if they aren’t, we’ll have to adapt. If one of them runs, let them be, unless you’re certain the others have been incapacitated. Kallos will catch them. I’ll make sure they’re restrained afterward.”
“They’ll be able to suppress my magic, even if they’re tied up,” she pointed out. “But I can use their lyrium. They should still have some.”
Ilya had been thinking the same, although this spared him the trouble of pointing it out and causing her to wonder about his familiarity with the subject. “Good idea. Your spells will make it easier to deal with anything unexpected. On that note,” he went on, the slightly brisk pace of his planning settling into something more careful, “what we do with them is up to you, but the reality will likely be different than you’re imagining. You don’t need to push yourself. As long as they’re restrained, you can step away if you don’t want to see any more, and I’ll handle it.”
Her eyes broke away from his, frowning down at the ground. “I can handle it.”
Ilya sighed. “Morning, there are things you can’t unsee, can’t unhear,” he warned. “I don’t want you having nightmares.”
She didn’t look up, her eyes distant and her voice flat. “I already have nightmares.”
Ilya wondered again what it was that she had seen. A battle of mages against templars could be a grisly thing, he supposed. “Very well,” he replied. “It’s your decision.”
Ilya knelt beside one man, and methodically pressed his thumbs hard against either side of his throat to pinch the arteries closed. With the man’s expression frozen in place by Morning’s paralysis spell, only his eyes moved, twitching back and forth in panic even as the skin of his face began to darken. Ilya waited a few seconds after they finally stilled, just to be safe, before letting go and moving on.
The next templar had nearly faded into unconsciousness when everything went to hell. He felt magic stir around them, like a deep inhalation from the other side of the Veil, but there wasn’t time enough to react before he felt the clamp of the dispel suffocating the magic’s flow. Morning’s spell broke, and the three remaining templars were no longer still.
Ilya let go of the half-conscious man and shoved him hard to the ground, then went to draw his sword — but not quite fast enough, as a fist connected with his cheek hard enough to leave his head spinning. He stumbled but easily caught himself on the back-step. Quick and practiced, he swung back around to strike hard at the third templar’s head with one hand and push him further off-balance with the other.
That was enough of an opening to draw his sword and get his bearings. In his peripheral vision, Kallos had placed himself between them and the fourth man and locked his jaws around the man’s right hand. Behind him — the sound of an unsheathed sword.
Ilya had counted on a few extra seconds to regain control of the situation, but the man he’d been choking must not have been as far gone as he’d thought, a realization that came just before he felt the edge of a sword pierce the joint in his armor at his right shoulder. The blow was weak, all things considered, but still enough to send a shock through his nerves that nearly cost him his grip on his sword. Ilya swung his left elbow back and upward and felt a crunch as he connected with the man’s nose — but now the third man was reeling towards him again, sword drawn.
Morning screamed, her voice ringing and trembling with rage, and the world grew still.
All around them, blood dripped upwards, shimmering as it pooled in the air. Within a few steady heartbeats, he could have sworn a thunderstorm had found them, leaving the air heavy and damp with magic; the Veil itself felt a breath away from beading on his skin and precipitating into warm rain. Power prickled across his arms and the back of his neck like gathering lightning.
The templars followed the blood’s pull upwards, buoyed by an unseen current as they floated more than a foot into the air — then, with greater speed and violence than his eye could follow, slammed into the ground.
Ilya did not hesitate, and rushed to claim and cast away each dropped sword. Only one of the templars remained conscious for Ilya to render otherwise — not paralyzed, evidently, but pinned by such weight that he seemed scarcely able to draw breath. It didn’t take him long to black out with a bit more pressure against his neck.
Ilya glanced over his shoulder, his ears still ringing. Morning stood a few feet behind him, her face pale and her eyes bright and enormous. Her knuckles were white as they gripped a fragment of wood that must have once been a staff. “You can let go now,” he said gently.
Morning’s eyes darted towards him, and with a rapid flutter of her eyelashes, the tension in the air gave way all at once. She clapped her hands over her mouth as a shudder seized her shoulders. “Fuck. Oh, fuck.”
“Hold it together,” Ilya warned. Cautiously, he rolled his shoulder to test the damage. Only superficial — the cut itself was shallow, although the blow had rung through his nerves like a bell. “I need a few minutes to finish.” She wordlessly nodded.
