Private An Ash Strewn Hope

[Osytha]

“Appen that’s so! Four curs to your what? Single feather?”​

“Ane and a half,” Osytha corrects, her voice smooth as black ice. “Ane leadin ’alberdier downed afore they could unseat thee, plus ane arbalist’s arm ruined as they yarked to plant a bolt in thy back. Ah care to choose targets as matter in t’moment — for pyrrhic victories, less so.”

Grenmerrie but snorts at that. “You think I needed saving from those chocolate soldiers—?”

“That’s enough of that,” warns Sando.

His tone makes it clear: man will brook no more bickering. The reprimand adds a flush of shame to the heat of anger already in Osytha’s face, and she clamps her jaw firm shut. Whatever effect it has the on her fellow dusker, same or not, is at least enough to still Grenmerrie’s tongue as well. And so the silence continues blessedly uninterrupted, but for bits of feigned birdcall, a while longer.

They slip into the sheltered leah, its mossy ground soft underfoot and hemmed by bracken, all shaded green and umber. Pale little heads of yellowleg bonnet peek out beneath the ferns, while stouter, mottled bolete blends shyly into the background.

A bog weald, marvels Osytha. About as common as rocking-horse cack. This peat will cutten down thre to six feet — more, happen. It belike was part of a mar or beck once upon a distant age past, and now alder, birch, and willow growes on what was its braes. The life here hath been buildende up for a longe, longe time. Shroud aplenty to drawen upon in this place.

Osytha dismounts and sets to freeing Guffers. A little snout licks and snuffles anxiously at her hands as she loosens the harness, and then sets her little dog down to the earth at last. He’ll have lots to sniff at here, but for now, he just jumps and clings to her leg, his tail frantically thwapping away.

Second order of business: Syr Lando.

A command keeps Guffers at distance, and out of their combined hairs, as Osytha steps to across the dinged-up knight from Syr Hector. Head feels like a kettle at full boil, but she keeps from whistling just yet — for it’s still not the time nor place to have that row with him. She divests herself of sallet, baldric, belt, and shield, letting them drop to the spongy ground.

“Draw ’pon me,” she tells Syr Hector, unstrapping her bevor and letting it join the accoutrement below. Then, she lifts the skirt of her hauberk slightly, bends double, and pulls the mail shirt up. “If’n tha need’st,” she continues, her voice a little muffled. But once its past her midriff, that coat quickly rolls by its own weight off her frame, and Osytha rights herself. “Ah’m belike among t’least spent of us ’ere.”

Syr Grenmerrie gives her a grum bit of side-eye. “Bet you are,” mutters Marharrow. And none too quietly, at that.

 

[Hector]

Still sealed up in the metal of his plate, bevor lowered, and kettle helm left on the saddle, Hector sets to a knee over Syr Lando. Feels the weight of his kit bare down. Edges of metal bite, no matter how well he had fitted them. Still. The steel holds him up, as much as it has him sinking into the soft giving earth beneath him.

"Mirrored Hells, Hector," Lando manages through the feverish haze he finds himself in. "To think, I would befoul Honeysuckle's trust in me, after so many years that we trained,"

Hector's fingers undo the straps to Lando's kit. Listening all the while he works free pauldron and cuirass, gorget and cuisse. "It was an ambush, Lando," he turns his head to dismiss the thought. "Nothing to be done but survive,"

"No, I," he chokes back. "I but sped forth, despite the warnings," he laughs. Hollowed out by disbelief. "I knew better, I could have- Gods, the sounds man. The smell. All I could do was hope the death taken beast would hurry along its way. That it might cease thrashing," he sobbed. "And whence he had. I. I don't-"

"You live, Syr," Hector says, hand against the man's chest, giving and firm as a bough against a growing wind. Holds him down from moving. "And to go on living, you must be still, and we must tend that break in your leg," Hector looks at the leg.

Still in its armor. With all of a horses weight fallen onto it, its like Best not to move it, Hector reckons. Already saddle ragged as it must be. Just how bad it really is, he could see the better with Flame's light.

His heart hammering hard and full in his throat. Fingers stiff with sword and shield work. He flexes his hands. Steadies his tremors as he breaths in the moss clean air.

Lefelen and Sando hold council with one another. Trusting their youngers capable to their duties. Their soft mutterings and long pauses felt there in the undercurrent of all the swirl. So surrounded by the sanctus wyld.

The shake and padding of Guffers there with the horses breaths and shakes as all their blood settles.

'Draw 'pon me,'
​

Hector spies Syr Osytha stripping out of her armor. Looks away with a huff. "I won't need thy wells just yet," he shifts. Taking his own gloves off. Undoing the latches and straps that hold his plate in place. Sets them down, bit by bit. Better breath always fed the fires more.

'... Ah'm belike among t'least spent of us 'ere.'
​

A breath falls out of the dawnling. Holding onto something as foolish as his pride, and he doesn't know why.

'Bet you are,'​

A growl rumbles through Hector's chest. "Hope then, Syr Marhllow you never find yourself in the same need of our aid,"

Grenmerrie's face twisted "Please, Syr Skykiller," each syllable stretched to distortion. "Deliver me from your righteous self importance!" she spat. "Where in was that flame of thine whence it was most needed, pray tell?!"

Lando stirred. Anguish clear on his face. "Gren," he bled with sympathy for his counterpart.

A sharp whistle cuts through the air. "Syr Grenmerrie Marhallow!" Sando barks across the clearing. "Report at once!"

 

[Osytha]

Were Osytha to bite her tongue any harder, she’s pretty sure she’d be tasting blood. By Tapan’s mighty nutcracker, they’re Knights of Anathaeum — they’re supposed to be better than this, but it feels more like they’re squabbling bairns in a petty game of tit-for-tat. And she’d bought into it as well, Osytha can’t deny that. She pinches the bridge of her nose, brow furrowed deep, and forces herself to take a long, slow breath.

“Gren,” she hears of Syr Landonsera. All the hurt right there in his voice.

When Osytha opens her eyes and looks down at the man, wrecked and wracked in greet… she feels something click inside her. Those shackles begin to fall away, and like that, her heart is free to move again.

She kneels down beside her wounded brother, and clasps his hand between hers. “Thy Honeysuckle went swift,” she assures him. “Afore ’e could even feel et. An’ ’e came round to me at t’end there; ’eard my voice, felt my ’touch, an’ that were enow to calm ’im.” Her fingers give a gentle squeeze. “’E din’t go aht in fear. Small mercy that et be.”

