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Afternoon sunlight slanted through the trees of Arlathan, as Neve tromped along the path behind Rook and Davrin, and Assan darted after something in the underbrush, feathers and leaves rustling.
She wasn’t sure why Rook had asked her to join them, since she doubted she’d been making herself a particularly desirable companion. Since she’d returned to the Lighthouse, she’d kept her resolution to herself and kept her distance from Rook. Cool and professional, that was the ticket, and that meant not letting him draw her into a personal heart-to-heart.
Still, she was back on the team and had every intention of seeing the job through. And Bellara had had some things to do at the Veil Jumper camp, and doubtless the rest of the team had their own projects and errands to take care of, so here Neve was, without complaint. She could work with Rook and she would. She just wouldn’t let things go any further than that.
It was a pleasant enough day, at least – they’d tracked down some missing Veil Jumpers, and fought just a couple of clusters of hostile spirits. The outing was at least half an opportunity to let Assan stretch his wings and explore the forest, she judged. Rook and Davrin had fallen into comparing notes on mutual Warden acquaintances, and Neve was content enough to trail along with half an ear on the conversation and half an eye on Assan scampering along beside the path.
Ahead of her, both Wardens stopped in their tracks, heads turning to one side in a sudden uncanny unison that made Neve’s spine prickle.
Rook said, “Do you feel that?”
“Blight,” Davrin confirmed. “That way.”
“Right. I bet if we slot this in…” Rook had picked up an ancient power crystal somewhere along their path. As he put it into the empty receptacle, a pile of rubble coalesced into a bridge, crossing the ravine that cut through the forest. Neve frowned at it. Ancient magic was all well and good, but it was hard to trust a bridge that had just built itself out of nothing.
Still, the bridge held as they crossed it. On the other side, tucked into a low rise, sat a ruined building. Thick tendrils of blight wound around it, leading to a pulsing, sickly red blight boil, stuck to the wall like a giant barnacle.
“Stand back,” said Rook, and lanced the blight boil with casual accuracy.
The tendril of blight sizzled and died, revealing a ledge leading into the ruin. Rook hopped up to peer inside. Neve braced herself, suspecting what was about to come.
“It’s a pit of darkspawn,” Rook announced. He glanced back toward them with a grin. “Let’s clear it out.”
Neve suppressed a sigh. Darkspawn were possibly her least favorite kind of thing to fight. But Davrin was already plunging in behind Rook, so she followed, wand at the ready.
Fighting darkspawn in close quarters, Neve rapidly concluded, actually was the worst. The darkspawn swarmed within the walls of the ruin, which stank of blood and blight. The air felt hot and close as a Minrathous summer from the fire enchantments both Davrin and Rook were using. The place was full of pulsing blight boils, and Neve spent half her time dodging the spray every time Rook burst one. The darkspawn seemed to be everywhere; she froze them and dodged them and froze them some more, darting up and down the broken stairs, trying not to slip on the ice or the ooze. Rook also seemed to be everywhere, hunting boils from one side of the ruin to the other, cutting his way through spawn as he went, while Davrin drew the thickest knots of enemies and worked his way through them with steady energy. Ice and blight, fire and steel, broken stone and darkspawn snarls; her world narrowed to these things.
And then, suddenly, it was over. Neve looked around frantically for the next rush of darkspawn, but the only thing she heard was her own heart pounding in her ears, and the only things moving were her two companions, both breathing hard. She lowered her wand and wiped a strand of hair out of her eyes.
“What’s that?” Davrin asked. She followed his gaze to one last enormous blight cyst on the inner wall. It pulsed more slowly than the others, its surface almost seeming to ooze and shimmer.
“We saw one like this in the Crossroads, earlier,” she said. “There’s likely something inside it.”
“Something nasty,” Rook added. “The one in the Crossroads was an extra-tough ogre.”
Davrin lifted his sword and moved toward it.
“Don’t break it yet,” Rook said quickly. “I’m… not in shape to fight it right this second.”
Startled, Neve turned toward him. Rook had pulled his helmet off and stood across from the blight cyst, a little off-balance. “What’s wrong?”
