And Then There Were Six

o one spoke.

Beyond the last trees of Ilvarin’del, the land opened beneath a cold and star-laden sky. Long grass rolled silver beneath the wind, bending in slow waves toward the east, and behind them the forest stood dark upon the horizon. Yet it was no longer wholly dead. Here and there pale leaves stirred where only brittle branches had hung before, and far within the wood some faint remnant of white radiance still moved among the trunks, passing from root to root like moonlight beneath deep water.

The sight should have brought comfort. Instead, in the silence that followed them out of that place, it seemed only another thing purchased at too great a cost.

Navian lay upon his side in the grass. His white cloak was muddied and torn beneath him, his armor blackened in places by ash and battle, but there was no wound upon him that ought to have brought a man so near death. No blood darkened the earth. No rent showed in the mail. His limbs were whole, his flesh unbroken, and save for the terrible stillness of him he might have been sleeping after some long march. Yet his breathing came slowly now, each breath shallow enough that those watching found themselves waiting for the next.

Oesora knelt beside him with one hand pressed against the center of his breastplate. A weak white glow gathered beneath her fingers and spread in thin threads across the silver, wandering through every scratch and dent as though searching for some hidden hurt. For several heartbeats the Light remained there. Then it faded, leaving only moonlight upon the metal.

"Priestess." Karneth watched from several paces away where he had dropped beside Beeps, too exhausted even to unbuckle the blood-stiff leather at his wrists. “Can you not give him some of yours?”

Oesora raised her head.

“Your Light,” the dwarf said.

“It does not work that way,” Gaz said. He stood leaning upon his oaken staff with both hands, and the weariness in his face made him look at once older and strangely young. “No more than I could take what is in me and pour it into another wizard.”

Oesora nodded faintly. “What Navian gave away... was his.”

She placed her hand against him once more. A dim radiance returned, brighter for an instant than before, and trembled across his armor. It searched him as her Light had searched him before, but there was nothing for it to close, nothing to cleanse, nothing to draw out. The glow gathered beneath her palm, faltered, and died.

The brother looked away.

Av'elyth stood apart from them at the edge of the clearing, facing the black wall of Ilvarin’del. Moonlight traced the edge of her cloak and gleamed along the hilts at her waist. She had scarcely moved since they came beneath the open sky, and in another creature such stillness might have looked like calm. In Av'elyth it was something else. Something held too tightly.

Then she turned. Everyone noticed.

She crossed the clearing without hurry, boots brushing through the long grass, and stopped beside Navian. Oesora looked up at her but said nothing.

Av'elyth looked down. Navian’s face was pale beneath the starlight. Dirt streaked one side of his cheek. His black hair had fallen across his forehead, and his right hand rested open beside him in the grass.

“Get up, paladin.”

Navian did not move.

The wind moved softly through the field, stirring Navian’s cloak and whispering through the grass around him. Her eyes passed slowly over his face and armor as though she were searching for some sign that the stillness was an act, some private joke at her expense.

She waited. When none came, the toe of her boot struck his hand.

“Get up, paladin," she commanded again, louder now. “You don’t get to leave us now.”

Navian’s hand rolled limply through the grass.

Nothing.

Lunara straightened. Gaz lifted his head. Jaeshu turned from his watch at the edge of the clearing, while Karneth’s hand stilled upon the reins beside Beeps. Av'elyth noticed none of them.

The elf took a step closer and drove her boot harder into Navian’s armored side.

Metal answered with a dull thud.

“Stop it!” Oesora shouted.

“Stand the hell up, Navian!”

The words tore across the field and seemed to hang there long after her voice had failed. Still the paladin did not move.

Jaeshu came forward before anyone else did. He stepped into the space beside Av'elyth, near enough to break the line of violence—if he dared try. He kept his hands open, well clear of his weapons.

“...Av'elyth.”

She ignored him. For several breaths she stood, waiting for something that did not come. At last she spun and stepped around Jaeshu without a word.

No one followed her as she returned to the far edge of the clearing and stood facing Ilvarin’del once more.

Karneth watched her a moment before bracing one palm against the earth and dragging himself upright. He caught Beeps by the reins and used the bramblehorn’s vast weight to steady himself until his legs remembered their purpose. The animal went on grazing as though nothing in the world had changed, tearing great mouthfuls from the earth while Karneth leaned against him.

Once he could stand without help, the dwarf released the reins and crossed toward Oesora.

“You got to do something here, lass.”

Oesora looked down at her hands. A dim trace of Light still moved beneath the skin of her fingers. She had already exhausted every explanation she possessed, and none of them had changed the truth. For all the faith they had placed in her, for all the mysteries they believed she carried, she was as helpless before this as any of them.

