As a sentinel in Duenn Manor’s militia, she’d trained with weapons and ridden patrols but had never fought, never struck anyone with naked steel, although a few times the troop had chased frightened and desperate people out of Duenn territory. As a deputy courier, she’d walked with a measure of protection, mostly because she carried nothing valuable for brigands, except her boots and hardy garments, and also because, in the early years of his intendancy, the intendant had made it brutally clear, with a series of public executions, that his officials were not to be tampered with. It was a lesson he’d never had to repeat. Imperial couriers walked with the “shield” of the empire on their backs because couriers were a crucial element in the empire’s control of its vast territories.

Over the years, she’d learned to cope with the trauma she’d survived, each incident bad enough in its own particular way. Open a chest, set the memories inside, and close the lid.

She’d not been prepared for facing death in this specifically brutal way.

Her thoughts kept skittering back to the falling bodies, to the screams, to the blood on Jirvy’s tabard. To the dying man on the shore. To the smoky emanation, coming from the haunt, that she hadn’t been able to see clearly. Their pursuers hadn’t really had a chance, had they? The haunt had enjoyed unleashing his power. Whatever that power was. What if part of his power was the charm he turned on her, the rascal smile, the sardonic wit, the ease with which he engaged with her and lured her in.

He was a puzzle, truly. Dangerous and unknowable. Yet so alluring.

Ought she to fear him? She couldn’t find it in herself to do so.

Life had an odd sense of humor.

Where the steps reached the tableland, she spotted campfires against the lowering dusk and made her way toward the light.

The others had set up camp on a slab of bedrock amid an undulation of boulders worn away by eons of wind and rain. They had built a campfire at each cardinal direction, with room to sleep inside. It was standard wilderness camping protocol for surveyors or couriers or anyone caught outside a protective ring, whether that ring be a Halt or some manner of water-filled moat or ditch. Stone and fire were the best protection if there was nothing else.

Four fires burned. Xilsi and Kem were clearing out any scraps of plants that might attract Spore. Ipis quartered the ground using her shrive-steel sword for signs of the deadly substance.

Elen took in a deep breath, seeking any sign of Spore, but felt and smelled nothing. There was no Spore nearby, not that she could sniff out.

Luviara sat cross-legged on a ground cloth, writing in her journal.