Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

wrangler

There was a red sunset. A long time ago, and far away in the land of her birth, red skies at night meant good winds on the morrow for the sailors who brought goods and trade to port.

Out here, a red sunset meant dust storms.

Brynnor pulled her kerchief over her nose and fastened the knot at the back of her neck, cinched the knot of her hat's chin-strap up tight. There was nothing to be done about her eyes but turn away from the wind when it came.

"Cover your face," she ordered the rider sitting at her back, whose arms were wrapped tight around Brynnor's waist. The rider complied. Then, Brynnor wrapped the thin leather reins twice around her wrist and squeezed her thighs tight to jolt Risotto into a trot towards the blood-red sandstone cliffs she knew were far ahead.

The soft ground would make for poor traveling, and she already felt bad for Risotto's ankles in the loose dry sand and silt. The thirty-head of loose, wild cattle they'd just gotten to start off towards the choke-point in the slot canyon a few clicks in the wrong direction, where Vivienne and Ep waited, would have to be damned to the storm. Or hunted down and gathered up tomorrow. Vivienne and Ep would just have to hunker down, too. Both were mages—Bryn knew they were resourceful, and the canyon would provide ample shelter. And that blighted mule would have to follow along or fend for himself.

Within twenty minutes, the dust storm on that western horizon had billowed up to a frenzy; puffy red clouds, back-lit by the setting sun, careened towards them like a steam train. Shelter was in sight, but still far. Brynnor just had to guide Risotto through the flattest, clearest parts, and keep her moving fast and straight.

The first stinging gusts hit within shouting distance of that massive red cliff wall. Sand and sediment pelted the side of Brynnor's face like bullets, and she squeezed her left eye shut against it. The rider at her back squeezed her tighter as the wind buffeted them both.

With one eye squinted open against the rapidly-growing dark, Brynnor searched for shadows in the wall. Anything large enough for her, Risotto, and the useless lump of man at her back to squeeze into for the next few hours. And maybe that blighted mule, too, if he ever caught up.

There. Sand collected in her ears, wind tore at her hair and tried to blow off her hat, and dust still got in her eyes, turning them bleary with tears; but, finally, Brynnor caught sight of a round shadow on the wall.

A cave, hopefully, and by the will of the Maker, something deeper than just a shallow notch.

Risotto had slowed as she closed her baleful eyes against the sand and dust and wind, but with Brynnor's gentle guiding hand on her reins, she carefully made her way towards the promise of shelter.

Brynnor dismounted at the mouth of the cave, leaving her useless man—he has a name, Bryn—leaving Lucanis in the saddle while she tugged Risotto into the inky darkness with the reins.

It shouldn't have been this hard to coax her into shelter, out of the wind. Risotto dug her hooves into the dusty rock. She didn't want to go.

"Damn it, move!" Brynnor snapped at her horse, pulling her further out of the wind. From the dust that had gotten under her kerchief and the rushing of her blood in her ears, Brynnor could neither hear nor smell a goddamn thing, on top of the howling wind and the full dark.

She heard a grunt as Lucanis slipped off the saddle. Fuck, he'd better have done that on purpose. But she heard two feet land solidly on the rough rocky ground, and his limping gait as he took a few steps.

Brynnor slipped her hands through the throat latch of Risotto's harness and finally got her to comply. She tugged the massive palomino beast out of the wind and into shelter.

With the wind and dust no longer whistling by her ears, Brynnor's ears rung in the silence.

For a moment, all she heard was that ringing, Lucanis's limping gait, Risotto's irritated snuffs against her shoulder.

Then, Brynnor heard a snarl.

It echoed from deep in the cave, betraying a tunnel that traveled further than she'd expected. To her right, Lucanis stopped limping towards the wall, and Risotto huffed in fear and irritation.

Brynnor reached for the knife in her belt.

Scratch. Lucanis struck a match, and thin yellow light glowed around his hand, illuminating the cave wall, the ceiling above, and his face. His beard, his hair, and every wrinkle and bead of sweat was coated in a layer of red dust.

The dark at the end of the cave was as thick as fog. Ink bloomed across Brynnor's vision as Lucanis's match started to burn down, drawing the darkness in, just as the tip of a snout as pale as a fish belly emerged from the black. White scaled lips parted over sharp yellow teeth.