As she looks upont til Clemonde there, words of grief play over in her mind. “No, I… I but sped forth, despite the warnings. I knew better, I could have—”

Poor man. Osytha may have helped with Honeysuckle, the way she helps with many a beast in the Burrow, but that had been his horse. His companion, perhaps even friend. There’s something precious about one’s bond with a beast. They’re so… trusting. They have to be. The animals don’t understand complicated things like war and combat, don’t really understand any of the grim butcheries that people keep imagining up. But they’re trained to put their faith entirely in people, and, that’s exactly what they do. Their trust is a simple thing, pure and sincere. To feel as though you’ve betrayed that…

Osytha tries to give Syr Lando a comforting smile. It wasn’t thy fault, though, she thinks. Not truly. It wasn’t thou as led’st the charge. But thou’rt a Knight of Anathaeum, and thy oath-kin callede on thee. What else coud’st thou haven done, but trusten and followen, just as Honeysuckle trustede thee?

While I tarriede aback, and let you all chargen ahead. Happen that makes me less a Knight than any other here.

The anger’s not entirely gone. Osytha still means to have words with Syr Hector, but Toils take her if she’ll let it turn her cruel like Syr Grenmerrie. She could speak carelessly and deepen the fractures which have spread so alarmingly quick through their little band, or she can try and find ways to mend the cracks.

“Ah were in t’wrong to try and get thee onto Forbs back there,” she says. “Ah din’t see t’condition of thy leg, Syr Lando, but Ah should ’ave. Ah’m… sorry, to t’both of you.”

Then she looks up to Syr Hector. “An’ Ah’ll stick by just in case, if’n et’s all t’same to thee. Tha canst feelest this place is… special. ’Twould be a shame to tek owermuch from et.”

 

[Hector]

Hector cast his eyes away, lips downturned, and brow furrowed deep as Grenmerrie huffs and stomps after Syr Sando. A quiet settles across the moss beds where in Hector and Osytha are left tending to Landonsera. Everything turning. So much, Hector's stomach as it coils to knots. Hands clenched to trembling fist.

Osytha speaks, calm like an early spring breeze whispering through the leaves. Ushering chill hope there as she shares Honeysuckle's last moments with Syr til Clemonde. In doing, she marks the end of something, but so to a promise. Makes known that Honeysuckle in his last beats, had a kind hand against his muzzle. A gentle voice there to ease them across that wending way twixt life and death. How they had seemed to accept that moment, fore the end.

A memory flashes before Hector. Where in his first horse, Analon, had been lost to him. Twas the day he had lost half his ear. He sinks into that cold a moment. The sorrow, like icy waters there to slake the hot iron of his heart. His hands loosen some. He goes on, removing his kit. Lays it down with care to keep quiet as Osytha works, and wet tears of his own cling to the corners of his eyes.

"I am glad thou were able to be there for him, Osytha," Landonsera says softly. Seems the better for it. If only for that moment. To be heard. To be felt. To find some small measure of comfort then. He nods slowly. "Thank you, Syr," he gives. "For tending to my sweet boy whenst I could not," he slacks against the moss bed. Tears streaming from his eyes. "Well before this wretched day, and so to in his last moments," he bows his head as he closes his eyes. "Truly Syr, I thank thee,"

Hector reaches over and wipes the tears from Lando's eyes. Hector's hand there to hold sure against Landonsera's countenance. "There is yet work to be done, then, brother," He reminds. Lando breaths in deep. Nods. Hector takes back his hand, and wipes away the tears about his own eyes with the back of his wrist. Sets down unto both knees.

"Ah were in t’wrong to try and get thee onto Forbs back there... Ah din’t see t’condition of thy leg, Syr Lando, but Ah should ’ave. Ah’m… sorry, to t’both of you.”​

"The hour has passed, Syr Osytha," Lando says, with a wobbly relief. "I am alive, and," he sighs, trembling some with a nervous laughter. His face, so grief wrecked and pain fevered in its wash. "Have thee and Syr Rookheart to thank for that,"

Hector eyes Osytha. "There is no need for it," he says quiet, his eyes pull away from her. "Thine actions were clear in thine intentions," yet he is unable to grind the edge completely from his voice. The day's events, still too hot in his chest. He lets out a wash of breath. Pulls in a lungful. Cool and full of the wylds they rest upon.

“An’ Ah’ll stick by just in case, if’n et’s all t’same to thee. Tha canst feelest this place is… special. ’Twould be a shame to tek owermuch from et.”​

"...'Twould," he agrees, his voice so full of the tired he feels. His head bowed, his hands flat upon his lap. He measures and weighs what lays before them.

He closes his eyes.

Lets in his breath.

Feels the heat there inside of him.

His own life's star, burning sure with each hammer of his heart. The lines of his veins alight with the shroud. Arteries like rivers and roots one and the same, come kindle with that soul's light of Flame. Each breath he takes in, like the careful pump of bellows to his own fire's whim.

Taxed and diminished.

For he had spent it to strike at their foes. Had shared with Ronja's as they toiled and rode. Steeled her bones with his own iron. Bouyed her breath with his own wells.

Now, he opens his eyes anew, and they are painted once more in the low red gold wash of a nascent flame. Smoldering about the budding embers as they waited to catch. He looks to Syr Lando laying before him. Sees the fire of Sando's heart pounding there in his chest. Bright and gold against a world around that seems colder and bluer. Hector feels the rhythm of Lando's pulse, so similar to his own. Only set more frantic. Pain spurred, and dragged by fatigue all the same.

Hector lets out a hand. Sinew and bone painted shadows against the soft glow of flame spread through the fibers of flesh. He places it over Lando's chest. Feels the swell of breath, and the beat against his flame kissed palms.

"Steady now, oh pained heart," ​

He utters.

So thine currents may slow." ​

Those words which were passed unto him. Taught and studied. Phrases and cadences like songs and verse with which to coax and shape that shroud so imbued throughout the world which he and all life were a part of. His own heart hammers harder. Lulls longer. Half that of Syr Landos strain, taken on. He feels it ripple through him like a harsh note against red iron. Too cold still. It threatens to crack. But he breathes in deep, and full, and his eyes catch the brighter as he looks at all the ruin that is Lando's leg. And the work of the first spell weaves throughout.

