Page 6

HENRIK

A worn path guided Henrik through cobblestone streets, down the water-strewn road, and toward the Captain’s Quarters.

The routine and obvious expectation soothed Henrik, though the luster of returning to Stenberg didn't shine as brightly once he walked the streets. He'd forgotten that it smelled like wet dung after the rain. At least it offered predictability. His stomach, no longer subject to the pitching sea, reminded him to eat. His appetite had been low for weeks.

Hunger felt good.

The storm cleared in the night, revealing a fresh horizon and bluebird sky scrubbed clean. Fluffy white clouds drifted with lazy, stacked splendor. Slate edges gave them texture as they passed, chasing the tail end of frothing storm clouds to the south. The Chain Islands would be subject to the same brutality soon.

His right hand curled into his pocket, delicately assessing the dragul. The tiny creature hadn't been pleased to be stuffed inside, but Henrik overcame his resistance easily enough. Another few twists and turns and they'd be far enough from Britt’s scent, and deep enough into the island, to ensure the dragul couldn't escape and return on his own.

With Britt nearby and a dragul for leverage, Henrik slept in snatches. He needn't have worried. Britt didn't attempt to harm him or rescue her dragul. Her light, wispy breaths filled the silence within moments of her lying down. Fatigue worked against her.

This morning, Britt hadn't stirred when he prepared to leave. Not even a subtle nudge of her shoulder with his toe stirred her from the depths. At least he could say that he tried.

Henrik turned to the left. The looming shapes of His Glory's Temple, the Archives, the residence where His Glory lived, and the Compendium, cast few shadows. The Compendium was little more than several buildings clustered together, housing His Glory and the islanders who served him directly. Servant huts, sailor stations, and a market, dedicated solely to His Glory, where the best of everything arrived directly from the ships. Those lucky enough to live in and work through the Compendium enjoyed a higher quality of life, though they couldn't leave.

Enslaved, in a very real way.

He thought of what Britt said the night before, about Stenberg and enslaved islanders and broken contracts and scuttled boats. The uncomfortable subject made him squirm. Mistaken, surely. Stenberg had no reason to create enemies.

A bracing breath prepared Henrik to return to the Captain’s Quarters. Undoubtedly, news of Captain Arvid had arrived last night with the three other Captains. Not likely to be good, either. Henrik didn’t want to hear the report, but he couldn’t wait another moment. Though he'd just spoken to Oliver yesterday, it felt like lifetimes had passed.

As Henrik climbed a set of forty stairs leading to the third floor, he almost smiled recalling the surprise in Britt’s eyes when he mentioned the dragul he met during his tour of the Kapurnickkian isles.

She hadn't believed him. Not that he could blame her. By all accounts, he shouldn't have seen that dragul. The keeper had been remiss to introduce him to . . . Bamerbam, was it?

Yet the Kapurnickkian man had, because people in the outer isles were far kinder than Stenberg islanders. Kinder, or less paranoid. The nefarious shadow of His Glory’s politics and the constant threat of mainland interference didn't have as strong of a grip out there. Henrik lacked experience with the mainland, but he knew many of the hundreds of Chain Islands, each known for a different type of arcane. Few islanders managed to navigate all of them, though the challenge of it thrilled him.

His reefer year exposed him to more of His Glory’s workings and power, as Captain Oliver desired, but also a different life. Lesser Isles people collected coconuts, glimmering sand that yielded sparkling glass, massive fish the size of boats, and other resources.

Beyond that?

They didn't fear much.

For the past twelve months, he struggled to understand the disparity of lives. What existed without the threat of reprisal or outside attack? Could one just . . . be? As a soldat, he had no time for peace.

Henrik ducked into a familiar office on the left. Years of foot traffic left grooves in the stone floor, guiding him to the exact spot. He stopped inside the doorway. The square room split in half, with two doorways opposite each other. Captain Oliver’s office on the left, Captain Arvid’s office on the right.