“Did something to my knee.” He shifted his weight, testing it, and grimaced.
“Potion?” Davrin suggested.
“Used ‘em already.”
Neve checked her pouch of supplies and winced. “I’m out.” She must have used them in Minrathous and forgotten to restock. Careless; she absolutely should have checked before coming out.
“I’ve just got one,” Davrin said, tossing it to Rook.
“Thanks.” Rook popped off the cap and drank it down. Neve frowned to herself. There could be diminishing returns with potions, sometimes; if he’d already had a few, this one might not help as much.
After a second, he tested his weight on both legs again and made a face. “It’s better, but I think we’ll have to come back later.”
Davrin looked disappointed, Neve thought, but he accepted the judgment with a nod. She bit her lip. Rook had to be hurting pretty badly to turn away from the challenge posed by the blight cyst, and that worried her.
“You can walk, though?” Davrin asked, so maybe he shared her worry.
“Yeah.” Rook shifted from one foot to the other. “Let’s head back to the Veil Jumpers.”
Half an hour later, Neve had to inquire: “You’re absolutely sure you can walk?”
Rook’s limp had been getting steadily worse. It undoubtedly didn’t help that they’d had to change direction a couple of times, the forest evidently opening and closing paths around them. That was unsettling all by itself; Neve liked it when her surroundings stayed stable. They’d also had to do a modest amount of climbing up and down rocks. Rook hadn’t complained, but his efforts had been getting increasingly awkward.
“I can,” Rook said tightly.
Davrin scoffed. “Really.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t say I’m enjoying it, but I’m not seeing a lot of other options here.”
“One of us could go find the Veil Jumpers and come back with Bellara,” Davrin said.
“It’ll be sundown soon,” Neve pointed out.
Properly speaking, Arlathan didn’t get truly dark even after sundown. The floating ruins of the ancient city glowed too brightly for that, becoming a shifting, prismatic beacon, Bellara had said. But the forest did get weirder at night. Bellara had told them some hair-raising stories of camping overnight in the forest, of creatures that only appeared at night, of peculiar music and artifacts that mysteriously changed in the night. Neve was not entirely confident of her ability to ward a campsite adequately out here, the way that magic skewed in the forest. From the looks on their faces, neither Davrin nor Rook liked the idea any better than she did. If they didn’t return to the Veil Jumpers by nightfall, there was a good chance Bellara would come out after them, but it was a toss-up whether she’d be able to find them in the shifting, haunted forest.
“Good point,” Davrin said. “Assan!”
Somewhere in the underbrush, Assan squawked and then rustled his way out on to the path, shedding twigs and leaves. He cocked his head, alert for Davrin’s word.
“Good boy,” Davrin said. “Go back to the Veil Jumper camp and find Bellara and lead her here. Got that? Find Bellara!”
Assan squawked cheerfully and launched himself into the air, circling once and then vanishing over the treetops.
“C’mon. We’ll keep going and meet her on the way.” Davrin leaned in to sling Rook’s arm over his shoulder, supporting from Rook’s bad side.
“You really think that will work?” Neve asked, amused but skeptical.
Rook laughed. “Oh, come on, Neve, have some faith!”
“Won’t do any harm, might get us some help,” Davrin said. “Neve, can you take his other side?”
Neve hesitated for a split second at that. But, well, Davrin was right: they’d probably make a better pace this way. At least Rook was leaning on her, rather than the other way round.
She stepped in close. She and Rook were nearly the same height; it was an easy reach to put her arm around his back, take his arm over her shoulders. This close, she smelled sweat and the whiff of oil and metal from his armor, and had a perfect view of the curving lines tattooed over his cheek. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. He took in a short, rough breath and let out a longer one, turning his gaze back to the path. “All right. Let’s go.”
