Figurehead

nineteen

She must have been awake far before first light. A fire burns in the hearth, she sits cross-legged in the centre of her bed, the sheets folded neatly on its end, and she is fully dressed, her eyes alert, though underlined by shadow, her hair tied back. Her gaze flicks to me as I pad across the room, waking myself up with water from the basin on the chest of drawers near her bed.

We haven't spoken since we were in the field last night.

I turn to meet her gaze as I stand, my hands occupied with detangling dark tendrils of hair.

"So who are you?" she asks in a low voice. Nirs is fast asleep still.

"Janf, trusted messenger." I shrug. "Not much, really."

She eyes me, then returns her gaze to the knives she holds in her hand. "I see."

"You're not so... Blunt, here," I comment offhandedly.

She snorts. "If you say so." Or maybe not.

"What's it like to be back home?" I ask her cautiously.

She shrugs. "I'm not home." Oh. She shrugs again. "War is war. I have no home here or in the lands, and my family is scattered. So be it." How do I react to that? She tucks her knives away and swings her legs off the side of the bed, standing. "But I'm alive. While I'm alive, I'll fight for king, for empire, for the Lord." So she believes too.

"You're very strong," I say eventually.

She shrugs. "I'm not. He is. That's enough." Her faith is unshakeable. At least, it seems like it. She pauses. "I'm returning before half-day today, Janf."

I furrow my eyebrows. "What do you mean? You said two days-"

She shakes her head. "I shouldn't have said I'd do something I wouldn't." What-

She leaves the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. She's leaving today. She's returning to fight. She could die. She knows that. And she's returning anyway. I sigh.

The Lord be with her.

I return to my bed, shrugging a pelt onto my shoulders as I sit on the edge, staring into the fire.

Nirs continues to sleep.

It seems like a long long time has passed with me just sitting there in the silence and in the roar of my thoughts before I hear a quiet knock on the door. "Janf? Nirs?" he asks quietly.

"Come in," I croak, then clear my throat.

I glance at my sleeping companion. She only came back to sleep late in the night, apparently having been with Sher drying out herbs in the temporary lull in the snowfall.

The door opens, and he stands in the open doorway. He glances at the sleeping figure. "Let her sleep," I murmur. The room isn't large, so he can hear me well enough. He nods once, closing the door behind him before crossing the room to sit beside me.

"I just saw Frei," he begins. He sighs. "I assume she's leaving."

I nod once. "Before half-day." Not for the first time since I was last in Kalsemir, I wonder if we will ever meet again. I don't know if I am right to hope.

We sit in companionable silence, minds whirling.