A young soldat stood, hands at his side. He bent at the hips and straightened.

"Soldat," the young man said.

“Greetings.”

“Are you Henrik?”

“I am.”

“Good. I’ve been waiting for you."

"Oh?"

The boy could hardly be a man. He had thin cheeks, freshly-shaven hair on the sides of his head, and a tense stubbornness in his jaw. Baby soldat, they called boys like him. He was probably eighteen, a year from release, and testing here at the Captain’s Quarters. He motioned toward Captain Oliver's office, where the door stood open and a desk perched inside, empty.

"The Captain isn't here, sir."

"I see that."

"He won't return for the rest of the day."

Acting intentionally stupid, because information was always easier to glean when he acted as if he didn’t have the upper hand, Henrik said, "Fine, I'll report to Captain Arvid.”

The baby soldat’s face dropped. A serious edge claimed his voice. “Sir . . . Captain Arvid is gone.”

“Gone?”

“Dead. Confirmation arrived last night. He died in a battle against Narpurra and Stenberg. Captain Oliver is meeting with the other Captains and His Glory to work through the details now.”

The boy jerked a thumb over his left shoulder, gesturing to Arvid’s room at the opposite corner, also dark, empty, and deserted. So the mysterious letter that arrived as Henrik departed was, indeed, final notice.

Henrik didn’t have to work hard to summon outrage.

“An insult,” he managed.

“I agree, soldat. Captain Oliver wanted me to relay that he won't have an assignment for you until after this is settled. He said you can have today off, but he wants you to report back tomorrow. He also requests that you double-check your jord shipment, as the numbers are lower than expected.”

Henrik frowned. “It unloaded well?”

“Yes.”

“No problems?”

“No, sir. But Captain Oliver was insistent that you double-check your jord shipment. He made me swear to tell you twice.”

“And you have.”

The baby soldat nodded, as if a great weight lifted from his shoulders. He passed Henrik an envelope. Within lay ten sheets of folded paper with the same sentence and paragraph structure. The top line said, Location of jord reception.

Ten different Kapurnickkian island names appeared on the ten alternating pages in a compilation of his latest and final jord acquisition. At the bottom, an ink seal of approval stamped each page, given by the local port authority.

Henrik perused the sheets, curious. Nothing seemed out of order at cursory glance. The report mimicked what he told Oliver yesterday, and provided in his own paperwork. His Glory required double reports around jord to protect their precious trade agreements. He housed all of them, along with other giant trails of paperwork, in the Archives, which were attached to the Library.

"I'm sure His Glory is celebrating yet another shipment of jord, particularly at the onset of a cleansing,” the baby soldat said. “We can initiate another round of planting to prepare for the upcoming dry season.”

Henrik couldn't help but wonder if this sailor knew his mother.

"What's your name?" Henrik asked.

"My name?"

With a stroke of amusement, Henrik asked, "You don't know it?"

"I do, sir," he stammered. "I just . . . no one in this office has ever asked. My name is Brodin."

"How long have you been in the Captain’s Quarters, Brodin?"

"Nine months."

"Do you like it?"

“I do.”

"Would you tell me if you didn't?"

The edges of Brodin's lip twitched.

"No, soldat.”

Henrik chuckled, and cast another glance at the numbers. At first blush, all seemed fine. He couldn’t shake the sense that something was off. What? He wasn’t sure. Though he remembered the numbers easily enough, and they seemed comparable, they weren’t exact.

“Is Ossian still in port?” he asked.

“No, soldat. His ship has already departed again. They left as soon as the storm lifted, in the wee hours of the morning."

“To where?"

"To Calsica.”

Calsica was a small island off the northwest Stenberg shore, in a cluster of other islands with a similar reputation for skullduggery and thieving. Ossian probably fled the cleansing before the port authority closed the docks.

But why?

