FIRST SMILE

The wagon slowed and came to a stop at a dead forest's fork, where the trees had thickened and the daylight had dimmed into a green murk.

"Horses are tired," Garrick called out, dismounting and scanning the surroundings. "We'll soon hit the path that loops around the pass. Best case, that adds at least five days to the journey. Rest up a bit, see to your needs."

Vance grumbled as he climbed carefully down from the corner of the wagon, trying to keep the hem of his robe out of the mud. "Five more days? My spine's leaving a piece of itself on these rotten roads with every jolt of this wretched thing, Captain. We'll be lucky if we don't fall sick in this damp ruin besides."

The place they'd stopped at was no ordinary forest clearing. It was the ruin of an old watchtower, built of white marble. Half the tower had collapsed, but what remained standing was covered in a pale blue moss that glowed faintly even at night, independent of the sun. Garrick ignored the herbalist's grumbling, as he always did.

Krazoc's chains rattled as he stepped down heavily from the bed of the wagon. But his eyes weren't on the ruin — they were on the boy leaping down from it.

The moment Alister's feet touched the ground, he froze where he stood. Head tipped back, mouth slightly parted, he stared up at the glowing blue moss, at the old, sorrowful grandeur of the ruin.

The wary, predatory look in the boy's eyes had vanished, replaced by pure, childlike wonder. Despite all the world's rot, all the blood he'd seen, he could still hold on to that childishness inside him. Krazoc felt a warmth spread through his chest that he couldn't quite name.

"I'm going to find water," Elara said, slinging her bow over her back and clipping her waterskin to her belt. She winked at the boy. "Careful, little one — that blue moss has been known to eat fingers."

The boy snatched his hands behind his back, but when he heard Elara giggle, he understood she was joking. Elara set off into the depths of the forest, following a dried-up streambed. A few seconds later, she heard the rustle of small footsteps in the leaves.

When she turned, she found Alister trailing her silently, a few steps behind. The boy's strange-colored eyes were fixed intently on her.

"Tagging along, are you?" Elara asked, smiling. "Escaping Broc's snoring, I'd bet. Come on, then."

Krazoc had settled himself onto a thick tree root at the base of the ruin. Ignoring the stay put look Garrick threw his way, he watched with his eyes as the two of them vanished into the forest. The bond in his mind was open; he could feel the boy's calm, his curiosity. So he didn't intervene.

Elara and Alister stopped at the edge of a muddy puddle. The water was too murky and filthy to drink.

"Sometimes luck just isn't on your side," Elara said, kneeling beside the puddle. "If we drank this, we'd wake up tomorrow morning puking our guts out."

The boy tilted his head slightly, watching her. If they weren't going to drink it, why had she taken out her waterskin?

Elara drew the dagger from her belt. With a practiced motion, she cut a thick, yellowish vine wrapped around the trunk of a tree right by the puddle. "This is called Reed Vine," she explained, fitting one end of the cut vine into the mouth of her waterskin.

"Inside it's all fiber. It soaks up the dirty water, traps the mud, and gives you nothing but the clean drops. One of the last real remedies this world's got left."

With the other end of the vine submerged in the muddy water, clear, clean droplets slowly began to fill the waterskin. She repeated the process for the other waterskins.

"This is going to take a while," Elara said. She stood and looked around. Her eyes caught on some small, pale gray mushrooms growing on a rotted stump.

With slender fingers she plucked one, wiped the dirt off it, and popped it into her mouth without a second thought, chewing. Not a trace of discomfort crossed her face.

Then she picked another and held it out silently to the boy, who'd been watching her. "Here. Border-country snack, we call it."

The boy hesitated a moment, then took the mushroom and bit off a small piece.

His face scrunched up at once. His eyes watered, and he spat the bite out fast, coughing. It wasn't a spicy kind of bitterness — it was a foul, mouth-drying nastiness, like swallowing rotten wood, ash, and bile all at once.

Elara propped her elbows on her knees and let out a quiet but heartfelt laugh. "Kekre Mushroom. Takes a bit of courage to eat it."

The boy stared at her, betrayed, tongue stuck out, as a wicked, devilish grin spread across Elara's face. She leaned in toward him and dropped her voice to a whisper.

"We should feed this to that big lug, don't you think?"

The innocent look on the boy's face vanished instantly. His brows knit deep, his eyes narrowed dangerously, and he shot a protective glance toward the camp, toward Krazoc. His whole posture made it clear he'd never let that silent giant be the butt of a joke.

