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Zelda, the four Knights of Falcon, and little Aereth continued on horseback to Hawic, moving in a tight procession through the trees of Dark Bloom Forest. Only now, the cheerful mood had been broken by an awkward silence that none could penetrate, not even Aereth with her squeaked demands to know what was the matter with the adults and why hadn’t Gweneth finished telling about the Dragon Knight?
Zelda touched Aereth’s hair and shushed her, and the child pouted and fell to snatching at the flower petals that kept drifting lazily from the trees. The knights were silent as Aereth played, sometimes casting Zelda the wary glance.
Zelda knew the knights were wondering if Arryn – a dragon shape-shifter! – could be trusted. All of them, that is, except for Gweneth, who seemed delighted by the prospect that Arryn was a legendary figure from the folktales of her people. She did not waste the opportunity to tease Calain that Zelda had lain with an epic being who had probably given her epic head, which had nearly brought the two to blows more than once. By the time they had left Dark Bloom Forest, Calain and Selene were both in a bad mood – Calain due to Gweneth’s constant teasing and Selene due to continuously having to prevent their brawls over meals.
They had emerged from the forest just south of Priine and would have to continue traveling east to reach Hawic and avoid Priine altogether. They made camp in the field as night was falling, as stars appeared in the purple edges of the endless sky and a gentle breeze bent the grass. Calain dug out a firepit, while Gweneth, Cassandra, and Selene hunted in the tall grass for twigs and broken branches that had blown over from the edge of the forest. The five horses grazed nearby, and Zelda heard Lucky complaining that he missed the hay from “the chicken farm.”
In the distance, the ramshackle tents of goblins could be seen, rising lopsided above the grass. The goblins were not legally allowed to settle permanently so near the cities, but they were allowed to camp so long as they kept on the move. Zelda watched the smoke from their fires and dreaded having to battle them in the morning. The last thing she wanted in the entire world was to expose Aereth to bloodshed and violence.
Pushing her worries aside, Zelda telekinetically moved a few boulders around the firepit Calain was digging, so that she and the knights could sit on them. The rocks hovered momentarily over the dirt before she released them from her mind’s hold, and they fell gently in a circle. She was vaguely aware of Aereth watching her in awe and she held back a smile. With the boulders in place, Zelda sat on one and watched as Aereth got on her knees and helped Calain dig the firepit. Calain was using a little spade, but Aereth was happily using her bare hands.
“Aereth!” Zelda cried, appalled, and Aereth sheepishly froze.
“I never get to do anything!” the girl wailed, flopping on the ground next to her mother. Zelda lovingly stroked her hair.
Calain glanced up at Aereth’s pouting and smiled. “I have a feeling that one day you will do a great many things,” she said, winking at the child.
Aereth brightened. “Shall I battle trolls and goblins? Like you and Auntie Gweneth?”
Calain glanced at Zelda, who looked horrified by the thought. “Calm yourself, Aereth. You’ll give thy mother a heart attack. And since I am Bound to her, that wouldn’t work out well for me.” She caught Zelda’s eye and smiled.
Zelda looked into Calain’s pretty green eyes and couldn’t help but smile back. Calain’s smile always made her heart flutter. She had a feeling it was something that would never change.
Aereth watched the adults in bafflement. “You’re Bound to my mother, Calain?” she said, her face twisting. “What does that mean?”
Gweneth had returned with a load of broken branches in her arms. “It means Calain can find your mother whenever she runs away and is naughty,” she said playfully and dropped her load in the firepit.
Selene and Cassandra also returned with armloads of twigs. Selene stroked up a fire, and then they were eating supper around it as it flickered beneath the moonlight, sending smoke to the stars.
That night’s supper was the last of the hare stew. Though Selene had hunted for them as they traveled through Dark Bloom, they were running low on rations. Zelda missed the bow she had used back when she was First Hearth Wife of the Black Bear Clan. She had been a good huntress, heading out with the other hearth wives to bag hares and pheasants. When she thought of those days now, it seemed as if that life had been lived in a dream. Aereth sitting beside her, messily gulping down stew, almost felt like the only evidence that it had been real.
The knights were happy again and fell to chatting and laughing easily. Aereth often joined in, making them laugh with her innocently squeaked questions about armor and horse riding. Zelda was silent and content as she listened to the happy banter. She focused mostly on Calain, who seemed to be in a jovial mood again, though occasionally, she caught Cassandra’s eye across the fire.
Cassandra was looking at Zelda with a soft warmth in her eye that startled her. Cassandra had never quite looked at Zelda that way before. In the past, the witch-knight had always been serious . . . or burning with lust. But now, she was looking at Zelda with great affection. Zelda gazed back with a smile, wondering what she had done to earn such doting.
Eventually, the conversation fell to Arryn again – as Zelda knew it must—and the possibility that the elven knight was the Dragon of Edhen. Selene was cautious but still wanted to give Arryn a chance, while Gweneth was eager to meet Arryn again, so delighted was she by the notion that Arryn was a mythical figure that her people worshipped. Calain spoke of Arryn being the Dragon Knight as if it was proof that she had good reason to despise her all along, and Cassandra suggested more than once that Arryn could not be trusted (as Calain smugly nodded beside her, frustrating Gweneth).