Something didn’t quite fit. If suspicion had a smell, it would be rotten fish, and the ghastly perfume would flow thick through Henrik’s nostrils right now.

“I thought Ossian planned to stay?"

“The port authority didn’t say why the captain left, soldat.”

Shaking the strangely fast departure off, Henrik tucked the papers under his arms. “I’ll return with these tomorrow, so the Archives can have them.”

“Yes, soldat.”

"The mainland has been causing some problems, haven't they?"

While Brodin droned on and on about unsubstantiated missing shipments and complaints about delayed cargo, Henrik realized that the dragul in his pocket had become unnaturally still. He might have thought the creature escaped. A touch reassured him.

"That's what we hear, anyway," Brodin finished. "As Captain Oliver is always the first to hear the news, I'd say what you hear on the streets is probably a lie, or doesn't have all the information."

"Highlights the importance of this office, doesn't it? It means something that you're part of it, Brodin."

"Thank you, soldat.”

Henrik paused halfway through the door, squinting as he leaned back inside. "Are the other soldats busy during the cleansing?"

“Only a few. Captain Oliver called them back when Captain Arvid went missing two weeks ago. All should be returning.”

"How many are here?”

“None on assignment, ten with His Glory, and twenty-two on the island, including Captain Oliver. You make it twenty-three, soldat, which means a full contingent.”

“It’s been awhile since that happened.”

Brodin brightened, his eyebrows elevated. “Since all the soldats have returned, rumor has it they’re starting the grappling tournament a week early.”

Henrik ignored it.

Brodin plowed on. “Soldat Einar has been saying that when you return with your final jord shipment, you’ll try to uphold your current grappling title and break Captain Oliver’s.”

The query in Brodin’s tone wasn’t an accident.

Henrik ignored it, too.

“Thank you, Brodin. Have a good day.”

Henrik left an astonished baby soldat in his wake. Undoubtedly, Brodin never had a soldat ask his name or wish him well. The well wishing was more strategic than kind. Soldats referenced brute force tactics too often. A year in the Lesser Isles convinced Henrik that there was a different way to approach the same problems. The islanders out there opted for persuasion and kindness first when dealing with other people. A working reminder of the power of gentleness.

One could never have friends in too many places.

Henrik returned to the tropical sunshine, a delightful sensation on his skin after the ravaging winds. When the dragul attempted to bite his knuckle, he removed his hand. It would be harder for the little creature to weasel out of his pocket while he walked.

Despite his annoyance with Britt, he didn't want the dragul to meet harm.

* * *

The crack of a whip split the air.

Henrik strode past the whipping stand, placed artfully across from the peaceful Archives and Library. Close enough to His Glory that the daily punishments were visible, but the screams too distant to distract from his daily prayer time to Norr. Flecks of gore marbled the cobblestones outside the Archives daily during a cleansing.

A disfigured man with visible ribs and a bony spine hung on the stock, wrists tied to the posts. The thunderous roar of a crowd shouted as the whipmaster lay into the pathetic, shriveled man. He passed out and slumped over. Bloody stripes slashed his back, oozing a dark crimson.

Poor chap.

Must have stolen something, else His Glory wouldn’t dole out punishment to cleanse Stenberg of all unholiness in the face of Norr’s desired blessings or other such rubbish .

A creaky wagon packed with blue-and-green-leafed plants rattled by. Burlap bags, triple-layered, wrapped their roots with precious jord. Two brawny men pulled the wagon in place of mules, while three surrounded each side to protect the cargo. Animals ate too much and required more jord, necessitating more hard labor than most islands.

The harvest timing wasn’t accidental, either. Henrik’s new shipment of mineral rich jord would pave the way for more food. Over the years, they'd built up enough protected planters to maintain Stenberg’s population, but they required new shipments brought in yearly. The fertilizer kept Stenbergians' teeth in their heads and their children from dying. Without it, they'd have almost no sustainable access to plants.