With the lengths of rope cut in advance, it didn’t take long to pull their gauntlets free and bind their wrists. None showed any sign of stirring, so with Kallos standing guard, Ilya turned back to her and found her looking just as glassy-eyed and shaken as before. He stepped closer and leaned down to place his hands on her shoulders. “Morning,” he said, his expression finally breaking into a beaming grin, “that was wonderful.”
Morning flinched at his touch, looking half-convinced that he was going to strike her down on the spot, but her eyebrows managed to shoot still further up. Her hands against her mouth left her voice small and muffled. “Really?”
“Really. That was very quick thinking.” He gently squeezed her shoulder in encouragement. Her hands fell away from her face, trembling, as her mouth attempted a nervous smile. “You saved my life.” Well, she might have, but it would do her morale good to think so.
“I — I thought you’d be angry,” she said. It was remarkable just how deafening her voice had been only minutes ago, when it might have belonged to a mouse now. “Because I — you know.”
“Well, beggars can’t be choosers, can they.” He turned back to the templars, considering how to proceed. “Was that the first time you’ve tried that?”
She followed him over, arms now wrapped tightly around her chest. “Yeah. I, um, took a couple books with me from the Circle library as we were leaving.”
“We’ll discuss it more later, but don’t do that in front of anyone else.” His eyes shifted over to her from the four men unconscious on the ground. “This is going to get very unpleasant very quickly. Are you certain you want to be here?”
She took a shaky breath, but her voice was firm. “Yeah.”
The man cried out as Ilya shoved him down onto his shattered knees, his arms dangling uselessly. As he had struggled, the rough rope binding his wrists had already bitten into his skin enough to draw blood.
Technically, Ilya supposed this would be a first for all three of them. Whatever Morning had done when she fled her Circle, it would have been quick and violent, and this would be anything but quick. He himself had been responsible for his share of hurts and grisly deaths, even been tortured himself, but he hadn’t ever done something like this before, so… involved. He had little liking for it, but what he liked never mattered much.
And, of course, the man weeping in front of him had never been murdered before.
Ilya dropped to a crouch beside him. With one hand he gripped the man’s jaw, and with the other pressed the point of his knife into his cheek, kept going until he felt bone. “Well?” he asked, his voice soft. “Aren’t you going to beg for your life?”
The man’s eyes were wide and glassy with fear, locked on Ilya’s. He’d managed a bit of bravado earlier, but that had fled when he felt the boot on his kneecap and realized Ilya didn’t intend to let them walk away. “Please, ser, you —”
“Not me.” Ilya dragged the blade slowly down his cheek, slicing through the skin. “Her.”
The man’s eyes flashed to Morning, who stood a few feet behind him, watching with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “Please, miss, please, I’m sorry, we weren’t – we were only teasing you, we didn’t mean anything by it –”
Ilya pulled the knife away, only to reach down, take one of the man’s fingers, and snap the bone. He screamed in surprise and pain. “Did you mean it when you raped that woman?” Ilya hissed, close to his face. Another snap, another bone splintered. “When she choked on her own blood? You didn’t mean that?”
He couldn’t tell whether the man blanched from pain or the realization that they knew. Perhaps he’d hoped they hadn’t noticed, or that animals had already found the corpse by the roadside in the night. “I – that wasn’t me, that was them – augh! – I swear it!”
“Really?” Ilya asked, as he tucked the knife back into his belt so he had the use of both his hands. He took another finger but didn’t break it yet, rolling the knuckle between his thumb and forefinger. The waiting, the dread, was its own kind of blade. “So you just watched? You listened as she died? And you expect us to think that’s better?” Now, the break, sharp and fast enough to nearly fold his finger backwards at the joint of his knuckle.
The man didn’t reply this time, his voice seized by a shout of pain, followed by choking sobs. Ilya glanced over to Morning, studying her expression. Her face was dark, disturbed, but her jaw was set. She wasn’t looking away. He dropped the man’s hand and stood as he turned back to her.
“You should go,” Ilya said, lowering his voice further, quiet enough that the templars wouldn’t hear. “I can handle this from here. You don’t have to.”
She glared stonily up at him. “No.”
He paused, then nodded. “Alright. If you decide you want to take over, then do. You’re in charge.” Morning swallowed and nodded, but didn’t reply.
Behind them, the man was still crying but had found his voice again. “Please, miss, I’m – I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have bothered you, I won’t do it again…”
Ilya turned back to him, and drew his knife again.
