AS HE CINCHED the last of their backpacks, Doom looked around for his companion and sighed, going outside. “Of course,” he grumbled. Tiwaz stepped slowly but methodically through unarmed training routines, despite having only just recovered from her nearly deadly fever. “Tiwaz!” he barked, startling her. She stared at him owlishly long enough for him to come over and lift her tunic to glance at the bandages over the wound in her side. “Come back inside so I can redo those bandages before we start walking.”

Slow to come out of her training zone, she stated matter-of-factly, “I need to get back in shape. I’ve not been practicing. My form—”

“To the thousand hells with your form!” he bellowed, making her wince and startling the birds in the rafters. “Your form won’t mean a damned thing if you let that wound go bad again. Sakes alive, Ti, you nearly died overdoing it.” She sat on the old crate, holding her shirt up while he changed the bandages. “By all rights, you should be dead.”

“Well, I’m not,” she grumbled, pouting like a small child.

“Could we please keep it that way?” His voice dripped with exasperation and sarcasm. “Stop arguing with me about what is good for you.” With dexterity belying his size, he dressed the wound with alacrity. “This will never heal right if you don’t stop and give it time to do so.”

“A warrior must always be ready to fight,” she stated reflexively. “If I can walk, I can fight. If I can fight, I must practice.”

He paused, sighing heavily and closing his eyes a moment before looking up at her. “Ti, we aren’t slaves anymore. You can take some time to heal up right. You can do anything you want now. Be anything you want.”

The sudden depth of despair in her eyes shook Doom. “And what else could I be, my friend? I am nothing but a gladiator. I’m the best that ever was. Or used to be.” Letting the shirt fall back in place, she continued. “I can be nothing else because it is a part of every fiber of my being. My body knows nothing else. My heart knows nothing else.” She looked away. “I know nothing else.”

At a loss, Doom stood without a word, offering her his hand to help her back up. He settled her backpack properly so it did not pull too much on the injury. “How is that? Can you walk for a little while?”

“Yes, I can walk.” As if to prove it, she headed up the road. “I can do whatever needs to be done.” She blinked when he held his arm out to her. “What?”

“Take my arm. I would feel better thinking I was helping you,” Doom explained quietly. He smiled inwardly as, after a moment’s hesitation, she linked her arm through his.

“I can walk faster,” she pointed out, glancing up at him.

“I know,” he replied. Looking sideways at her, he said blandly, “I was hurt, too, remember? And I don’t have the benefit of shape shifting to mend faster.” She turned red in embarrassment, oblivious to his ploy of keeping the pace slow for her benefit. By the time the sun was high in the sky, he could tell by how hard she held onto his arm she was reaching the end of her endurance. “We need to stop,” he told her several times before she acknowledged him.

Grimacing, she shook her head. “There is another storm coming.” She looked at the blackness looming in the distance. “It is even colder now and there is no shelter here.”

“I know.” He directed her attention ahead of them where a signpost stood at an intersection of several roads. “Gareth said the towns should be safe enough for us to go to. We’ve money for a room if there’s an inn and for supplies so we can find somewhere hospitable to settle for the winter. But I need to decipher the names and distances. You rest while I do that.” He quietly thanked their good fortune for giving him an opportune excuse to stop for a short while.

“Which way?” she asked after some time.

“Not quite sure yet,” he admitted, fiddling with the pouch on his belt that the two dragon coins were in. “I’m not very good with reading.” When his eyes came to one of the names, he felt a slight jolt in his hand and a whisper in his mind. He glanced down at the pouch, then back to the sign. He took a deep breath, trusting his gut instincts over his distrust of all things divine. “I think this one here.” He tapped one of the boards. “Bralden. It seems to be closest.” He looked towards her, frowning in worry. He helped her to her feet. “We’ll get somewhere you can rest soon. I promise.”

“I hope so,” she whispered. “I am not sure how much longer I can keep going.” His yellow eyes darkened with worry at the uncharacteristic admission of limitation as he took her arm again.