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Lost in my thoughts, I almost miss the moment she grabs her Guiding Knife and slices it along her palm.

Tahrik cries out in protest, but it’s too late by half, darkness welling up on her trembling hand.

Pressing the Knife in, she rotates it slightly, coating the blade on both sides before exhaling sharply and slumping against the wall.

Tahrik is at her side instantly, offering his flask, which she takes gratefully.

“That way,” she nods towards the left, shivering as a cold air skitters out from its depths, raising little ripples on her skin.

She jerks slightly, a single drop of blood falling from her hand to the floor.

Deep in the shadows of the opposite corridor, there is a longing rumble, almost a moan, but the other two don’t seem to hear it.

The Miller looks doubtful. “You’re sure, Wren?” he asks, valiantly trying to keep the skepticism from his voice. Her answering laugh is almost desperate.

“Am I sure? No. But it’s the way the Knife pulls. Give me a moment. I’m still bleeding, and it would be a shame to waste it.” A pause, a smile in her voice. “Don’t argue. It’s pointless.”

Lorcan. Again Lorcan.

Glancing at us she hesitates, then unwinds the bones from her neck and runs her hand along them until they glisten, even in the darkness.

“Wren?...” Tahrik sounds ill, voice shaking.

“What? Why?” He doesn’t know the right question to ask, and wouldn’t get an answer anyway, judging by the way her shoulders tighten.

Staring at him, jaw tense, she raises a single brow, but empties her face of emotion in the way she does when she is hurt inside.

I don’t like it, don’t like when she hides herself from us, so I swallow back the words that are pushing from my mouth, relax my body, force my tone to casual blandness. “Would any blood do? If…the next time you have to…I’m happy to act in your stead, if it helps. We can share the…the need?”

A flicker of surprise darts across her face, like a flower unfolding, and satisfaction surges through me.

“I…it…”. Glancing down at her Guiding Knife, she stares at it for what feels like an eternity.

“I truly don’t know, Rannoch. But we can try.

For the Blade. If you’re willing.” Ignoring the unintentional emphasis she puts on the word blade , I nod.

Rannoch. Not Councilman. It’s a step forward; the relief I feel at hearing my name from at least one of them is surprising.

“Ready, willing, and able, Wren. Just not my dagger hand.”

“Wren…” Tahrik murmurs under his breath, and I frown. Since he saw me curved over her body, hands red, face devastated, he’s been incessant, taking every opportunity to cast doubt my actions. “Are you sure? He’s?—”

“What?” I snap out against my better judgment, but this can’t continue if we’re traveling together.

It’s been nothing but careful words and simmering suspicion from him since we first entered these godless tunnels, and just existing at the moment is enough to drain me of energy.

His neverending sideways glances, the quiet muttering between the two of them — it’s driving me mad.

“ What am I?” Scrubbing a tired hand over my dry eyes, I inhale sharply before sighing.

“Peace, Miller.” They exchange a glance that holds paragraphs.

It can’t be them on one side and me on the other for this entire journey, wherever it leads.

“For the love of all that’s good in the world, peace .

Whether you like it or not, we’re in this together, and you’re exhausting me.

Both of you, ask your questions if it will make you feel more at ease, and I’ll answer what I’m able to.

But ask them openly. Enough with the hushed voices. ”

He stares at me for long enough that I’m close to screaming, then finally blurts out, “Why are you here ?” Wariness and frustration are bright in his words.

“Why are you here?” I counter instantly, hackles rising.

“Wren,” he answers simply, and I tilt my head in answer.

Slow realization floods his face with something akin to anger, the first sign of any real life I’ve seen from this placid, uncooked pile of dough.

A creeping sort of resentment flutters along my skin, like blood moth wings, and I smirk at the expression on his face.

“Something to say, Miller ?” I hiss, one hand drifting to my dagger as he stands slowly, rolling his shoulders. Even in the darkness I note that years of working the millstone have left him with muscle, and I grin. It will be more of a fair fight than I originally thought.