As fast as Brynnor saw it, she heard the blast of Lucanis's pistol fire. Maker-damned sharpshooter.

Brynnor flinched. Risotto reared up with a cry, and Brynnor had half of a second to step aside so that she wouldn't get hit by a knee or a hoof as the match died out.

The cave plunged once more into darkness. The ringing in Brynnor's ears returned as the echo of the gunshot rattled around inside her skull. Her hands found Risotto's neck in the dark, took hold of her harness and throat latch and nose band again. When she spoke, she barely heard herself over the ringing.

"Shh, girl—it's alright. It's under control."

Light flared behind her as Lucanis struck another match. Brynnor managed to cast a glare at him over her shoulder.

"Has no one ever taught you not to fire a gun in a slot?" she snapped, still barely hearing herself over the ringing in her ears—any response of Lucanis's, be damned.

Risotto was too spooked to be let go, so Brynnor wrapped her reins around her hand and kept on soothing her. The light behind her grew brighter and brighter.

She looked over her shoulder. Lucanis had found a few dry bits of cheatgrass and dry wood that had blown into the cave and fashioned some kind of torch. He'd limped over to the dead pale creature, his torch lighting up the white and purple flank of its body.

"What do you think it is?" Lucanis spoke, his words bleeding through the whine of Brynnor's injured ear drums.

She tugged on Risotto's reins, and the good girl followed. Risotto knew, at least, when a predator was dead. She was a good mount for the Wastes because of that. Brynnor walked down the gentle slope of the cave floor to stand next to him.

"Lurker," she said. The dog-sized reptile had a fat dromedary tail, which told Brynnor there wasn't water in this cave. The pale, nearly translucent scales and skin meant that lurkers rarely went out into the full sun; they nested in caves—hence the epithet cave lurker—and crawled out into the desert at night to hunt and drink. The creepiest thing about them, Brynnor thought with a shiver, was that they had no eyes, just bumpy, scaly flesh from their snout to the crown of their skulls. "Their scales fetch a good price in the Tevene markets."

Neither felt particularly inclined to start skinning the creature, at that moment.

"Meat any good?" Lucanis waved the torch over the lurker's flank and the dromedary tail.

"Probably not this one. You shot it clean through the head and the poison glands." Brynnor nudged the lurker's head with the toe of her boot. The exit wound was somewhere on the left flank. "Any or all meat could be tainted."

"Will it attract predators?"

"Only wyverns." At that, Lucanis's eyebrows raised in interest. Brynnor added, "But not while this storm's blowing through. And once it's over, we'll be gone anyway."

"We should check out the rest of the cave," Lucanis murmured, holding the torch high as he looked down the sloping passage. "Make sure there's no more."

"Not with that leg, you aren't," Brynnor eyed the darkening stain on his left thigh. She handed him Risotto's reins, and he wordlessly passed her the makeshift torch. "I'll be quick."

Rather than draw one of her pistols, Brynnor drew her knife. She left Lucanis and Risotto in the dark as she gingerly picked her way down the gentle, uneven slope.

The cave wasn't too deep, after all. She found the end within a minute's walk through fissure slots just wide enough for the lurker to pass, squeezing herself as flat as her body allowed as she held the torch far out in front of her. At the end of the tunnel, in a little rounded hollow once carved from the sandstone by a gush of floodwater, a clutch of moon-white eggs glowed back in the firelight.

She picked one up and candled it like she would a hen's eggs, checked for how far along the horrible creatures were. She breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of goopy embryos inside—there'd be no danger of five little hungry beasts hatching in the night during the storm and come crawling, looking for their first meal.

It'd be kinder to stomp the eggs out, with their mother now dead, but Brynnor knew what it was like to survive without a mother. And, hey, look where she is now. She left the eggs to cool.

As she climbed back up, the makeshift torch already burning low, she found Lucanis crouched around a little pile of the rest of the dry wood debris and dry grass lying around the cave. He was carefully tending to a small fire, the glow illuminating his dusty face and Risotto's creamy yellow snout.