The dragul shuddered in his pocket as they passed the amassed crowd, drawing Henrik's attention to his pressing conundrum.

Britt.

Since he didn't have a chance to tell Captain Oliver about the woman or the dragul, what now? Only a fool would hold onto this information and resource, particularly with Arvid’s death and with Captain Oliver’s high emotions roiling against Kapurnick. Not to mention the hostility towards the mainland, for that matter.

It left one option.

Henrik departed from the holy side of Stenberg and angled toward the Quarter. A squat stone building with a trailing, dirty stream of smoke piping out of the chimney awaited. The Old Pub, aptly named for the ease of memory and because soldats lacked imagination. The smoke was a signal, for no island lacked heat on a pristine day.

It meant that soldats grappled within.

Perfect.

Henrik stepped inside the Old Pub, a gathering place for soldats when assignments ran scarce. Historically, it didn't happen often, so the rare chance to pull together after his reefer year was most welcome.

The dim place appeared as shabby as ever. Chiseled stone mugs lined the cupboards, drawing his eye to the rock-and-mortar walls, scattered tables, canted windows, and a thin, crackling fireplace that burned coal dredged from the depths of Cmeaddon island.

All furniture had been shoved to the side, creating a berth in the middle of the room. A dozen soldats littered the periphery, calling bets and jeering. Six soldats formed a circle within the chaos. Two grappled inside a chalk ring, wearing pants cut off at the knee. Their bodies smashed into each other with grunts and groans that led to the sweeping of one off his bare feet.

"Alas!" shouted a deep voice. "What bounty has the sea brought us?"

The raucous energy in the room stilled. Anticipating the welcome, Henrik lifted a hand and smiled.

“Land-el, ugly scalliwags! Your beloved Henrik has returned."

Slaps on the shoulder, whoops of welcome, and a chorus of cheers escorted Henrik further into the Old Pub. Fellow soldats pounded him on the back, demanded answers, teased him for his plush lifestyle, and faded to their activities within minutes.

A fist slammed into his shoulder.

"Been a year, beloved!” cried Timmer, an old soldat who refused to die, and whom the Captains couldn't get rid of, despite trying. "You're looking more handsome than ever. Roguish twinkle in those blue eyes. Find yourself a lady?”

Henrik planted a hand on Timmer’s face and shoved him away. Timmer swung. Henrik dodged the hasty fist, ducked a follow-up uppercut, and swept his leg under Timmer's shins. Timmer stumbled to his backside, laughing until he turned bright red.

"The grappling king returns," Timmer shouted, a hand on his abdomen as he quelled his wheezy amusement. “He smells of jord!"

Laughter rippled through the room as Henrik reached out a hand and yanked Timmer to his feet. He smacked the dust off his clothes with a grin.

"Good to see you again, Timmer. Where’s Einar?”

“Outside.”

Attention on Henrik fizzled when one of the grappling soldats broke through the white-chalk square hastily drawn on the floor. A chorus of groans followed as the match completed, canceled because he crossed the line. Amidst the hushed chaos, a familiar smile crossed the pub floor. Tanned skin, sparkling white teeth with a slightly crooked top, and long arms.

Einar.

Henrik grinned and drawled, “My brother.”

They met in a hug with the force of clashing gods. Einar pounded him on the back, laughing, streaming queries, concerns, pulling away to study him, and then laughing again.

“What is your hideous mug doing here?” Einar demanded.

“Returned last night.”

Einar shook his head, clucking. “One year as a reefer. Amazing how time flies. How was your tour of the world, future soldat Captain?”

Henrik shoved him off.

“Shut up.”

With a twitch of fingers, Einar motioned for two meads. They retreated to a far table, settling underneath an awning that blocked the streaming sun. Waves broke on the beach, hissing.

Einar sent an appraising study. “How are you? You look . . . good. Wasn’t sure what safety concerns you’d meet, particularly as you rounded up the jord.”

