Kendath was still backed against the wall, in a spot as far in the sidelines as he could manage, when Merrin found him. Twins. Overwhelming. Hah.

"Here, split it," he said, with a glance at the offered sausage. He sawed the sausage in half with his fork and pushed Merrin's half back into the center of her plate, stealing a glance at the contents of said plate as he did so. Ham and bread. Pathetic. "You're not eating enough," he pointed out. With that, he judged the distance, made a mad dash around the twins, and reached around T'mor to raid the platter of eggs.

He returned from his foray with an egg in each hand. "Protein." He dropped one egg onto Merrin's plate and took a bite of the other. "Didn't you ever heed your mother?"

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Just then, T'mor emerged from the fray at the table, now mostly made up of the twins and Jayen, and deliberately tipped several more sausages and a second sandwich from his plate onto Merrin's. "Oops. Guess they're yours now."

Merrin half expected someone appear with an entire side of bacon next. "I don't eat this much in a day!"

"Well, you do now."

Where was the dog? Merrin could have supplied him with breakfast and then some. "Look, I'm eating," she said, and managed to consume two or three sausages, the egg, and a few bites of sandwich. She shoved the plate in Kendath's direction. "Your turn."

Master Tanner rose, chair scraping back on the floor, and stretched. "Let's go, T'mor, I've plenty of work for you," he boomed across the room.

T'mor slouched. "In a minute," he said glumly.

Jayen rose from the table, depositing his admirably clean plate in the dishwater, and raised an eyebrow at Merrin. "You ready to go?"

"Yes, actually," said Merrin, sliding off the coal scuttle. "I'm done breakfast."

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The sun was fully up now, spilling through the window in a golden aurora of light. Dirty dishes clattered into the tub. The matronly force that was Mistress Tanner swept into the kitchen, clearing the table faster than many trained soldiers could have ever hoped to arm themselves. The twins were shooed out into the yard as one might shoo out the dog.

Sudden quiet descended upon the room, broken only by the slosh of dishes in the dishwater.

Kendath followed Merrin toward the door, then stopped and cast a glance at Garthag and Adeila. Particularly at Adeila. "You coming?" He raised a casual eyebrow. The Celestial Shard was the single subject he didn't want to think about, but it surfaced nevertheless. "Don't forget your pack. You know. Tools. Provisions."

_________________

"I had been intending to remain here," Adeila replied. Truth be told, anything that required further walking, at the present, sounded less than appealing. And besides that, she had quite a few current patients among the refugees, scattered across the village. She could not simply ignore them. "I need to make certain that my patients' needs are being met. You are more than welcome to anything from my pack that you think you may need."

She rose from the table and turned toward where Mistress Tanner was already washing the dishes. "Caire, let me help you with those. I feel like I've done nothing but create extra work since arriving."

For a moment Kendath struggled against the impulse to grab the Shard from Adeila's pack and pocket it on his person. He shook it off. The Shard was safest here, in a tiny room inside this anonymous cottage. Besides, Adeila was no fool. They'd trusted her this far. They could trust her a little further.

Merrin and Jayen stood in the doorway, waiting. Forcing himself to relax, Kendath followed them into the morning.

The sun had already crested the eastern ridges. Its rays broke golden over the forested slopes and down into the valley below, where Riversmeet bustled with activity. Doors and windows banged open up and down the thoroughfare. Mules clopped toward the central square, their backs laden with goods for the market. Children chased themselves around porches and into street corners, their chores fleetingly forgotten in the bright warmth of the day.

Jayen led the way at a measured stride, skillfully picking his way through the children and shopkeepers and wives headed off to market. The townsfolk raised greetings as he passed. G'morning to you, Young Master Tanner. Fine day, sir. Why, that ain't your dragon-ridin' sister, ain't it?

Here and there a wagon stood abandoned, emptied of both provisions and refugees. Snatches of conversation drifted to Kendath's ears. Supper last night was wonderful, someone said. Most civilized people you'll ever meet, another swore. Aye, everyone's welcome to stay. Come winter we'll be seeing some new houses by the Seiren, just you wait!

Kendath grinned and nudged Merrin. "Look. It's our mutual friend."

For there, atop the porch of the general store, stood Dia, bouncing on her toes and shouting at the top of her lungs: "Merr'n! Merr'n!"

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Merrin waved over the heads of those hurrying to and fro in the square. They formed a sort of organized chaos; a melee of people with purposes and destinations, and a pleasant cacophony over all. She could already smell the aromas wafting from the bright little baker's kiosk.

