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No fires ever ignited for her these days. Either there was not enough kindling, or the trees were too damp from the cold, or those fickle would-be flames simply shied away from her efforts. All of her strength, Guts thought, and yet here she was—no matter how hard she struck the flint, nothing burned.
She cursed, but only her own echo ever answered her.
So she slept in the cold. But it was better that way, to blend in with the starless nights as best as she could for fear of discovery. It was not rare, out here in the wilderness, for a hunter to wake and find herself prey.
She was right to be afraid. When Guts woke, she wasn’t alone.
A figure was sitting on the other side of the fire. Even in sleep Guts always kept one hand on her chest within easy reach of her throwing knives, and now she grasped one of their hilts, her one eye cracked open to test if she had yet adjusted to the dark. All she could hear was the scraping of metal. The howl of the wind. She’d fallen into a fitful sleep amidst the crooning of the owls, but even those were silent now, too.
Then there was a clatter, and—
“Finally,” a voice murmured, and Guts froze.
Could it be?
Lowly, reverently, daring to hope that it was true, she whispered: “Casca?”
Earlier she had abandoned the pile of wood she had gathered, but now a flame crackled happily, a cacophony of singing burnished gold. Casca sat cross-legged in her everyday clothes: a long pink tunic cinched at the waist by her belt and scabbard, those riding trousers she claimed were her best because Pippin had once hemmed them, and her age-old, well-loved cowhide boots. She sighed with contentment as her hands warmed by the open fire. A roll of gauze was caught between her teeth. As Guts watched, she lowered the neckline of her tunic and pressed it to a wound there, but it was not a brand—only a faded scar, the remnants of a pain long since past.
“You give up too easily,” Casca admonished, as if she knew Guts was already awake and could sense her awed eye on her, although Guts still hadn’t looked up. “The flint doesn’t always catch on the first try. Or the second or the third. Thought I’d taught you that before, Black Swordsman.”
For a moment Guts could not speak. She looked as Guts remembered her, with her clean dark hair cropped sensibly short. The backs of her broad hands still bore the same crescent-shaped scars where she’d once burned herself, she’d told Guts late one night, trying to toast bread for her father when she was ten years old. Her fringe was too long; it was getting into her eyes, and she reached up to brush it aside with her forearm only for it to fall back into place. Guts stared at her and, for a crazed moment, was seized by the urge to brush it back for her again.
Casca had unsheathed her knives and was scraping them against the flintstone, her lips pursed in dissatisfaction. Guts knew what she was thinking: It wasn’t as effective as the expensive obsidian whetstone she’d stolen from Gennon’s keep, all those years ago, as a small act of revenge. Casca had never confided her crime to anyone but Guts, but then again Guts had never really thought of this particular theft as a crime.
The wooden hilts looked familiar. Guts squinted and recognized the markings, elaborate scenes from the folktales common among traveling troupes: Sir Azan the Bridge Knight, Peekaf and the Elf Queen, the Cursed Prince. They were Judeau’s old throwing knives. How strange, Guts thought. There had once been a time when she hadn’t thought those tales could ever come to fruition. Anything was possible now. After all, the sky had once turned red. A lake could turn viscous with blood.
An old friend could become a demon.
“Black Swordsman,” Casca said again, thoughtfully this time. The scrape of her blades rang with a shrill, chilling intent through the forest clearing, but it never crossed Guts’ mind to be afraid. Yes, Casca was a formidable fighter—but she was not Guts’ enemy. “That’s a new one. Why do you call yourself that?”
Casca’s lips tugged with the beginnings of a playful smile, teasing, as if she knew Guts’ secrets and was only waiting for her honesty, because simply knowing was not the same as being trusted.
Guts was sure that she’d fallen asleep with Godot’s greatsword secure in her arms, but it was gone.
No, Guts thought. This is all wrong. Casca was too trusting, her posture too relaxed in Guts’ presence—a fatal error in the cosmic fold of fate. This was her Casca: the one she had loved in those bygone glory days. Guts had forfeited her right to love Casca when she had failed her. An arm and an eye and still she hadn’t been able to reach the others in time, and Casca had been forced to watch as the demons attacked Judeau, right in front of her—
How could Casca ever smile at her like this again?
