“I’ve gotten used to it.” There was a horrific fascination with seeing her own body mutilated. Serien wondered if she felt so calm because even her body didn’t feel like hers. Nothing belonged to her anymore, not even her name.

“No, this is bad.” Daniel rummaged through his pack. “I need to go to a cleric.”

“No!” She gripped his wrist. “They’ll ask questions.”

“No, they won’t.” Daniel assured her. “Serien, you’re no one. I’m mostly no one. Soldiers get hurt all the time. Stop worrying.” He rested a palm on her head and quickly departed.

Serien struggled with the emotions silently warring in her that followed his absence: guilt, shame, pain, exhaustion, and relief. She was happy not to be alone.

Daniel re-bandaged her leg and refused to train with her for a week after that. She spent most of the time making up lost hours of sleep. As soon as his tent was erected, she disappeared and hid from the world. In the darkness she didn’t have to be Serien or Vhalla. She could be no one, and that was the only thing that brought her peace enough to close her eyes.

Patrols and sentries were increased around the host, but there weren’t any further attacks. The march toward the North seemed so peaceful that it was unnerving. The soldiers were beginning to bore, and with their boredom came gossip.

“I hear he finally started taking her to his tent again.” The chatty one next to Serien had been very excited for this particular piece of gossip.

“Who?”

“The crown prince and the Windwalker. Who else?”

Serien glanced in the direction of the talking soldiers.

“But I hear he’s going through twice his usual spirits.”

“Enough for him and her?”

“Well I can’t blame her. I’d have to be out of my mind drunk to even think of sleeping with the Fire Lord!” They all laughed.

She wondered how Vhalla Yarl had been so deaf to their words. But those words stayed with her. They stayed until she practiced with Daniel that night, letting them go through her gradually less clumsy swings and footwork.

“You’re getting better, you know,” he encouraged as they rested side-by-side later.

“Am I?” She rolled to face him.

“You are.” He smiled.

Serien did something she hadn’t yet done. She smiled in reply.

The expression melted from Daniel’s lips as he stared at her, as if realizing the same thing. “Vh-Serien,” he corrected himself, remembering how she had pleaded for him not to the last time he’d used her name. It took away Serien’s strength and reminded her of all the things that were broken in the world. Being Serien was becoming easier.

“Yes?”

“May I touch you?”