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The bow swept past his head, close enough for him to feel the wind in his hair. Bjir hopped back, leaning away, weaving around the jabs.
“What’s that grin for?” Fendhur asked as he watched him dance away, a glint of good-humour in his eyes despite his stern expression and the slight gruffness of his voice, sounding strained from the constant movement but by no means winded, “you haven’t even hit me yet.” As if to underscore his words he followed them up with another flurry of attacks, forcing Bjir to retreat another step, leaves rustling underfoot, but he always kept just out of reach.
The weather was balmy and pleasant for once, the sky above the forest canopy was blue and their earlier hunt had been successful putting fresh meat on the menu. What wasn’t there to smile about? That, and he enjoyed sparring. It was one of their usual training exercises, and the goal was simple; he had to hit his mentor, preferably without being hit himself. Going through these sessions had been worse in the beginning after he first left the village, getting constantly prodded and whacked, but the better he got at it the more fun it became. Now it was a challenge he knew he could win. Fendhur might be a more experienced fighter, stronger, almost as fast, but Bjir was a smaller target. All he needed was an opening.
He put his weight on his left foot then dashed right, and Fendhur answered with another quick thrust, but this time Bjir was prepared for it. Ducking nimbly under the bow he slipped around to the side to come up behind him, his grin growing wider.
The elbow caught him on the nose, just a glancing blow, but it was still enough to make the world flash white for an instant, pain exploding across his face. He staggered back, narrowly avoiding the next blow half by luck and half by instinct with another stumbling step, the weapon rushing past him in a blur. Blood spilled in a warm ticklish stream down his mouth and chin but he promptly ignored it, snorting hard to try and clear his nostrils then immediately regretted it as another stab of pain flared up behind his nose, his eyes, set his entire face throbbing.
Bjir just about managed to recover his wits, frantically blinking the mist from his eyes and shifting his weight to feign left again when a cry far in the distance grabbed his attention. Both Viera stopped what they were doing mid-motion, straightened up in almost perfect unison with their long ears pricked and twisting in the direction of the sound.
You had to learn to read the forest if you wanted to survive in it—to hear her voice. It was in every little thing, the beasts and the wind and the brook; a rustle or a snapping twig. Some of it was just noise, of course, but some of it could be a matter of life and death, even if they more often than not went toward it rather than away. They were there to protect the forest after all, not to hide in it.
The shrill, distant bird call was followed by another, slightly different one; several species alerting their kin of a potential threat. That something unknown was moving through the wood.
“Clean the blood off your face,” Fendhur told him briefly, snatching his quiver from where it leaned against a young tree growing in a sliver of sunlight, “we’re moving.” And with that he was off at a light run, not even giving a backward glance to see if he followed. Not that he needed to. The grin was back on Bjir’s face.
He grabbed his bow swiftly in passing, barely slowing down to wipe his bloody mouth on the corner of his bedroll before traversing the dead campfire in one long, leaping stride, hitting the ground already running.
- - -
It didn’t take long for them to pick up their trail. Bjir would have liked to claim it was due to his tracking prowess, but in truth skill had had very little to do with it. Trampled plants, scuffed roots, rocks with the moss damaged or whole clumps of it simply scraped clean off. If anything it was hard to miss.
They followed the tracks to a small sun-dappled clearing where their quarry had stopped to mill about, perhaps for a moment’s rest, or to get their bearings, before the trail continued in one distinct direction again, heading east, deeper into the forest. Bjir squatted down next to the tracks for a closer look, while Fendhur hanged back to observe him and their surroundings.
“How many?”
“I’ve counted four,” the younger Viera said, pointing out the individual footprints loosely with a finger, “one of them slightly smaller than the rest. By the weight they don’t appear to be heavily armoured, either. Except ...” He gestured at a print sunk deeply into the humus. “These ones were made by someone considerably heavier, yet the size is roughly the same.”
“So one of them might be well-armoured, you’d say?”
“Or carrying a heavy load,” Bjir said and stood back up, brushing a few pure white strands from his eyes and adjusting his quiver. “But they are sticking closely together, and judging by the way they’re moving, I’d definitely not peg them as scouts.”
“Agreed,” Fendhur replied succinctly, passing him to take point. “We proceed with caution.”