“This isn’t real,” Guts murmured.
“Isn’t it?” Casca tilted her head. She lifted a knife and inspected its blade; finally satisfied, she set it aside. “Who’s to say? If you believe in me, doesn’t that make me real?”
“What do you want?” Guts demanded. Another illusion, then. In a few moments Guts would wake and lose Casca to the wind again. Out of all the punishments the demons had dreamed up, this one had to be the cruelest. “I thought you wanted nothing to do with me any longer. Isn’t that what you said?”
“I asked you a question, Captain.”
“I must know you too well,” Guts grumbled. “Even in my dreams you act exactly like you did before.”
When Casca’s face lit up, she became the brightest thing in the forest clearing—brighter than the campfire she had nursed, and even, Guts wagered, more than the stars above, if only she could see them. She was so familiar that Guts looked away for fear of the ache in her chest. The chasm had lain within her for so long that she’d almost forgotten it was there—but now it throbbed with memory, a pain that demanded, dangerously and distractingly, to be felt.
“Kouka’s mayor has imprisoned me,” Guts said as soon as it occurred to her, just because it seemed important to let Casca know where she was—to remind herself where she was. That was right: She was not warming herself by the fire with Casca. This was a different scene, maybe one that would have been true if only they had both gathered the courage to leave and traverse the woods together, to take the world into their own hands before it had a chance to end. “I killed the mayor’s guards at the border tavern as soon as I got to town. He had a deal with the baron, but that’s nulled now. Five men are dead and a riot’s begun all because of me.”
“He hasn’t imprisoned you,” said Casca. “He’s imprisoned the Black Swordsman. That’s not you.”
“I am the Black Swordsman,” Guts said bitterly.
Casca leaned in close; Guts dropped her gaze, suddenly chastised. She was afraid of Casca’s sharp, inquisitive eyes—afraid of what they might find in her own.
“Tell me,” said Casca. “Does it make you feel powerful, when the townspeople spread rumors about a man tall as a mountain, armed to the teeth, a madman out to declare a war of his own? Does it make you feel powerful when you hold men at sword point and say, Tell them the Black Swordsman has come?” She shook her head. “I know you. You’re not even a man. You’re just afraid, aren’t you? Why? What’s out there, exactly, that can save you from what you left behind?”
“Men have always been afraid of me. It’s easier this way. I have to walk this path, and in order to win on it, I have to be strong.”
“Strong? Who ever asked you to be strong, Guts? It’s something you’ve chosen for yourself.”
“You don’t understand,” Guts protested. “If they find out—”
“If who finds out?”
“The rest of this kingdom is not as kind as you are, my love.”
It slipped out by accident, that fond loving name, a force of old habit, before she remembered that she had no right to it anymore. “Sorry,” Guts said quietly. I didn’t mean it, she almost said, but even here in this limbo space between life and dreaming, she knew that wasn’t true.
“It’s hurting you,” Casca deduced.
“How do you know what’s hurting me? I haven’t even seen you in a year and you think you still know me?”
“So you want to be strong. Stronger than who? Other vagrants? Because that’s what you are now, Guts—nothing but a vagrant. Or stronger than all these monsters you’re out looking for? Stronger than anyone else? What happens when you have no equal opponents, only victims?” Casca cast her eyes skyward. “Do you know who you remind me of right now, Guts? Remember why I used to hate you for this?”
It was a scathing critique, especially from Casca, and it made Guts love her all the more. All she’d encountered on the road were villagers who cowered from her, parents who hid their children from the sight of her, even monsters who balked at the might of her sword. There was a mythos around the Black Swordsman, tales so tall that they writhed and curled and cloaked whole towns like a shadow. She had thought that that felt good. Satisfying, even, to have undeniable proof that she was finally as fearsome as she once wished to become. But Casca had never been afraid of her. Even in their first encounter Casca had charged at her at full speed. All at once Guts remembered why she had first fallen for Casca in the first place—from her steady mettle to her doubtful and capricious heart. Only Casca had ever seen Guts as she truly was. For the first time since she’d left, Guts allowed herself to remember that she was a woman, too.
