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Since they met, Caleb and Nott have been slowly making their way east and south, but they have not been doing this with any clearer destination than simply away from any of the places that have already seen their faces. If Nott has any greater goal in their travels beyond satisfying her twin itches for baubles and drinking, then she has not shared it with him. Caleb is not going to ask.
For himself, what he wants is far enough beyond his reach that, for now, the best he can do to pursue it is to keep moving, avoid being found, and scrounge through bookshops run by shopkeepers who do not know what they have on their shelves.
Not a lot of success in the last couple of towns for him, but Nott’s flask was filled to full and so she seems content.
They have been between towns for six days now. This part of the empire, farther south than Caleb has ever been before, it is mostly farms and long stretches of wild that surround them. Not so different from the north except that it is usually warmer, but even that is not true this evening. He feels a little bit more confident, this far from the capital, but they still are careful to walk through the weeds and brush, keeping some distance from the road as they follow it so that they can duck behind the treeline of the Cyrengreen Forest when carts pass them by. When it is time to set up camp away from the eyes of anyone who might recognize Caleb for who he is or Nott for what she is, they venture deeper into the woods for the safety of being unseen.
But the wolves are loud tonight. Even as the sun is just beginning to set, they are already hearing much more howling than they have on any previous night. Caleb is very good at escaping notice among townsfolk who instinctually turn their eyes from beggars, but he does not think there is any amount of dirt he can scrub into his hair to make a hungry wolf find him unremarkable enough to overlook. So he marks off their campsite in silver thread a little way away from the trees this night and catches Nott by the hand before she can slip off with her crossbow.
It has been very useful, having her with him. She is quick on her feet, able to sneak into places he cannot, and she is skilled enough with that crossbow to guard his back and hunt them a more filling meal than the meager rations he has in his pack. But not tonight.
“You know, I think it is wise for us to go without a fire tonight,” says Caleb. “I think it would not go well for us.”
“Oh, but you’re very good at making fire, Caleb!” Nott has a habit of taking any reluctance from him as if it is an insecurity she has been personally tasked by the gods to mitigate. “You really shouldn’t be listening to all of that self-doubt, you know. That’s the only thing that’s keeping you back.”
“Well, I am not sure that is true.” Caleb has never doubted anything less than his ability to make a fire but that is something he will not get into with his little companion and, anyway, it is beside the point. “But, you know, I worry about us drawing attention tonight. We are out in the open here, we are a little bit exposed, and the light might catch some eyes if anyone passes by on the road.”
Nott makes an unenthusiastic noise in her throat and one side of her lip rises to show off her pointed teeth. “Ehh. Pretty nippy out tonight, though.”
“That is true.” It has been unseasonably cold the last couple of nights, with a chill that lingers after the sun has risen into the sky. “It will not be fun, but it is only for tonight. Just for tonight, okay, and then tomorrow I think you and I will be able to find somewhere with an inn and some real beds for a night. How does that sound?”
She looks dubious still. “Sounds like we’re going to be really fucking cold until then.”
“ Ja .” There is no arguing this. “I agree. Look at me. I have no meat on my bones.” His coat is ill-fitting but covers his body very well, so he encircles his bicep with his opposite hand to show off how skinny he is.
“That’s why I should be out there! That’s why I should go shoot something! You need a hot meal, that’s how you get your strength up!”
Nott, she is small and she is young, though he does not know exactly how young, and still she can make herself sound very much like his mother at times. In words, not in voice. It has been a very long time since anyone worried that he was not eating enough. And that should hurt, it is like salt in the wounds, but it does not. It makes him smile without even meaning to. It feels strange, for having not done so in so long, and that feels good too.
He rustles Nott’s hair until she gives a shriek and lowers her crossbow.
“Just tonight,” he says. “Just for the one night.”
Nott relents. “All right.” She gives one last look at the woods before turning back. “I don’t like it though.”
“Noted,” says Caleb. He does not think he is much more keen on the idea than Nott is, but it is the right choice for tonight.
Falling asleep in the cold is not a fond memory, but if a group of bandits sneak up on them in the middle of the night and slit their throats, or if wolves fall upon them and tear them to pieces, he will never get what he wants and that is more important than a comfortable night of sleep. It is more important than five years of uncomfortable sleep.
He will sleep shivering on the ground every night for the rest of his life if that is what it takes. It is not as if he deserves any better.
For dinner they share a crust of stale bread that is not the most paltry meal Caleb has eaten, after all he has gone days with nothing before, but it does not fill either of their bellies very well. They wash it down with some of Nott’s booze that warms them just a little.
There is another useful thing about Nott. She does not share from her flask often, but Caleb would not have brought any whiskey with him at all.
The sun sets and they lie down inside the silver thread of their campsite as the air grows colder.
In many ways, Caleb is better off now than he has been for many of the nights he has spent outdoors since his mind was returned to him. His coat is mostly free of holes and, when he lies on his side and curls his body just right, it can spread out enough to cover all of him. Frumpkin slots into his arms perfectly as she always has and the heat of her— and the heat of his small body seeps into Caleb’s chest.
