The fire crackled merrily, its smoke curling upward into greenery cast gold by the setting sun. Samaire sat, legs outstretched, leaning back on the palms of her hands. The branches rustled as rodents and birds bounded between them. The air was cleaner, somehow, easing the knife of exhaustion buried between her ribs and into her lungs. Even the soil seemed richer than any other she’d known, as plush as velvet between her ungloved fingers. She should have been patrolling, should have been hunting, but the grass was soft and cool, and it felt so good to lay back, armor neatly stacked beside her, and deepen her breaths.
Dimly, she was aware that something was strange, that she was so willing to lie without a blade in hand. The sunlight was like a kiss from the laughing dawn, from a radiant noon that burned away everything but devotion, from faces starting to blur at the edges. Samaire closed her eyes to try and recall Uriah’s nose and her auntie Amaya’s smile, her breathing lengthening.
It was evening when she woke. Moonlight spilled across her face, and she jolted upwards, panicked. The fire was gone. Her armor, still there, her blade—for a long, terrible moment, she thought it was gone. It glimmered next to her pack and Samaire scrambled towards it, shaking hands grasping the gold and emerald hilt. A strangled sob tore from her throat as she pulled it tight to her chest, embracing the weapon—the only thing truly left of the Cathan.
She rose to her feet, looking around the glittering cove they had camped in. Pale lights drifted along lazy breezes, thousands of them bobbing in a wide circle around them. Samaire made a small sound of wonder, looking upwards, to a moon full enough to burst. Something shifted in the air and she turned, meeting a pair of glowing eyes.
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