“It’s different,” said Guts. “I’m not doing this out of—out of selfishness. No one can hurt us now, do you understand? No one would dare challenge me if they knew who I am. I’m doing this to protect us. It was better for you that I left. You wouldn’t have been safe with me.”
“What are you hiding?”
“I’ve never hidden anything from you.”
“But you have, Guts. There was something you couldn’t tell me. That’s why you left.”
“There’s something I have to do,” Guts said thickly. “You can’t be part of it.”
“Because I’ll distract you with my charming good looks, and for no other reason, I hope.”
Guts wanted to smile, to play along and tease her, to call her a princess again, to make her blush in that sweet way Guts loved where Casca always pretended, not very convincingly, that she was not flustered—but instead Guts ignored her.
“I’m going to kill the Baron of Kouka,” Guts said. “After that, I’ve heard tell of a count terrorizing recently annexed Midland territory to the west. Rumors of a slug, of all things. It must be another apostle.”
“And after that? After all the apostles are dead—and who knows how many there are—where will you go?”
“To Griffith, of course.”
“And what will you do?”
“I’ll kill him,” said Guts. It was the only echoing truth that had sustained her in her solitude. It didn’t matter if she never slept or never ate, so long as she found that bastard and ran him through with her sword. “As long as I know that monster walks free, I can never rest.”
“And afterward?”
But there was no afterward. With no one to wield it, what other path would her body tread? All she’d been built for was to hunt. To kill. Why had she ever believed in anything else? She had once dared to hope for friends, for a family, but for her audacity first Gambino and then Griffith had demanded a price.
In the uneasy silence, Casca only looked at her, the reflection of the flames between them glinting in her deep black eyes. “So you’ll look for Griffith. Will you look for me, Guts?”
“You wouldn’t even recognize me.”
“Why? Because of this?” She reached out and traced the cold steel of Guts’ prosthetic arm. “I would know you anywhere. This looks like Rickert’s handiwork, anyway.”
Guts couldn’t hold back a fond smile. “He tells me that Erica helped. You should see the way it shoots. There’s a cannon in here. And it lets me reload in seconds. Some bandits tried to ambush me before I got here, but—” She stopped herself. “They’re geniuses, those kids.”
“Aren’t they?” Casca’s hand wandered higher, until her fingers brushed the place where the steel met the bandaged stump of her arm; then higher still, until her hand cupped the side of Guts’ cheek, on her blind side, her thumb caressing the skin below her damaged eye.
Guts held her breath very still.
“Don’t touch me,” she whispered.
But Guts missed her warmth as soon as Casca drew back. It had been so long since she’d been touched; Casca was the only one she trusted to touch her kindly, the only one she’d ever known to heal instead of hurt. Casca had clasped their hands together before they’d parted ways at Godot’s cottage, and her mind had run through that memory so often in the past two years of wandering that it had lost its edge.
Her first instinct was to retract her statement. She wanted to tap her cheek to tell Casca it was safe to touch her there, the way she used to; she wanted to watch with her heart in her throat as Casca reached out again. She missed the days when Casca would tend to her wounds and Guts, under the cover of delirium, would bring their heads closer together, just to watch her, just to share her space and her breath; when Casca would summon Guts to her tent under the guise of reading maps together, when all Casca truly wanted was Guts’ company. Sometimes they would fall into bed together afterwards, Casca’s head tucked under Guts’ chin as they slept. In the morning they strapped each other’s armor and didn’t kiss, although Guts always thought of it. She wished she had kissed Casca more often. If only she’d known how little time they would have together, she would have hesitated less.