At the sound of her footfalls and by the the light of the dying torch, he looked up, brows raised in question.

"All clear," Brynnor confirmed.

The wind of the dust storm blew clear by the mouth of the cave, a low whistle in the background as the ringing in Brynnor's ears started to fade. Even Risotto calmed down, still attached to Lucanis's wrist by her reins, gently lingering at his side.

Something soft, and earnest, twisted deep in Brynnor's gut at the sight.

"Better settle in for the night," she said instead, shoving down on that feeling, and picked up some of the dry cheatgrass Lucanis hadn't burnt yet. She put the remains of the torch in his fire. Brynnor got to work taking off Risotto's saddlebags and tack, and wordlessly put the bags behind Lucanis, giving him something to lean on. "There's a sewing kit somewhere in there. Patch up that hole in your leg."

He gave her a funny look. "Do you want me to get gangrene?"

"You get gangrene from bad water."

"Please say that in front of Ep once we're out of this storm."

Brynnor rolled her eyes, but he had a point. Eponine would skin her alive if she got their man infected in some dumb way. "There's a flask of whisky somewhere in there, too. Good stuff, not watered down."

She shook the dust out of the saddle blanket far away from Lucanis, Risotto, and the little fire, and folded it up and set it down next to the man on the ground. Then, with her handful of dry cheatgrass, she rubbed at the sweat on Risotto's yellow coat. The horse whinnied and nickered.

"Sorry I ain't got any water for you, baby," she murmured into Risotto's nose as she stroked her neck. Behind her, Brynnor heard a rustle and a sharply inhaled hiss as Lucanis had poured a slash of high-proof whisky over his wound.

Risotto was calm enough now, and so Brynnor let the reins fall. The horse snuffled around on the ground for a little bit while Brynnor went and crouched down next to Lucanis.

"How's that wound look?" She peered down at it as best she could in the flickering light of the little fire.

"Could be worse," Lucanis grimaced, and poured a little more whisky on the bull horn-sized hole in his thigh.

"That's why you never get too close to the steer, Luc," Brynnor winked. "Herd the cows, and let the steer worry about keeping up with his ladies. He'll follow wherever they go." She left him with a meaningful look, and stood up to lay out Risotto's saddle blanket on the ground.

Look, alright—she did find him fun to tease. He got that funny, flushed look about his cheeks, and his ears always turned bright pink. But in a lot of ways—not all of them the critical kind—Brynnor just didn't quite trust him, yet. He was a good shot, and mighty resourceful in a fight, but he was an irresponsible rich boy playing bandit. He had to keep up, or he wouldn't make it.

"Ep will heal you, once we get back to her and Viv. Just try not to bleed out before we get there," Brynnor added as she laid down on the saddle blanket, body and legs stretched out next to the fire and Lucanis. She wasn't terribly worried—he'd sacrificed a fresh kerchief to staunch the blood as soon as he got gored, and the bleeding had slowed a mighty amount. Now it just needed closing up.

She took off her hat and gloves, and rested her head on a lumpy saddlebag. The fire was nice to watch, tiny flames flickering and consuming the handful of dry sticks Lucanis had found, quickly turning to embers and ash. The fire wouldn't last long, though. While Lucanis cleaned out his wound and sterilized her sewing needle with the fire and the thread with the whisky, Brynnor twisted the gold ring on her fourth finger.

Whenever there was a quiet moment, whenever her gloves were off, she always found herself twisting that damned ring.

Lucanis should have been focusing on sewing up his leg, but he looked over at Brynnor's hands instead.

"Are you married?"

Brynnor froze. "I was."

"Ah. Are they…"

The fire caught another little stick. It burned bright and gold and beautiful, blue light at the very heart of it all, before the stick was completely consumed. Fast, and bright, just like Dominic.

"He died," was all she could say.

A beat. Then, "I'm sorry."

Two years gone, still on the run, her Wanted posters with wrongful accusations spread across the Marches and Nevarra like a venereal disease. Brynnor couldn't prove she was innocent without getting hung for thieving, too.

"It is what it is," she said, the words echoing empty, and hollow, in the cave.

She stopped twisting the ring. The gold felt cold, somehow. She put her gloves back on.