Pulses between them in a sympathetic weave. Hector feels Lando's pain. His sorrow, raw and tender as it is. While the well of Hector's vigor and stamina is drawn upon to provide relief. To steady the shock. But he does not have enough to put Lando beyond danger just yet. Had he but more shroud in his own wells then maybe. Less he take from this sacred wylds what he needed.

"There go thine pains,
oh beloved,
Carried unto mine currents,
to be unmade,"
​

He closes his hand, and his eyes in tandem. Breaths out as the spell's effects persist, but the connection betwixt them wanes to a passive and web thin thing. Heavy with it all. Hector trembles. Shakes his head. Looks to Osytha. "Hast thou been in tandem before?" he lets the question sink in. "Acted as a battery with a weaver?"

 

[Osytha]

“I am glad thou were able to be there for him, Osytha… Truly Syr, I thank thee.”​

What is there to say at that? ‘You’re welcome’? ‘It was nothing’? She could say she’s sorry, but even apologising would be to dismiss the pained man’s gratitude, in a way. So she just gives him another sad smile and squeeze of the hand, while Syr Hector brushes his friend’s tears away.

There are tears of Rookheart’s own, there under the hoods of his eyes. Another bit of the heavy chain drops away when Osytha notices that. Fury wanes some further, a little less choking than before.

But she’s said her piece for the moment. It seems the olive branch has been accepted, if somewhat gingerly. That’s about the sum of what she can do right now; Hector needs to get to work — no more distractions.

Osytha holds, silent, while Rookheart puts a hand to Syr Lando’s chest. Stitched together, and begins to weave through into the man.

“Steady now, oh pained heart,
So thine currents may slow.

“There go thine pains,
oh beloved,
Carried unto mine currents,
to be unmade.”​

Syr Hector pauses. His brow heavy, in assessment of something Osytha cannot picture. When he opens his eyes and looks to her, she can tell from his expression alone that the work is not complete.

“Hast thou been in tandem before? Acted as a battery with a weaver?”​

Osytha shakes her head. “Nay. Tell me what Ah mun do.”

 

[Hector]

Hector nods. "First, we will prepare the sacral ink," points to those places where the next step would take.

First, forefinger and pointer touch betwixt his eyes. To the well of Loch. "Then we will write the seals of communion," He goes on. Touching his heart, then just below his naval. Left wrist, then right. Life, Flame, Death and Wyld. He stands, and he pauses a moment to get his legs under him. Breaths. "It should ease the strain of the tandem, and make more efficient the draw and give between us," he checks to see if she follows. Maybe he is explaining something she already knows. Whatever is writ across her face, he goes to fetch things from his saddle.

There with Ronja, his hands work through the latches and leathers. He worries as he sifts through tools and supplies. He is strained. Osytha is no weaver. What if there is a whiplash? If he cannot guide her across the wind that lays betwixt Ash and Mud, or the wound there between Wylds and the End. He huffs. Shakes the thought away. Lando needs them. Dusk and Dawn.

He returns with a small wooden box, and Aetochan ink stone. Sets them down against the earth. Takes the box, and from it retrieves a block wrapped in eightmoon moth's silk. He undoes its wrap, revealing a tacky silvery gold material there inside which shimmers easy as leaves in the afternoon sun.

Osytha would recognize it as armonium, mixed with fine shroud stone silicate, pressed and dried. Not so uncommon amongst the monastery, and the training Knights preparing for the field underwent. It was simply called, Weaver's Resin by most Altalusians. It was mixed into dyes, paints, and inks to help with all manner of shroudcraft. Magitech, and weaving proper, were but a pair of its more acceptable applications.

In dire straights, weavers were known to ingest varying quantities of the resin straight. The results, often catastrophic to all involved.

Hector sets the shimmering substance there against the moss. The color of the vegetation seems to shift in the eye, where about it touches the opened folds of the silken wrap. The vibrant yellow-green turning red and purple-orange-blue-back-to-green to go again in its erratic spectrum cycle.

"You know your seals?" he asks, then writes each down upon a bare patch of earth with the end of his finger. "Loch, Life, Flame, Wyld and Death," he traces each quick with practiced attention. To ensure his strokes are delivered clean from his arm.
Redraws the seal of death. "That one always gives me trouble," he says with half a laugh. Shakes his head.

Sets to grind the block against the ink stone, methodical and measured. Puts the block back in its silken wrap. Back in its box when he has finished that step. "Once there is enough resin ground, we must add our blood to the body of the substance. Might I borrow your rondel, Syr?" he recalls it so often and so proudly worn. His own knife, back upon his saddle with his sword. When she offers up the dagger, he draws it from its sheath and pricks his thumb. turns the blade careful and offers her the handle. Proceeds to squeeze drops of his own blood into the resin gathered there upon the stone.

Until both their blood is ready gathered, he proceeds to mix the liquid with the resin. The glimmering powder turning near midnight as it mixes with their life's blood. Streaked with glimmers and shines of that pale gold powder still. He loads the brush and cleans the bristle's edge against the stone. Rests it there. Undoes the buttons of his gambeson. Peels it off. Sweat stuck blouse clung to him. His nose nose wrinkles, and he peels that off. Rubs dry those places needed. Takes up the brush and begins the task of painting them on to those places he had pointed out.

"I'll," he clears his throat. Finishing the dove shaped stroke of the seal of life over his heart. Looking down to the flat of his belly, just about his navel. "I'll be needing help with the seal of Loch," he says, ruddy faced as he paints the upward prong of Flame. "Hard to draw between missen eyes,"

---

Spoiler: Seals of Communion

Loch, Life,

Flame, Death, Wyld

 

[Osytha]

“You know your seals? Loch, Life, Flame, Wyld and Death.

“…That one always gives me trouble.”​

That seems to resonate, for it pulls a touch of a smile to the edges of Osytha’s lips. Something sympathetic, there.

“Startin’ at yon snath or ear, et’s easy to get t’proportions wrong once you reach t’other end.” She taps at Death’s central curve, carved into the moss. “Ah’s allus start wi’ t’blade, missen. Gives ane a central point of reference — get that bit reight, an’ t’rest follows along.”

Her own gambeson is shrugged off while Syr Hector prepares the ink. Osytha rolls up her left shirtsleeve and, when he proffers the rondel back to her, she unceremoniously slides the edge across a fleshy bit of fore-arm. Blood drip-drops from the shallow cut, its colour at odds with the palette of this glade until it disappears into the chromatic tempest of that resin.

Then, Osytha gauzes up while Hector carefully paints the seals to himself. She feels a hand rest to her knee, and looking down, she sees til Clemonde with his arm reached to her. He looks sallow; pale and perspiring. His eyes are closed, though the lids flutter with each flicker of his brow.