“I... I cannot.” She swallowed and put both hands against Navian’s chest. “There is no...”

The Light gathered again.

For one brief moment it strengthened enough to whiten the grass around them and shine across the edges of Navian’s armor. Oesora closed her eyes and held it there, shoulders tightening with the effort, but whatever she sought remained beyond her reach. The radiance thinned, faded, and disappeared.

Navian never stirred.

Across the clearing, the elf’s eyes narrowed. Far within Ilvarin’del, something pale moved between the trees. A small thread of white light still pulsed there, scarcely brighter than the stars, but wherever it passed the grey canopy shifted and tiny leaves stirred upon branches that had stood dead for years.

Av'elyth stared at it.

Behind her, Jaeshu knelt beside Navian and pressed two fingers to the side of his neck. He waited, shifted them, then waited again.

Lunara saw his expression change. “What?”

The ranger said nothing.

“Jae.”

“His pulse is weakening.”

Gaz was beside him at once. “Weaker?”

Jaeshu leaned close to Navian’s face and listened. One hand rested lightly against the armor over his ribs. He remained there for several seconds before sitting back.

“His breathing is slowing.”

Karneth stared at the pouches and small stoppered containers hanging from Jaeshu’s belt. Roots, powders, dried leaves, bitter-smelling pastes; the ranger had collected them by the handful across half the realm.

“What about all that ranger stuff you carry? Roots an’ berries. Those mixtures you make?”

Jaeshu shook his head. “Those mend wounds, Karn.”

The dwarf's thick hand pushed Jaeshu’s shoulder. “Then mend his wounds!”

“That's the problem.” Jaeshu looked down at Navian. “He is not wounded.”

Karneth followed his gaze.

No blood. No broken flesh. No snapped bone, no poisoned cut, no blackened wound or festering bite. Nothing an axe could cut free, nothing a priestess could close, nothing Jaeshu could pack with herbs or bind beneath linen. The dwarf’s anger had carried him through almost everything that night. For the first time, uncertainty took its place.

Lunara looked from Jaeshu to Oesora.

“So no one can do anything.”

Neither answered. Her eyes returned to Navian. “This is it?”

Gaz reached toward her, but his sister pulled her arm away before he could touch her.

“So we just sit here?” Her voice broke. “After everything? We sit here and watch our brother die?”

The words carried across the clearing.

Av'elyth closed her eyes.

Before her, the forest whispered in the dark. Behind her, the paladin lay motionless in the grass—the ranger’s remedies useless, the brother’s magic useless, his sister standing with tears bright in her eyes, and the dwarf finally bereft of questions loud enough to become answers.

Av'elyth looked back over her shoulder. The priestess was holding Navian's head in her lap.

The change came all at once. Her eyes flared with searing rage. Her daggers flipped to her hands and shadow swallowed her with a rising howl. Av'elyth’s scream joined it, became it—until the darkness tore open before Oesora and the elf came screaming out, her blade already hard beneath the priestess’s chin.

“This is your fault!”

Steel kissed skin. A thin line of blood followed.

Av'elyth spat, her voice raw and shaking with fury. “All of it! You and your, your stupid light! Your stupid, stupid whispers in the dark—everything that led him here. You let him do this!”

Lunara’s tumbled back as her bow came up in one smooth motion. Aloy bent beneath her draw, the string pulled taut beside her cheek.

“Av'elyth—”

Gaz moved with her, his own staff rising, his stance set without hesitation. His voice, when it came, was low and steady.

“Stand down, Av'elyth!”

The rogue's gaze remained fixed on Oesora, her anger tightening, sharpening. “What did the Queen mean?!” she demanded, dagger trembling. “When she said your name? Do not lie!”

Oesora’s breath caught, her voice trembling as she answered. “I... I don’t know. I swear it. I have never seen that... thing before!”

Av'elyth hissed. "We have all known there is more to you. For a very long time."

Jaeshu and Karneth exchanged glances.

"How did it know your church?" Her tears seemed to evaporate in the heat of her rage. "Why does the ghost of a dead queen know more about you than we do?"

A second dagger, unseen until then, touched Oesora’s side and pressed closer. A small sound escaped the priestess.

The elf clenched her teeth. "...Ria-Oesora."

"Av'elyth, enough!" Gaz stepped over his older brother's body, and the crystal at the head of his staff flared violet, thin sparks crawling along the wood beneath his hand as he began to whisper.

Karneth noticed first. The dwarf drew one axe and laid its edge against Gaz’s stomach.

“At this distance, wizard, my axe will finish its sentence before you finish yours.”

