“So it compounds,” she said.
“Everything compounds,” I answered. “That’s the whole point.”
She looked at me sideways. “You could have just said ‘yes’, Vaelen. You didn’t have to channel Merlin and the way he doesn’t talktoyou, but talksatyou.”
I smiled as I considered it. “He does do that, doesn’t he?”
She gave me a look and nodded. “Yeah, and it’s fucking annoying so don’t you start being fucking annoying too.”
“Where would I be without you?” I asked with a laugh.
“Dead,” she answered, then made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh but was adjacent to one. We continued to watch the fire consume the warding supplies, watched as they burned with their own distinctive color. It was then that I thought of Mordred and how he’d have to explain why his ward maintenance was going to be weeks delayed to Arthur. Ah, to be a fly on the wall during that conversation...
-VAELEN-
We arrived forty miles to the north just at sunrise, after which the supplies were delivered to three caches before the sun rose over the ridge.
For the next few minutes, I rode in silence. My stallion was a gray, and he understood not to press his speed unless I ordered him to do so, and I respected him for it. The sky began in total darkness, then transitioned to charcoal before becoming a pale blue that hadn’t yet made its decision on whether to allow the sun to break through the clouds.
Hailey pulled up next to me, and then we rode in silence for a quarter mile. With Hailey, silence was never uncomfortable. It was one of the things I’d valued about her when we were something other than what we were now, and it was one of the things I continued to value. She didn’t fill space with noise simply because space existed. She waited until she had something worth saying, and then she said it without preamble. And whatever it was that she said, it usually included the word, “fuck.”
“The one who didn’t run,” she said finally.
I knew which one she meant. “What about him?”
“He positioned well. Whoever trained him knew what they were doing.”
“Yes.”
“Arthur’s standards are improving.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway. “They have been. Slowly, but consistently.” I kept my eyes on the road. “You noticed that from where you were standing?”
“I notice most things,” she said, without particular pride, just the fact of it.
“I know you do.”
Another quarter mile passed.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
I considered the question the way she’d have wanted me to consider it: honestly, rather than reflexively. “I’ll carry them with me for a while,” I said, “the way I always do.”
She nodded. She didn’t tell me that was good or that it meant something about my character. She didn’t offer comfort that would have reduced the weight of the deaths to something more manageable. She just accepted the answer and let it sit. And that was a comfort in and of itself.
That was the difference between Hailey and most people. Most people, when you told them something difficult, tried to make it smaller so they could hand it back to you more easily. Hailey left things the size they actually were.
It was, I reflected, probably why she’d been wise enough to walk away from me when she had. She’d seen me clearly, the full and unedited version, and she’d made her assessment without sentiment. I’d respected her for it then. I respected her for it more now.
She asked if we’d won.
I looked at the road ahead. The others were spread out behind us, conversation-quiet and clearly tired.
“This is what winning looks like,” I said, “when you can’t afford to win larger.”
She absorbed that. A quarter mile passed under the hooves of our mounts. She was quiet long enough that I thought she might leave it there. Then: “I think I understand that.”
“Tell me,” I said.