Zelda couldn’t believe it, but Cassandra was . . .jealous. She didn’t like the fact that Arryn had lain with Zelda any more than Calain did, but she was less obvious in her jealousy, often dropping slight insinuations that made Calain nod in firm agreement.
Zelda almost laughed. Cassandra was so serene all the time, Zelda sometimes forgot that she could have negative feelings of envy or anger just like the other knights and couldn’t believe it when she caught Cassandra glaring at the Summoning Stone Arryn had given Zelda.
The next morning, they continued across the open field to reach Hawic. Because goblins were scavengers, it wasn’t uncommon for them to lurk in the fields outside of cities, and their little tent cities were dotted throughout the grass. A small band of them attacked as Zelda and her knights were crossing the field, running at them under the blue sky as they rode on the backs of tusked hogs. The knights made short work of them, while Zelda aided them with a few spells, but Zelda regretted that it had to happen in front of Aereth, who irritably pulled at Zelda’s hand when it sought to cover her eyes and gleefully insisted on trying to watch the fighting.
The battle was thankfully over quickly, and the knights sustained few injuries. Zelda healed those who had been injured, Calain and Gweneth looted the bodies for things they could trade in town, and then the party had mounted and were moving toward Hawic again.
“Look, Goblin,” said Gweneth to Aereth as they rode through the carnage. She pointed her blade at a dead goblin whose bloody mouth was open to reveal crooked yellow teeth. “That one’s your pa!”
“It is not!” cried Aereth, who shrieked with giggles. But she blinked and looked up at Zelda, who was seated on Lucky’s saddle behind her. “Mother....” She said slowly, “who is my pa?”
Zelda gave Gweneth a quick, scolding look (Gweneth shrugged apologetically), then said gently to the child, “I shall tell thee when you’re older.”
Aereth did not seem content with that answer, for she scowled impatiently. But then her eyes fell on the chipped blade of a dead goblin as they rode past, and she said, “Mother, why can’t I have a sword?”
Zelda didn’t feel that Aereth was ready for a weapon. But then she remembered that Wilde Women started training their babes the moment they started walking and talking, and most knights started as early as five years old. Aereth, meanwhile, had grown as big as a nine-year-old. It was time to pick a path and start her down it. At the rate she was growing, she would be a woman in two weeks with no skills if they did not.
Zelda glanced around at the knights, who were all riding their horses around her and trying to keep neutral expressions. None of them wanted to be thought of influencing Aereth one way or the other, and Zelda likewise wanted to allow Aereth to make her own choice.
“You would like a sword? Not a stave?” Zelda asked carefully.
“I want to chop off goblin heads! Like Calain! And Auntie Gwen!”
Gweneth chuckled. “Auntie Gwen now, am I?”
“Shall you teach me?” Aereth begged.
“If thy mother concedes,” Gweneth answered, amused. “We do anything behind her back, she may just turn me into a frog.” She winked at Zelda as she bobbed along on her horse and stuck a blade of grass in her teeth.
Zelda smiled, knowing that Gweneth was playfully referencing their argument in the barn. Given everything that had happened, the argument seemed so long ago.
Aereth twisted around to look up at Zelda, clasped her small hands together in prayer, and said, “Please, Mother? Shall I?” She stuck out her lip in a silly expression that made Zelda shriek out a laugh. Zelda didn’t see it when the knights looked at her fondly, glad to hear her laughter.
“All right, little bear,” said Zelda, touching Aereth’s auburn hair with soft-eyed affection. “We shall buy you a sword in Hawic.”
“Yay!” Aereth cried.
***
HAWIC WAS AS CALAIN had said. It was a mid-sized city, not loud and colorful like Priine. The people here weren’t very friendly and kept to themselves, which suited Zelda and her knights just fine since they were fugitives on the run.
They made their way to the nearest inn, and when Cassandra had secured a room for them and they’d had a good hour’s rest, they gathered outside in the sunlight. Aereth was clinging to Zelda’s hand and talking excitedly about getting her first blade. She grabbed Gweneth’s hand as well as she was talking and playfully hauled herself up in the air between both women.
Zelda gasped in shock to feel the strength in her daughter’s arm, and Gweneth went completely still in surprise. They exchanged a look, but there was no time to speak, for Selene had started planning out their day in her commanding way.
“We shall all travel in pairs,” said Selene. “I shall accompany Calain to the nearest smithy. Cassandra, you shall accompany Zelda and the babe to a seamstress. Gweneth, you shall stay at the inn and watch for signs of the Rose Guard.”
“And if I see them what shall I do? Whistle very loudly?” said Gweneth sarcastically.
“You shall come and find Calain and I,” answered Selene irritably. “Or fight them alone and be slain. Your choice.”
“What about my sword?” cried Aereth, her hopeful eyes on Selene.
“Calain and I shall bring you one from the smithy. Worry not, little one,” Selene answered, and Aereth grinned.