Lucanis sewed himself up in silence, only muttering the occasional oath to the Maker and sin-hot curses in Antivan that she pretended not to understand. Then he was done, cutting the thread with a halla-horn knife. Ep's knife, Brynnor thought, wistfully.

The fire was dying out. There wasn't any more dry vegetation to burn. The desert's fucking cold at night, and the cool depths of this dry cave wasn't helping. Brynnor's teeth chattered as she shivered alone on the saddle blanket, and prayed that Vivienne and Eponine were at least warm with their mage-fire, in whatever camp or shelter they'd built in the canyon. She felt a tug in her belly, an aching deep inside her, to go out and brave the winds of the storm to find them.

As she shivered, arms wrapped tight around her middle, she heard Lucanis's muttered "C'mere" and thought she'd imagined it.

"What?"

"You'll be warmer. C'mere," he said again, and held out his arm, flipping over the side of his wool poncho.

Since the girls had picked up this sad, hopeless man off those railroad tracks like he was a damsel in fucking distress, it wasn't as if Brynnor hasn't also eyed him. She'd seen those arms, that chest, in glimpses and flashes at the creek, vanishing into the rooms and tents of the others. More than once, now, she'd imagined what that rich-toned, scarred skin might taste like.

And then he had to go and do something as stupid as get gored by a wild bull while she was trying to wrangle some Maker-damned wild cattle to sell at the auction in town.

She put aside her pride, though. As the last flickers of pale red light licked out from the deep cracks of the embers like hellfire, Brynnor crawled over, tucked herself under his arm, and pulled her saddle blanket over their legs.

"Was that so hard?" She could fucking hear his smirk.

"Shut up."

She rested her cheek on his shoulder, nose pressed against the wool of his poncho, near the silk scarf tied around his throat. She closed her eyes—under the sterile dust, he smelled like sweat, tobacco, and coffee. Nothing like Dominic, the last man she'd ever touched like this. Remarkably a lot like the girls, who she had.

And he was warm. Brynnor sucked up a little more of her pride as she let her arm rest over his waist, basking in a little more of that warmth. His belt buckle dug into her elbow, through the sleeve of her calfskin coat, but she didn't care.

Sleep found her at ease.

Wakefulness found her with a face-full of wool poncho that still smelled like sheep.

"Hey, Brynnor. Storm's blown over."

Lucanis's voice sounded tired, but alert. He hadn't slept. Blinking her eyes open, she realized she could see the silvery edges of shapes around the cave mouth, bright pinpricks of starlight in the sky far away.

Brynnor extricated herself, standing up. Risotto had wandered over to the cave mouth as if she were a guard dog—Brynnor thought maybe she should try to pick one up, a puppy maybe to train up early and right, something to stand guard at the house or when camping out on the Wastes—and her tail flickered as Brynnor approached.

By the angle and phase of the larger of the two moons that spun in a perpetual dance around each other in the sky, it was maybe an hour 'til sunrise. The sky was clear, full of stars and galaxies, and the dunes were fresh and virgin and waiting for footprints.

A dark shape flickered in the corner of Brynnor's vision. She reached for her sidearms.

"What is it?" Lucanis whispered behind her, limping quietly. He didn't touch her, but she still felt his warmth radiate near her, like a sun-baked stone.

The shape came into focus. Four legs and two eyes glowing like purple fire.

"It's your blighted mule," she grinned, and relaxed her arms.

"You mean demonic."

Spite trotted happily over the dunes towards them, his long fuzzy ears flickering as he approached, whickering contently. Brynnor shook her head—this damned mule just did whatever the hell he wanted.

As if to prove her thought, the first thing he did upon approach was bite Lucanis's forearm, making him jump and curse. Then, the rowdy mule nuzzled Brynnor's shoulder.

"Hey, you beast," she chuckled as Lucanis kept cursing in Antivan (and she kept pretending she didn't understand), and scratched gently at Spite's forelock and planted a kiss on his nose.

Brynnor quickly re-saddled Risotto, and helped Lucanis climb up into Spite's saddle. His gore-wound had stopped bleeding, at least, but Brynnor would be a fool if she thought he could put any meaningful weight on it.

