Francesca stood near the fire, blade in hand, dragging a whetstone along its edge with slow, deliberate strokes. The steel sang in time with the crackling wood, a quiet rhythm in the night's hush.
The firelight flickered across her face-golden and sharp, casting long shadows over her cheekbones. But she wasn't watching the blade.
She was watching Alberta.
Alberta sat apart, perched on a worn stone just outside the fire's full glow. Her shoulders were rigid, hands clenched around her knees. Her gaze was fixed not on the forest, but through it-like she was listening to something far beyond the trees, something ancient and mournful.
"You've been quiet," Francesca said, her voice soft but certain.
"I always am," Alberta replied without turning.
"Not like this."
The whetstone stilled. Francesca slid her blade back into its sheath and walked over, the firelight catching in her curls as she sat beside her.
"I saw your face earlier. When he fell. When the scar flared up," she said. "You looked like you knew him. Like you remembered something."
Alberta's jaw tightened. Her breath was shallow.
"It wasn't what I saw," she said finally. Her voice was a whisper wrapped in glass. "It was what I felt."
------
"He's hiding something," Francesca murmured, watching the flames.
Alberta didn't answer at first. Her eyes followed the slow drift of sparks curling into the mist above.
"I don't think he knows he's hiding it," she said. "It's like... something's chasing him. Not from the outside-from inside. Like he's afraid of remembering who he was."
"You think it has to do with the Wane?"
Alberta's hand brushed her pendant-Yara's mark, dull and cold against her chest.
"Maybe," she said. "Or maybe the Wane follows him because he hasn't healed. Because something in him is still breaking."
Their silence stretched, soft and heavy like mourning.
Above, the sky had turned to slate. The stars were drowned in mist. Only the faint throb of the warding crystal in camp remained-a heartbeat in the dark.
-------
One of the younger mercenaries wandered near the fire, his boots crunching softly over dead leaves. He was chewing dry rations, trying and failing to stay awake. The firelight caught the hollows under his eyes, the grime along his sleeves.
"You're not from around here, are you?" he asked, his voice casual, cracking from the cold.
Francesca gave him a glance. "Why do you care?"
The mercenary shrugged and settled near the fire's edge.
"I grew up near the capital. Heard a lot of stories. My old commander used to serve under Duke Aslac Montagne-you know, the Lion of Jesmeurdam. Ruthless. Cold-eyed. But loyal to the grave."
Alberta's fingers froze where they rested on her knee.
"He had a daughter," the mercenary went on, unaware. "Or so the rumors go. Said she vanished when the estate burned during the border wars. Some say she died. Others..."
He leaned in, like the shadows might lean closer too.
"Others say the Duke found her. Smuggled her away. Raised her in secret. They say her hair burned like fire in the sunlight. Rare color. Real rare."
Francesca's gaze slid toward Alberta.
Alberta didn't move. Not even to breathe.
The mercenary chuckled, spooked by his own tale. "Anyway. Just stories. Ghosts and gossip."
He yawned, stretched, and wandered off into the dark, leaving only his echo behind.
---------
The fire crackled on, but Francesca didn't speak.
The silence between them felt like a wound-raw, open, waiting.
Then-softly, gently, as if touching a bruise-
"Do you think it's him?" she asked.
Alberta's eyes remained on the mist beyond the trees. Her voice, when it came, was hollow.
"I think it's what's left of him."