They didn’t need to go far before picking up the faint sound of voices, standing out as a sore thumb against the familiar, ambient susurrus of the forest in early summer. Fendhur had them stalking the group at a distance through the underbrush, just near enough to catch glimpses of them between the trees, to listen to them debating which direction was south while making their winding way in a north-eastern direction.
Besides the occasional alarmed bird the forest was calm. For now the wildlife seemed to keep its distance, perhaps spooked by the intrusion. But it was only a matter of time before the bolder ones would start to take more interest in them. And that would only complicate things. They had to finish this quickly, before drawing too much unwanted attention.
As soon as the group showed signs of stopping again Fendhur signalled immediately that they were splitting up. He gestured for Bjir to flank them and find a good vantage, to cover him and cut off their escape, then held his eye for a long moment to make sure he understood.
It was a common tactic, and Bjir knew well what was expected of him, but Fendhur clearly wasn’t taking any chances today. Facing four people of unknown skill and equipment meant striking from the shadows might be the only way they could win, the element of surprise their only advantage. Bjir felt a giddy rush of excitement that filled him with an adrenaline fuelled, restless kind of energy. He knew the risks, what it meant should they fail, but he also trusted Fendhur with his life. Believed in his own abilities. And he was eager to prove them; to his mentor, and to himself.
“Stay well out of sight,” the Wood-warder spoke low, slipping his bow over his head, “and do not act before I tell you.”
Bjir gave a firm nod, already moving, and with that he was off.
The forest felt like a different place when he was alone. It engulfed him, his senses sharpened to an even keener edge. Each step stirred up a rich, musty scent of earth, of decaying leaves and dark soil. The trees grew tall here, competing with each other for the sun’s rays and leaving the forest floor in near-perpetual shade. But here and there some light still managed to filter down to the ground, nourishing the next generation of saplings.
He kept low, vaulting silently over fallen trees and ducking through tunnels of wild, ancient tangles, ears folded back over his head not to catch on gnarled and knobbly branches. Moving quickly and soundlessly through this terrain was something that came as second nature to him; he had been practising it since he was a kit playing hide-and-seek on the outskirts of the village.
With their voices plucking at the fringes of his focus, constantly letting him know where they were, he slipped around the group to get into position before cautiously starting to creep closer, picking out a suitable tree. He leapt for the first branch, using the hooked claws on the toes of his boots to dig into the trunk and propel himself higher, ascending smoothly one branch at a time. Pulling himself up onto a sturdy bough he anchored his leg securely around it before shrugging his shortbow from his shoulder, twisting his torso slightly so that he would have free range to draw.
From up here he had an excellent view of the group below, high enough to be hard to spot but close enough to see his targets clearly. Bjir recognised them easily as Hyur. Their appearance wasn’t that different from Viera, except for the peculiar lack of ears atop their heads. On closer inspection it looked like he had been partially wrong in his tracking, as there were actually five of them. One of the men, broad-shouldered and with streaks of grey running through his beard, was carrying an old woman on his back. Considering none of them were armoured, however, that would also explain the deeper set of footprints, which in a sense also made him right.
Reaching back he ran his fingers up along the fletching, pinching the end of the arrow between them to slide it hissing from the quiver. He nocked it and raised his bow in one slow, deliberate motion, putting some light tension on the string and taking aim at the group below before he let out a low, trilling whistle, mimicking a birdcall to let Fendhur know he was ready.
Awaiting the signal he finally took in the scene before him more closely, keeping his aim fluid as he decided on a target. Besides the Hyur with the beard carrying the elder there were two men, one older and one much younger, and another woman. The smaller tracks probably belonged to her. She was gravitating towards the middle of the group, seemed the most anxious, her arms coiled protectively around something. It wasn’t until a moment later that he realised that the bundle she was clutching was a kit, a small head of dark fuzzy hair barely showing over the wrap that tied it to her chest, two chubby legs protruding from the bottom. The sight gave him pause, his aim faltering before swiftly moving to another target.
He was almost as surprised as they were when he suddenly saw Fendhur emerging from the shadows between the trees, bow trained at the group. That wasn’t part of the plan! Bjir quickly drew the bowstring back towards the corner of his mouth with a steady hand despite his heart leaping into his throat, the curved wood creaking faintly. But he still waited for the signal.