“Nothing too concerning.”

Einar sobered. “Looks like you broke away from Kapurnick before the issues escalated in Narpurra with Captain Arvid?”

“Happened on the same day, I think. We departed before word made it from Narpurra to Kapurnick. The messenger drakes were flying to Kapurnick with updates as I set sail here.”

The arm-sized messenger dragons ferried notes between islands. Fierce, when compared to the bitty draguls, and surly as a simmering volcano. They had a special affection for Kapurnick’s emerald mountains and verdant moss, and often settled there instead of Stenberg. Finding one to send a message was often a lost cause.

Einar whistled. “A stroke of good luck, brother.”

Henrik nodded once.

“You might have only missed the news arriving by hours,” Einar mused. “Bet they would have taken the ship and kept you prisoner, instead of us taking one of them.”

“We took a prisoner?”

“A Major.” Einar shrugged. “Not sure his name. M-something. Doesn’t matter. His Glory shipped him to the Unseen island. The man’s a goner.”

Einar nodded to the bartender who set down two stone mugs of watered mead and had a sip. Soldats rarely imbibed more than weakened mead, and only for the medicinal effect of the honey, but Henrik would be glad for the familiar taste. The cheap ale consumed on ships left a bitter aftershock. Henrik pulled his mug, curling his fingers around the warm stone as he absorbed Einar’s information.

“What do you know about Captain Arvid?” Henrik asked. “Do you believe he’s dead?”

Under his breath, Einar said, “I haven’t heard much. What we know comes from captains, like Ossian. Neither Oliver nor the other three Captains have said anything.”

“Not even Ingemar?”

“Not yet.”

“His Glory must know because Ingemar arrived to Captain Oliver’s office the other night. If Ingemar knows, His Glory knows.”

Einar shrugged. “Captain Oliver, too. They haven’t said.”

The implication left a gaping hole in the conversation.

“If Arvid is dead, it’s His Glory’s fault,” Einar muttered. A sinister thread hummed bright under his words. “There was no reason to start that fight on Narpurran shores, and now we’ve lost our Second Captain. The only one we liked.”

Henrik swallowed a rising lump that tasted like uncertainty. “I hear His Glory has been . . . aggressive.”

“Stupidly so.”

Confirmation stunned him. For Britt to claim that Stenberg made problems was one thing, but for Einar to confirm it something else.

“Why?”

“No idea.”

“Really?”

Einar nodded once, had a sip of mead. “Breaking treaties is the least of it, with the mainland peeking in.” He made eye contact with Henrik long enough to impart a warning, then muttered, “All we have left is Captain Oliver, and he’s shite.”

Alarm bells clanged in Henrik’s mind.

Shite?

“What happened?” Henrik asked.

Einar’s attention flickered over Henrik’s shoulder, focused on something for a pause, and diverted.

“Later.”

The single word, flicked free, set tension crawling up Henrik’s spine. With a far less bleak affect, Einar leaned back and grinned. “So,” he drawled. “Are you glad to be home?”

The words glad to be home stalled in Henrik's mind. Stenberg hadn't ever felt like home. That notion existed in literature for children. Comfort bled out of them as stolen souls, the empty place stoked into fires hungry for battle and competition.

Home?

What a word.

What a question.

Stupidly, he hadn't prepared for the obvious query and didn't know what to say. Was he glad to return?

Not really.

The dismal stone island, the recently fickle leadership, and now the weight of Captain Oliver wanting Henrik as a Second Captain, was a lackluster welcome. He missed glittering sand and tropical, azure waters like the outer chain or Caledon island. At least those islands were interesting, with a mix of arcane and culture. His Glory pounded the arcane out of Stenberg ages ago.

Norr’s son guides these islands, His Glory said. We do not require the arcane. It does not work on our sealstone shores.

“Yeah,” Henrik said distantly, “of course I’m glad to return.”