As soon as she mounted Risotto, they were off, eyes peeled in the moonlight for the landmarks that would take them back to the canyon, and back to Vivienne and Eponine.

Under the blanket of stars, Lucanis guided Spite a little closer to Brynnor and Risotto.

"You're good at this."

"What, running?" She laughed.

"No," he shook his head, eyes glinting from under his hat. "Surviving."

Brynnor didn't have much to say to that. She just hummed, and let the smile slip off her face.

She's just gotta keep riding. Keep on riding, through the dust, through the storms, through everything in her way. And maybe, if the Maker was good, she'll find a nice calm place where she could finally stop riding. Stop running.

Blue, then yellow-gold, then blue again, the skies changed overhead as Brynnor and Lucanis picked their way among the red rocks, and down to the canyon camp. A single tent pitched in a fissure, out of the wind, lay at the end of that tugging tether in her gut. In the early morning desert chill, a little blue cooking fire glowed under two pairs of hands. Brynnor smelled coffee.

Vivienne saw her first, pale blue-silver eyes sparking like her fire. Her lips twitched, and she nudged Eponine with her elbow.

"Ah, so they lived after all," Eponine's wide grin spread across her face as she took in the lonely sight of two dusty riders, two dusty mounts, and no cattle.

"By the skin of our teeth. I see you two had a cosy time," Brynnor snorted. "Made it through all right?"

Down the canyon, she could see Vivienne and Eponine's horses standing together by the tiny spring-fed pool at the canyon's bottom.

"Well enough," Vivienne shrugged. Her pale eyes scanned both Brynnor and Lucanis, and her brows furrowed at the sight of blood on Lucanis's thigh, the hole in his trousers. "Cattle?"

"They'll regroup themselves. Probably have to spend another night or two out here to find them again."

Brynnor dismounted, and she and Viv helped Lucanis down.

"I'm fine—" he protested, but they made him sit down next to Eponine, whose hands already glowed with a healing aura.

Relief settled low in Brynnor's gut. She reached up and gave a comforting squeeze to Vivienne's shoulder, a lightning-quick brush of lips on her cheek. To Ep, rather than distract her from her healing work, she pressed a quick kiss to her temple, before leading Risotto and Spite over to the water.

Brynnor did look back over her shoulder, caught Lucanis's reaction to these quick moments of gentle affection. He had that lost, star-struck look to his eyes that Brynnor was starting to recognize as awe in him. She winked. Steers will follow, huh.

Chapter Text

thief

It was supposed to be a simple job. It was just supposed to be Brynnor, Celeste, and all these lockboxes of Tevinter gold in the vault of Converged City Bank.

Converged City was a Maker-damned bitch of a misnomer. It wasn't a city; it was a glorified trading post on the edge of the Wastes and the Approach, fit with one hotel that doubled as the post's brothel, a bank that tripled as the post office and jail, and a trade hall for everything else. Tents full of travelers who either wanted to avoid the hotel, or couldn't afford it, spread out like the spokes of a wagon wheel in all directions, until the dirt gave way to dunes.

It was a three-day ride from the Crossroads. It was supposed to be Brynnor and Celeste and Lucanis—it was supposed to be Lucanis's first job—but Lucanis was still recovering from that leg wound from the storm-dusted attempt at cattle wrangling a week ago. Even with the aid of Ep's healing magic, he still felt a little twinge when he walked, and…

…And, well, Brynnor just didn't feel right hauling him out here on what could have been a dangerous job.

(And. Well. It did end up being a dangerous job. They got caught.)

(So they had to change their plan anyway)

Brynnor thunked her head back against the stone wall of the Converged City Jail. How ironic, she thought, Here we were trying to break in, and all we had to do was get caught.

In the other cell, across the room—whoever designed the Converged City Jail had had the foresight to place the two cells in opposite corners—Celeste laid with her back on the dusty floor, her bare feet up in the air with her legs against the wall. She was humming a jaunty little tune.

It had been two days since the glorified trading post's sheriff rode up with a blighted troupe of deputized thugs, armed to the teeth, surrounding Brynnor and Celeste just as they'd slipped by their contact in town. Someone—probably that damned contact—had turned them in.

