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“I was cold anyway,” she calls haughtily over her shoulder; a grin quick as lightning flashes across his face before he schools it back to a scowl.

She sees it though, and has to fight against an answering smile, lips pressed tight in a thin line to belie her mirth.

Their amusement is such a juxtaposition to my own emotions that it feels like a terrible pantomime, or that I’m locked outside a home, pressing my face against the window, witnessing something that I’m not a part of.

“Gallows humor.” Kaden notices my response; I am beginning to believe there isn’t much Kaden doesn’t notice, for all his smiling and friendly ways.

“They were awake and aware when death was kissing their heels, Tahrik. It hasn’t been long enough since the tunnels for them to lose the drunken relief of being alive.

Forgive them their joy in the moment. I know it’s strange to you right now, but you’re only just awake.

It’s not that they don’t care, you understand?

It’s just…you’re breathing. Your eyes are open.

There is food, and light, and warmth after too many hours of…

well. Just after too many hours. It’s hard for you to understand right now, but they’re not being callous. They’re just figuring things out.”

Sighing, I nod. “I feel a mile and a year behind everything.”

“Time lurches forward in strange ways. You’ll catch up.”

“So.” I shift, eyes locked on Wren and Rannoch at the fire, still trying to make sense of everything that has happened. “How did they find you?”

“Well, friend. That I can’t speak to.” He inhales deeply, almost troubled.

“I consider it luck, but luck is a strange and fickle thing. I don’t trust it.

When we left your village, I told Wren I’d walk slowly as long as I was able.

” Ignoring my sharp intake of breath, he continues.

“And I did, and then more slowly still, because my wagon snapped an axle. It was fixed, but took time. And then my horse pulled up lame. And another few days passed; I should be wholly in my lands by now, am pressing every bit of luck I have left to my name. Initially three of my friends stayed with me; the rest progressed without us.” Taking a long sip from his bowl, Kaden shakes his head ruefully.

“We’re not a people who suffer delays easily, and are held tight to our…

commitments. We were expected back at our home in a certain timeframe; any change to that outside of a prescribed limit wouldn’t have been welcome.

But, just before Wren and Rannoch limped from a cave mouth I could barely see, one of my friends got sick.

And then a second. The third had no choice — he’s better with herbs and tinctures than I am.

Had I been the lead, we all would have ended up unintentionally poisoned.

So we put them in my wagon, he took the reins and left, and I started collapsing camp, meaning to follow on immediately behind him.

Instead, here I find myself, still on the Corpse Bridge, in the company of people I thought I’d never see again. And another three days off schedule.”

“Will it cause you trouble?” I ask curiously, and am answered with a roar of laughter that catches Rannoch and Wren’s attention.

“Oh..oh..oh…” He’s laughing so hard now there are tears gathering at the corner of his eyes. “Will it cause me trouble?” he asks, voice trembling in almost manic amusement. “Yes. I suppose you could say that. It just might.”

“What’s so funny?” Wren calls, and he shakes his head, grinning broadly.

“Your friend, Flame, and his questions.” Turning to me, he takes my wrist in his calloused grip and pulls me to my feet. “Come now, Tahrik. Time enough for talking tomorrow. We’ll all bed around the fire, and then pack in the morning.”

Stumbling forward on weak legs, I try to keep myself upright. “Are there tents?”

“No. They take too long to set up and put down, and if we need to move quickly…” He lets his voice trail off, but I understand.

“There’s a bedroll for you there, though, and Rannoch and I will switch the watch.

When you’re recovered, you can work in, but it will do no one any good for you to take a spell now. ”

“ I can take watch,” Wren mutters stubbornly under her breath, clearly playing the string of an argument that has been plucked before. Both men sigh, but it’s Rannoch who answers, surprisingly placatingly.

“You absolutely can, Keeper. No one doubts that.”

“Then work me in.”

He stares at her through dark eyes, considering, before pitching his voice very low. “I would, Wren. But the strain of being away from the bones has?—”

“Alright, Rannoch,” she snaps hurriedly, eyes darting from him, to Kaden, then to me. “Alright.”

Kaden glances between them, and chooses to ignore the exchange. “So. Sleep now. Get what you can. There’s hard travel ahead, I’m sorry to say. But we’re not far from the edge of my lands if we push. And then can slow our pace.”

We settle in around the glowing circle — Wren between me and Rannoch, Kaden at the far side, sitting upright on a stump, body tightening from easy camaraderie to alert caution.

The air around us seems alive in strange ways, the sounds of the night here filled and foreign; in our village night is silent, and the noise of this new place presses against my ears.

Beside me, Wren’s breathing steadies and slows, echoed a short time later by Rannoch.

But the vastness of the sky above me and the softness of the ground below me are suffocating, keeping sleep from my exhausted body.

Everything in me is straining, crying out for the village, for my hearth and home, my friends and family. Everything except an unending, aching longing that finally falls quiet at the inhale and exhale of a goddess beside me, and I drift to sleep on the lullaby of her breath.

It is enough. For now, it is enough.