They made better progress this way, but even so, it was difficult. The paths sometimes narrowed, making it hard to move three abreast. Neve couldn’t help but remember that first awful night, when she and Lace had hauled Rook, unconscious and bleeding, into the infirmary. This time, she wasn’t worried for his life, but she was keenly aware of every flinch and indrawn breath he made as they made their bumpy way along. The fading light made it hard to see hazards underfoot. At one point, Davrin tripped, losing his grip and nearly taking Rook down with him. Neve had to brace to haul him up on his feet – well, one foot – and Rook’s stifled yelp made her wince in sympathy.
“Sorry,” Davrin said, steadying himself.
“Not your fault,” Rook said, strained and out of breath.
After that, they had to slow down and go more carefully. Shadows gathered heavily under the trees by then, punctuated by the occasional glowing moth, and from time to time they heard chirps or growls coming from the underbrush, leading Neve to wonder uneasily what might be lurking under there.
Then a light came bobbing into view along the path ahead of them. With a screech and a thump, Assan emerged out of the darkness and trotted toward then, squawking triumphantly and shaking out his wings.
“Oh! There you are!” Bellara’s voice followed, along with Bellara herself, a yellow-tinted lantern floating beside her.
“You did bring Bellara!” Davrin said, reaching out with his free hand to ruffle Assan’s feathers. “Good job, boy. You can have truffles when we get back to the Lighthouse.” The griffon chirped and bounced in place, tail lashing at the leaves scattered across the path.
“Told you to have faith,” Rook said.
“What happened? I thought you’d be back an hour ago, and then Assan landed in camp and kept trying to lead me out, so I thought for sure… oh, Rook, what did you do to yourself?” Bellara jogged down the path toward them. Neve envied her sure-footedness.
“Knee,” Rook said. “Ran out of potions.” He wasn’t putting any weight at all on the bad leg at this point, Neve realized.
“Oh, dear. You’d better sit down, there’s a rock over here…”
Together, they maneuvered so that Rook could prop himself on the boulder. He sagged onto it. In the light from Bellara’s lantern, his face looked decidedly drawn. Bellara dropped to her knees beside him, probing with her fingers and muttering to herself. Neve took the opportunity to stretch out her own back and shoulders.
“The ligaments in here are a real mess,” Bellara said, frowning.
“Thought they might be,” Rook said.
“Looks like you sprained your ankle, too.”
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh.
“And there’s a lot of swelling and other damage.” Bellara touched his good knee, biting her lip in thought. “I think I can reconstruct the ligaments the way they’re supposed to be, but it’s going to be fiddly, and it’s really going to need rest for everything to sort of… settle into place.”
Neve glanced around at the darkening woods. “Not here, I hope.”
“No… we should at least get you back to the Veil Jumpers’ camp for that, but that’s not too far now.” Bellara sounded dubious. “I just don’t know if I should…”
“Look, I trust you, Bellara,” Rook said. “Just think of it as a kind of tinkering.”
Bellara wrinkled her nose. “It feels pretty different. I don’t want to mess things up. I think Emmrich would have a better idea how to put all this back together. Properly, I mean. Otherwise…”
“It’s already messed up.” Rook waved a hand. “I give you permission to tinker on my knee. If it’s good enough to get back to the Lighthouse, Emmrich can take a look.”
Otherwise what? Neve wondered, but Bellara took a breath and nodded, her face setting into concentration instead of worry. “All right,” she said. A faint glow rose around her hands. “I think that just needs to go there and connect across here…”
Neve drifted closer, curious. She’d always been rubbish at the healing side of magic. When she thought about people, she focused on personality, motives, and emotion, and had little gift for perceiving the internal lay of a person’s anatomy. She could sense that Bellara was working something delicate, but that was about all.
Rook leaned back on his hands, tensing. “That feels very strange,” he said into the sky. Davrin snorted.
“Okay, okay, I think I’ve got it,” Bellara said. “I think that just needs to attach there and then the ankle goes like so and… there.” The glow faded.
Rook gingerly flexed the knee and ankle. “That feels better, at least.”
“I don’t think I can do much about the swelling right now, though,” Bellara said regretfully.
Without comment, Neve conjured a palm-sized block of ice and offered it.