Einar chortled.

“How’s Agnes?” Henrik asked to keep the focus off of him. The tactic worked, as he knew it would. Affection softened the edges of Einar’s expression.

“She’s good. Canny woman. Too smart to be with an oaf like me.”

“About time you recognize it. You’re not going to legalize the relationship, are you?”

“No.” Einar’s sober tone mimicked the way he traced the tip of a finger around the top of his mug. “No, I wouldn’t do that to her. She wants to. She would have months ago.”

Henrik made a noise in his throat, then sprawled his legs out, an elbow propped on the chair handle. He regarded the grappling match. Two soldats squared off, locked into an evenly matched confrontation. A deep longing to join them rose from suppressed corners. It had been too long since his last grapple. Two months ago, he accepted invitations from Ossian’s sailors to wrestle. He proceeded to scrub the deck with their teeth until Ossian called a halt and cursed him to the sea god for three days.

"So?" Einar drawled. "How was your time in the Lesser Isles? I missed your first and second deliveries here because of assignments."

Henrik shrugged. “Don't worry about it. We unloaded in the morning and took off by the evening."

Einar laughed. "A year cut off from Stenberg, with the sea spray in your face, gathering jord for your people. Sounds idyllic to me."

"I hate sea spray," Henrik muttered.

Einar laughed harder, a hand on his stomach, but Henrik struggled to share the levity. Britt. The dragul. His conversation with Brodin. Einar’s edge when speaking about Oliver. Nothing stacked up. Henrik drew in a breath, attempting to tell his story, but he didn't know where to start. He trusted Einar with his life, but too many other soldats surrounded them. He couldn't speak about the dragul here.

"How is Stenberg?" Henrik asked instead. Whatever Einar said first would be the better reflection of real updates.

"Fine."

"Oh?"

He spoke too evenly when he said, "Threats from the mainland, of course, but aren't there always?"

No , Henrik thought. Not always.

Henrik casually returned his hand to his pocket to confirm the dragul hadn't skittered off. The creature growled, nipping the tip of his finger. Henrik had a sip of mead, but the hint of honey tasted like ash.

“What kind of threats?" Henrik asked.

"I don’t know."

“His Glory is normally too happy to pontificate over the mainland’s ill temper.”

Einar snorted, said, "Exactly,” and pawed a hand through the air, ready to dismiss the topic. That was Einar. Quickly bored, unless he had a weapon.

Crescendos arose from the grappling ring. One had the other pinned. Muscular forearms held a black-haired soldat, Vilhelm, in check, refusing to grant freedom. After an impressive struggle, Vilhelm’s eyes rolled back. His flailing ceased, arms went slack. The victor, a soldat Henrik didn’t know, jumped to his feet. Guffaws rang out.

Einar tilted his head toward the ring. “His name is Vilhelm. Entered official service from the training camp the month you left as reefer. The bastid is an arrogant piece of work, but a solid grappler. He thinks he can beat you.”

Amusement trickled through Henrik at the thought. While Vilhelm had good form—based on the few glimpses Henrik managed to see—the man wasn’t ready for advanced grappling yet. Einar gave him a quizzical expression.

"Weren't you supposed to get two weeks off?"

Henrik nodded.

"Will you?"

He shook his head.

Einar paused, exhaled sharply, as the realization sank into understanding. Only Einar knew Henrik’s motivation to find Selma, and his plan to accept the two weeks and search. Irritation streaked Einar’s response.

“Sorry, brother. That's . . . unfortunate. Demmed frustrating, too. After a year on the Isles, you earned those two weeks. And . . . ”

Einar trailed off.

“Thanks.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Einar hissed. “Soldats get nothing. No vacation. No payment. We’re enslaved to His Glory, only held with different chains, and demmed for it.” He shook his head. “It was bearable with Arvid around. Even a few years ago, when Oliver, the bastid, didn’t fade all power to His Glory so easily. Oliver stopped caring about us, and now we can’t even take a day off.”