Jayen's quick grin flashed beside her. He slung his empty burlap sack over one shoulder and nodded in response to something the black-bearded man who owned the general store was saying. Merrin smiled a greeting, and was distracted by an impact around her knees.

"Look," said Dia. "My dolly has a hat."

Merrin swung her up and settled her on one hip to more closely inspect this new addition to the dolly's wardrobe. It was a hollowed-out walnut shell. "Did Master Cuthare give you that?" she asked.

"Mmhm. Lookit." Dia thrust the limp doll, her tiny fist firmly around its midsection, at Kendath. His lack of interest in the past did not perturb her in the least.

"Sooner we go, sooner we'll be back," said Jayen, tapping her on the shoulder. Dia, glad for a third member of her audience, proferred the doll, and he dutifully examined it. "That's very pretty."

"Go find Mama, Dia. I'll be back later. Don't lose the dolly!" Merrin called the last words, having bent to put Dia down and watched the girl scurry away, between legs and underneath a wagon.

"Still haven't stopped playing mother?" Jayen tossed the words over his shoulder, leading them a winding path between people and wagons and the rapidly appearing stalls of market wares.

Merrin shrugged a reply. "You can never have too many." And their fathers are gone. Thanks to me. She thought of new houses on the Seiren, and could punctuate her answer with a smile nonetheless.

---

"Create extra work?" said Caire. "Haven't you met my sons, then? That is extra work. No, Rhie, you may come to market with me this afternoon." She lifted her littlest onto the table and supplied her with a rolling pin and a bowl of dough. "There. Ask Mistress Adeila for help if you need it."

The shouts outside, of children briefly released from their chores, were a pleasant undertone compared to the normal mayhem of the Tanner home. Mistress Tanner thrust her hands into the basin of dishwater. "Well, then. Where are you and all these villagers from?"

_________________

Activity thinned as they left the central square. Chattering voices faded, giving way to the occasional clop-clop of mules or the shrill shouts of a straying child. The quaint little cottages of Riversmeet melted into the surrounding countryside, saffron with crops almost ripe for harvest. The Seiren trailed its silver path across the fields. Its waters sparkled with ribbons of sunlight.

Jayen led them down the dirt road, hard-packed from generations of trudging feet and wagon wheels, and across a sturdy wooden bridge that spanned the river. Forest fringed the fields on the opposite side. Beyond the forest towered the deep purple of mountains, their slopes still blanketed in morning mist. In the distance, Kendath could faintly discern the billows of gray where the Seiren tumbled over a rocky ridge and into the valley below. The next instant the mist was swirling, blocking the cataract from sight.

The forest provided a refreshing respite from the glare of the sun. Sunlight filtered through flaming leaves - gold, ruby, bronze - and intertwined with shadows under the branches, dappling the forest floor. Jayen led the way along the trail. His boots sank softly through a sea of fallen leaves, not yet dry enough to crunch. As they walked, Kendath detected furtive rustlings in the underbrush. He remembered that his only weapon was a small knife tucked in his boot.

"Any wolves out here?" he called to Jayen, ahead.

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Adeila pushed back her sleeves and went to work on one of the plates anyway. "By the sea," she replied vaguely. Quickly, she counted the days in her head. "It took us roughly a week, from our village to here. Though we were also slowed by trying to get wagons through the mountains. I do not study a map especially often, so I'm afraid I cannot give a very specific location." She glanced over at Rhie. The girl seemed distracted enough with rolling out the dough, but Adeila still hesitated to describe what had happened in detail.

"We... had occasion to leave very quickly," she said at length. "I do not know where we would have gone, had T'mor not thought to bring everyone here. You have remarkable children; you must be very proud."

Jayen glanced over his shoulder, striding on ahead as though the route was ingrained into his boots. For how many times he'd traveled this way, it probably was. "Sometimes."

"Not now, surely," said Merrin, ducking an overhanging branch. "In daylight?"

"No, and they hear us miles away. Yet you've come prepared." Jayen motioned to her sword belt, and the slender sheath hanging from it, with a wry grin.

Merrin glanced down at the weapon. "Oh. That." She did not recall putting it on. "It's become a habit."

"Gods save any wolves out here from the wrath of Merrin the Dragonrider."

"You do listen to the twins too much." Merrin idly twisted her fingers around the hilt. Vibrant gold and red leaves beneath her boots flamed in the fresh rays of the new-risen sun. She inhaled deeply and smelled pine. "I'm nothing like they say."

