With his brother again so recalcitrant, Augustine turned toward Asbel with a pleading frown, and the phoenix spoke with an apologetic glance at Frey: "There was nothing in the tent. I don't know what hurt him. I only heard him sc-screaming, and when I followed him down the hill, I found he'd fallen in. So I... pulled him out."

He said nothing, of course, of the blood or the unbelievable state of panic Frey had woken in. But even with such a halfhearted explanation as that, Augustine visibly relaxed and managed a shadow of a grateful smile. "You saved his life tonight. Thank you." Such sincerity alone was enough to make Asbel flush despite the rain, but the general shrugged off his coat and tucked it across the phoenix's bare chest as a temporary blanket. "Of all of us, you are the most ill-dressed to be outside," the eldest prince admitted with a grimace of apology. "Stay warm and dry -- and rest if you can."

Cassius's arms tightened again around the phoenix as the quartet headed back to their abandoned camp. Augustine walked with his hand on Frey's shoulder whether the younger prince liked it or not, and Cassius fell in step behind them. Asbel passed the time by shivering and studying the back of one brother then the other. Broad and square-shouldered -- smaller and defensive. And while Asbel still could not fathom how two such different men could be related, he no longer found quite the distaste for Frey he'd held before. After the vomiting of blood and the screaming and the panic and the quiet moments on the bank of the stream, Asbel could no longer assume Frey was so one-dimensional as to embody nothing but hatred and vanity. Frey was frightened by more than the dark, and judging from the bite on his stomach, he had goo reason to be afraid.

And... and Frey thought no one cared about him, but three people had gone blundering through the dark to rescue him from gods-knew what. Despite all the hell the prince put Augustine through, the man still loved him. Why was Frey so endlessly cruel in pushing him away? If someone cared about Asbel that much, he certainly wouldn't spend every waking moment trying to keep them at arm's length.

Between the steady gait of the dragon and the shield of the prince's coat against the rain, Asbel could not keep his eyes open. He fell asleep before they were halfway back to the tents. As he slept, he began to burn, though the heat was not enough to bother Cassius's calloused hands. His cuts and scrapes from his run through the forest began to steam gently in the rain, and -- slowly, as the phoenix shifted in his sleep -- the myriad scratches closed and faded. He was, however, not so lucky as Frey, and the cuts shrank to thin white scars that would vanish only after a week or so.

By the time the four of them reached the camp again, Augustine knew better than to wake Asbel from the heart of his healing process, and steered his brother gently toward the tent the young prince had inhabited for half the night. Cassius had already settled his charge within. "We need to stay in place here until Asbel wakes up. Get dressed in dry clothes and get something to eat. Cassius and I will take apart the other tent and get ready to travel. If anything attacks you, I'll come as fast as I can." He placed the healing vial in Frey's hands. "And keep this with you just in case."