Diaval took a deep breath, covering her nose and mouth with her non-maggot-holding hand, and dropped the creature onto the wound. She then accepted a strip of the bandage cloth that Rosamund offered to her and tied it around her thigh before pulling her pants back up. When she was finally free of her duty, her hands shook rapidly.

“The maggot will eat the dead skin but leave the living. We’ll need to check it out in case it tries to breed, but at least it won’t let necrosis settle in,” Lydian said. “Also someone needs to carry her. She can’t walk on the leg, and maybe once we get there, she’ll have more energy for magic, but she’ll still be scooting on her arse all during the fight.”

I was cold all over. If I lost Diaval—I couldn’t lose Diaval. Not her too. Not my best friend. The weight of a ton of boulders sat on my chest—a feeling I’d been having often lately—I couldn’t protect my partner, I couldn’t protect my friend. It was pathetic.

Please, let her be okay. I prayed to whatever deity might hear me and dare to care.

Rose nodded and gently picked both Diaval and her pack up, positioning her so that she clung to his shoulders, reminiscent of the piggyback rides my father gave me as a kid. He took a strap of the bag and looped it around the arm opposite to her injured flesh before he hooked her damaged leg into his arm so that it neither hung free nor bore any weight.

Then, much like all the other delays, we continued on until the horizon turned into a swirl of red and white, and Lydian declared we were finally there.

WITH THIS ONE night between us and battle, sleep was crucial, but even curled up together, no one managed any shut-eye. There were the sharp gasps of pain from Diaval, and Lydian’s clockwork-like checking of her wound every hour. Seppo hung onto Rose, and I turned my head away to give them privacy when things between them got a little too hot. I lay alone, staring at the quiver and bow Soren left behind and wishing it were really him and his large, warm body that I could cry into.