She turned in a whirl of effervescent skirts and walked away towards the tree line.

Melanna shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

Ashana halted. One palm pressed to the trunk of a silver birch, she shot a small smile back at Melanna. “Then you should work on that. But I do wish you hadn’t lost my sword. I was fond of that sword.”

Then she was gone, lost to the trees.

The mists rose, and the dream fell away.

Viktor rode until his limbs were weary and his skin chafed. Until he no longer felt jolts of pain from jostled wounds. But unfamiliar desperation grew with every tussock and crag that passed away beneath his horse’s hooves. Unfamiliar, and unwelcome.

The irony wasn’t lost on him. He’d lectured Josiri for acting as a man, and not as a leader. But it was all hypocrisy. For all that Viktor told himself he sought Calenne out of a leader’s responsibility – after all, he’d encouraged her to take the field of battle – he was forced to admit that the concern driving him was entirely other. He sought Calenne not out of duty, but from fear for her safety. From the knowledge that her loss diminished the vibrancy of his world.

Why? A hard question to answer. Viktor’s best guess was that though she’d better reason than any to fear him, Calenne did not. He admired her for that – no less for the courage and forthrightness she’d shown in other matters.

Respect had grown between them, and Viktor couldn’t now judge for certain if he’d have made half of his recent efforts without her by his side. He hoped so, but unpicking motivation in hindsight was ever an uncertain chore. In a few short days, Calenne had inveigled her way into his life, though only the prospect of her loss had made that truth apparent.

So easy to see how Kasamor had been ensnared. Viktor only hoped that he too had not perceived affection where none existed. And that the span of years between them would not prove an obstacle all its own. Arranged marriage often bridged decades, but seldom with warmth. But those troubles, at least, could wait. The man remained enough the leader to recognise that Calenne’s life, and not the burden of her heart, mattered most.

And so Viktor rode far and wide. He walked among the dead. His heart quavered with every glimpse of a phoenix tabard, only to settle before the cold face of a stranger. He spoke with wayfarers, sentries and the fitful stream of wounded making moonlit return to camp on stretcher or wagon. Though many recalled the Phoenix, none had seen her.