A Quiet Debt

eil woke to the sound of steel.

His hand found the sword beside him before his eyes had fully opened. For a moment he lay still on the cold cave floor, listening through the heaviness in his limbs.

Steel rang again.

Not the frantic collision of battle. No shouting followed it, no scream, no sudden rush of feet through the dark. The blows came with space between them: a measured ring, the dull scrape of boots over earth, then Kenneth’s voice carrying faintly through the ivy at the cave mouth.

“Again!”

Neil let his hand fall from the sword.

Morning had entered quietly around him. Pale light slipped through the vines and lay in broken strips across the stone, touching abandoned blankets, packs, boots, the blackened remains of the night’s fire. Most of the others were already gone. Lindsey’s bedroll had been folded beside her pack with the sort of precision Neil had always envied, while Gregory’s blanket lay half twisted beneath itself as though he had escaped it in a hurry.

Just like when we were kids.

He smiled.

Here and there remained smaller evidence of the previous day: a strip of blood-stiffened cloth, a cracked buckle, a bowl stained faintly green from one of the ranger's salves. He rose with a groan. Everything in him objected from a different place. Shara’s Light had closed the worst of his wounds, but healing did not erase the memory of being struck, and his body remembered several things his skin no longer showed.

He picked his way among the bedding, buckled on his sword, and stepped through the ivy into the washed-blue morning.

The night’s rain had left the Downs gleaming. Dew silvered the grass, and beyond the clearing the hills rolled south beneath a pale sky, broad and green until they met the distant Ironspines. No smoke marked the horizon. Nothing moved upon the ridges. The wind carried wet earth and pine, and for once there was nothing in it that asked them to run.

The clearing had been awake for some time.

Kenneth and Joshua had been at it long enough for the grass beneath them to show the punishment. The dwarf pressed forward in broad, disciplined cuts, less wild than the day before, while Joshua yielded ground by inches, turning each blow aside rather than trying to answer it.

Kenneth swung high. Joshua caught the haft between his blades and shoved it away, but his retreat afterward came slower than the last.

The dwarf noticed.

He lowered his axe slightly. “What’s this?”

Joshua breathed through his mouth, waiting.

Kenneth’s grin widened. “All that pipeweed finally catchin’ up with ya, Ranger?”

“I’m fighting a damned dwarf before breakfast.”

Kenneth looked upward and raised his voice toward the trees. “Care to join us in some training, elf?”

Ashley’s voice drifted down from somewhere overhead.

“That would only make you better and me worse.”

The dwarf barked a laugh and came at Joshua again.

Joshua slipped the first swing, turned the second, and began circling toward Kenneth’s right when a bowstring snapped somewhere above them.

An arrow cut through the space between the two men.

Both moved on instinct. Joshua twisted away. Kenneth lurched back half a step, one axe crossing his body as the shaft buried itself in the earth where neither man had been a heartbeat before.

They looked up.

Lindsey sat comfortably along a thick branch at the edge of the clearing, bow still raised.

“There.”

Kenneth stared at the arrow, then at her. “There what?”

“Your weak side.”

“My—”

“You both keep opening the same angle when Joshua moves right.” Lindsey pointed with the bow. “If that had been coming at you instead of between you, you’d have taken it in the ribs.”

Kenneth looked personally offended. “I was watchin’ him.”

“Exactly.”

Joshua glanced toward the arrow. “She’s right.”

Lindsey studied the dwarf for another moment. “Maybe you should use a shield.”

Kenneth went completely still.

From beneath the edge of his hood, Joshua looked up at her. The warning in his expression came too late.

Lindsey frowned. “What?”

The dwarf’s eyes narrowed. “A shield.”

“Yes?”

Kenneth slowly lowered both axes. “Lass.”

Her certainty began to falter. “What?”

“Do you know what clan I hail from?”

“No.”

“Clearly.”

Joshua looked away, though not quickly enough to hide the beginning of a smile.

Kenneth pointed one axe at Lindsey with grave, wounded dignity. “There are insults a dwarf can forgive. There are insults he can settle with fists and ale and laugh about afterward.”

“Oh my God...”