“You needn’t do this, syr,” he murmurs. “If you’ve never Given before… one of the others—”

“Whisht, now, Syr Landonsera.” Osytha tucks the last wind of the wrap in place, and pats his hand again. “Ah’ll be arreight. Besides, Ah mun learn ’ow et’s done sooner or later. Today just ’appens to be that day.”

“I’ll be needing help with the seal of Loch. Hard to draw between missen eyes.”​

When Syr Hector is done stoking the Fire, Osytha takes up the brush from his hands. She re-wets the brush-head first, performing careful strokes which taper its hairs into a fine point. Before she applies it to Hector’s brow, though, she makes a couple of practice passes through the air; each one a single, smooth, whole-arm movement to capture that loop, with her elbow stabilised against a propped-up knee.

“Arreight — ’old still, if’n tha wold’st be’n so kind. Doubt this is much fun to get in your ee.”

Teeth, nibbling at her lower lip as she stares hard at Rookheart’s forehead. Her own brows digging down in focus. Brush bends light to the skin, ticks up — and follows through in a swift, broad whorl.

“There we go,” Osytha murmurs. She dabs on a couple more points, rounding out Loch. “Done an’ done.”

She settles back onto her haunches and offers the brush forward to Syr Hector. “What’s next?”

 

[Hector]

The ink, a technicolor wash against the raw umber of his skin, sinks into his pores. Feeds into the flesh of his belly and chest, into the bone of his skull. Its sensation shifts betwixt cool and hot. Sting and sooth. Bleeds, what catalyst it carries, into him. Feels as if it ignites like so many grains of saltpeter spilled to a woodfire.

He feels his blood the hotter. Air the cooler. His ears wiggle some from all the new sounds filling them. The rustle of the moss beneath her as she eases back. The scrabble and scratch of squirrel claws across bark plates. Syr Landonsera's ragged breath growing more labored.

Hector takes the brush from her hand, and a moment more to collect himself. Eyes wide, and pupils dialating as he looks to her like she is some anchor amidst the rush of crackles, hisses and pops beset upon him.

"Easy does it," he says to himself. "Next," he says with a long breath as he loads the head once more. "We paint the runes on thissen," Turns his left wrist over, and thinks a moment on how she had described the Death seal. "A blade," he says idly. Scrawls about the air just above his skin as she had. Opens up his legs to sit cross legged, and sinks his elbow against his thigh as he ponders. "Always saw it as a stalk of wheat," he commits to the stroke. "Or a bird's skull," Rounds then dashes before he lifts the crackling ink. Adds the beaked slash, and the long stalk.

He passes the brush to his left hand, and paints the wyld upon the inside of his right wrist. Quicker, despite its greater number of strokes. "And there..." he observes his handy work a moment. Feels all the marks hum and pulse against him each in their own place, with the stir of gentle breeze. "It goes," he blinks. Looks back to Osytha. "Right," Hector clears his throat "The seals should reduce the strain betwixt us," a twinge at a memory. Sharp eyes and a look like hurt. "In this deed, at least," he turns the brush handle back toward her.

Lando laughs a ragged laugh. "Be wary, Syr Osytha," he speaks like a man adrift upon a sun warmed lake. "Once the seals are placed, the Giving will begin all its own."

 

[Osytha]

Osytha glances over the loci on Hector’s body as he had indicated them, and which now bear the seals in shimmering resin: Loch, Life, Flame, Death and Wyld; brow, heart, under-navel, left wrist, right wrist.

“Well, then,” she remarks, and her fingers start unlacing the neckline of her shirt. “S’pose there’s nowt else for et.”

Osytha lifts the garment up and free and rolls it off her arms. It drops down with the rest of her things, and next she’s untying her strophium’s bands, unwinding it off her chest. Has to ungather and drop her braies down a little bit as well, to expose below her belly button. But, once she’s bared enough to scribe them all on, then she takes up the brush from Syr Hector.

“Aye, yon ear of corn still be there,” Osytha says, wetting the brush and starting with that of Death. “Over t’scythe. A birdskull, though? That’s fresh to me. But Ah can sees et, now tha mention’st et.”

It’s hard to tell the passage of time, sheltered in this little glade. Peat and willow breathes fresh about them, with a soft draught, cool and green, passing back and forth. A bird will chitter for a bit, before a fluttering of wings marks the changing of the guard. Then it’s a different voice screeching from the boughs. Little things, happening one after the other. But also, with a kind of repetition there. Makes it all feel strangely like time has stopped flowing altogether, and yet, looking at Syr Lando, one can also tell that it’s slipping by all too quickly.

Osytha works as hastily as she can, while still being sure of her hand. She inks on Death easily enough. Life is a little trickier; really has to tuck her chin in and squint down to see what she’s doing to her chest. Flame is a bit simpler, at least, though still tricky to get right when she’s drawing the things upside-down. Still, Osytha manages. But she hands the brush back to Hector before having scribed on the last two.

“Ah’s, er, en’t so good wi’ my left ’and,” she explains, “so’s Ah might need tha to don t’Wyld for me.” She lays herself down alongside Syr Lando, figuring that she’s going to find herself keeled over on the ground one way or another once the conduit opens up. “An’ hold et in when tha get’st to Syr Steve. Folks allus start gigglin’ when they’s ’alfway through that ’un, an’ et gives t’poor bugger scoliosis.”¹

---

¹ Look, when you’re showing the various Rorschach tests which comprise the Seals of Communion to a class of freshly-pubescent squires, it’s unavoidable that they’ll come up with their own mnemonics for the sigils. A few of these alter-egos have survived the test of time, including: ‘The Nose’ (Life), ‘Hungry Chick’ (AKA, ‘Cheep Cheep’; Flame), and, last but not least, ‘Autofellatio Steve’ (Loch).

Feel free to make up your own, by the way. It’s quite fun.

 

[Hector]

Hector finds himself watching as she paints the seal of death. Eyes on the brushhead and how it quicks across sinew and vein, just there beneath the skin. Soon as she shifts toward The Nose, he blink blinks and clears his throat. Looks out toward some blinking chickadee.

The little bird cocks its little head. Warbles. Flutters its wings as its feathers fluff. And flits away.

Face warmed, Hector huffs. Breaths, and settles. Remembers what they are doing. Nods. And checks on the work just as she finishes the last of the Flame's tongues. The brushhandle turns back towards him.