“Oh, Councilman. So much to say it would fill a book and then some.” I haven’t heard his minstrel voice so sharp before, and mimic him as he drops into a ready stance.

“Ah, ah, ah, Miller,” I caution mockingly. “Be sure you know how to use your instrument before you join this chorus.”

“I’m more a son of the village than you’ll ever be, Councilman or not.

I grew up with a scythe in hand, and I think you’ll find my fingers play the blade as well as they play the bow.

” We’re both grinning now, rictus smiles with teeth flashing in the flickering darkness, and from the tunnel on the right, an eager sort of breathiness sounds.

Wren scrambles to her feet, wrapping the bones around her neck frantically, and my attention switches to her in a heartbeat.

Those bones. Around her throat, feeling her pulse, where my tongue should be, tracing the pale column from the hollow up to that frenetic trembling beneath her skin.

If I crush the bones, tear them from her, I can take their place. I just have to…

I must make a sound, a movement, because her eyes flare open, white in the darkness, locking on my own before focusing over my shoulder, down the breathing corridor.

“It’s the caves,” she whispers, “We have to run!” and whips around, fleeing into the blackness so quickly I’ve lost her before I take a step.

“Wren!” Tahrik is after her like her shadow, and for a brief, wild moment, I am left alone in the unending night. From the tunnel on the right, the one we are not taking, a faint voice calls.

“Rannoch!” It sounds like her, like she is crying out in pain. How did she get there? Did the tunnels combine ahead? Did she fall? “Rannoch! Help me! Please… help me!”

One step.

“Rannoch!” Her voice is quaking, vibrating as though her skin is being pulled from her body.

One step more. And now I am only half a step away, half a step until I am in, half a step until I have entered the sucking blackness.

“Rannoch!”

Cold fingers wrap tightly around my wrist. “ No. ”

I’m caught, caught between her voice pleading from the tunnel, and her hand pulling me away.

“Rannoch! Help me! ” Her voice is crying from the depths, sobbing out. “ HELP ME!”

Beside me, Wren tenses, breath fast and shallow, and her grip cuts into my skin, bruising.

“I. Said. No !” This screamed , not at me, but down the empty corridor.

There is a startled shiver of shadows, the sliding movement of ink on ink, and then a piercing wail so loud I instinctively move to jerk my hands up to cover my ears, but she won’t let me.

Wren is yanking at me now, pulling me off balance, running down the left corridor, with me tripping and stumbling after her, away from the screeching needles of sound behind us.

In seconds we are even with Tahrik, who grabs my other hand without hesitation, helping Wren drag me forward.

For a moment I’m confused, and then more confused when I realize I’m fighting them, trying to return the way I came. Why am I fighting?

“Rannoch! Please! I’m dying !”

She’s in agony, begging for me, and I’m a chained beast against them, clawing and desperate.

“She needs me! She needs me!” Even in my stupor I can hear the frenzy in my voice as I try to tear their hands from my arms.

She needs me, she needs me, she needs ? —

“Rannoch. Stop.” In front of me, marble hands on my face, I meet Wren’s eyes. “Rannoch. It’s not me. I’m here. I’m with you. It’s not me.”

Tahrik is breathing heavily behind me, and I realize suddenly that his arms are wrapped around me like steel bands, that he has wrestled me into place somehow without me even realizing it.

“Wren?”

Her face relaxes at whatever she hears in my voice.

“I’m here, Rannoch. It’s fine. I’m fine. That isn’t me.”

“Oh,” I say stupidly, and out of nowhere am overcome by a shaking spell so bad I can barely stand, am kept upright only by the Miller. “Oh. I thought…”

“I know,” she replies, and there are so many questions in those simple words; questions I want to answer, questions I’m not ready to answer, questions I don’t even know if she wants to ask. So I take a deep breath and force myself to settle.