“And then there’s tellin’ a dwarf to carry a shield. I have two axes!”

“What’s wrong with defending yourself?”

Kenneth made a sound somewhere between outrage and physical pain.

Joshua finally spoke. “You’ve wounded him, girl.”

Lindsey looked between them. “Are dwarves seriously offended by the idea of shields?”

Kenneth drew himself up to his full, unimpressive height. “Not just dwarves.” He struck one axe against his chest. “The Dwarven Clan of Santa Clarita!”

Lindsey sighed, drew, and loosed without bothering to stand. The arrow struck the haft of Kenneth’s lowered axe and stuck there. He stared at it, then kicked the shaft hard enough to snap it.

“Come, Ranger! It’s not breakfast yet!” Kenneth raised both axes. “And worry not—I have no shield!”

Joshua shook his head, smiling, and raised his swords again.

For several breaths the three of them found something that had not been there the day before. Joshua drew Kenneth without forgetting Lindsey. Kenneth held his ground when instinct told him to charge. Lindsey waited rather than loosing merely because a shot presented itself. It lasted only a few exchanges before Joshua stepped too deep and Kenneth turned too late, but when the rhythm broke, they simply reset and tried again.

Near the cave mouth, Gregory and Shara had made quieter use of the morning. They sat beside a fallen tree with a thick tome open across the wizard’s knees, faintly luminous script wandering over its pages. Several loose sheets had been tucked beneath one corner against the breeze. Beyond them came the measured ring of steel, the scrape of boots, and Kenneth’s occasional complaint.

Gregory held one hand above the book. A sphere of purple fire gathered over his palm, no larger than an apple, its surface turning slowly upon itself. Violet light bled along its edges where the heat disturbed the air.

Shara leaned closer. “You always make it round?”

“Not invariably. A sphere is simply efficient. Stable, easily directed, reasonably predictable.”

“And meant to be thrown.”

“Generally.”

She studied the spell another moment. “May I?”

“Of course.”

Light gathered faintly along Shara’s fingers as she touched the edge of Gregory’s spell. The fire resisted her at first, stubbornly preserving the shape it knew, but she did not force it. She drew at its edges instead, little tugs at a time, coaxing the sphere wider and thinner until the concentrated flame flattened between them. Soon a small shimmering plane hovered above Gregory’s palm, indigo and violet moving through it in slow ripples.

Shara tilted her head, pleased. “There.”

Gregory stared at the spell, then at her. “You... made a shield.”

“Mm.” She shrugged.

He returned his attention to the thin plane of flame. “I have been conjuring that spell for nearly twenty years.”

Shara shrugged again.

“And at no point did it occur to me that I might simply not throw it at people.”

“You do seem rather committed to throwing things.”

Gregory turned his wrist. The barrier followed, wavering but holding as he moved it left and right. “It loses density.”

“It has to. You’re asking the same amount of magic to occupy more space.”

“It would not withstand the same force.”

“Probably. But it only has to stop something once.” Shara touched the edge of the spell. The fiery plane bowed beneath her fingers, then returned to shape when she withdrew them. “You always seem to meet force with more force. A barrier can move. Give a little. Turn something away instead of trying to stop all of it.”

Gregory pressed experimentally against the center. The little arcane wall yielded, then settled again.

“That is considerably more efficient.”

“The Light usually is.”

He gave her a sidelong look.

Shara lowered her eyes innocently.

Gregory smiled and let the spell disappear. “Very well. Your turn.”

Some of her confidence vanished. “My turn for what?”

“To misuse your magic.”

“I don’t think that is what we were doing.”

Gregory turned the tome toward her and tapped a diagram near the bottom of the page, several narrowing lines converging upon a single marked point. “The principle is concentration. Your Light naturally spreads because you ask it to surround, mend, reinforce. Offensive work requires the opposite instinct. Choose one point and prevent the energy from dispersing.”

Warm white Light gathered above Shara’s palm.

“Like this?”

“Narrow it.”

The glow contracted and brightened.

“Not harder,” Gregory said. “Smaller.”

Shara frowned. The Light drew inward again, its edges sharpening.