"Ah's, er, en't so good wi' my left 'and... so’s Ah might need tha to don t’Wyld for me.”
​

A gulp. Hector nods as he takes up the tool, and sets it to his grip as she lays herself down beside Lando. "I will see it done," he says, reflexive. Eyes locked to her dextral wrist.

"An’ hold et in when tha get’st to Syr Steve. Folks allus start gigglin’ when they’s ’alfway through that ’un, an’ et gives t’poor bugger scoliosis.”
​

"Syr... Steve." Hector is jostled out of what dutiful focus he found by the playful memory.

Laughter of squires holding back tears at the sudden realization that one of their classmates suddenly made before the poor Oath Sworn Syr which lead instruction that day. In the now, there in that glade where in time seems to wax and wane, wash and run. He feels it bubbling up.

"Mind the peeven of Syr Steven, who t'walways needs himself relieven," Croaked the wheezing Landonsera, smile cracked across his pallid face.

Hector laughs.

Landonsera laughs.

Too hard. Too fast. Too long. But they laugh all the same. Even Syr Grenmerrie laughs small and to herself, hidden behind the trunk of a tree as she is. Syrs Sando and Lefelen pause in their work. Palm to Sando's face. Grumble from Lefelen's throat.

Hector wipes a tear from his eye. "Right then," catches his breath. "Nuff of that from the both of you," warmth full in his voice. He settles next to Osytha. Strange smile on his face. "I'll mind the good Syr," he nods. Takes in another breath, spills it out, and gentle takes her wrist into his palm. Lets their bones run together for a better platform. Finds the veins, and the sinew where they Wyld tree roots. Makes the mark, quick and efficient. "Mind the worm," he idles with the last four strokes. Ending on the up. Lets slip his hand. He leans towards the ink stone. Stretches without resetting his seat to loads the brush one last. Sets back unto his sitting bones, sure against the moss. His eyes find hers "Ready now, Syr Osytha," a trust there.

He scrawls that last seal of mysteries. The serpent. The labyrinth. Syr Steve.

The downward dash there at the end so sure after the long wind. One more stroke for the tongue. Then the eye, shared twixt all the seals. The brush lifts.

The ten loci glow as one. Hum. So starts the Giving twixt them. What pain is felt, what boons they carry, the worries and joys all turn to water and flame. Soil and root. Psyllium sprawling. A webwork of life woven through mortal coils.

"Are you with me, Syr Osytha?" He gently asks through eyes lit by Life and Flame. Sees there Lando's leg again. Moves, just the bit closer toward it. Feels a bridge there betwixt Osytha and Landonsera. "Steel thyself," he warns them both as he feeds that spider's silk of connection he had kept with Syr Lando.

Might be, she could see in part, what he saw, now that their wells poured toward equilibrium. Where all Syr Lando's veins and arteries spill and bruise about where leg's bone is crushed. The rivers of his life, over flowed, like so many floodwaters had undone the banks of a levy long built.

With the tandem set, Hector feels his own wells of shroud replenished. What fatigues and hurts he carries, lessened. Not done away, but poured into another cup, as much as that cup's waters were poured into his own. Only the pour is constant. The flow continuous.

He feels her heart pound against his. His breath fills doubly, and spills, never quite to empty. His hand sets to glow double quick. And he worries a moment. But trusts. Splays fingers wide over Syr Lando's grievous wound. Recites the words anew.

“Steady now, oh pained heart,
So thine currents may slow."

He lets the shroud shared then to pass into Syr Lando. Like sun's warm heat set unto leaf's broad plane, or bough's swaying bark. The hard shards of shattered case slow to stitch back together. Carried by currents of blood set to shape. Like liquid metal, poured to mold. Landonsera groans in pain, but that pain passes from him, unto Hector, and Osytha. Cut thrice in its intensity.

Hector winces. Stammers. Hand shaking, fingers curling. He grits his teeth as he gathers his breath up once more. Splays his fingers sure.

"Steady now, oh pained heart,
So thy rest may know,"

Bit by bit. They could both feel the bone come back togther. The blood set to flow. Move. The bodies natural healing, accelerated by the shroud being woven through Landonsera's coil. Until the strain grows and grows, even batteried as the pair of Knights were.

"Stedy now, oh pained heart,
Let your roots regrow,"

Threads of the shroud wane. Hector, careful to set the lines back there with thinnest sketch. Hairy in how the image faded. Thinnest scratches just there traced before the Flame's eye could no longer see. His breath strained. Sweat pouring.

“There go thine pains,
oh beloved,
Carried unto mine currents,
to be unmade.”

The spell broke, and Hector slumped. Deaf to the others there as all came to settle.

 

[Osytha]

“Mind the peeven
Of Syr Steven,
Who t’walways needs
Himself relieven’.”​

The corners at Osytha’s lips flutter madly — the gravity of it all crumbling away at this burst of sheer, wonderful absurdity. As soon as she hears the snickering rise up around her, she knows it’s all over for her. The woman breaks; snorts with laughter. Tries to bite onto the knuckles of her fist, and clamps her eyes shut in focus. There’s no stopping the refrain from slipping out, though.

“Wi’ pitched tent,
Too far ’e leant;
Now Steve can’t get
’Is back unbent.”​

She clasps Syr Landonsera’s hand for one last little squeeze, and they lie giggling away like idiots there beside each other. So much for her warning to Syr Hector. In the end, it’s he who quells their buffoonery, and Osytha forces herself back to the task before them. She slips her hand from Syr Lando’s and rests it wrist-up like her other, ready for the brush.

It feels… odd, on her flesh. Feels more. It’s not just the colours that ink seems to whip about itself, but where it lies on her skin, all feels like raw nerves exposed. The breeze that much colder, hairs more prickly, can even feel Hector’s breath hot and humid against the lines as he works over her. All that power within the resin, but yet undirected; flailing about with dammed-up energy, trying to catch on something, anything. Amplified and transferred.

“Ready now, Syr Osytha.”​

Her eyes close, and she nods. Pushes against the twitch in her brow that she feels trying to kick in as the horsehair tickles her forehead. The brush lifts, sweeps back down. Rises again. One more to go, before the sacrament is complete. Osytha doesn’t know what to expect, but she tries to steel herself for it, regardless. The brush plants one last, little dot, right there.

A gasp escapes her throat as her entire body flinches — it’s like something’s sunk hooks into her, and is tugging at everything inside. Osytha’s mind reels with the sensation. The sensations, she realises, because she can feel the others through the tension in that line. It’s blurring the borders between all three of them.

