A note rests where she left my dress earlier, in perfectly curled handwriting;

When you return, join me at the shooting range. I’ve planned a lovely picnic.

I snort. How noble of her—a picnic, while I was being eaten by a valkerax in the pitch dark. The Y’shennria in my head insists I change into a proper dress from Varia’s younger closet to look presentable, but I push the thought away. The last thing I want is to look presentable. The uglier and wilder, the better.

So I make it a point to smile and bow at every noble on my way down to the shooting range—the garden full of them at this beautiful time of twilit night. The nobles have the good sense to make sure their whispers don’t reach me, this time. This time, they have obviously been warned of me—peering over hedges and bushes to get a good look at the indignity I’m perpetrating on their grounds.

Because the gardens are so full, the shooting range is nearly abandoned. The groundskeeper circles around the range’s brightly colored targets far out in the field, adding fresh coats of paint with a horsehair brush. One can tell where the princess is by the entourage of guards—even being the crown princess can’t free her from the king’s worried order to protect his daughter lest she disappear again.

I follow the glint of armor faithfully. There, on the edge of the range where the woods begin, is Varia, seated on a striped blanket with a dizzying array of fruits and wines and pastries laid out before her. And, to my surprise, she has a guest.

I watch as the crown princess raises her hand, tucking a strand of stray mouse-curls behind Fione’s ear. I watch, too, as Fione’s face alights with a rosy blush, a smile pulling her face like the petals of a blooming flower. I’ve never—not once—seen her so honestly happy. She’s not giving the sardonic little kitten-smiles she used to give but truly, brilliantly happy ones.

“Zera,” Fione breathes out softly upon seeing me, her cornflower blue eyes widening at the state of my tunic, her rosy cheeks and smile vanishing all at once. I’ve done nothing but rob people of their smiles lately. It’s a shame she has to see me like this, all bloodied, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

Varia notices me then, too, but her smile doesn’t fade. Their hands are joined on Fione’s lap, but they part instantly, and I feel more than a little sorry for interrupting their clear affection. Fione scrabbles with the thing they were holding together—the beautiful gold-kissed dagger lined with rings of sapphires and pearls. She shoves it into a scabbard on her hip. That’s the dagger Fione would admire when talking about Varia.