Jayen paused and took a step into the underbrush, stooping to find a neatly noosed cord and its victim, a limp hare, half buried there. "Oh aye," he said as he worked. "But if you'd slain every Meiltha within a thousand miles you'd still say the same." Twisting, he angled a sharp eyebrow at Kendath. "Well? Is she being modest?"

---

"Merrin and T'mor? T'mor's a good boy," said his mother. "Now, he used to be a pest like no other, but apprenticeship with the smith took care of that. Rhie, please don't spill flour on the floor."

Rhie ducked her head under the table to inspect the extent of her mess. "T'mor tickles me," she said, muffled.

"That's right." Caire dried a succession of plates. "I do wish he would settle down with some nice girl, but that's neither here nor there. Merrin, though - Rhie, you will break that - if she would stop her daydreaming, she's a lovely girl. Now, I don't suppose there was time for daydreaming, at Vryngard. But my goodness, Merrin hasn't been back in years. I hope neither of them were any trouble?"

_________________

"Probably." Kendath knelt to help Jayen reset the snare, whose knot had loosened during the hare's struggling. "Slaying every Meiltha within a thousand miles is all in a day's work for Merrin the Dragonrider. What's that?" He bent forward to snatch something strange out from the underbrush - a tiny strip of cloth, previously snagged on a low-hanging branch. It slithered between his fingers like mist. He straightened, raising it to the sunlight, and saw that his eyes hadn't deceived him. The strip was black.

His glance darted from Merrin to Jayen. "Do travelers come through here often?"

_________________

"Far from it," Adeila assured her. "I've known T'mor for...oh, almost a year now. Nearly every time he passes through, he seems to end up under my care for some reason or another - never anything serious, of course. I don't know of anyone in the village who's ever had a serious quarrel with him." She dried out several cups and set them aside. "He has been a blessing to us. This past week especially, with so many of the men gone...."

She trailed off briefly but forced herself to continue with a thin smile. "He can still be a pest at times, of course, but it's all good-natured. We love him in spite of it."

Merrin required a bit more thought. Adeila had met her far more recently, and much of their time together had been filled with greater concerns than truly getting to know each other. She had done remarkable things, of course, but tales of such deeds were hardly suited to casual conversation like this.

"I only began traveling with Merrin last week, and so I cannot say as much about her," she finally said. "She is very young, but also very capable. I have met few women Merrin's age who are as responsible as she is - gods know I wasn't." The last few dishes were set aside to finish drying. Adeila considered briefly, then concluded, "I can say this much: your daughter is a truly outstanding young woman. She has a good heart; that will get her farther than perhaps anything else."

"Often enough," said Jayen, simultaneously with Merrin's, "Oh, hardly ever."

They exchanged a look. "It's different now," said Jayen with a shrug, bundling the hare into his sack. "Our market's the only one in miles. People pass through."

Merrin took a step back, and swept her eyes first up the trail until it disappeared in a tawny dapple of light and shadow, then back the way they'd come, while Jayen finished at his work. The moment he looked up, she turned back. Of course there was nothing - this was Riversmeet. Riversmeet, where a dragon's silhouette against the azure sky could cause excitement.

Jayen thought nothing of it, from the way he cast the scrap a mere glance and straightened to stride once more ahead of them. "This way."

Merrin snatched her fingers from resting on the pommel of her sabre, and fell back silently beside Kendath. "It's probably nothing," she murmured, only partly for his benefit.

As though in response to her hand's straying to the hilt of her sword, Jayen effortlessly took up the threads of their interrupted conversation with a gesture to the weapon at her belt. "So you can use that thing, then?"

"Well enough," said Merrin. She smiled at a recollection. "I beat T'mor. With a whole village watching."

His eyebrows shot up. "He never mentioned! - not that he would. Gods, what do they teach you at Vryngard?"

What did they teach, Merrin mentally corrected, and felt a pang. "Everything," she said with a shrug.

Jayen laughed, and sharply cut off in mid-sound. "Curse it," he said, quickening his step. "Something's gotten at this one." He bent once more, this time to a grisly mess at the end of the next tightened cord.

"Wolves?" said Merrin, carefully keeping her fingers from the hilt of her sword.

"Aye, likely." This did not seem to bother him overmuch, either. "Kendath often have premonitions about these things?"

---

"Aye, well," said Mistress Tanner, allowing herself a smile.

Adeila's last words brought a sharp glance. "Merrin's a good girl," she allowed, after what was perhaps an overlong pause in which words went unsaid. "Always on about dragons - but then, she got her wish. Who are these men you've been with, then? I've never heard mention of them in Merrin's letters."