Two days since the sheriff had taken their hats, riding chaps, their guns, Brynnor's knives and Celeste's handaxe, even their Maker-damned boots. And—worst of all—one those asshole deputies had taken Brynnor's wedding ring.

Two days. They were afforded all the dignity of pissing in a bucket, drinking sandy water, and getting fed only a few hunks of bread a piece. Brynnor watched Celeste across the gap, and Celeste watched Brynnor.

Two days.

The sheriff's deputized thugs watched them both in the front room of the two-room bank-post office-jail.

"Stop humming," one of the thugs drawled towards Celeste. Not the one who took the ring. Brynnor almost didn't care about the others—whenever the stocky, rusty-haired one came wandering in from outside, Brynnor pinned that motherfucker down with her eyes until he was gone again. She didn't see where he'd put her ring, or what he'd done with it, but once she had a gun in her hand again—

She'd turn over the whole damned trading post to get it back.

Celeste didn't stop humming. In fact, she started humming louder. Brynnor recognized it as an Orlesian tune, something she'd once heard played on an accordion in an ale hall in Starkhaven. Celeste rolled over onto her side, then leaned back against the wall.

"I said, stop humming," the man stood up from his chair, now. There were two other deputies in the jail; one was flipping through a stack of pin-up postcards, and the other was asleep in his chair.

There was a window on the side wall, barred, that let in a little light. Outside, the sun hovered high over the desert. Noontime, on the second day.

Brynnor shared a quick glance with Celeste. Celeste winked back at Brynnor, and kept humming. and brought her knees up to her chest. Between her thighs and her chest, she clasped her hands together.

Now, the sheriff and his deputies had done their due diligence, in taking away all of Brynnor and Celeste's weapons. It was a bit much to take their riding chaps, hats, and boots, and downright theft to take Brynnor's ring. But they were being careful; you wouldn't want to leave a prisoner with any useful tools.

It was too bad the sheriff and all his deputies didn't realize that Celeste was a mage.

A high whistle-tone sound rang from outside the window. Brynnor watched as Celeste broke out into a mischievous grin, the bright colour of her eyes almost growing brighter. She stopped humming.

"Alright, boys," she held her hands up, "I'll stop."

Her hands crackled with bright lightning.

That lightning shot out like a whip, catching one of the deputies around the neck. With a tug of her arm, Celeste yanked the man over the sheriff's desk and right up to the bars of her cell.

"Thanks, darlin'," she crooned, and plucked the gun from his belt. "Now, be a dear—"

One of the other deputies stood so suddenly from his chair that it tipped back and clattered to the floor. The third was already drawing his gun.

Celeste aimed the gun she stole at the fast-drawing man. "You don't wanna do that, pal."

Brynnor smiled, because she liked to watch this next part. Maybe a little too much.

Celeste let her lightning whip electrocute the first one, just a little—enough to knock him out cold—before she let him drop. She cracked her lightning whip at the fast-drawing deputy, let that tendril of bright energy wrap around his wrist, and yanked him to the floor.

Celeste slid her stolen gun through the bars of her cell and into Brynnor's. She picked it up, and aimed it at the chest of the guy still getting his head together. She drew the hammer back with a click.

"You might wanna unlock these cells," Brynnor said, "and put down that pistol you got in your belt, or you might just get shot in the back."

The man looked confused—he had just been woken up, after all—and said, "I don't see how you'd be gettin' me in the back, seein' as you're in front—"

The door to the jail opened, and beautiful, stunning Solana appeared like an avenging angel sent by Andraste herself. The bright gleam of her shotgun reflected high noon light in the moment before she fired, and the doorway filled with white gunsmoke.

"Can't you two do anything normally?" Solana shouted as she cocked her shotgun, evacuating the old shell, and slid the second into the chamber. She fired at the back of the last man standing, still attached to Celeste's lightning whip.

"Where would the fun be in that?" Brynnor smirked as Solana finally ran into the room, and grabbed the keyring off the wall. She unlocked both cells in quick fashion, and Brynnor ran for her gear, strung up next to Celeste's on the wall. She pulled everything on with haste.

Outside, Brynnor heard the sound of gunfire.