As soon as the old man spotted the approaching Viera the colour drained from his deeply furrowed face, arms shooting up, but it was the man with the beard who was the first one to speak. “Pray don’t shoot!” he cried, taking a seemingly instinctive step in front of the others as if to shield them, even if he had the elderly woman on his back and couldn’t even raise his hands. “We’ve no weapons!”
“Explain your intentions,” the Wood-warder demanded, his voice and aim level. He sounded calm, looked calm, but also deadly serious.
The man hesitated. “We have no intentions besides finding passage through the forest.”
“This is Veena land,” Fendhur told them plainly. “There is no passage through this forest.”
“As you can see we are no fighters,” the old matriarch spoke up, her tone and gaze meeting the Viera’s earnestly. “We entered the wood to hide from Imperial patrols,” she explained, “thinking we could follow the edge of it south to avoid getting spotted. But the terrain forced us ever deeper until we found ourselves turned around, and lost.” She shook her head slowly. “I assure you, we have no more intention of disturbing this land than we have any desire to be corralled by the Empire.”
There was a subtle change in Fendhur’s stance as he lowered his bow, his light brown locks settling about his shoulders. “You speak for these people?”
Up in the tree Bjir followed his mentor’s cue, and was more than a little grateful for it too as by now his arm had started to tremble pretty badly from the effort of holding the bow fully drawn. But he kept his weapon in hand and at the ready, gently rolling some life back into his shoulder as he observed them through the sparse foliage.
“I can try. My name is Rhonda, and this is Leigh,” the old woman said, patting the man carrying her lightly with her fingers where she was holding on to him. “I have no authority over them, but we are all in the same boat. And we want the same thing: to find our way back out in one piece.”
Several heartbeats passed as Fendhur regarded her gravely. “Even if you knew the way you would never make it far,” he said finally. “Not in the shape you are all in.”
She gave the imposing Wood-warder a tired smile. “What choice do we have but to try?”
Fendhur expelled a soft breath through his nose, as if he’d just made up his mind. “What of injuries?” he asked. “You are unable to walk?”
“It’s only temporary. I took a wrong step. By the grace of the Father it’s only a sprain, but bad enough that I cannot stand on it.” She turned slightly to the others, and Leigh shifted so that she could see them more easily as she gestured toward the old man. “Owin also has a wound on his forehead we haven’t been able to treat. But most of all we are all tired. The road has not been kind, even before the forest swallowed us.”
Fendhur’s gaze roamed the group before settling back on Rhonda. “Regardless, we cannot stay here. The only option as I see it is that you come back to camp with us, and we can discuss things further there.”
The silence stretched for a long moment, but when she finally spoke her tone was uncertain. “Forgive me ... I don’t understand?”
In the background the old man had long since lowered his arms, in fact he had lowered his entire person, sitting on a stone while the other two, the younger man and the woman stood near him. But everyone’s attention was fixed on Fendhur.
“As outsiders I cannot let you wander these forests as you please,” he said, speaking plainly and to the point, as if he was already one step ahead in his mind and moving forward, though he did not rush his words. “But nor will I strike down those who are unarmed, pose no threat and harbour no ill intent towards these lands or my people.” With that the Wood-warder looked to the trees and let out several sharp whistles in quick succession, pitch rising and falling with each note, signalling to Bjir that the coast was clear.
The Hyur, of course, were ignorant to the meaning of the call, but his words were not lost on them. Rhonda dipped her head deeply in acknowledgement. “I know I speak for all of us when I say you have our deepest gratitude,” she started, but then paused as if on a sudden realisation. “Did you say ‘us’?”
Bjir supposed that in this context the call meant that it was time for him to come out of hiding. Shouldering his bow and taking the arrow between his teeth to free up his hands he slid down from his perch, his clawed boots finding purchase on the branch below. He climbed down nimbly but carefully, rough bark and bristly lichen scratching against his palms and fingers, before dropping down to land nearly soundlessly on the soft earth below.
There was a slight twinge of apprehension as he made his way to the group, not because he feared them as much as because he was treading unknown ground. But even more than wary, he felt a flutter of curiosity. He had watched outsiders from a distance, and he had seen their corpses up close, but he had never met one face-to-face before.
As he came into view all eyes turned to him, the Hyur’s lips parting slightly in shock and incomprehension, but it only lasted for a moment.