While Einar stewed in his fury and new grapplers entered the ring, Henrik's focus returned to the dragul, plagued by new worries after Einar’s melodramatic speech. According to information gleaned during his time at the lesser Kapurnickkian isles, the draguls were a fragile race. The old man, Yolf, mumbled something about a sickness, but followed it up with a hasty, everything is fine .

This male dragul was a prime bargaining chip, yet he couldn’t help wondering what might happen to the dragul if Captain Oliver found out?

As his bonded person, would Britt suffer if Oliver took him away? Vague details about the power of a dragul bonding filtered through Henrik’s mind, but he couldn’t put a certain finger on any of them.

Across the room, Timmer shouted, “Henrik! You next?"

"Next time,” Henrik called.

Groans littered the room. Einar smirked, and had a sip of mead. "You're too out of practice to hold your crown as reigning grappling champion, Henrik?"

"I will defeat all of you in my sleep."

“Glad to see you haven’t lost all your piss and vinegar.” Einar grinned, held up his mead in salute. “The annual grappling tournament is in a few days. We held it off in anticipation of your arrival.”

“I’m honored.”

Einar chuckled outright. “You’re going down, old man.”

"You're the same age as me, bastid.”

"But in sheer talent and raw charm,” Einar retorted with impressive bravado, "I'm twice your age."

Chortling, the conversation broke from these brittle shards, steering to soldat gossip and updates on Agnes. Henrik mentally tucked away his concerns for the dragul, rising frustration with returning to Stenberg, and all that lay unknown.

At this moment, he couldn't change anything. He forced himself to relax and soak in Einar’s welcome camaraderie. He’d missed his brother-in-arms.

A slow-growing plan formed in the back of his mind. Cogitating ideas had solidified into streams of thought. One that kept his hope to find Selma moving forward, while dealing with the butterfly-sized complication in his pocket.

* * *

Hours later, Henrik strode down the cobblestone road that wound through the Quarters, toward the tucked-away soldat village. Two burlap bags dangled at his side: one full of food, the other contained clothes.

Both would be the keys to his success.

Old Man sat on his perch and nodded as he rose the portcullis to allow Henrik inside. Regret motivated Henrik to move faster. The sun spirited quickly toward the afternoon. He shouldn't have spent that much time with Einar while Britt waited in his cottage, but he couldn’t help himself.

Separating a dragul and its bonded keeper was no meager problem.

Granted, Britt had spunk in spades. She didn't lack internal fire to fight her own battles, and a few hours wouldn’t kill either of them. Hopefully, in the intervening time, she hadn't done something stupid.

He braced himself.

As his cottage came into view, he slowed. Britt might be his only chance to find Selma, if there was anything of her to find. The possibility that Selma existed in records wasn't unfounded. His Glory loved written praise to his holy name, and records were a natural result. But what if not?

What if Henrik remembered wrong?

Soldats didn't wander into the Archives every day, asking for census records. The Sisters of Stenberg might even track what he searched through and inform Oliver. Weirder things had happened, though he couldn't fathom that an archivist cared.

Not that it mattered, thanks to the confounded cleansing.

A trembling snout poked out of the fabric and into the air, sniffing. Ah, the dragul smelled his bonded. Henrik braced himself again, recalling Britt's quick wit and stolid determination to not betray herself. Her impressive courage was equally irritating.

The door flew open.

Fury awaited.

Britt's sparkling eyes and half-bared teeth brought to mind a wild banshee from the Corsican isles. Her clothes had dried into creased folds. Her pallor spoke to deepest stress, perhaps sickness.

Tears glimmered in her eyes when she wrenched out, "Where. Is. My. Dragul?"

Henrik gently extracted Denerfen.

"I come with a peace offering, and a proposal,” he said. “Hear me out, and then you can decide if you stay or go."