“I made my choice to return,” Padric said. “To leave again would seem like weakness.”

“Returning was weakness. Fafnir asked you to stay and help him.” She watched his jaw clench again. “Who here asked you to return?”

A smirk cracked his frown. “Certainly not you, you flippant piskie.”

“I did not need to. I knew you would be back.” She leaned forward. “Now eat this. I am tired of holding it,” she said, stuffing the honeycomb past his lips.

Padric tested the edge of the seax with his thumb and frowned. It could use some attention from a whetstone, but there was no time. He wanted to be gone before the sun set. It was dangerous sleeping out in the wilds, but Padric feared finding himself still in the village come the dawn more than he did anything that may wait out in the dark. He had made up his mind to leave and somehow it was easier to depart with the dying light. Mornings were too stark, too real and tempting with false promises of fresh intentions. It was better to leave now. Let the night swallow this place as he turned his back on it forever.

He had slept out before on herd watches and sometimes with Rosheen for no reason at all. It was not a comfortable way to spend a night, for certain, and the prospect filled Padric with a healthy dose of caution. He turned the big knife over in his hand, relieved that it would be with him. Padric had worked with tools all his life, but the seax was the first he had ever possessed that was not meant to turn soil, cut turf, or break stone. It was a stout fighting knife, wide bladed and well balanced. From blade tip to pommel, the weapon was longer than his forearm and hand combined. And it was steel. Not the crude, heavy, black iron that the warriors from the fort wielded, no, this metal was smoke colored and light, seeming to shine with an inner fire.

Padric had worn the blade for close to a month so that he might better protect Fafnir’s goods and grown used to the weight of it on his belt. Secretly he had nursed the hope that he could one day barter it from Fafnir. Padric remembered his surprise when the dwarf had insisted he keep the knife after their journey had ended. After all, he had refused the peddler’s offer to journey further and such generosity made Padric feel shameful. Fafnir simply told him he would need it if he was to journey home alone and went back to tightening the bags on Ingot’s back. It had only made Padric feel worse about his choice.