“Good. Now give it direction.”

“Toward what?”

Gregory looked around. “Nothing alive, presuma—”

Shara turned her palm.

The Light snapped into a brilliant white bolt and struck the open book.

Several pages blackened at once.

Shara gasped. Gregory jerked the tome away as a small flame began crawling along the parchment.

“Oh, by Ria—!”

He caught the burning corner beneath his sleeve and smothered it. When he lifted the cloth away, several pages had curled inward, their edges thoroughly scorched.

Shara stared at the damage in horror.

Gregory began laughing.

Her expression somehow became worse. “Why are you laughing?”

“Because that was my fault.”

“I burned your book.”

“No, no. You did precisely what I asked. You concentrated the spell, gave it direction, and released it.”

“It went in the wrong direction.”

Gregory examined the ruined corner. “Yes. That portion requires refinement.”

Shara still looked miserable.

“This is why offensive magic is generally learned very slowly,” he said, “and very far from anything one intends to keep.”

Her eyes returned to the burned pages. “I could have hurt you.”

“Nonsense. I have this now.”

Gregory raised two fingers. Between them appeared the tiny purple barrier she had shown him, scarcely larger than a playing card.

Shara almost laughed, but embarrassment held it back. “I suppose you’re safe from bees.”

The wizard chuckled and snapped his wrist, dissolving the shield into violet sparks.

“Did you ever become accustomed to that?” she asked.

“To nearly setting books on fire?”

She looked at him.

Gregory’s smile softened. “No. Although I did learn that eyebrows require approximately fourteen weeks to return.”

That pulled a quieter laugh from her. Gregory settled the book on his knees again and carefully separated the damaged pages.

“Again,” he said. “Perhaps less power this time. More control.”

Shara lifted her hand, then stopped.

Something moved beneath the brush at the far edge of the clearing.

“Oh...”

Gregory followed her attention.

A small raccoon had emerged beneath the trees. It sat back on its haunches, tiny forepaws busily turning something over in the grass, its dark mask making its bright eyes seem larger still.

Shara’s voice rose into a delighted whisper. “Look at him!”

Gregory did.

For several seconds he said nothing. The amusement faded from his face.

Shara glanced at him.

The wizard lowered his eyes to the book and reached for his staff.

“Let us continue.”

High above the clearing, Ashley watched from the branch of an old tree.

She had been there long enough for the bark beneath one boot to grow damp with morning mist, though no one below seemed particularly concerned by her absence. Her attention moved from one person to the next, studying their improvements.

The ranger, humility.

Their archer, rhythm.

The dwarf, patience, thankfully.

That wizard, restraint.

The elf’s gaze shifted.

And the priestess...

Shara pointed at something in the distance and laughed.

Ashley rolled her eyes.

A branch shifted above Neil, shaking loose a few leaves.

He looked up as the rogue dropped from the tree and landed softly in the grass. She crossed the clearing toward him while the others carried on.

Ashley stopped beside him. For several seconds she looked at the sky and seemed perfectly content to say nothing at all.

Neil waited.

She placed one hand against his shoulder.

“Back at the tavern…”

Her eyes remained somewhere near his collar rather than his face.

“Thank you.”

Neil gave a small nod.

Ashley removed her hand and walked away.

He watched her disappear into the darkness of the cave beneath the hanging ivy, then turned back toward the clearing.

By the time the sun had risen clear of the eastern hills, practice had begun to spend itself. The blows came farther apart. Lindsey lowered her bow more often than she raised it, Kenneth’s laughter had shortened into the breath of a tired man pretending he was not tired, and Joshua finally stepped away with both swords hanging loose at his sides.

Neil left the cave wall. “Anyone else starving?”

Kenneth rested the head of one axe against the ground. “Aye. Finally, some sense.”

“Breakfast it is.”

The dwarf’s face brightened immediately, and Neil could almost see the feast assembling behind his eyes: hot bread, thick cuts of meat, spiced ham, enough ale to make the hour irrelevant.

“I should temper your expectations, Kenneth.”

“Let me dream, Paladin.”

Neil smiled.

