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Vertigo swept through him again, tailed by a vicious pulse of rage. Lore, once again, the centerpiece of all their problems. Fucking figured.

“She’ll stay with you,” Red said after the quiet between them had stretched thin.

“You don’t want to take her with you? She’ll be better than a map.”

“She’s not ready to cooperate.” Red sniffed. “And, she’s all the collateral we have.”

So, if it all goes to shit…

“Okay.” He could do this, he would defer to Red. Go along with her plan, despite how wrong it all felt. “I trust you, Red. Bring him back home.”

“I will,” Red said, voice nearly a whisper, and Fenrir heard what it hid: Or I won’t come home at all.

Chapter XV

Marching

They said their goodbyes within morning’s bitter embrace, a storm brewing on the horizon where black clouds hung bloated with rain, witness to something Fenrir hadn’t thought would hit so hard. Hadn’t, he could honestly say, thought he’d ever see again—for reasons completely unrelated to what had him there now.

Soldiers. Thousands of them. Lined up in neat columns of blue and gray, filling the Lab’s overgrown parking lot and beyond. Too many to count but not to see, volunteers—all of them—on a mission that should be his. That he wished could be his.

He barely remained standing when Red and Farris noticed him, their inevitable farewell approaching like the storm on the horizon. Fenrir latched onto Red’s eyes in the way he couldn’t with his hands. But it wasn’t the lack of his arm that stopped him. It was all the attention—the expectation that he be strong in the face of what this army might soon face…without him.

“Fenrir,” Red murmured. “Stop worrying. We’ll find him.”

But will they be able to come home once they do?

“I know you will. I do.”

Within the cool balm of an early morning, the words rang hollow. All that was left to fill them was goodbye. That and…

“Here, this is for you both.” Fenrir slipped the harness off his shoulder, clutching his sword close before turning to Red and holding it out.

Her eyes went wide as plates. “Fenrir, I can’t even use it.”

“Then Farris can.” Beside them, Farris made a small sound. “You’ll need it more than me. When Daedra and I fought, this sword saved my life. There’s something special about it, I don’t know what. But where her blade ate through my arm, it didn’t even phase this sword. Take it. Please. It could make a difference.”

Fenrir turned to Farris and held the sword out again. Farris’ hands shook when he took it, gazing at the sheathed blade with a soft expression before lifting it over his head and strapping it to his back. When he next met Fenrir’s eyes, his were teary—expression proud.

“It’s been an honor, sir. I will care for your sword as if it were Master Orpheus himself. And when we recover him, I will care for him as if he were the daughter I lost. I may not have been able to get my little girl back, but I’ll be sure to bring Master Orpheus home. In that, you have my word.”

“Thanks, Farris,” Fenrir managed. “You’re a good soldier, but a better friend.”

Then, Farris bowed—not saluted—and the cheer from the crowd was nearly enough to bring tears to Fenrir’s eyes.

Farris didn’t linger. He waved to the soldiers in a rare display of confidence and then headed for the mounted officers, leaving Fenrir with Red while the army continued to cheer, excitement building as it always did, the thrill of the march towards what would end in either death or an acute appreciate for what it meant to live putting into perspective why it was they were there at all—what kind of life was worth living when everything important to a person could all so easily be stolen away.

“Guess it’s time to go.” She turned to him, mouth a line but her eyes soft. “Don’t worry, okay? I know you will but try not to. And don’t let Mercer run circles ‘round you...”

“Lost an arm, not my legs. I’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” Red said, voice gentle. “Okay. Come here.” Red dragged him into a hug, a brief break of decorum that maybe wasn’t appropriate for a king’s army to see, but Fenrir wasn’t a king and Red wasn’t a general, so he held Red close for as long as it took for his remaining arm to grow weak.

That turned out to be an alarmingly short span of seconds.

“Get that tower up and running,” Red said when Fenrir let her go, hand shaking. “We’ll find him,” Red repeated, so softly Fenrir wondered if she was saying it to herself. “We will.”

Fenrir did not wait around at the Labs. Hours after the army’s departure, a much smaller contingent of soldiers departed from the trampled parking lot. Into the storm they marched, towards a mountain Fenrir never thought to call home again.