“Are you with me, Syr Osytha?” Her mouth speaks the words same time he does. Her tongue’s receiving instructions, just, from a different brain than hers. “Steel thyself.”

Wait, it gets worse—?

The hook starts to pull.

It’s like… it’s like she’s a spool of thread, or a linen shirt. Long bits of thread wound, or stitched and woven, into the shape of herself. When Hector starts to draw on her, it feels as though someone has taken one of those little threads and is steadily pulling it loose. Unravelling her, bit by bit.

Osytha’s eyes slam open, staring wide at the faint sky above. Every muscle in her body clenches tight, trying to grab onto whatever it is that’s being drawn out of her — but there’s no stopping it.

A panicked little noise escapes her throat. “Gh-kk—!”

Round and round and round, the thread of herself uncoils, spooling away through the conduit. Every bit of her becoming thinner and more threadbare. Imagine if someone could just pluck free the end of a nerve or capillary, and peel it free of your body. Then imagine if they kept going as that fibre connected with others, in one endless, horrific act of mutilation.

How much more before her heart, its walls and arteries made paper-thin, finally ruptures apart under its own force and fills her chest with a burst of red? Will her bowels unwind, spilling forth all their filth and ruin from her stomach down onto the moss? Which parts of her mind are being stripped away? Will she forget her name, her family? Forget how to speak, how to walk, even how to feed herself?

It’s not how it works, she knows that. But it’s hard to remember as much when every flayed nerve in Osytha’s terrified body is screaming the opposite.

As her thread of self reels away into the others, they in turn resonate back up the line. She feels sensations that are not her own; a body which aches the way one does having spent every single fibre of their being, and sheer agony from a leg crushed and snapped in its casing. She thinks others’ thoughts for them, as well, and recounts unfamiliar memories. Osytha sees what it was like to fly up that hill with the others, to feel invincible for a fleeting moment before the world tumbles into screams and crushing, thrashing weight. One word and it all turns to guilt. Honeysuckle.

For a moment there, Osytha can’t feel Hector through the union. She wonders if he’s broken from them… but, no, that’s not it; the sense of til Clemonde’s anguish had brought up something sympathetic in the elf, something which mirrored it so closely that she had just been unable to tell them apart for a second there. Then they diverge — memories of a different fight. Of deathly chill instead of jagged scree, and a different name.

Analon.

Pain divided threefold, but also, multiplied threefold back again, and everything else along with it overwhelming. Osytha’s back arches hard. Legs scrabble frantically, heels carving jagged grooves into the moss. Every muscle taut. She digs the backs of her hands down, pushing them against the earth as hard as she can. Because if she doesn’t, those hands of hers will probably move of their own accord to smudge the seals and break her free.

Syr Lefelen comes to kneel beside her. He watches the woman’s eyes roll madly, and listens to her sharp, uneven, gasping breaths.

“She’s taking it badly,” Lefelen remarks to the others. Then, he leans forward, putting his face directly above hers. “Syr Osytha — can you hear me? Do you need to break the communion?”

She listens to him through nearly three sets of ears. She hears Guffy, too, whimpering and crying as Syr Sando holds him back. Please. A voice rises within her, up from some part of Osytha’s mind that’s still her own. This feels wrong. Help me. I— I’m scared. Please make it stop. Please. Make it stop. I can’t— I—

The muscles in her jaw clench shut. She doesn’t trust herself to speak; doesn’t trust that if she opens her mouth, she’ll not be begging Syr Lefelen to end this.

“Steady now, oh pained heart,
So thy rest may know.”​

“Wait a little more, syr,” Sando urges of the other knight. “They’re almost there, see? Just a bit longer.”

No voice. Jaw closed tight, teeth grinding, tongue pressed hard to the roof of her mouth. Throat clamped shut. Closed up, can’t breathe. Fighting the pull, fighting the urge to scream for mercy, fighting to still her fingers from gouging the resin right out of her flesh. Lungs begin to ache as little motes swirl up in her vision, numbers growing by the second. Leg hurts. Chest hurts. Head hurts. It all hurts.

Lefelen tries to get Osytha’s head tilted back. “Breathe, Osytha,” he commands, struggling to position her airways more open. “Come on, now.”

“Steady now, oh pained heart,
Let your roots regrow.”​

Her whole body is trembling. Tiny, choked noises froth out the corners of her mouth — air escapes, but she can’t pull it back in. Colours bleed away, trees fade from the periphery. Just Syr Lefelen’s face there against the sky. Soft blue about a shape, its edges disappearing. Woad blurring to something indistinct.

“There go thine pains,
Oh beloved,
Carried unto mine currents,
To be unmade.”​

The hook rips out of Osytha’s flesh — and with that, she snaps free. Her mouth gapes wide and she draws in a deep, rasping breath of the blessed sweet air. It leaves her gagging and sputtering, body curled up small. Her hands dart to her wrists, her forehead, her chest and stomach, to rub and scratch and claw out the marks painted there.

Bigger, stronger hands seize her wrists and keep them at bay. “Easy now, syr,” Lefelen soothes her. Sando steps in and drapes a cloak over Osytha’s frame before moving on to tend Hector and Landonsera, while his fellow continues to hold the bawling knight in firm but careful grip. “You’re free of it, now. It’s over.”

 

[Hector]

Twas a dark swirl in which Hector found himself. Not adrift. Not set sail. Or pulled along like fish on a hook. Sinking. Down and down into the drink. Shattering through black star painted glass like a stone let fall from cliff side to shatter thin ice. His mouth sealed shut. His eyes burned out and smoking. In the pitch of the labyrinth some part of him knew was the Loch.

Pleas of no lanced with pain-hooked-pulls and fire-burned-pushes. T'while the ringing went on singing there hind his skull. Horse hooves tearing through the earth. Steel clattering and clanging. Loud as hammer against hot iron pon anvil's bed. Across the dust of training yard's tread. Across the cobble of city streets which led. Punch went the blade. Thwack went the fetter. And all that live long while, he could nae draw breath.

Lungful purpled in his throat. As roots went on sprawling rampant and wyld through the cracks that formed.

No knight.

But a murderer.

Why did it matter who they drew their swords against. On field of battle. Amidst winter's snow. Upon spring's firsts mud.