Gregory closed the scorched tome across his knees. Beside him, Shara looked over the clearing. Lindsey’s hair clung damply at her temples. Kenneth’s tunic was dark with sweat. Joshua stood a little apart from them, chest still rising heavily from the morning’s work.

Her attention dropped to the book between herself and Gregory.

“I think we’ve contributed considerably less sweat to the morning.”

Gregory followed her glance. He considered Lindsey, Kenneth, Joshua, then the tome resting comfortably across his lap.

“And, unless I’ve overlooked something, no blood at all.”

Neil passed them with rope and a pair of satchels in hand. He glanced over his shoulder as he headed toward the hills.

“Let’s go find our dwarf the grand breakfast he deserves.”

Shara rose, brushed the grass from her robes, and handed Gregory his staff. He tucked the book beneath one arm and followed her after Neil.

“And none of those puny berries Lindsey likes!” Kenneth shouted after them. “I’m not a damned bird!”

Lindsey bent, picked up a stone, and threw it without hesitation.

Kenneth ducked.

Joshua, meanwhile, had already sheathed one sword, then the other. He unbuckled them from his waist and let the weapons fall beside his bow and quiver at the cave entrance. For a moment he simply stood there, shoulders sagging.

Kenneth grinned. “All that pipeweed.”

The ranger gave no reaction at all.

He walked into the cave, mercifully out of the sun, and lay down.

Beyond the cave, the Downs opened into long green rises, gentle enough that the horizon seemed always one hill farther away. A narrow stream wandered through the low ground, clear over pale stones, and small tracks gathered thickly along its banks where animals had come down in the night to drink. Wind moved through the grass in long passes. After so many roads measured by what might be following them, there was something almost strange in being able to walk without hurrying.

For a while, they did just that.

Neil kept slightly ahead, watching the ground for tracks and the ridges for movement. Gregory followed the stream, occasionally slowing for a plant, stone, or curious pattern in the earth before remembering he was supposed to be looking for food. Shara moved between them, quiet without seeming withdrawn, sunlight catching the pink ends of her hair whenever the wind lifted it from her shoulders.

Gregory eventually broke the silence.

“Priestesses do not generally wander the countryside without purpose.”

Shara looked over at him. She crossed a narrow cut in the stream and waited on the opposite bank until they joined her.

“No,” she said. “I had somewhere I meant to go.”

Neil slowed enough to hear without turning.

“My home was in Vermont. Far north of here.” Shara looked across the hills, though in that direction there was only morning haze. “It was small. Fields, woods, houses built too near one another because being near one another made people feel safer. We thought being far from everything important might protect us.”

Some of the softness left her voice.

“The creatures came at night. Only a few in the beginning. Livestock disappeared. Someone heard scratching at a shutter. Small things are very easy to endure when admitting what they are would require you to leave your home.”

Gregory’s attention settled wholly on her.

“Until they stopped being small.”

Shara nodded.

“We held after that. For a while.” Her hand drifted through the tops of the grass as she walked. “People speak as though endurance is always brave. In my experience, sometimes bravery is only fear that has learned to stand still.”

Neither brother answered.

Gregory glanced ahead at Neil, who was already looking at him.

“When I think of Vermont now, I think of Marla before I think of the church. After Orath took her daughter, she would visit us to stave off the loneliness. She sang me to sleep.” A faint smile came and went. “She had the most beautiful voice. I was secretly jealous that her daughter had been allowed to hear those lullabies every night.”

The wind passed over the grass.

“I’ve forgotten her voice now.”

Shara caught one blade between her fingers and let it slide slowly free.

“I’ve tried so hard.”

Gregory looked down at the stream.

“There came a point when staying no longer felt like defending anything,” she continued. “It felt like waiting to see how it ended. But I left before I could. I was young. I remember thinking I was old enough.”

Her fingers closed around another blade of grass.

“I wasn’t.”

A few steps passed.

“Coward...”

Gregory gave her several more before he spoke.

“You said your name was Ria-Shara?”

Some of the distance returned to her expression, though not all of it. “Yes. The Church of Ria places the faith before the person. Ria-Shara. Ria-Marla. Ria-Crystal.”