Fendhur clapped a reassuring hand down on his shoulder. “I’m Fendhur, and this is my ward. Whatever gratitude you feel towards me should be extended to him, he’s had you in his sights all this time,” he said looking over the group, before turning his brown eyes to Bjir. “Bring up the rear; make sure nothing sneaks up on us.” The Wood-warder studied his face, patting his shoulder a few more times before withdrawing his hand. “And well done today.”
- - -
Progress back to camp was considerably slower than it would have been with just the two of them. Fendhur didn’t force a fast tempo, but he kept the group moving without pause. The outsiders walked mostly in silence, or exchanged a few words in low tones, but the mood hanging over the group was by no means heavy. If anything there was a sense of tired relief about them, as if being able to stumble blindly along and relying on someone else to lead the way had finally allowed them to acknowledge how drained they actually were.
Bjir mostly paid attention to their surroundings while making sure there were no stragglers—or creatures trying to pick them off. At first he was alone in the back, the Hyur sticking close together, but as time wore on the woman with the kit inadvertently started to match his pace more and more, until they eventually walked almost side-by-side.
Her blonde hair had been swept back, exposing the side of her face, and what he could only assume was an ear. Up close the gentle curve and soft, hairless folds of it reminded him of some kind of tree-growing fungus. He glanced down at the kit sitting in a pouch of fabric on her chest, wondering if it had the same kind of ears on its head beneath that blanket or if they grew out later. And what it would look like on something so small ...
“Her name is Adeline,” the woman said suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, though likely she had just noticed him peeking and figured he was curious. “Addie, after her father’s mother,” she explained. “It’s what he would have wanted. Even if he hasn’t even met her ...”
Bjir let go of the bow with one hand to waft away a particularly persistent fly. He didn’t know what to say. He had never met his father either, as far as he knew, and it had never really bothered him. It was just how things worked, wasn’t it? But she didn’t seem to think so by the sad smile on her face as she regarded the little bundle in her arms.
She stroked the kit’s dark hair gently with her thumb as she continued, and it stirred very slightly, uttering a low, sleepy sound. “The Garleans, they took him from me before she was even born. Conscription, can you believe it? Shipped him off to Sun knows where to fight for them. For them, when they are the ones who invaded us..!”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” he said, even though he didn’t fully understand what she meant. It just felt like the right thing to say. He never thought very much about the world outside the forest, there was enough to take care of and learn here that anything else seemed excessive. Outsiders came to them, and they dealt with it, what else was there to know? Fendhur was different, he and Hafnir could talk for hours about rumours they heard about the lands outside. He’d tell Bjir that it was important, because they were of the same world. What happened out there would, eventually, affect them too. Bjir used to listen with half an ear to their long discussions, because he was supposed to, but he rarely committed any of it to memory. It just didn’t feel real, somehow, too far away to really matter. This woman, though, was very real. She reminded him of some of the women he had known growing up, back when he still lived with them in the village.
“Ah, no I should probably be the one to say that, introducing us in such a way,” she amended with a slight apologetic look. “It’s just ... What I wanted to say was ... Thank you, for helping us.” Addie let out a muffled mewl, fussing, and her mother patted her bottom, bouncing her gently in her arms in an idle almost unconscious kind of way. “For helping her. She’s not had an easy start in life.” The woman gave him a small smile that still reached her eyes. “I’m Syngve.”
“Bjir.”
He quickly decided against telling her that the reason they had found them in the first place was to kill them. The memory of aiming his arrow at the pair summoned up a pinprick of guilt at the back of his mind. He was glad it hadn’t turned out that way; that Fendhur had been there to make the choice for him. That it had been this choice that he made.
“Bjir,” she repeated, trying it on her tongue. There was a gentle lilt to her speech, the same as they all seemed to have, and it lent his name a melodic a kind of softness he wasn’t used to. Though he didn’t necessarily dislike it.
She turned from him to the others, nodding her head in their direction. “That’s Leigh, and Rhonda. She hurt her ankle, that’s why he’s carrying her,” she explained, continuing the introductions obviously unaware that he had been privy to their entire conversation earlier with Fendhur. Lifting a hand slightly off Addie’s back she pointed at the two remaining Hyur. “The one on the left is Owin, and next to him is Theobald, his grandson. He used to work as a farmhand in the next village over, before the Garleans burned the farm down.”
