The tavern's evening lights glowed through the trees. Tears burned at the corners of Lina's eyes. Home. She sprinted through the woods as if the light might vanish before she reached it.
At the clearing beside the woodpile, she stopped and looked down at her dress. Fin wouldn't let this go. She clawed at the bloodstain on her chest, then veered toward the well and hauled up a bucket. The water washed pink over her fingers. She scrubbed until her skin hurt, but she could still see blood in the creases.
You're imagining it, Raithe said.
How do you know?
You're not the first person to get blood on your hands.
Lina lowered her hands. She pulled her kitchen knife and sawed away the worst of the stained fabric, then tied her apron higher to cover the damage. It would have to do.
She steadied herself and walked toward the tavern. The forest's hush faded behind her, replaced by voices and the familiar strain of a lute. Had Arystelle told Fin she'd run away? Had she told him anything at all?
Before she could think better of it, Lina pushed through the door.
Soldiers packed the common room from wall to wall. Fin sat on a stool, watching the bard ensnare them with her song. For a moment, Lina stood in the doorway. The same uniforms. The same faces. She'd spent four days in the woods, but the room looked as though she'd only stepped outside.
Fin turned toward her. Lina shook her head once, and whatever he saw made him let her pass. She hurried upstairs and shut her door before pulling off the ruined dress. She stuffed it beneath the bed and yanked on a clean one.
Lina, Raithe breathed.
She paused with an apron in her hands.
Are you healed?
His laugh sounded strained.
Raithe—
"Lina."
Fin stood outside her door. She opened it and met his frown.
"Where have you been?"
She opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head. Tears slipped free before she could stop them. Fin's expression softened.
"There's a bowl of stew for you at the bar," he said.
Lina tried to smile. A tear reached her lips, salt against the lingering taste of blood. She swallowed.
Fin never asked about her past. He never pressed when she kept to herself or asked why she turned away suitors. She offered him the same courtesy. The scars on his arms were his business, as was the way he handled a knife like a man more accustomed to cutting flesh than vegetables.
"I'll go serve the guests."
"They returned from the front this morning."
Lina stilled.
They shouldn't be back yet.
"All of them?"
Fin nodded, his brow furrowing at her expression.
"Did they say what happened?"
"Been a quiet bunch since they came in. Can't say I miss them breaking my chairs."
She moved toward the stairs, and Fin stepped aside.
"Get that stew. We can talk about what happened when you're ready." He scratched his chin. "And tell me if any of them give you trouble."
She nodded, then paused. "Have you seen Arystelle lately?"
"No. I don't talk to the king's mages."
Some of the tension left her shoulders. She followed him down.
Stew simmered in the cook pot, and a full bowl waited beside the tap. Lina wrapped her hands around it. The rough ceramic warmed her palms, making her cold fingertips prickle.
Every soldier watched the bard. A few slumped in their seats, but the others sat with a stillness Lina couldn't quite account for. Sofia started a jaunty tune, and Lina found herself tapping her foot. Not one soldier joined in. Their mugs stood untouched.
They shouldn't be there.
Lina shifted on her stool. Stew sloshed over the rim and scalded her hand.
She cursed and set the bowl down.
Why?
"Didn't think it was that hot," Fin muttered. He brought her a damp cloth, then found a wooden spoon among the bowls.
"Use this," he grumbled. "Can't have you taking more days off."
"Thank you."
She wrapped the cloth around her hand and took a mouthful.
Raithe? Why shouldn't they be here?
I don't know.
"They don't usually come back this way," Fin said, cleaning a bowl. "Couldn't have seen anything too terrible, though. They aren't drinking themselves into an early grave."
Lina looked across the room. The bearded soldier with the scar through his eyebrow sat near the bard. He reached for his mug and knocked it sideways, spilling ale across the table.
She finished her stew and went over with a cloth.
"Let me get you another," she offered, righting the mug.
A small laugh escaped her as she wiped the table. She'd walked straight up to him without thinking about his hands. Perhaps Fin had got through to them.
"No," the soldier said.
"No?"
He stared back at her. His eyes were dull, his face slack beneath the beard.
"All right."
She placed the mug in front of him. He lifted it to his mouth, but the rim caught against his lower lip. Ale ran through his beard and dripped onto his shirt.
Lina stopped wiping.
"You don't need to fill it."
The words gurgled around the ale. He made no attempt to lower the cup.
This is wrong, Raithe said.
Lina watched another thin stream run down the man's chin.
You're overreacting.
She wasn't sure which of them she meant.
The soldier set down his mug and turned back toward Sofia. The bard's amber eyes moved over the room as she played, her smile never quite reaching them. Lina returned to the bar and sat beside Fin.
The next song was a mournful one: a woman following her lover's voice into the woods. Lina listened without wanting to. She could still smell the leaves she'd woken in.