Gaz stared down at the blade, then at Karneth. “You’re siding with the assassin?!”

Karneth kept his eyes on Av'elyth. “I’m siding with the questions.”

For several long breaths no one moved. The crystal atop Gaz’s staff glowed between them, painting the grass violet. Then his grip loosened and the light slowly died.

“And the forest?” Av'elyth pressed. “How did you know what was wrong with it? How did you know it needed his Light?”

Jaeshu quietly lowered his hood and lifted his eyes to Oesora, listening now.

The priestess shook her head. “I... felt it. I just looked at the ground? I don’t know how—I just knew. The… the emptiness—”

Av'elyth’s expression twisted, an old hurt sharpening beneath newer ones.

“Then why did you let him do it?" Her voice raised, more dangerous now. “Why did you just... stand there and watch him give everything! Why didn’t you give your light instead?!”

Oesora closed her eyes for a moment, her voice breaking as she spoke.

“Because he... he told me not to.”

The dagger beneath Oesora’s chin shifted higher as Av'elyth’s grip tightened, forcing her head back.

“...why," she sneered.

Oesora’s lips parted, but no answer came.

The last softness left Av'elyth’s face. She growled, tore one dagger away, and hurled it into the earth beside Oesora’s hand.

The blade struck hard.

The priestess flinched.

Av'elyth bent close. Leather creaked between them.

"Why."

Only a small, broken sound escaped Oesora.

“I can’t...” she whispered. “I can’t tell you.”

For a heartbeat, the world held its breath. Tears spilled freely down Oesora’s face.

“Oh no," Av'elyth sneered. "Those tears can’t save you anymore, little one.”

She pulled the tip of the dagger toward herself, drawing Oesora’s chin up with it.

“I am not as gullible as him.”

Clang!

An arrow struck the flat of Av'elyth’s blade, knocking it from her hand and sending it spinning into the grass.

“That’s enough!” Lunara said, another arrow already drawn and steady.

Av'elyth remained crouched before Oesora, motionless, her eyes still fixed upon the priestess.

The wind moved through the grass between them. Far behind her, the revived leaves of Ilvarin’del whispered softly in the dark.

Av'elyth straightened, yanking her other dagger from the ground.

“Sael’vara thireth...”

She stepped back from Oesora, slow and deliberate. Her gaze passed across them one by one: Lunara with the bow, Gaz beside his unconscious brother, Karneth still holding the axe he had raised against the wizard, and Jaeshu watching in silence.

Finally, the elf narrowed her eyes at Oesora, kneeling with a thin line of blood running down her neck.

“I am not the one who should be mistrusted here.”

Then shadows came. They gathered about Av'elyth as though summoned from every fold of the night, climbing her boots and cloak in one smooth, soundless tide. Darkness swallowed the pale shape of her face until, for a heartbeat, only her eyes remained. Then the shadows collapsed.

Empty air.

The grass around the place where she had stood bent sharply in one direction, then slowly rose again.

Gaz turned. “Where—”

Jaeshu crossed to where the rogue had vanished and crouched, pressing two fingers to the earth. Lunara turned in a slow circle beneath the stars. Karneth searched the horizon. Nothing moved.

“She is gone.” Jaeshu looked once more toward the night. “Even beyond my sight.”

Silence returned to the clearing. Heavier.

A single line of blood ran slowly down Oesora’s throat, but she seemed not to feel it. She remained upright for a few moments longer, staring at the place where Av'elyth had disappeared. Then whatever strength had kept her there deserted her.

The girl bent forward and wept.

There was nothing restrained in it now. No quiet tears hidden beneath lowered eyes, no trembling breath mastered before anyone could hear. The sound came raw and broken into the night, grief and guilt stripped of every defense until she looked very small beneath the immense sweep of stars.

Lunara lowered her bow. She went to Oesora and knelt beside her. Without speaking, she reached out and wiped the blood from the priestess’s neck with the edge of her sleeve.

Karneth let out a long breath and turned away. One axe went down into the grass, then the other. He lowered himself heavily beside Beeps, broad shoulders sagging beneath a weariness that had little to do with the fighting. The bramblehorn grazed on, slow and placid, and after a moment Karneth rested one hand against its flank as though needing the proof of something living beneath his palm.

At length Gaz lifted his eyes to the heavens. The stars gave him nothing. No spell. No answer. No bargain. He lowered his gaze to the others, standing together and somehow lonelier for it.

Behind them the forest breathed again.

Before them the road stretched onward beneath the moon, pale through the long grass until distance swallowed it. It had waited for seven travelers when they entered Ilvarin’del.

Now it waited for six.

The road did not mourn the difference.