“I’m sorry.” Stupid words, but they’re all I have. “Miller, I’m sorry. I don’t know..I’m not sure…”

His arms fall away, and he steps back. “It’s fine…Rannoch. It’s the mountain. We’re too close to the Everfire. Let’s keep moving.” He glances behind us, shaking his head. “Now. Let’s move now. You’ll let us know when we are safe, Wren?”

She laughs shakily in response. “Safe? Will it ever be safe?”

He takes her hands, staring down at their fingers intertwined. “We will find a place, Wren. I promise it. But for now, I’d settle for anywhere other than here.”

It is taking too long. Long enough that we are two days out of food, if you can call honeyed sweets food , and a full day out of water.

Long enough that desperation gives way to hopelessness, which in turn fades to brutal acceptance.

Yesterday, no words exchanged other than a silent nod, Tahrik and I quietly emptied the last of our flasks into Wren’s when she wasn’t looking, but it is not enough.

We had been filling her ration pack with our own when we were able, though the last time I tried, Tahrik held his hand over the pouch and shook his head.

“One of us has left the village, knows how to hunt, to navigate. There is no space left for niceties now. When my feet fail, don’t give her a choice, Councilor. She won’t want to leave. You must make her. Whatever it takes.”

I wanted to protest, but had enough respect for him that I didn’t offer false comfort. “I will make her. Whatever it takes.” It was a gruesome promise. We both knew what was being said, what it meant for both Tahrik, and for Wren.

She is far from us, hovering in front of another set of tunnels, another series of unending twists in the fathomless blackness that has consumed us.

Even at a distance I can see her reaching for the Guiding Knife.

I tried three times with it before we gave up; my blood was not to its liking for some reason.

On the third try, the knife stayed wet, would not drink any of my Offering; Wren silently tucked it back in her belt, though her fingers were gentle when she took it from my bloody hands.

Tahrik never offered; I don’t know which was worse in her eyes – my rejection, or his reluctance.

Tahrik is corpse-pale, skin bruised under his dark eyes, cheeks hollow.

This is a man who has given everything, and beyond everything, inside him to stay next to Wren.

There is nothing left to go on. Even with the weight of my eyes on him, he stares at her for a long time, face naked with longing, as though it is the last time he will ever see her, and I feel sick to my stomach.

When he sighs, dropping his head, it’s the sound of a key in a lock, a decision being made and accepted; despite everything, I have been dreading this moment.

Finally, looking back at me, he holds out a shaking hand, and I take it solemnly in my own.

“For what it’s worth, you’re a better man than I thought, Rannoch.”

“For what it’s worth, so are you.”

He grins, a small spark of life dancing across his dying face. “What a pair we are. We would never have been friends outside of her, I think. You’re too arrogant.”

Smirking, I shrug. “Is it arrogance if it’s true? You’re too soft. ”

Releasing my hand, he smiles over his shoulder, all of his happiness focused on one wraithlike girl.

“Ah, well. When the people you care about are surrounded by nothing but the cold and hard, it’s a bit of an honor to provide a soft space.

Something you should think about. Not for this one here, you know.

But for someone else, somewhere in the future.

” He coughs a little, a dry, rasp of sound that whips Wren’s head around.

“This one,” she calls, and he sighs.

“Mark the way for me, Wrenling. I’ll sit for a few and follow just behind.”

“This one,” she repeats, more insistently. Like it has for the past week or more, her voice pulls him to his feet. His shuffle forward is painful to see, and I slip an arm around him in faux comradery.

“Alright, Keeper. Lead on.” Tahrik looks at me accusingly through narrow eyes, and I shrug.

“You can make it a little further, Miller. There’s life in you yet, and what I’d have to do to her to make her leave you behind would not sit well with me.

So take the help, and know that I’ll keep my promise. ”

Nodding, he leans against me, and we stagger forward together, deeper into the eternal night.