A while later, Morning finally spoke: “Stop.” Ilya let his hands fall away and looked up to her from where he knelt. He felt a bead roll down his forehead, and wiped it away carelessly, but when he glanced down, it was blood smeared across the back of his arm, not sweat.
She took one of the flasks of lyrium she had pulled out of one of their kits, pulled the stopper free, and carefully poured a drop into her palm. It was unnecessary; she must have been able to sense that dispelling magic the templars had first used had long since faded, but perhaps it was a theatrical flair, or just spite. For a moment, the bead of lyrium rolled across her skin like quicksilver, before she squeezed her fist closed. When she opened it again, a ball of blue-green flame crackled there, suspended a few inches above her palm. It gleamed eerily against the dark cruor of her eyes. With a flick of her hand, the fire mote floated out in front of the templar’s wide and tear-reddened eyes, gently bobbing in place.
Ilya thought about warning her to be careful – magic wielded without any kind of external focus could run wild, and a flame that color would be hot enough to burn her badly – but he bit his tongue. She knew that better than he. A moment later, she stoppered the bottle of lyrium, and exchanged it in her pocket for the fragment of her broken staff. “Get back,” Morning said firmly. There was a tremor of emotion in her voice – anger, maybe, or even horror, but not doubt.
He did as he was told, and backed away. She would be preoccupied enough without worrying about whether she might hurt him, too.
What came next was difficult to describe, and Ilya didn’t care to try. He would have preferred to look away, but watched with a sense of grim obligation. If Morning was to live with the memory, then so would he.
Eventually: “He won’t survive that,” Ilya said, glancing from what was left of the templar’s charred face to hers. “If you leave him now, it’ll take him a couple hours to die. It’s up to you.”
She met his eyes, then after a moment’s hesitation extinguished the spell-flame. Her hand was trembling. “Fine.”
“Do you want to keep going?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard. The sound was dreadful – the man’s throat had gone hoarse from screaming, and what was left was a ragged, choking sound.
She blinked rapidly and didn’t meet his eyes, instead looking over to the other three, whose sounds of despair and fear had long since joined the dying man’s cries. Kallos sat patiently beside them, guarding against the slight chance one of them had limbs intact enough to resist, after all. “Yes.” Her mouth moved, but her voice was too quiet for him to hear it. Ilya understood all the same. “All of them.”
He nodded silently, then turned back to the burned body crumpled in front of them. The armor would be too hot to touch still, so he reached for the man’s hair again, but some of the flesh came off in his grip. Ilya sighed, and gave what was left of him a rough kick to push him aside and make room, leaving him to writhe in the dirt as he died.
The one who had taken her bag was next. Ilya flashed him a cold smile as he reached down and seized him by the collar. “Your turn.”
“Are you alright?” Ilya asked softly, tilting his head to give her a sidelong look. Somehow, he felt reluctant to draw her eyes, as if the sight of his blood-spattered face could be worse than what they had already seen.
Would she look at him differently now, he wondered, after what she’d watched him do? Letting her see him, see what he was capable of, had been a terrible risk – as a younger man, he would have said a foolish risk. But not a mistake, Ilya thought. Of that, he felt certain, although he couldn’t explain why.
Perhaps she didn’t want to look at him, either. Her eyes were fixed somewhere in space, vacant and thoughtful. Even drawing from the lyrium, she would be tired, too.
“Yeah,” she said, after a long silence. “Sorry, I was… Yeah.” She swallowed hard, then glanced over to him and attempted a small smile. Somehow, it was a relief to see. “I’m alright.”
He returned the smile, although his own felt weary, and probably looked unsettling with the blood. “Should I deal with the bodies?” he asked.
She glanced back across the clearing, then let out a breath that might have been the shadow of a laugh. “Leave them.”
“Alright,” he agreed.
Her eyes fell away again. “The two travelers… I wish we knew what… what they would have wanted done. I’ve heard a lot of elves don’t burn their dead, but I think most of the ones here do, after the… thing with the dead rising, during the Blight. If they’re even from around here.” She twisted the heel of her boot in the dirt as she thought, chewing her lower lip. “But they probably wouldn’t want it done with magic.”
That was a kind thought, but Ilya didn’t say so aloud. “I found some tallow in one of their packs,” he said, tossing his head towards the ruined campsite, “and I have some flint. But we won’t have time to stay for the whole pyre, if we want to get back before nightfall.”
“Alright. I just… I don’t want to leave them there for another night, for the animals to find.” She gave him a long look, then sighed, another tired smile curling at her mouth. “You should wash up afterward, before we go back. You smell awful.”