Elara threw her hands up at once, surrendering, biting her lip hard to keep from laughing. "Hey, hey! I'm not talking about your big guy, silly! I still need my head where it is. I mean Broc. We'll hide it in his dried meat."

The boy paused for a moment. He must have pictured Broc chewing the big mushroom eagerly and then twisting his face up, because his furrowed brow slowly relaxed.

For the first time since this long journey had begun, his eyes lit up with mischief, like a real child's. A small grin tugged at his lips.

"Deal," Elara whispered, winking. She went back and sat cross-legged on the dry leaves. Alister sat right across from her. But the boy's eyes weren't on the mushroom or the water this time. They were fixed steadily on the dagger resting on Elara's knee.

Elara noticed and smiled. "A bow's a soldier's weapon, little one," she said, lifting the dagger by its hilt to the boy's eye level. "Keeps the enemy at a distance. But when the arrows run out, when you're cornered, when the world's caving in on you... a dagger's your one guarantee of staying alive. It takes skill and a steady nerve. It's light. It's quiet."

What she said caught the boy's interest, but out of everything she'd told him, only the word "quiet" stuck in his mind — and it fit strangely well with the world he knew. Something sparked in the boy's mind.

Elara spun the dagger between her skilled fingers like a little pinwheel. The blade traced a perfect arc through the air, and Elara caught it neatly by the hilt. "Balance," she said, winking. "Everything ends in balance."

The boy was spellbound. He looked around, found a flat, dry piece of wood about the size of the dagger lying on the ground. He picked it up, twisted his wrist to mimic the flashy move Elara had just done, and tossed the wood into the air.

The wood spun clumsily in the air, arced far off from the boy's hand, and just as it was about to drop into the muddy water—

A massive, scar-covered hand appeared out of nowhere and snatched the piece of wood out of the air with lightning speed.

The boy flinched and jerked his head up. Krazoc stood silently right behind them, as if he'd sprung straight out of the earth. Neither Elara nor the boy had heard him coming. That a man of his sheer bulk, weighed down with chains, could move through the forest without snapping a single branch was downright unsettling.

Krazoc handed the piece of wood back to the boy gently. Then he turned his gaze to Elara. He said nothing — he didn't need to. Those empty, cold eyes delivered the message loud and clear: Don't give him anything sharp.

Elara's mouth fell open in shock, then she burst out laughing, unable to hold it back. "For Qysdes' sake, big man, you're going to give me a heart attack! Fine, fine, I promise — he won't be learning the dagger from me."

Krazoc grunted and crossed his arms over his chest. Right at that moment, a small, high-pitched sound joined Elara's laughter.

Krazoc's head snapped down. Alister was giggling, looking at the piece of wood in his hand. The boy's usual sullen, guarded face had lit up with a real, tooth-baring grin.

"Waterskins are full," Elara said, standing and tossing two gray mushrooms to the boy. "Come on, let's get back before Broc finishes all the meat by himself."

When they got back to the ruin, Broc was indeed about to tear into a large hunk of meat by the freshly lit fire. Across from him, Vance was scraping at the glowing blue moss on the marble with a small knife, muttering to himself.

"Could you chew that meat a little louder, Broc?" Vance said without looking up, his voice carrying a clinical edge. "I'm not entirely sure the forest's hungry predators have pinpointed our exact location just yet."

Broc ignored the herbalist's words, as always. Alister, gripping the mushroom Elara had given him tightly in his pocket, quickened his steps with anticipation and came up beside the big man.

But when Broc saw the boy's face emerging from between the trees, he paused before biting into the meat in his massive hands. He noticed the boy looked, for once, a little cheerful — that there was a light in his eyes.

Broc smiled. He pulled a small, dried piece of meat wrapped in a clean cloth from the pouch on his belt and tossed it to the boy.

The boy caught it on reflex.

"Long road ahead, little one," Broc said, winking. "Keep it in your pocket. Eat it when you're hungry."

The boy touched the cloth-wrapped meat for a moment, then the Kekre Mushroom in his pocket. Then he looked up at Broc's tired but tender face. He gave up on taking out the mushroom. Instead, he tucked the meat into the pocket of his filthy tunic without complaint.

Krazoc looked at the boy sitting down beside Broc, then at the cheerful scout's back. He didn't know where he was being taken. He only knew that wherever it was, he would get the answers about himself there.

As long as these people didn't touch the boy, Krazoc had no quarrel with them.

If they did, none of them would live to see the problem they'd caused.