Near the end, a soldier rose abruptly. His chair tipped behind him, and he stepped back onto one of its legs. He didn't reach for the table. Didn't throw out his hands. His weight shifted, and he fell across the chair.
The crack cut through Sofia's song.
She stopped playing.
Wait—no.
The man lay on the floor without a sound. A splinter of white bone protruded through his trouser leg.
"Thom?" Fin was already moving.
Lina grabbed the cloth from her hand and followed him. Fin crouched beside the soldier, reaching to steady him, then stopped. Thom stared at him.
"We need to get him to the apothecary," Lina said.
"Lina."
She bent toward the leg. Fin caught her arm.
"Look."
At first, she saw only the break. Then the fabric shifted, exposing a gash farther up his thigh. Its edges had darkened. Beneath it, his skin was pale and mottled.
No blood welled from the broken leg.
She looked at his face. His eyes were glassy, fixed on Fin's hand.
The cloth slipped from her fingers.
"He's not alive."
Fin's grip tightened on her arm.
Around them, every soldier turned toward Thom.
"None of them are," Fin said.
Why would they come here? Raithe asked.
Sofia gave a short, humorless laugh. "That explains the quiet."
She set her lute aside.
"I've seen corpses move before." Her gaze passed over the men. "Never like this."
Lina searched for the rise of a chest, a breath through parted lips. The soldiers watched them without either.
Fin cursed. "Any ideas how to kill something that's already dead?"
"Not a skill in my repertoire, old friend."
A dagger slipped from Sofia's sleeve into her hand.
"Don't know what brought them here, but we can't let them leave. Harmless now doesn't mean safe tomorrow."
Lina drew her kitchen knife. Her hand remembered the sentinel's grip, the useless pull against his fingers. She tightened her own around the handle. She wouldn't stand there while Fin and Sofia fought.
I didn't—
Raithe?
His voice faltered. Pain stirred beneath her ribs.
You're hurt.
It's not that. How—
The room tilted. For an instant, she saw a man in darkness, one hand clutched against his side.
Fin drew the sword from Thom's sheath. Lina barely registered the movement before he swung.
The blade struck with a crunch. Thom's head rolled beneath the nearest table.
Lina gagged and closed her eyes. Her free hand pressed against her chest, where she remembered the sword going through.
Nothing moved.
When she looked again, the soldiers were still seated. Thom's body lay at Fin's feet. Beneath the table, his eyes remained open.
The bearded soldier tilted his head.
"Cutting their heads off won't keep them down," Sofia said.
I don't remember, Raithe muttered.
Raithe.
She couldn't keep the plea out of his name.
"His leg's already broken," Fin said. "What else can we try?"
Sofia glanced at him. "You haven't fought these before?"
Lina's knife shifted in her damp palm. She changed hands and wiped her fingers on her apron.
I don't want to die. Not again.
Lina. Move.
His voice was suddenly clear.
She stepped back just as the first soldier fell. His forehead struck the table hard enough to shake the mugs. Another slid from his chair. Then another. Bodies hit the boards around her, limbs folding beneath them.
Something pulled through her, faint and cold. Lina caught the edge of the bar.
For an instant, she felt Raithe without the confusion or the pain. Focused. Controlled. She couldn't tell whether he had reached for her or she had reached for him.
Then it was gone.
You're safe.
Corpses littered the common room. Only Lina, Fin, and Sofia remained standing.
Fin held the sword out from his side.
"That worked."
"You ever seen them drop like that?" Sofia asked.
He shook his head.
"Can't say I have either."
They watched the bodies. Lina waited for a hand to move, for one of the heads to turn.
They died, she thought, and stayed dead.
She touched the place beneath her ribs. Whole skin beneath a clean dress.
Sofia nudged the nearest soldier with her boot. When he didn't move, she pushed her golden curls away from her face and tucked the dagger back into her sleeve.
"So, Finnegan. How far do we need to go to burn bodies without getting caught?"
"There's a clearing in the woods," Lina said. Her voice sounded thin. "A thick copse hides it from the path. Near the border."
The place where she'd woken. She could still feel the sticks beneath her shoulder.
"Safe to go that close?" Sofia asked.
Fin snorted. "Not like we'll run into the king's army."
Sofia raised an eyebrow.
"Your new neighbors used to you disposing of corpses?"
Fin ignored her. He bent and lifted Thom's headless body over his shoulder like a sack of flour.
"Lina. Show us."
"Going to be a long night," Sofia said. "Like old times."
Fin headed for the door without answering.
Sofia watched Lina with a curiosity that made the space between her shoulders itch. Lina lowered her eyes and retrieved the cloth. Thom's head lay beneath the table, one cheek pressed against a dark patch of spilled ale.
She crouched, wrapped it without looking at his face, and led them toward the woods.
For a while, Raithe said nothing.
Then, so quietly she almost missed it, I don't remember.