I woke to a kink in my neck and drool dripping down my cheek. The saddle was warm, but my back protested my funny position. I found my and Rowan’s travel cloak wrapped up around me and Rowan’s lowered gaze flicking away from me. “Was I snoring?” I grumbled from beneath the hem. That at least made sense to why I woke suddenly.

Rowan snorted at me. “Just a little.” He backed up from where he had been looming over me to sit down.

“Thanks.” I pulled the two cloaks closer around me. The late autumn dawn was frosty. My ears and nose hurt from it.

“Sure.” Rowan refused to look at me. I glanced over to the ball of rough spun next to me. Farrow had created a nest of passably dry leaves and his cloak to curl up in. Rowan kicked out his feet toward the mild fire.

“Did you keep that going all night?” I blinked at the flames, still groggy. A wisp of blue rose from in front of the hearth stones. I brushed away the litter, hoping not to find a human sized hand coming up to grab me. Instead, I found a thumb sized skull of some random creature. The lower mandible was gone and most of the snout had cracked off. A little blue wisp rose from the spot between the eye sockets. I pulled it out of the dirt and brushed it off to admire the blue wisp coming off of it.

“Banked it for a few hours as a bed for Quamire. He likes laying on coals, so he kept it going for us.”

“Gussnee like fire?”

“Moderately enough. Some strains breath fire, but most just like laying in coals. Wildfires drive them crazy. They can bank the heat. Works great when you’re sick and want a really warm waterbottle.” Rowan gave an easy smile.

“Where is Quamire, anyway?” I glanced around our tight hideout. Lis was somehow perched on a low branch of a massive tree I hadn’t seen in the dark last night. Rowan was using Ravur as a pillow. But the little labra-dragon wasn’t around.

“Probably hunting. Farrow and I use him to snag food, but I send him hunting early in the mornings for his own breakfast.”

“You let me sleep in, don’t you?” I realized with that revelation.

“Usually just a little while longer than Farrow and me. Paladin duties put me on a strict schedule that I can’t seem to fight, and Farrow was in charge of getting the ovens going back at the inn, so he was practically awake at midnight.”

“And would I ever like to sleep in!” Farrow quipped from beneath his cloak.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

He peeked out from under the cloth to regard us with tired eyes and an annoyed huff. “Been awake listening to you snore anyways, kit. It’s cold. No good trying to sleep now.”

“Then just lay there for a bit longer, Sparrow bones. I ain’t getting up yet.”

He frowned, went to protest, then shut his mouth. He glanced at Rowan, then back at me. “If you aren’t getting up, I’m stealing your warmth.” He eased up, wary at his own threat, like he expected one of us to get angry.

I shrugged. “You’re probably warmer than me.” I lifted my cloaks, and dropped them immediately from the chill. “Holy cold.” I tapped one of Rowan’s feet, “sure you don’t want your cloak back?”

“Eh, nah. Was gonna get in some practice in a minute.” Rowan smirked at Farrow’s quick dash as he buried himself under my cloaks and pressed into my side. Farrow’s heat made me more aware of how cold all of my limbs were. Rowan groaned and stood up. “Guess now’s as good as the next moment. Gonna steal this cloak if you aren’t going to use it.” He snagged Farrow’s cloak off the ground, shook it free of the leaf litter and pulled it around his shoulders.

Farrow shrugged against my side. “Prayers?”

I couldn’t figure out where I was supposed to set my arms with him pressed against me the way he was. Which left my shoulders burning as I hovered my arms and tried to figure out what was going to be appropriate bodily contact between men under a cloak like this. Especially a man I had kissed shortly after decking him the once.

Rowan grunted a positive note.

“Prayers?” I asked as I tentatively rested my arm over Farrow’s curled body. He didn’t protest the position, so I relaxed until the burn in my shoulders dissipated. He was an inch shorter than me when standing and rectangularly framed. I just hadn’t thought much about how light he would feel. Farrow gave the impression of being solid muscle, but he reminded me more and more of a thin-boned bird. Or a lithe cat.

“Part of my powers as a paladin come from the prayers I offer to the Five Gods of War.” Rowan cleared out a bit of space near the fire.

“But, isn’t the Dark God different?”

“It is. The Five Gods of War are part of the Graf religion. It’s the official religion of Herenhuis and it’s vassal states. The Dark God is part of the religion from my home country.”

