“I missed you too,” Camilla breathed as Cydric held her close. Her body trembled slightly, remembering the hardships and horrors of the past few weeks. The nightmare voyage, the trek across the ice and the battle before the strange temple. She had tried to make herself numb, unable to feel but it was a losing game.

“I didn’t think I would ever see you again,” she whispered. Cydric patted her back consolingly.

“We never gave up on you, we marched straight from the battlefield at Krondstat, soon as we heard,” Cydric told her as she snuggled close to his chest. Camilla hadn’t thought of the battle or the Count and his forces since she had been taken by the Norscans.

“Was the battle…” she began in a worried tone.

“Up in the air when we left,” Cydric told her, “But I think we might have pulled it off.” Camilla nodded her head, hoping that she hadn’t become the woman who came up with a plan that got an Elector Count killed. It all seemed so far away, whereas Gorn and his talk of altars and valleys seemed so close.

“They were going to take me to a shrine to one of the Chaos God’s,” she whispered in a barely audible voice.

“I think they wanted me to become… like them.”

“We would never let that happen,” Cydric assured her, “Besides black really isn’t your color.” Camilla made a gasping sound halfway between a laugh and a sob at the joke. Her chest heaving to contain both tears and laughter. The had said it was her destiny, that it would happen. Camilla didn’t know if she believed in destiny, she wanted to believe she had a choice and that she would choose what was right. Her hand spasmed as if eager for her sword but she balled the hand into a fist instead. She didn’t want to think about fate right now.


She told Cydric everything that had occured from the moment they had parted at the counts war camp. Some of it she was pleased with, especially with how she had burned the Northlanders ships but most of it was grey and fearful, almost like a nightmare. Cydric filled her in as well, though his explanation as to exactly who Dietricha and Yantz were, and what they were doing with the small company was vague and unsatisfying.

The others, seeing that Camilla and Cydric were awake, fell into exhausted sleep, giving the the first watch by default. It was hard to stay awake with the warm glow of the fire still smouldering warm. She didn’t like caves, the pair of them didn’t have a stellar reputation with trips beneath the earth, but she supposed it was at least better than freezing half to death on the icy mountainside.

[@POOHEAD189]