A cold thing no fire could ever warm. Skykiller. He could hear them hiss. Drenched. Icebitten. Marked by one red eye that loft on high upon the branches as the true knight sprawled to red bloody roots. A second turns to ash. Whisked away.Hanging there betwixt the boughs. His horse to ice. No knight. A murderer. Killing needless. Burning much. Pain. I'm scared. Crackling scree like coals rasped off bricks. Laughing. Smothered under a flame that kicked and screamed and bled. Crushing.

Please make it stop. Please. Make it stop. I can’t— I—

The scream of horses. The gargles of a dying man. The sound of flames eating away at flesh and bone. Thatched houses and cindered bricks. Children.

There too was laughter. Master Hawthorne's back turned as he scrawled the nose, then last that damned spiral that had them all choke back their titters until Luka points to the board. "THAT THERE'S SYR STEVE!" too proud to have finally made sense of the mystery. Named the squiggle so many knew about.

Bleeds to history. Quiet looks across the library. Smiles. Tumbles in the fields. Warm breath across the lips. Dances there in the winter snow. Darkness there, between all those festival lights.

Snaps. Pops. Warm as cookfires. Searing as a fresh wound gushed and all its hurt.

"Come now, acorn," says an easy drawl. "Ain't your first show, sure as the Mirror won't be your last,"

A pat on the cheek. One. Two. Firm. Sensation stings to warm tingle. Hector feels the weight of armor. Not there. The heat of fire. Unlit. The burn of the seals. Like scars against his skin. His eyes blink to. His nose pulls breath clean and full. He sees his hands. Still his own. Looks to Landonsera. Wincing. Sweat soaked. Pained. With color in his cheeks.

Hector is still sat atop his knees. Body cold with old sour sweat. Feels like stone.

Hears Osytha. Brow breaks into furrow.

Tears run down the sides of his face. Wet. Hot. Cold. Grits his teeth. Lip trembles. Clenches his tremoring left hand into balled fist. The rune of death. Wiped clean.

Sando lays his hand on him. "Hey now," he sets the tone. Too full of forgiveness. Too full of understanding. "She's alive," knelt down to his fellow dawnling. Wipes away one tear. "Shaken, scared, hurt, but alive," then the other. Pat pats the younger knight's shoulder. Boy he took part in raising up into a man. "You'll sort it out," he assures. "For now," Sando gets up. "You give her space, and you both get some rest," Sando laughs, a small, strange little laugh as he walks on away. Sword lazy at his belt. "Takes two lives, Ten'ed up to just go fixin a damned leg still hangin together," he taps the side of head. "F'only more folks could make sense of it," whistles sharp. "Marhallow!"

Grennmerrie hops to attention. "Syr!"

"We're on patrol!" Sando motions her follow. "Leave these three to survive Lefelen's cookin all their own,"

Grennmerrie blinks. Wide eyed, looks to Lefelen. "Um, Syr?"

Sando keeps on mozying through the glade. Out toward the woods. "Might snipe us a good fat squirrel or two, and we can have skewers ourself," fingers running over bristly beard going long after so much road they'd all ridden.

 

[Osytha]

It’s so very, very quiet in the aftermath.

The glade itself, that as well; this green-draped screen encircling them holds the world at bay, and all is still here but for its phyllous sighs, that continuing parade of twitchy avian visitors, and the clacking-marble call of diminutive sunset frogs a little further off. They’re simple, rhythmic sounds for the most part. Dangerously hypnotic.

But there’s also a silence between the knights. Syrs Hector, Lando, and Osytha — each one is utterly spent. Well, til Clemonde has completely passed out, and fair enough. Rookheart, though, somehow still has it in him to busy those hands with scribbling something to a page. Without the communion, Osytha can no longer tell what cause he has for quietude in this moment, but it’s hard to believe they don’t share at least part of a reason. They’d each let their colours bleed together; saw the same regrets, felt the same pain. Breaking the sacrament hadn’t caused those hues to separate, just, stopped them mixing any further. They’re a part of her, now, Hector and Landosmere. And they’d walked away from that ordeal with a piece of her, too.

Forbítter’s settled down for a light doze upon the moss. Osytha sits, still draped in Syr Sando’s cloak, cross-legged and resting her back against the horse’s flank. Guffy has curled up firm and snug in her lap with his little muzzle resting on her thigh. A loyal little lad, that one. Osytha strokes him from head to hindquarters with a rhythmic hand, as she stares at nothing in particular.

Feeling, nothing in particular.

After her sobbing had subsided, there’d not been anything to take its place. No more fear, no more anger, no relief… whatever Hector took from her has left Osytha just, sort of, hollowed out. There’s a bit of physical exertion, but that’s not the kind of fatigued she is right now. There’s no feeling. No drive, and no will. She’d spent long minutes staring at her hands, trying to remember what it took to actually move them. Just thinking about it wasn’t enough, apparently. Well, Guffers had helped with that, at least; the first things which came back to her had been the rote response of ear scritches, belly rubs, and pats. So it seems she remembers that, at least.

Is this shroudlash? wonders Osytha. Is this what it takes out of a body? It had felt like something vital was being stripped away in the moment, but everything she’s learned about the process tells her it’ll all come back in time. That she’ll heal.

Or will I? Someone who can’t weave, like missen… have I even the same to offer as ane who’s Shroud-touched, or did the communion need to take summat deeper from me, instead? Cut too close to the bone for it to fully mend. Is this feeling… or the absence of it… is this just how it’s going to be from now on?

Osytha doesn’t know what she should think of that.

Her een slowly gather focus, then find the shape of Syr Hector across the glade. Of course, it hadn’t been all take. They’d given her something in return as well, and she’s not sure how to feel about that, either. It’s much more raw and painful a gift than folk are usually comfortable sharing. Far too personal. But shared it was, and there’s no taking it back. There’s a connection between them now. A thread which won’t sever so easily as from smudging the seals of communion.

Those memories still carry their hurt and grief with them. They’re the first little spark of anything that Osytha’s felt inside her chest since she emerged out of the union. They’re not even her emotions, in a sense, but that doesn’t stop her latching onto them just to have something. Anything to give her some kind of purpose.

It’s enough. Enough for Osytha to gently pry Guffy from her lap, and for her to rise unsteadily to her feet. It sets those feet one in front of the other, until they’ve carried her before Syr Hector. She kneels down, drawing the cloak tighter around herself, and her impassive face stares at him for a couple of seconds. Then lower, to the implements in his hands.