Bjir looked towards them as he walked, listening while keeping one eye and ear on the forest around them. He hadn’t given it much thought before but the one called Owin had a bandage wrapped around his forehead, the front of it blotchy and stained where the blood had soaked through the fabric. Theobald was holding on to his elbow firmly, supporting him on the uneven ground. The younger man had a mop of brown hair, short but thick, and what Bjir thought was a kind, handsome face. He hadn’t seen him smile yet, but he looked like he would have a very nice one.
Then it was his turn to feel Syngve’s eyes on him. “Can I ask you ...” she said, gently probing, “what happened to your face?”
“Oh.” Bjir reached up to scratch at the crusty edge of his nostril, the nail coming back the brownish red of dried blood. He had almost forgotten about that. “Fendhur caught me with his elbow,” he replied, almost laughing at the memory as he prodded the bridge of his nose, pinching it gingerly. It was still a little bit tender, but it wasn’t too bad.
She followed his gaze to Fendhur’s back, up at the front of the group, but when she spoke next the volume of her voice, as well as the pitch, had lowered significantly. “He hit you?”
Bjir blinked a few times, taken aback by the sudden seriousness in her tone. He hadn’t expected that kind of reaction from her at all. “Yes, or no not like ... We were sparring,” he tried to explain, but Syngve didn’t seem to fully understand, still looking unconvinced, so he quickly added, “training.”
“Ah-hah, like that ...”
“Speaking of training,” Fendhur threw back calmly over his shoulder, evidently having been listening to their conversation. “My legs. You should have gone for them straight away, to throw me off balance, instead of trying to get me from behind.”
“See?” Bjir said to her, daring a small grin. “A lesson well learned.”
- - -
The camp looked more or less like they had left it, some things slightly shuffled around, as if inspected by some curious critter. As soon as they arrived Leigh moved to set Rhonda down by an old fallen tree so that she could rest her back against it, and Bjir hurried to help so that she wouldn’t fall again having only one good leg to support her. Taking her hand he was surprised at how firm her grip was. Despite the frail appearance and marks of old age her hands were rather big, broad, and strong. She smiled at him as she managed to sit with a small huff, squeezing his hand back before releasing it.
“Thank you,” she said to them both, leaning back, “that was quite an ordeal, and I didn’t even have to walk.” There was an unmistakably humorous note in her tone, a glint in her eyes, and it coaxed a wide grin from the grizzled Hyur.
“Don’t mention it,” Leigh replied and sat down on the trunk next to her, “I had worse carrying sacks of grain for the brewery, and you’re light as a feather.”
With that Fendhur came over and squatted down, one of their bedrolls wrapped up into a bundle to place gently under her foot to elevate it. “I’ll have a closer look soon,” he told her and pushed himself up with his hands on his knees, “let me just see to that head wound first.”
Bjir made himself scarce. Treating wounds had never been his thing. It wasn’t the blood, really, because he wasn’t very squeamish. But he knew what it felt like, being on the other side of it. And seeing others go through that sometimes made him feel a bit queasy. Besides, he had other things he should be doing, and Fendhur hardly needed his help.
Instead he put the remaining daylight to good use and went to fetch their earlier kill where they had left it a short distance away from the camp, up in a tree and hopefully well out of reach for any gedan or other hungry beastkin.
The animal had already been field dressed so all he had to do was skin it before going to wash the carcass in the nearby stream, along with his own bloody face. The meltwater from the mountains was freezing—his fingers went almost numb from it—though also undeniably refreshing splashed onto his face and neck, dribbling down his scalp between his ears. But today it wasn’t just his hands that were tingling. Sweeping his wet hair from his eyes he paused to listen. The Hyur may have been tired, but they weren’t idle, and it was strange hearing all those unfamiliar voices so close, sensing the movement behind him, the buzz of activity. Since Fendhur picked him up from the village nearly three summers ago they had only had each other for company. They still met other Wood-warders occasionally, Hafnir mostly, but it had been several moons since the last time that happened. And he was starting to get used to having no one else around, to the relative silence; the lack of spoken words. Hearing them now made him realise he missed it.
When he finally returned to camp he was greeted with a few smiles, but that might just have been the sight of the meat he brought with him. The fire had already been built and lit, not exactly in the way he would have done it but it was burning well, and Leigh helped him skewer the carcass onto the spit to get it cooking over the lively flames. For two it would have made a generous meal; split between seven not so much. But Bjir found that he didn’t mind the idea of sharing it. These people probably needed it more, anyway. And there would always be more game.