“You’ve made a deal with the Five Gods?” I asked.

He nodded. “I go through my forms in the morning, while doing recitation. It’s part of my paladin duties to show my willingness to protect in their name. The Gods grant me a lighter sword and speed in exchange.”

“Will you continue praying to them when you get home?”

He stalled in the cleaning of his space to look at me. “I hadn’t thought about it?”

“Would your Dark God give you powers if you worshiped him instead? I just don’t get why you’d continue with the other Gods if that’s not the religion you want to be in?” I only realized I was rubbing Farrow’s sleeve when his purr deepened at my side. I quieted my fidgeting.

“I was baptized in the church’s holy waters. That was when I made the pledge to be their paladin. That let me receive their powers. I don’t know how I would do it for the Dark God? I don’t want to lose the powers I have.”

“Is it magic?” I asked.

Rowan shook his head. “Not like your’s. It operates differently. At least, I think it does.”

“Are the prayers different between the Gods of War and the Dark God?”

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen a service for the Dark God and his Consorts. It’s not allowed in Herenhuis. I only really know of it from my dad’s diary that mom let me read once.”

“Ever tried praying the same way with the Gods of War, but instead directing it to the other guy?”

“Rude. But no. Not sure what it would do.”

“Try it? I mean, I can’t see you continuing to deal in Herenhuis crap for the rest of your life. Doesn’t seem very Demon Lord to me. What do I know. But. Yeah. Show me. See if there’s a difference. I see blue wisps. Like this little skull,” I held it up to show him. “There’s a wisp coming out of it from between it’s eyes. Maybe I’ll see something if you do these Prayers. Maybe it’ll help me make sense of this.”

“Want me to offer to the Five Gods and the Dark God?”

“Well, probably not at the same time. I don’t know what you would need to dissipate whatever this, I guess it’s probably a ‘blessing’, this blessing and re-set it for the Dark God, but you could try it. That is, if you’re even wanting to follow a god. Seems sketchy. But what do I know.”

In my pause, Farrow unburrowed his head from beneath the cloak to grab the little skull from me. “What did you find? Oh, it’s a ferin. What are you going to do with it?”

I shrugged. “Not sure. Just thought it was interesting it had a blue wisp. I don’t feel anything weird coming off it otherwise.”

“Tried making it do the thing you did to the skeletons in the castle?” he asked.

“I’m going to get started.” Rowan drew his sword and started in on muttering something in a language I didn’t recognize.

I watched Rowan raise, lower, and sweep his sword in a brutish, stiff sword dance while I continued with Farrow’s questions. “Haven’t tried. Might as well, if we’re testing ideas this morning.” I took the little skull back from him and searched about in my body for the sensation I had back in the castle when I had yanked on the skeletons’ tethers. Slowly, a quiet settled over our hide out, Rowan’s meditation become a consistent drone to the background of my trial. His blade glowed a soft sheen of red that reminded me of my blue wisps. At the edge of my periphery, shadows flickered when I found a path of tension that wasn’t my making. I evened my breathing, focused on the blue wisp on the skull.

A ripping, tearing sensation across my entire side opposite of Farrow caught me off guard. Massive teeth. Terror. Hot, then suddenly cold. I’d found the spirit’s last moment. Like the drowned. Conflicting emotions ran through me as one level wanted to escape the sensation, while another was elated that I had been able to reproduce what I’d done in the castle.

“Heed me,” I gently commanded. The blue wisp wavered in response. The skull twisted in response to my voice, and the pain intensified ten fold in my side. I couldn’t draw a breath. “Rest, little one.” I gasped quietly, nicking my lip with my fang as I bit down with another wave of teeth chewing through my ribcage. Blood bubbled along my lip. Death took its tribute. The skull went inert in my fingers and the pain evaporated. I dragged in a ragged breath. Only then did I realize the blue wisp had disappeared.

“Did it work?” Farrow looked from the skull to me and back. “You’re bleeding by the way.”

“Can taste it. I think it worked. The blue wisp is gone.” I stared at the little cream and brown colored bit of bone in my hand. I reached into the pouch I had left tied to my waste the night before and pulled out a tiny finger ring designed for someone three times smaller than me. I considered the silver in it and followed my intuition. I willed it to wrap around the skull until the whole of it was coated in a sheet of it.

“What are you doing?”