"That would be the sheriff and the rest of his deputized assholes," Solana grumbled. "I don't think we've got time for—"

Celeste went for the vault door, and Solana followed her with a poorly-contained groan, while Brynnor began searching the pockets of the man she saw take her ring. She rolled him over, got her riding gloves covered in his blood. It had to be somewhere—she ripped off his boots, turned them upside down, took his gunbelt and dug into the pockets of his coat. She even ripped the ribbon off of his hat.

Somewhere behind her, Celeste let out a whoop! as she broke the lock on the vault door and pushed it open.

The sound of gunfire outside was nothing to Brynnor. She needed that ring.

"It's gotta be somewhere," she gasped, and started searching the body of the second dead man.

"What is?" Solana called from the inside of the vault. She and Celeste came out with a wooden trunk, heavy with gold, between them.

Brynnor had started ripping belts and gloves and turned out the pockets of the third man, the one who was still alive, but still found nothing.

One of them had to have it—

But the men had left the jail, over the last two days, taking turns to piss, to sleep.

"My ring," she croaked.

"We've got more than enough gold to buy you another!" Solana tucked a hand under Brynnor's armpit and pulled her to her feet.

Brynnor caught up to her feet and ran out of the jail behind Celeste and Solana.

Outside—you could hardly call it the street, it was merely a flat dirt patch where the long road crossed through with the jail and trade hall on one side, and the hotel on the other—Brynnor heard a cacophony of noise, gunshots firing everywhere, and couldn't take in the scene fast enough.

The sheriff and the last two of his deputies were firing from cover on the front porch of the hotel. Between them and Brynnor, Celeste, and Solana, who were racing towards Solana's horse—she'd managed to recover Risotto and Celeste's ancient horse from their hiding place outside of town, and had lead ropes tied to them from Solana's horse's bridle—two mounted figures were riding through, firing their pistols as fast as lightning: Naja and Lucanis.

Naja shouted something quick to Solana, and Lucanis gave her cover, firing his pistol as fast as possible. Brynnor had barely a moment to think Maker-damned man wouldn't know how to rest if Hessarian himself pierced him through the heart before she drew her pistols, cocking back the hammers, and firing at the cowards taking shelter on the hotel's porch. She nailed one in the shoulder, just as he popped his head up to try to take a shot at Lucanis and Spite.

"Bryn, we got this!" Naja shouted back at her.

"One of 'em's got my fucking ring!"

It was mayhem. Men spilled from the saloon doors of the hotel, cowboys or ranchers or whomever-the-fuck cared enough about the sheriff to come to his defense, and Brynnor had sunk another bullet into the shoulder of the sheriff before she felt Naja's sturdy arm come around her waist and haul her bodily onto the saddle of her horse.

She groaned, defeated, as Naja hauled her ass out of Converged City, riding fast after Solana.

Two miles outside Converged City, Naja let Brynnor have the dignity of getting onto Risotto's saddle. She took Risotto's lead from Solana, who fixed her with a sad look.

"I—"

"I don't wanna talk about it," Brynnor mumbled. Her left hand felt too light, naked. Then, she sighed. "Thanks for comin' to get us."

"Glad you psychos abided by the two-day rule, or you'd have had a much harder time crawling out of that dust bowl."

They rested in a shady hollow full of cottonwood trees and a dried-up pond. Solana dismounted to check and tighten the straps on the gold chest fastened to the back of her saddle. After a few moments rest, Celeste and Lucanis caught up.

"We were wondering where you'd gone." Naja's stare was hard, but her voice betrayed her relief.

"Just cleanin' up," Celeste winked as she drove her horse by Naja. "Those boys sure were shit shots."

"They looked half drunk," Lucanis added as he and Spite approached. The mule let out a happy bray. Probably from all the bloodshed, in Brynnor's opinion—that blighted mule liked a gunfight far too much. Lucanis hissed as he poked at his upper right arm, where a hole was burned through by a grazing bullet. Brynnor could see that his skin underneath was a little scorched, and red, but not bleeding. Was this man incapable of not getting hurt around Brynnor? "Shot like they were half-drunk, too."

"We'll get that looked at once this town is far enough behind us." Solana mounted her horse, and the five started off through the scrubland back north, for the long ride back to the Crossroads.