The sound of soft shuffling draws his attention before he can fall asleep.
Even though Caleb is human and his body and his senses are built for days in the sun, Catha is full and so bright above them that, when he looks, he can still perfectly see his new goblin friend from ten feet away. Nott is a small bundle of rags, perhaps even skinnier than he is, shivering and curled up around herself with neither coat nor cat to her name.
Caleb is a long way from solving his own problems, but this is something he knows exactly how to fix.
“Come,” he calls softly to her. He lifts the edge of his coat and shows her the spot where she will fit, nestled against him with Frumpkin a little kitty sandwich in the middle. “Come, come. It is warmer under here.”
Nott’s eyes flash open, large and yellow and reflecting the moonlight with a gleam that is very much like a cat’s. Her pupils have widened from their usual narrow slits to round disks which watch his hand cautiously.
She does not know what his hands have done. She cannot know or she would not be here with him still. It has not come up, she has not asked and, if she ever does, then Caleb is a good liar. But even not knowing, she has plenty of reason to be wary.
Caleb has been foolish before but he has never been stupid. While he takes no issue with his friend’s race or appearance, he knows plenty of reasons for her to keep her mask on and her hood up whenever they venture near to other people. As a child, his father would tell him bedtime stories of goblins stealing away unruly children, for food or slaves or for other things left to bloat within the boundless imagination of youth.
The Empire is as unkind to goblins as it is to its traitors and adversaries. Caleb knows this unkindness firsthand. He has performed it himself. It Is little wonder that Nott, exiled from her clan and left to make her way among the proper citizens of the Empire, is so skittish. It is likely what has let her live long enough to meet him.
But, after a moment, the hesitation melts from her face and leaves behind a smile that is warm and shy and she scuttles over to him and crawls in close to huddle against his side. “Oh, thank you, Caleb.”
“ Ja . It is not a problem.”
“No, no, it’s very kind of you. You’re such a nice young man.”
That is not true.
Perhaps he has done some kindness to her, but he is not nice. He is a disgusting person. And she is helpful to keep around, is the thing, so he has kept her around.
This past month, he has felt closer to his goal than he has for five years and he knows, of course, that this is thanks to her. He has been creeping forward by inches for a long time but now he feels stronger or maybe it is that the path feels less harrowing. He is not sure which it is or maybe both of those are the same. There is another set of eyes to keep watch for Crownsguard, someone to have his back when things come down to a fight, and the less he has to worry about making it out of each town alive, the more he can work towards his goal.
Nott reaches around him with one spindly arm and tucks the coat in beneath him and when she settles into her spot, she rolls her body so that the other side of the coat is pinned beneath her. Now all three of them are bundled snug and tight.
He lays his cheek into the crook of his elbow and encircles Nott with his other arm.
Caleb does not usually think before he reaches for Nott, he has realized. They have known each other for nearly two months now, for fifty-nine days as of a few hours ago, and it has felt natural sometimes for him to sweep her into his arms in celebration when one of their tricks works in their favor or to examine her for injuries that his eyes might miss or to offer her a ride on his back for… well, because it felt appropriate in the moment and because the weight of her on his back is pleasant.
He can feel the knobs of her spine through her cloak.
Nott burrows in, settles into the offered spot, and Caleb can feel how the cold still clings to her. He brushes away the chill and the little bits of grass and twigs that have become ensnared in the rough fabric of her cloak and then leaves his hand to rest across her shoulders because that is where it is most comfortable.
Frumpkin, who is squeezed in between them, sighs with the true contentment that is reserved only for cats and kneads happy biscuits into Caleb’s arm.
Their faces are all close together now and their breaths make the air inside their makeshift tent grow warm and humid and, beneath the odor of their unwashed clothes and hair, the green smell of grass and dirt slips through.
It is very different from the musty scent of Ikithon’s tower. No lingering mold or damp stones or half-dried blood that was just as likely theirs as it was someone else’s and would not leave their skin even after scrubbing. And it is good that it is different. That is a very good thing.
He and Astrid and Eadwulf, they became too entangled. They had wrapped themselves around each other, desperate for contact among the chill and the cruelty. There was nothing and no one else and so they had kept one another warm, kept one another alive.
He does not know, if he had not had the two of them, if he would have left or if he would have only broken that much sooner. But he does know that everyone else would have been much better off in either case.
So, no.
He will not get attached to this one.
He has learned.
He is surviving.
He has his cat and his book and his goal.
She will be useful for what she is useful for. She can watch his back for him until he is strong enough to follow his pursuits on his own, until he can do what he needs to do.
So when he feels how well the blade of her shoulders fit beneath the palm of his hand, and she sighs too and says, “Goodnight, Caleb,” and when she shuffles her body even closer against him and the sharp points of her knees dig into his thighs but he does not mind, he will tell himself that it is only the physical heat of her body that keeps him warm through the night.
He is, after all, a good liar.