“Oh, perfect! Thanks, Neve!” Bellara took the ice and started strapping it to the injured knee.
“Thanks,” Rook echoed. After a few moments, he took a deep breath. “All right, let’s try this.”
Neve and Davrin both reached out as he got to his feet, just in case he needed extra support, but he made it up and balanced on two feet. “Yes. Better. All right. Let’s go.”
Bellara suggested they stay overnight at the Veil Jumpers’ camp, and Neve wondered about the wisdom of that herself. Rook, though, insisted on making the trek through the Crossroads back to the Lighthouse.
“You really should rest it once we get back,” Bellara said with a worried look as they got out of the Caretaker’s boat. Rook was limping slightly again after the walk through the Crossroads. “Like, for a while. It needs to finish healing, or it might be easy to injure again.”
Rook made a face. “How long, do you think?”
“I don’t know, a couple of days? Emmrich would have a better idea.”
“Well, we’ll ask him when we get there.”
“Time’s important, but we also need you in shape for the job,” Davrin put in.
Rook sighed. “Yeah, I get it.”
They emerged into the Lighthouse and Bellara darted off up the stairs to find Emmrich. Rook kept going up the stairs, but slowly, one hand on the wall. He looked exhausted, Neve realized, lines of tension around his eyes and jaw.
Emmrich and Bellara intercepted them as they reached the library, Emmrich insisting that Rook sit immediately on the couch. Lucanis trailed along behind them, and also turned out to have experience with this sort of injury. Assan pranced about, chattering for his promised treat, and Harding and Taash showed up within minutes to exclaim over the situation as well.
This was entirely too much hubbub. No one really needed her here. Neve conjured a few more blocks of ice as her contribution, handed them off to Bel, and headed for the door. She glanced back once and caught Rook’s eye. With the rest of the team fussing around him, he looked both worn out and beleaguered. She managed a smile back and escaped.
She found bread and cheese and leftover soup in the kitchen. Neve took a bowl into her office and ate it in the company of the wisps, while the diffuse light of the Fade lingered outside the windows. Her back and shoulders ached, and she could have happily collapsed onto her cot. Half-carrying your team leader through a haunted forest took it out of you, it turned out.
Her mind wasn’t quite ready for rest, though. She’d resolved to keep more distance around herself. To not be caught off guard again. She’d spent the last few hours close enough to feel his breath on her cheek, and she couldn’t help but feel sympathy for his obvious pain. Rook’s determination to stagger onward, one-legged, and somehow keep up a good attitude while he did, was strangely endearing. In a somewhat exasperating way, admittedly. He could have at least complained, like a normal person.
Her thoughts drifted in no particular direction while she ate her soup and watched the others leave the Lighthouse. Davrin and Assan appeared not long after Neve herself had left, presumably to give Assan the promised treat. A while later, Harding and Lucanis and Bellara came out together, talking with each other in front of the building before departing to their separate quarters. A little after that, Neve made a decision and headed back to the Lighthouse proper.
Coming through the doors into the library, she stopped short. She’d expected to take her parcel up to Rook’s door and leave it there, but he was still ensconced on the couch, his armor shed in a heap on the floor.
Sound asleep, she saw after a moment.
Well, she supposed being the team leader half-carried through the haunted forest took it out of you, too.
Someone had brought in blankets and pillows to make the couch relatively comfortable. Looking at him, Neve wasn’t sure Rook would care one way or the other. She moved closer and he didn’t stir, in spite of the inevitable click of her metal foot on the floor.
In sleep, the lines of strain and discomfort had smoothed out of his face. He looked… peaceful. A shade younger, perhaps. But it was also odd to see his face drained of its usual liveliness.
Neve shook herself. She didn’t need to stand here staring. She could just leave her offering and go. On the table next to the couch, she laid a bundle of the serials she’d been collecting for Bellara, just the thing to pass some enforced convalescence. She’d even picked ones that had endings, mostly.
Task accomplished, she slipped away as quietly as she’d come, back to collapse onto her own cot. She resolutely didn’t look back over her shoulder before she passed through the doors again.