Celeste rode up alongside Brynnor and let their legs brush.

"Wasn't so bad in the end," she teased. "We got the gold, and we ain't hurt."

"Speak for yourself," Lucanis called from up ahead, where he rode alongside Naja.

Celeste nudged Brynnor's arm with her elbow. "Hey, slow down and hold out your hand."

Brynnor did. She slowed Risotto to a stop, and Celeste reached into her pocket and covered Brynnor's palm with hers. Through her blood-soaked, dusty riding glove, she felt something small. Round.

"You didn't," Brynnor gasped. Celeste uncovered her hand.

There it was: dusty, half-bloodied, and scuffed to hell from the day's fight and a few hundred more before now. The only day it ever looked polished was the day Dominic slid it onto her finger. But under all that dust and blood, it still shone bright gold under the desert sun.

Brynnor was careful not to drop it as she took off her left hand glove and slid it on, blood and dust and all.

There was a tightness to her throat, and a prickling at the back of her eyes, which made talking difficult. Brynnor clenched her fist and felt the weight of the gold band.

She was whole again.

"Thank you," Brynnor managed to get out, and cupped her hand behind Celeste's neck. She drew her in for a kiss that was a bit wetter on the face than she'd expected, but Celeste was kind enough to not mention it.

"Well, I appreciate the affection, but don't just thank me," Celeste murmured, pulling back a little has her horse started side-stepping. The others were still far ahead, and both Risotto and Celeste's horse were itching to catch up. "Lucanis was the one who pulled it off the sheriff."

Brynnor rolled her eyes. That damned man.

She and Celeste rode to catch up with the other three, dust billowing at their backs.

Later that evening, at their camp set up under a stand of junipers in a rock cove near a coldwater spring, Brynnor brought a flask of whisky and a roll of clean cotton cloth over towards where Lucanis was letting Spite drink from the spring.

"Hey," she said, announcing her presence. The sunset had turned a spectacular satiny pink in the distance, and cast long shadows across on the red dirt.

Spite poked his head up, eyes like purple fire burning from under black lashes, and gave Brynnor an affectionate haw before he tipped his head back down to the water.

Lucanis tipped his chin up to look at Brynnor, and kept looking. His face was mostly in shadow, but she could see light just hit the corners of his eyes. He had one foot propped up on a rock, Spite's lead in his left hand.

"Hey yourself," he nodded, speaking quietly.

"I just wanted to thank you, for coming with the girls to get us out of there," Brynnor smiled. She held up the whisky and the bandages. "Sorry you got grazed."

"I've had worse, as you know."

"May I?"

Lucanis cast a glance down at Spite before he dropped his lead, as though daring him to run off. The mule sniffed at Lucanis's knee, but didn't bolt immediately. Lucanis flipped aside his poncho, gathered it over his shoulder, and started unbuttoning his shirt.

(Brynnor couldn't help but appreciate that view)

"It's not too bad," he said, as he pulled his right arm out of the sleeve. Brynnor could just see, in the fading light, how the bullet burned his skin as it grazed him.

She rinsed her hands off in the springwater. Her gold ring was shining, now. Brynnor tipped a little of the high-proof whisky over the burn on his arm and let it drip-dry.

"I also wanted to thank you for this," she said, not looking him in the eye, but gently waved her left hand. "It was really kind of you, to get it for me."

In the fading evening, with the night-birds coming out to swoop for the flies and insects that hovered over the spring and the little pond it formed, she could hear Lucanis swallow hard.

"I know it means a lot to you."

"It does."

She tied the bandage around his arm, covering the graze from the air and elements. As she tied the knot, she let her fingertips linger on his warm skin. She brushed her thumb over an old scar.

Lucanis inhaled. "Brynnor," he said quietly. Maybe it was a question. Maybe it was just a statement, or a prayer.

It was enough to startle her to her senses. "You're, uh, a really good shot. And a good member of the group," she added, and backed off a few steps. She took a swig from the open flask.

"Bryn—"

"Thanks again, Lucanis," she waved the flask as she backed off and turned around, and all but ran back to the campfire, to Celeste and Naja and Solana, towards familiarity.