“Ah…”

She’s here, but only now does it occur to Osytha that she’s not entirely sure why. It was… pain which had moved her, wasn’t it? That splinter of Syr Hector lodged in her heart, the only thing she can feel right now, and made up of flashes of hurtful memories. That’s what had brought her over; because he’d been in such pain. She’d seen him crying, right alongside Syr Landosmere.

“Art tha… alright?” Toils, what a stupid question. “Ah mean — well, Ah don’t… reightly ken what Ah…”

She keeps staring at Hector’s hands, herself appearing as though half in a trance. It feels easier to watch those fingers than to meet his eyes.

What is it he’s drawing? The forge, his verse — and now this. The man likes to create things, doesn’t he? Osytha wonders what else he has a knack for making.

“Ah’m sorry.” The words are starting to come to her more surely and evenly, now. “Ah were rarin’ to lay into thee. An’ Ah yet mean to speak upon thy actions, but… Ah was fit to be that ’arsh with thee. Not for any good reason, mind. ’Cos Ah was mad, an’ Ah wanted to ’urt thee. Et blinded me.”

Then Osytha does look up. This part, she needs to look him in the face if she’s to say it.

“Afore Ah says owt else, though, Ah’ll say this: tha’rt no murderer.” She tells it, plainly and simply. “Ah’ve met murderers, some further down that path than others. So be told. Tha’rt not amongst their number.”

 

[Hector]

Nothing.

Stylus point tap taps. Just to feel. Something. After feeling so much.

Scribbles at first. Swirls. Spirals. Scratches. Feels how tight it all is as he rests against bark of a great old elm tree. Folio with its leather binding, and chord looped pages, there upon his lap. Stiff enough to platform as he works.

Measure after measure in how clumsy he still is. Hands. Arms. Core. Rightside more stiff than the left. But his left shakes the worse for all its liberty. He wastes a page. Properly. Top to bottomc. Until there is not room left for the silverpoint's silver point to fill. Goes again over the wasted grain. Scrawls and scries into it.

He feels poured out. But all the emptiness just lets the pleas ring out all the clearer. The cries for it to stop. To end. Louder.

He had hurt her. Used her. Like fuel that would not take. And instead of pulling her from the flame. He made sure it burned. His brow winds the more. And there upon that precious page he sees them, scarred into its fibers. Enough measure still left at the end of his fingers to keep it all from ripping. A pair of eyes. Wide and open with all their stormy want to know, learn and understand.

Save all the fear he had felt. Pain. But he knew. He knew that was all part of what they were. What they shared in three together. Then betwixt the Seals, and there again in the oaths they'd sworn before the twice lit flame.

Guffers yips. Yaps. Growls in that playful way of his. Hector's ears keen toward it. His eyes follow. He turns the page. Eyes on her a moment. Too long. He pulls them away.

Time. Distance. Let things settle. Else. How were they to know? Which stream pulled. Which stream pushed. How was he to know? If he had given her any real choice then. Dusk and Dawn. Where in a life laid there before them.
The spark of cookfire hisses in his ear. The little gasp of tinder taking to light fore it crackles and laughs with its pops and snaps. His hands don't stop moving the stylus there across the page. Still he hears her stepping. Keeps his eyes down. Though he can't hide the furrow from his brow. Or how his face winces with that same pitiful hurt.

"Ah..."
​

His hands still, a moment. He feels her eyes on him. But he cannot bare their weight. What would she want to know next? How could he but tell her? After he had already taken from her. After it had taken badly. That ritual which his hands had painted. Six of ten. His stylus was already moving again. The stillness just letting all the ripples in.

"Ah'm sorry." ​

He slows. Stylus working scratches in practiced hatches. Listens. As the trees darken on his page.

"Ah were rarin' to lay into thee. An’ Ah yet mean to speak upon thy actions, but… Ah was fit to be that ’arsh with thee. Not for any good reason, mind. ’Cos Ah was mad, an’ Ah wanted to ’urt thee. Et blinded me.”​

He is still. Feels her eyes on him. Can't bring himself to look to her. Might feel he could if she laid into him. Let him know how damned he was for all she had seen, and how he was proof, if nothing else, proof that he was worth less than all that had been lost about him. His deeds and failures one and the same.

"Afore ah says owt else, though, Ah'll say this: tha'rt no murderer."​

Stylus falls from his hand and onto the moss. His eyes are wide upon her. Though silence still holds him.

“Ah’ve met murderers, some further down that path than others. So be told. Tha’rt not amongst their number.”​

He shakes his head. Brows knit together. "I..." he feels at a loss. Heart in his throat. Lets his head back onto the tree, as if the few inches gained between them might be enough. Time or space. He is not sure which he is looking for. Doesn't know if he wants either. Eyes scrawl about lines burned into him. Part of him now. "I don't know if I can believe that yet," he shakes the thought away. "Maybe in time, but..." he stares down at the drawing of a town he had never seen. A place that was there in the twine of them. "I can't today, not after all that," he laughs a stupid laugh. "I don't even know where this water wheel comes from, nor the mountains, or if-" the thought chokes his breath. He settles a moment. Breaths.

"I'm sorry I did that to you. I'm sorry I..." he shakes his head and looks back to her. "I don't know if I-" he feels his jaw ache. Like it had when she forced her mouth shut. He lets his breath huff out. Eyes full of her. His fingers twitch. His hands grip folio and moss strewn dirt. Birds sing. Frogs croak. A fire pops. He lets his eyes close. Head bows. Shakes. "Thank you."

 

[Osytha]

All the little noises fill their silence for them after that. Osytha, knelt there in the moss, weighing up his words. Unsure of what to even measure them against. She turns her head aside, like the answer’s to be found somewhere past the trees.

“Ah’m sorry, tha’rt sorry. Syr Lando were sorry,” she mumbles. “We’re a reight sorry bunch, en’t we?”

Behind her, Syr Lefelen snorts into the campfire.

“Ah… honestly don’t ken ’ow Ah’m belike to end up feelin’ about et all. But nor does Ah ken what else there were to do in t’moment.”

A water wheel, and the mountains. Osytha faces forward again. Her eyes, down to his hands. And the binder there of such things as Syr Hector had deemed worth making. Yes, she’d thought of that place. She’d tried to hide inside her memory of it; thought it would stop her feeling what was being done to her. It hadn’t worked. Nor had any of the other comforting memories she’d drawn on. They’d just wound up becoming part of the thread spun out of her.

“Tell thee what. Let me see thy landscape, an’ Ah’ll accept thy ’pology. Please?”