“Keeping it as a reminder.” I dug out a strip of leather that had been turned into a necklace with a clasp. I strung it onto the leather and put it around my neck.

“Why?”

“Because it feels right.” More like I felt guilty in that moment, feeling what the little creature had gone through in it’s moment of death. I saw it also as a reminder of what I would face if I really was to contemplate raising a necormantic army of undead soldiers for Rowan’s bid to be a Demon Lord and wipe out Herenhuis. I would need to be able to hold every one of their pain. I couldn’t even hold a little rodent type creature getting eaten by something with big… “teeth.” I looked up to Rowan and a pair of reflected eyes in his sword. That reflection was coming from behind me. “Oh fuck, Farrow.” I pushed him down and slid down the saddle into the leaves as a massive grey creature that resembled Quamire on steroids jumped over us to go after Rowan. Lis squawked and jumped her way higher up into the massive tree while Ravur twisted and bellowed at her harness keeping her stuck.

Rowan’s sword came down hard, rending the gussnee’s shoulder clear away from it’s furred and scaled flesh. The creature fell back a step to stand over the fire, it’s wound sagging. Saliva dripped. Curling waves of red rose from the blade.

Farrow pulled his way out from beneath the cloaks and took up a defensive position in front of me. “You got it, boss?”

“Alive or dead?” Rowan feinted to one side, never letting his eyes leave the creature.

“I’m not seeing maggots. I think it’s alive and pissed.” Farrow crouched to keep out of Rowan’s reach while positioning himself to tackle the creature.

Rowan shifted away from it’s snapping jaws. “Matchstick, you got anything?” The creature launched. Rowan’s sword found it’s home between it’s teeth before it could take a chunk out of his throat.

Panicked, I reached for the tethers, the little skull warm in my hand. I found nothing like the skeletons on the other side. “Agree with Farrow. It’s gotta be alive.”

“Face of the Damned. Where is Quamire?” Rowan twisted, sending the creature flying. The enraged beast landed hard, it’s sheared shoulder making it stumble. Rowan whistled loud for his companion. “You got a clean shot at that thing’s heart?”

I had no idea where Farrow came up with them, but he had a pair of knives in his hands the next time I blinked. He twisted his head in quick thought. “Probably.” The blades made a deep thunking sound as they found their target. The creature slowly let go of Rowan’s blade as it sank back on it’s haunches and then fell, smothering our fire under it’s large body.

“It dead, Tan?” Farrow hissed, not leaving his guarding spot.

I closed my eyes, not wanting to watch the body bleeding out in front of me and went searching for the tether. It snapped across my senses, loud and clear. Fresh death had a different feel from a desiccated corpse. The pain from the sword rang through my shoulder. My chest constricted with the blades to the heart. “Yep.” I chirped as I fought to drag in air past that all encompassing, throbbing, burn across my senses. “Heed me.” I willed the creature. It’s weight was more than a skeleton on my senses. Still warm, it felt different from the bits of bone in the mud. And it’s pain was clear compared to those with age. I pressed a palm against the warmth where the knife pain radiated in my side. My hand came away sticky. “Alright Death, I’ve got blood for you. Let it find peace.” The red smeared across my hand bubbled and evaporated. The gussnee sank in on itself.

“You’re bleeding!” Farrow scrambled to press down on the wounds in my side and chest.

“Give it a minute. Don’t think I’ll die.” I didn’t feel dizzy for the blood.

“It didn’t touch you!” Rowan bellowed and jumped over the creature’s body to reach me. He tossed his sword against Ravur’s saddle and knelt to tear apart my shirt. They both stared in horrified silence as the wounds patched themselves together. “Matchstick?”

“Drowning sucked more. This is just sharp.” I pushed to get them to let go.

“Drowning?” Rowan’s tone went icy. “The castle.”

“Yep. Now. If getting a knife in the heart didn’t kill me tethering that creature’s spirit, I’m going to assume if I run into a corpse with it’s head chopped off, most I might get is a cut to the neck, but doubt I’ll die.” I sat up and tried to pull together the scrapped shirt. “That was the only shirt I didn’t outright hate. Dang it.”

“I’ll buy you something in the next village.” Rowan apologized.

“Anything other than this terrible texture. I hate Yujin clothes. They feel super uncomfy.”

Quamire bounded into our hiding spot. He came to an immediate stop when he smelled the creature on our fire. He bristled and growled until he realized it was dead. Then he peed on it.

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