But Guts knew she couldn’t go back. She did not want this Casca, this figment that her own imagination had conjured in its loneliness; she wanted Casca in the entirety of her selfhood. And if Casca had ventured off on her own, if Casca would never forgive Guts—then that was who she really was, and that was the Casca that Guts still loved.
She wondered where Casca was now. If her favorite tunic was still the plain yellow cloth one, which had been so worn through the years that Guts had needed to help her patch it together thrice. If she still liked her chestnuts almost charred to black on a cold winter day. If she still preferred her shortsword—and had she ever polished the jewel she’d set in the hilt, as she’d meant to do after the rescue mission?—or if she’d taken up Judeau’s throwing knives alone, although the three of them had once promised to learn together. Was she safe? Had she found companions, or did she camp under these foreign constellations alone, as Guts did?
Did she think of Guts, too?
“Don’t kill him before I reach him,” Casca said finally. “That’s the least you could do. I’ve got something to ask him.”
“He’s gone, Casca. He’s not our general anymore. You cannot parley with a demon.”
“That’s what they call you, too,” Casca pointed out.
“Because I wanted that,” Guts said hollowly. “I made them believe that. It was easier. They already believed it anyway.”
“But here I am,” Casca went on, as if Guts hadn’t spoken, “still speaking to you. Some part of you still remembers me.”
“It’s because you are me,” Guts accused. “She’s not really here. I’m going mad. Talking to myself in circles and imagining that it’s you—that it’s her.” She shook her head and ran a weary hand down her face. “Forget it. Just forget it. I can’t speak to you. I have something to do.”
The fire blazed between them. It was a dream; she was a dream. This was not her Casca, because when she shifted, this vision that her addled brain had conjured, there was no arrow wound on her breast, because in her dreams Guts had protected her, had never left Casca to fend for herself, had done everything right by Casca and had never rescinded her right to ask for her love.
Guts was glad. It was only a cruel gift from the wandering demons of the night, but if not for this dream, she might have forgotten Casca’s face.
But even now her vision was already swimming.
“I don’t want you to leave me,” Guts admitted, her voice thick. “There’s so much I still want to tell you. I don’t have anyone else.”
“Not completely true.” Casca smiled, but her voice was already fading, and Guts strained to hear her last words: “Listen. You’ve made a friend. I can already hear the keys coming.”
And Guts startled awake.
For a moment, she didn’t know where she was. All the hairs in her arms prickled with the foreign chill. She blinked in the darkness, disoriented; Casca was gone. Only when she was bereft of Casca’s presence again could Guts think to herself: I should have held her one last time.
A friend, she had said. But if Casca was not Guts’ companion, then who was?
She tried to stand, but the chains chafed around her ankles and she stumbled, groaning in pain. Her trousers had ripped at the calves, and her exposed skin met the slimy sewage that had gathered in the damp underground cell. There was no light. Only the moon shone faintly behind the iron bars of the cell’s lone window, a forlorn onlooker who would answer no supplication.
There was no power here. Only pathetic miserable fools ended up in places like this, she thought bitterly. And then she was angry. Furious that she had allowed the baron’s henchmen to apprehend her, that for all her might it would never change that she was only one man—one woman—against six armored soldiers. She would always be one woman, alone. Then she was livid at the loss of her eye, how grueling it had been to re-train herself to fight with half-blind vision, how her periphery had dulled. And then she remembered what Casca had said to her, and what she had said to Casca in turn, and then she remembered that had not even truly been Casca, and she began to laugh. The sound echoed through the stone, louder than her cursing had been, and she heard her own crazed and maniacal cackle, and she frightened even herself.
Eventually she drifted again into a fitful sleep. The past few days of constant travel had caught up with her, and if nothing else, at least the reinforced cell walls kept the smaller spirits at bay. She wondered where Griffith was now. Was that really still Griffith—even underneath the wings and the talons and those horrible eyes? She didn’t know if she hoped it was him or not, but she knew she had a sword that had been thirsting for his blood for two years. She didn’t care about his answers. She already had her own.
When she woke again, a fine blue dust had healed her wounds, and then she heard it: the tinkling of keys.