Fendhur had just finished applying a poultice to Owin’s wound, Bjir could tell which one from the strong smell of the herbs alone, and Theobald was just in the process of wrapping a clean bandage around it. The Wood-warder took a closer look at Rhonda’s ankle next, and could confirm that although it was a fairly bad sprain it was, luckily, still only a sprain. It would take a few days before she would be able to walk on it, so until then they would stay with them to recuperate. Bjir wasn’t all that surprised, they had brought them this far after all. And what other choice did they really have? Showing them back out in the condition they were in now would just be more dangerous for everyone. Not to mention take a very long time.
Bjir pulled his blanket over to the spit and plopped himself down, turning it now and then as he watched the small goings on around the camp. Syngve was sitting a little bit away from the rest with her back turned, feeding Addie as Fendhur spoke with Leigh and Rhonda about provisions. Meanwhile the other two, Theobald and Owin, were going through their bags checking what was left. The younger man had rolled up his sleeves, revealing sun-kissed forearms as he rummaged.
The sun had started to set, creating a whole new ambiance in the forest, a whole new world of scents and sounds. And as the darkness quickly deepened around them everyone soon started to drift closer, joining him by the fire until they were all gathered around it, the trees looming pitch black beyond the edge of the light.
Bjir had fond memories of times spent around a fire. It was the perfect place for stories, the dancing flames crackling and popping in the background bringing his imagination to life. And the Hyur seemed to be of a similar mind.
Fendhur rubbed at the short patch of beard on his chin, listening with great interest as they explained the situation beyond the forest’s borders, how Imperial troops had been scouring the countryside, rooting out remaining pockets of resistance or potential rebels, sending people to work camps, or worse. Where it had only been unsettling rumours at first, people from nearby villages soon started to show up retelling the same frightening stories of what the soldiers were capable of. It had driven people from their homes in fear, them included, not because they were rebels as such but because they were dissidents strongly against the Garlean’s rule. And they feared for their lives, knowing the Empire saw them as expendable.
But they had only been a few days out of their village before they were set upon by bandits, robbing them of whatever valuables they had fled with. The thugs hadn’t been Garleans, perhaps other refugees who had turned desperate or simply opportunists, but the result was much the same. It was how Owin had gotten that ugly gash on his forehead, when he had tried to conceal a locket containing a lock of his wife’s hair from them, and been struck with the butt of a sword for the trouble. But in spite of all this they had chosen to keep going. They had nothing to return to, anyway, so they kept walking forward in the hopes of finding safe refuge. Only to end up lost in the vast forest.
Bjir had to admit he was enjoying himself. The Hyur shared their story freely, and though their journey had been a difficult one they didn’t dwell on the hardships. They were in high spirits, joking and laughing. Owin most of all had perked up quite a bit since his injury had been tended to, with a safe place to rest and something warm to eat. It turned out he was quite a storyteller, too, enthusiastically telling the Viera how when they had just entered the forest Leigh had thought a vine that fell onto his shoulder was a snake, humorously describing the scene with a showman’s flourish, arms flailing as he cried for the others to get it off him. Even Fendhur who had managed to keep a serious expression up to this point couldn’t hide the way his face cracked into a smile, clearing his throat in a poor attempt to disguise his amused chuckle. Leigh himself guffawed at the sight and admitted laughingly that he had probably never been so scared in his life.
There was something special about sharing a meal. Be it with a Wood-warder you never met before, or even a group of outsiders, it created a kind of familiarity. It blurred the line between people somehow, and brought them together. The initial apprehension he had felt toward them was long since gone. Sure, they were still outsiders; they lacked normal ears and they knew nothing at all about the forest. But they were obviously just people, only different.
Bjir picked another piece of meat from the bone and put it into his mouth, smiling faintly at the conversation. Listening but letting the others do the talking, as he had most of the evening. Sucking the grease from his fingertips he glanced across the fire toward Theobald, and this time found to his surprise that he was looking back. Their eyes met, and the Hyur’s lips pulled into an even wider smile, almost shyly. He had been right about his smile; it was a very nice one. Bjir couldn’t help but to answer in kind, his gaze lingering even as Theobald’s attention was drawn elsewhere by the others.
It was just a look. A smile. So why was his heart suddenly skipping?