***
THE NEAREST SEAMSTRESS was a plump old woman who was appalled by Aereth’s ragged tunic and breeches. “Tis as if she burst right out of them!” the old woman cried in much amusement, never dreaming that it was exactly what had happened.
The old woman had Aereth stand on a stool as she measured her, and then the snipping and cutting began as she refitted a tunic and trousers for the child.
While she waited for her clothing, little Aereth jumped on and off the low stool, pretending to fight imaginary foes with an imaginary sword. Zelda and Cassandra sat on a nearby bench and watched her.
“We shall have to buy boots for her as well,” said Zelda, her eyes on her daughter’s bare, filthy feet. She shook her head. “I’m sorry this is costing you so much gold, Cassandra.”
“I am pledged to your service, my lady. My gold is your gold,” answered Cassandra at once. “As soon as we are settled somewhere, we shant have to worry as much about paying gold for clothing. Serene is an excellent seamstress when she is well-rested, and I am not so bad at it myself.”
“Truly?” said Zelda in surprise. “I always thought that sort of thing looked so complicated.”
“Truly,” answered Cassandra. “It is not so difficult a skill. They teach it to babes in the city.”
The old seamstress, overhearing Cassandra, sniffed and irritably went, “Humph!” in her throat as she worked, pins sticking from her mouth.
“I confess,” said Cassandra with a little smile, “we made Aereth’s original clothes out of old bedsheets from the barracks.”
Zelda smiled as well, but her eyes were sad and anxious. She was still watching as Aereth continued “slaying” an imaginary monster with her imaginary sword.
“Die, foul beast!” Aereth shouted.
“What troubles you, sorceress?” asked Cassandra. She was sitting with her knees wide apart, calmly watching Aereth as well, and Zelda thought she looked so big and strong, gleaming in her silver armor, a giant cased in metal.
“All she talks about is slaying things!” said Zelda in exasperation as she watched Aereth. “Tis appalling for a mother to hear that from the mouth of her innocent babe!”
Cassandra smiled. “Aereth is a Wilde Woman. Tis her nature. You were not so tame when you did nearly slay Anindel.”
“But she would have deserved it!” Zelda protested at once. Her heart fluttered when Cassandra gently gave her knee a suggestive squeeze and said, “I was not scolding thee.”
Zelda glanced up, and the intense look in Cassandra’s eye made her a little breathless. She remembered what Cassandra had said about getting her alone soon and blushed a little.
But Zelda knew that getting her alone was going to prove challenging for Cassandra. Now that they were all together again, they hardly ever separated. If Zelda and Cassandra made love alone, without the involvement of the others, it would likely happen while everyone was sleeping. It was the only way she could see.
They went to the shoemaker next and had Aereth fitted for boots. By the time they returned to the inn, it was dusk. Calain and Selene were already there, waiting downstairs in the tavern with Gweneth. Selene had confiscated Gweneth’s pint, which Gweneth protested against in a slurred voice, while Calain was wearing a new set of silver armor, which Selene had paid for and didn’t seem ready to let her forget. With Calain and Selene bickering and Gweneth half-drunk, they all went upstairs to their room for the night.
Gweneth, tipsy as she was, was in no condition to keep watch. Selene helped her out of her armor and into bed, where she dozed off almost immediately on her back. Cassandra volunteered to take first watch, and so Selene and Calain also removed their armor and climbed into bed.
Zelda brought Aereth to the washbasin and struggled to clean the child’s face, for Aereth kept squirming and sighing. Zelda managed to only get half the dirt off before she gave up, and Aereth dove with a giggle into the bed, where she fell asleep between Calain and Selene (Selene opened one eye, smiled, and pulled the coverlet over the child).
Cassandra, meanwhile, pulled a chair up near the window and sat on it, fully armored, her sword on her hip as she gazed out. Zelda removed her traveling cloak and watched Cassandra in frustration. She knew the tall, beautiful knight would never forsake her duty – keeping watch – to lay with Zelda, and there was no way Zelda could seduce her into it because she was fully armored.
Resigned to the fact that she would not be laying with Cassandra that night, Zelda walked over and sat in Cassandra’s lap instead, deciding to keep her company for a while. Cassandra seemed pleased. She looked up with fluttering pale lashes and placed her arm around Zelda, but she still said in her soft, serious voice, “My lady should take her rest.”
“I am happy here,” Zelda said, resting her head against Cassandra.
Cassandra smiled. “You want to make love, I can tell. I have stirred it in you with my filthy talk of tasting your sweet sex.”
Zelda blushed a little. “Perhaps.”
Cassandra kissed Zelda on the head. “Go to sleep, my lady,” she whispered, “and later, when Selene has taken watch, I shall meet thee in thy dreams.”
Zelda smiled. She didn’t know why, but she liked the idea of that. It was as if she and Cassandra shared a special, secret world that the others knew nothing of. But if she knew her knights well – and she thought she did – it was likely Cassandra had already told the others that she’d lain with Zelda in her dreams.
Zelda kissed Cassandra on the cheek and smiled when the knight’s cheeks flamed a little. “Good night, Cassandra, my sweet knight,” she said, rising.
“Good night,” Cassandra whispered in a soft undertone, “my love.”