“So Shara is acceptable?”

“I’ve grown used to it.”

“What about Ria?”

She gave a quiet laugh and hopped across a shallow patch of mud. “If you wish.”

Neil glanced back, amused, then faced the trail again.

“And your parents?”

Shara stopped smiling. The question seemed to grow larger in the silence than it had sounded aloud.

Neil waited.

Only the warm breeze through the leaves answered.

The grass whispered around their legs as they walked.

Neither brother tried to fill the silence. After a while, Gregory returned only to what she had already chosen to tell them.

“So the tavern was not chance, then. You were already traveling south?”

“Yes.” Shara stepped around a shelf of exposed stone. “I followed rumors. Mostly hope. A safe haven here. A town still standing there. My gift for mending was useful wherever I went, and people were usually willing to spare a meal or a bed in return.”

She walked a little farther before adding, “But Orath moves faster than rumors. So I helped where I could. And when it was time to run, I ran.”

Her eyes lifted to Neil.

“And then I found you.”

Neil met her green eyes for only a moment. His attention dropped to the faint glow along his sword before returning to the hills ahead.

After another stretch of walking, Shara turned to Gregory. “You and Neil are brothers?”

“We are.”

“You don’t seem like men who have traveled together long.”

Gregory gave a small smile. “We have not.”

From ahead, Neil made a sound that might have been agreement.

“We grew up together,” Gregory said. “But then we became adults and performed that peculiar trick by which people who have shared nearly everything begin living lives that contain almost—”

Shara squinted at him.

Gregory cleared his throat. “He chose the sword and the Light. I chose the arcane and the elements. Neither of us chose a life that kept us particularly near home.”

“You make it sound... deliberate.”

“Some of it was.”

Neil looked back.

Gregory met his eyes without accusation. “Nothing hostile. Merely easy. The distance was needed. Our upbringing was not... exactly...”

Shara kept walking. She waited a moment, then looked at him.

“For once,” Neil said, “the scholar is out of euphemisms.”

Gregory gave the smallest exhale.

“Our home was not... a home.”

They walked several paces before Neil answered from the front.

“We stopped being familiar. Never stopped being brothers.”

Shara looked from one to the other.

“And Lindsey?”

At their sister’s name, Gregory’s expression softened. “Our sister had the good sense not to follow either of us. She found her own way.”

Neil smiled faintly. “Usually toward animals. Too many animals.”

Gregory laughed under his breath. “And archery.”

Shara smiled. “She is very good.”

“She is,” Gregory said, with no attempt to hide the pride in it. “Certainly better than our oldest brother.”

Neil rubbed two fingers across his forehead.

They crested another low rise. Below them, the stream widened briefly before bending away through a stand of hazel. Near the water, grass moved against the direction of the wind.

A rabbit broke from cover.

Then another.

Neil drew his sword and moved. The first fell cleanly. The second turned at the strike and nearly reached the brush before Gregory lifted one hand. A brief knot of force closed around it, holding it scarcely longer than a heartbeat. Neil crossed the remaining distance and ended it before the animal could struggle.

He cleaned the blade in the grass. “And there’s breakfast.”

Shara had already moved toward the stream. She knelt among the low plants along the bank, separating useful roots from those not yet grown enough to take and gathering small berries into a fold of cloth. She left more behind than she collected, and when she finished, she pressed the disturbed earth gently back into place with her fingertips.

Gregory waded into the water and filled a small vessel. He held it toward the light, studied its clarity, then murmured a brief working over it before sealing it for the return.

For a long while, there was nothing to say.

When they gathered again, Neil carried the rabbits over one shoulder. Shara had enough roots and berries to add something to whatever meal they managed, and Gregory secured the water at his side.

Neil looked toward the distant rise concealing the cave. “That should be enough for now.”

Shara brushed the earth from her hands as she joined them.

“When we get back,” she said, “which one of you cooks?”

Neil raised his eyebrows and looked at Gregory.

Gregory looked at Neil and blinked.

Shara watched them both.

“Oh no...”

The brothers laughed.

They turned for home.