_________________

Kendath eyed Merrin with raised brows but said nothing, instead tucking the cloth strip into the pocket of his breeches. He said nothing the rest of the way, interjecting only with a short laugh when Merrin mentioned T'mor. He could well imagine T'mor still sore from his defeat. Modest Merrin indeed.

As Jayen knelt to clean up the mess entangled in the snare, Kendath cast his gaze down the trail. It disappeared into a patchwork of gold and orange and scarlet, and seemed to meander up the mountainside. The sun had chased away the mists, unveiling the forested slopes in all their flaming glory. Kendath glanced back at Jayen. "Have you ever been out of Riversmeet, then?"

_________________

"We're out of Riversmeet now," said Jayen, with a shrug, rising once more.

"'No', you mean," said Merrin.

"Yes, well, you make up for both of us."

There was a short silence in which the three of them continued, broken only by the melodic rustle of the brittle leaves. Merrin began to steel herself. This could be her only opportunity to tell him everything that had happened - but where did she start? Jayen, I'm the Chosen of the Gods. Would he even believe her?

She took a deep breath, inhaling the smell of the red-gold wood, and Jayen glanced sidelong at her. "Where have you traveled, then?"

"All over," said Merrin. Realizing he wanted more, she added, "Vryngard, of course. Down the coast - Baste, Port Dragonhelm, Eastguard Fortress...Amarinth. Thyrault. And...Dey'tarn."

Jayen shook his head. "Wrong question," he said. "Where have you been that I've heard of?"

Merrin laughed but said nothing in response, staring off into the forest. "What news travels here?" she asked, feeling her voice break a silence.

Jayen hoisted his sack. "Father told us Vryngard had fallen," he said, so matter-of-fact that it shocked Merrin momentarily. She could hardly bear to think of it, still.

"Anything - else?" she asked.

He glanced at her. "No. Well - no. Why?"

Merrin remembered what her father had said, the night before. News travels. She took another breath. "Nothing about - the Chosen of the Gods?"

"Oh, that." Jayen shrugged, and once more Merrin was amazing at the nonchalance with which he shrugged it off. "A rumor, not too long ago. But that's a legend."

Merrin could not bring herself to ask further. "A legend," she murmured. "Aye."

_________________

Kendath drew level with Merrin, offering her shoulder a slight squeeze as he passed. He kept his mouth shut, however, because Jayen's look didn't escape him. It was one of those sidelong looks, those too-casual glances, as Jayen knelt to check the third snare - empty - and Kendath remembered that Jayen was Merrin's brother. The watchful one.

Jayen bent down to retie the snare, and Kendath seized the opportunity to lean close to Merrin's ear. "Be careful," he murmured. "You never know - "

Crack.

Kendath whirled, his eyes scanning the trees. It'd sounded like the snap of a twig, like a boot cracking the underbrush. But that was impossible because they’d come out here alone, and no one in Riversmeet should have tried to follow them, and - curse it - he couldn't see anything through the thick tangle of trees -

Crack.

The knife was in hand in one jerk of his foot. His fingers, clumsy inside the bandage, fumbled with the small hilt.

Silence.

He shot one glance at Merrin and another at Jayen. "What - "

The figure flew out of the trees. One instant's hesitation - a glimpse of a beard, villager's trousers, the flash of a dagger - and the man hurled himself at Merrin.

_________________

Despite her care, Merrin's fingers darted to the hilt of her sabre the moment she saw Kendath whirl. She jerked around, eyes spinning from bare trees to sky to gold-red leaves, forgetting whatever Jayen might think. Was there a draconic shape against the cloudless blue vault?

A rustle - a sudden explosion of foliage - and in the moment that Merrin whirled, too slowly, someone slammed into her from behind.

The next confused moments were pure instinct. Merrin thudded to the ground and gasped for breath, then rolled, winded, as something sharp ripped into the skin of her wrist. An earthy smell filled her nose - the weight was too much - and suddenly she was flattened beneath a face twisted into a snarl.

Merrin lashed out blindly. A jagged streak of white divided her vision in two.

The weight was gone in a heartbeat and she leaped to her feet, fumbling for the hilt of her sabre but feeling her fingers stiff and unresponsive.

Someone was crumpled in a heap opposite her. Jayen's expression was frozen in disbelief. Merrin looked down at her wrist, and the rip in the sleeve of her tunic. Red was dripping from the untidy gash.

She blinked. Nothing changed. "What happened?

_________________