She had rolled her too-large trousers up past her knees to sit on a flat stone on the edge of the pool; by rights, the water should be too cold to tolerate in the crisp autumn air, but the spring was small and shallow enough that it could be heated with a spell, and the light of the setting sun was warm on his skin. It shone crimson-orange on the rippling surface of the water, which had already grown darker as he washed the dried blood and the scent of charred flesh from his skin and clothes. The water was deep enough to come up a little past his waist as he stood, although Morning seemed perfectly indifferent to concerns of modesty. Beside her, his clothes and armor already sat drying on the stone, and Kallos lay dozing on his back.
She was on her third attempt to rebraid her long hair, but she seemed to be paying her hands little mind as they wove together the wefts. With a quiet sigh, she gave up again, tugging the beginnings of the braid loose with her fingers. Despite her fidgeting, she seemed calm. Her brow was furled and pensive as she wrestled with her thoughts, but her eyes weren’t haunted, as he had feared they would be. The silence was almost companionable, as if the sounds of breaking bones and broken voices were already a distant memory.
Finally, she spoke again, quiet and terse, and her hands fell to her lap. “Why do all this for me. I’m… nobody. No one would have even missed me if I died.” Avoiding his gaze, she stared down at her reflection in the water’s surface, then dissolved it into ripples with a sweep of her foot. “Even those templars would’ve barely remembered me,” she added in a mumble.
Truthfully, Ilya hadn’t thought about it until now. Would he have done as much for any passerby under duress? He had to admit the answer was no – tried to save them, certainly, and escorted them to safety if required, but there was no need for him to personally intervene after that. Other scouts could have eliminated the templars, likely more efficiently and doubtless more safely. Jests about damsels in distress aside, she was hardly the first unfortunate so indebted to him. He owed no duty to her, and by helping her gained nothing. So why had he known, as he sat beside her on that hillside and listened as she wept, that he would watch those men die?
Despite his silence, Morning went on, dismay straining at the seams of her voice with every word. She held her head low with her chin against her chest, making it difficult to read her expression. “And you, you’re… the Herald. You’re the one who’s supposed to be fixing the hole in the sky. Why would you even care about whether someone like me lives or dies or gets even, never mind… everything you did. Why would you go to the trouble, for… me.”
She wasn’t wrong, Ilya supposed, reluctantly. Had he not heard her scream, would the world have even blinked? What difference did one corpse more or less make among hundreds, except to the lilies blooming along the roadside? But the thought chafed like an unwanted bit, uncomfortable. Intolerable.
When Ilya was still a child on the streets, perhaps eight or nine, he had watched another boy die. A nobleman had been angry, and the boy had died for nothing more than the crime of being within reach of his cane. Ilya had watched from not so far away. Passersby had stepped around the boy’s body where it had fallen into the street, sometimes muttering in disgust or complaint, but never stopping, until Ilya dragged him back into an alley. He had never seen the boy’s face before: it was grimy like his own, a little younger, and beginning to purple where blood from his cracked skull pooled beneath his skin. It felt important at the time that Ilya did not forget that face. So too did he remember the realization that all that separated him from this dead boy was chance. It had bothered him to think that the world would turn onward, as if the boy had never even lived at all – that the injustice of his death was so trivial as to be beneath notice. He wished he had known the boy’s name. If it had been him, he recalled thinking, at least his sister would remember his name.
“Somebody should care,” Ilya managed, finally. The thought was slippery, and he spoke slowly as he struggled to put it into words. “It should matter, what happens to you, when someone wrongs you. It should matter to somebody that you’re alright. So it mattered to me.”
Morning tilted her head up just enough to look at him, and in the dimming light, he could see tears clinging to her eyelashes. She looked away quickly. “Nobody’s ever done something like that for me before,” she said. Her voice was a whisper, as if she didn’t dare to trust it. “Taken a risk like that.”
“I’m sorry,” Ilya said. Something in his chest ached. “Someone should have.”
Morning was quiet for a long time. When she spoke again, she had regained some of her composure, although her voice was still thick. “You’re intolerable when you’re being nice, you know,” she grumbled, then splashed some water in his direction with a gentle kick.
Ilya broke out into a grin, and held an arm up to defend himself. “I’ll see what can be done about that.”
“Hmph. I’m sure.” She scooted back from the water’s edge and got back to her feet. “Come on, I’m not casting that warming spell again. We should go back before it gets too dark.”