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"Aein?" said a soft voice.
Aein's eyes flew open.
It had just been a nightmare. Her heart pounded like it might explode out of her chest. She had to hold on to the dream. Cook Bolstad traveled from beyond the grave to send her a message. It was fading. What did he tell her? He told her to find him. How could she find him? He was dead. He died in the stronghold, slaughtered in the kitchen, burned by Queen Gisla as they tried to ensure those who were dead would stay dead.
"Aein?" said the voice again.
Lars was kneeling beside her. The sun was up and light filled the sky. They were still in the camp, but Finn was not by the fire, shapes of sleeping figures were not tucked into their bedrolls. It was just her and Lars. The pain in her head thumped and every inch of her body felt like it had been horsewhipped.
"Where is everyone?" she asked, wetting her lips and wincing.
"Dead," he said. "Dead or gone. No one came back after you killed that thing." He motioned to the harpy’s body lying beside the fire. Aein noted he had torn off its head.
“Precautionary measure or anger management?” Aein asked.
“Both.”
"Good," murmured Aein.
Lars put his arm behind Aein's shoulders and shifted her into a sitting position. Her ribs ached. Nothing felt broken, but it hurt. Lars gazed into her eyes. "Your pupils seem to be the same size, so I am afraid you cannot blame anything on hitting your head."
"There goes my best excuse," said Aein.
He planted a relieved kiss on her forehead. "You scared me when you wouldn't wake up."
She allowed Lars to help her to her feet. She grunted, pausing a moment to rest her hands on her thighs as she caught a few deep breaths. The rush of blood made her woozy. "Remind me to stop being the hero, would you?"
"Stop being the hero."
"Done," she said as she stood up.
Lars was fiddling nervously with his silver harness as he watched her. The buckles were constructed in such a way that he could not remove it by himself.
"Want me to help you get that off?" she asked.
"You may remove any articles of my clothing you see fit," he replied.
She ruffled his hair and turned him around. "This will be quite enough for the moment," she said. Her fingers felt like she was moving them through mud and they would not work the way she wanted them to. "Kind of a shame. My harness ended up saving me."
"Really?" he asked, glancing at the harpy's corpse as if she might pipe up to confirm Aein’s claim.
With no comment from the dead body, Aein continued. "The harpy couldn't touch it and it was a silver blade which let me cut its throat."
The harness slid off of Lars's shoulders. He let it drop to the ground and stretched out his chest and arms. "Ye gods it feels good to get out of that thing. I think I'll take my chances with the harpy."
"Did it hurt you?" Aein asked.
Lars answered with a small nod. He pulled back the edge of his shirt. There were great red welts weeping angrily on his skin. "Whenever I moved and it got passed the fur, it burned," he said. "I have no idea how they kept those wild werewolves harnessed."
"Maybe they don't feel it as much," said Aein.
"Better not to feel it at all," said Lars with finality, picking up the harness and throwing it into the swamp. It dropped into the water with a splash.
"Do you think they have Finn held in one of those?" Aein asked.
The ripples of where the silver landed spread out, as if with the horror of what her question meant.
"They must have been lying," said Lars. "He would never have allowed himself to be caught."
"So you're saying you think he is dead?"
Lars rubbed his hands through the waves of his dark auburn hair. "He can't be dead."
"I dreamed of him last night," said Aein. Her words came as if from another world. "He was sitting by a fire, scanning the skies for more harpies. He was here. Protecting us. And then Cook Bolstad came to me and told me to find him."
"It was just a dream, Aein."
"But what if it wasn't?" She looked at Lars. "What if they are both ghosts who came to visit me last night when I was so close to death?"
Lars did not say anything. He dug his shoe into the dirt. "I couldn't help you," he said. "You were lying there and I tried to wake you. I stayed with you all night keeping you warm, but I couldn't help you because of these paws." He held up his hands and gazed at them as if they had betrayed him. "I was so scared that you were going to die."
"Well, it looks like death won't have me," she replied.
Finn looked down at the ground and shifted uncomfortably. "Did you mean it?" he asked.
"Did I mean what?"
"Did you mean it when you said you loved me?"
The moment came rushing back Aein, the moment she had stood there, seeing death coming. She realized that if life was going to end, there was one thing she needed to say to Lars.
"Of course I meant it," Aein replied. Her cheeks burned. But she didn't know if it was what she wanted or needed right now. Lars had come to her that night of the battle, come to her in her room and begged her to run away with him. They had never discussed it since. She knew he had feelings for her. She didn't know how much was her, and how much was them just trying to survive and being the only ones who understood one another.
Lars took her hand, reading the conflict playing across her face. "Is the reason you can't love me because I'm a wolf?"
"No," she said, horrified he thought that at all. "No!"
"As soon as that berry bush blooms, I am going to eat them until this shift goes away. Don't worry," he tried to reassure her. "I will not be a monster forever."
"You are not a monster!" Aein hated that he hated this part of himself so much, hated that he saw this change as a curse. "We would have been dead if it hadn't been for your shift. The cyclops? Those spies on the road?"
"You see how well I helped. Lord Arnkell had people practically waiting here for us."
Aein stopped him. "Lars, you are perfect just the way you are. You have saved my life more times than I can count. But I almost died. Finn is rotting in a cell somewhere. We have a war to fight. This thing between us? The timing is just not..."
"Don't you see, Aein? This is our life. This is always the timing. It will never get better. When I saw you there dying, when I was powerless to do anything to stop it... I promised myself that if you woke, I would talk to you about this because we may never have a chance again. We are trapped here in the swamp and the reality is that at any moment a harpy could swoop down and end us. We may both be killed by some creature here or our old countrymen there and then it will be too late. I love you, Aein. And you said yesterday, when you were faced with death, you said that you loved me, too."
She thought back to the words which had come out of her lips. Lars was so good to her. He needed her. She was important to his life and sanity. She stepped forward, resting her cheek against his chest. It felt so good to just rest. To hold someone close. To be held. "I know what I said," she replied.
"And did you mean it?"
She lifted her face and gazed into Lars's soft, green eyes. "I could never lie to you," she said.
And he leaned down and kissed her.