Sunsets were supposed to be soothing. Quilla used to love to watch sunsets, especially when she and Garet watched them from the balcony in his apartments. But right now, the sunset was nothing more than a nauseating mix of oranges rippling over the water. And the clouds didn’t help. They looked too much like Volgs.

With a sigh, she turned away. She shouldn’t be so close to the edge of the trees anyway. Too easily spotted. Not that they were in a particularly well hidden location, but at least they had the cover of the trees.

She leaned against the trunk of the spruce beside her on the side facing away from the beach and rolled the Volg’s horn round in her hands so the point curved upwards, then down, then up again, and so on. She’d been doing this for a while now. Anything to pass the time. No. Not to pass the time. Just to distract her. The time was irrelevant.

She’d liked the feel of the horn at first—not the literal texture of it, but rather the feeling it gave her, that of triumph, of winning over the source of her fears. Yet she hadn’t really triumphed. Vern had. Quilla had spent most of the time cowering in fear, and even when she had stood her ground, she hadn’t actually done anything. She didn’t deserve a trophy.

She should throw it in the water. As far out as she could so there wasn’t much chance of it washing ashore.

But that would require leaving the cover of the trees. Besides, maybe she wanted to keep it after all.

So she kept turning it in her hand. Most of the blood had soaked into her gloves now, though it was still somewhat stained, and there were still small bits of viscera clinging to it. Brain maybe? Probably. It hardly mattered.

She pulled off her gloves and stuffed them in her pockets. Kneeling down, she grabbed a handful of snow. There wasn’t a lot of it, and it was mixed with needles from the trees, but that was fine. Then she started rubbing the snow and needles over the horn. As the snow melted from the heat of her hand, it washed away some of the blood, as well as the viscera dislodged by the scraping spruce needles. It took a couple more handfuls of snow and needles, by which time her hands were freezing and not melting the snow as easily, but she got the horn mostly clean. It was still a little stained, but it wasn’t going to get any cleaner without a proper scrubbing.

She stood up again, and hastily re-donned her gloves, then held the horn up to her face and rolled it around again. It was almost bigger than her head. If she were to really start a collection, where would she keep them? After a while, they would start to take up a lot of space.

She chuckled to herself. That required she—or Vern more likely—kill a lot of Volgs. How much likelihood was there of that?

With her role as Catalyst—whatever the fuck that entailed—it was actually pretty likely. If she wanted to stay alive at any rate.

She looked over at Annai and Vern. Annai was seated on the back of the wagon, dangling her feet off the side, though at that moment, the pony decided to take a few steps forward, jerking the wagon and nearly knocking Annai over. The pony then resumed grazing on some grass or moss or something.

As Annai righted herself, Vern, who was seated against the trunk of another nearby tree, laughed. “Now it moves!”

Jakka had found the pony in almost the exact spot it was in now with the wagon partially overturned. The pony had stubbornly refused to move even a step other than to kick out when Vern had briefly approached it. It was clearly still spooked by the Volg, and after both Jakka and Tarm trying to get it to move, it had clearly had enough by the time Vern approached it.

So they had decided to let it be for now. Here was as good a location to wait as any. Tarm and Jakka righted the wagon, then went to investigate whether they could continue with their plans or would have to go back to Arnor City to come up with a new idea.

“Stay out of sight as much as possible,” Jakka had said. “If we’re not back or haven’t sent word by nightfall, leave and go back to Arnor City.” He bowed low to Annai. “Your Highness, pick a word.”

“A word?” Annai said.

“Yes, any word, though not one you would expect to hear in regular conversation. Make it a little more unusual.”

“Um…” Annai frowned and looked about. “Oh!” She pointed to a shrub. “Juniper!”

Jakka bowed again. “Very good, your Highness. We may send word instead of coming all the way back, but if we do, the message will contain the word juniper, so you know it’s from us. If you receive a message without that word, return immediately to Arnor City.”

Annai nodded rapidly.

After yet another bow, he and Tarm set off.

That had been several hours ago. It wouldn’t be long till dark now.

“They’re not coming back, are they?” Annai said.

“Probably not,” Vern said.

Annai looked up sharply. “What? Really? But…”

“Yeah, really. You said it yourself.”

“Yes, but I...I was hoping you would reassure me I was wrong. That’s why people ask questions like that, don’t you know? They want reassurance.”

Vern groaned. “Surely, by now, you’ve realised I’m not the reassuring type.”

“Yes, I have. But I thought maybe… Oh forget it.” Annai crossed her arms and looked pointedly away from Vern.

Quilla put the horn in her bag, then headed over to Annai. “They still have a bit of time. I’m sure they’ll make it back.”

“Don’t encourage her,” Vern said.

Quilla didn’t answer and sat beside Annai. “Even if they don’t, it’s going to be okay. We’ll get through this together, like we said.”

Annai sighed and leaned her head on Quilla’s shoulder. “This is what life’s going to be like from now on, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” Vern said. “You need to get used to it and learn how to survive. Otherwise, ‘now on’ isn’t going to last long and then you’ll be dead.”

Straightening up, Annai glared at Vern. “I get that. Believe it or not, I do. But it takes time, all right? Besides, I’m...I’m worried about Jakka.”

Vern rolled her eyes. “Jakka took a stupid risk. I tried to warn him, but he was convinced he could talk us through this. Now he’s probably dead. Serves him right.”

Annai jumped off the wagon and to her feet. “At least he’s trying to do something. You just wanted to run straight back to Arnor City like a coward.”

“Because my job is to keep you alive, your bitchiness, and wandering into the heart of the enemy is not the way to do that.”

“Jakka said—”

“I don’t give a fuck what Jakka said! He was wrong, and you know it. You said it yourself. He’s not coming back. Neither is Tarm. And that’s because they’re both probably dead.”

“All right, that’s enough!” Quilla jumped to her feet and moved between Annai and Vern before they could come to blows. “It’s not quite dark. We’ll give Jakka and Tarm until it is before we start pronouncing them dead, all right?” She glared at Vern.

Vern glared back for a moment, but then nodded. “Yeah, sure, we’ll give them all of the quarter hour or so before it’s dark.”

Quilla turned to Annai. “And you, let Vern be. She’s doing her job.”

Annai’s lips twitched, but she also nodded. “I’m sorry. I’m just scared.”

“I know,” Quilla said, “but we can’t let our fears control us. Or something.” She sat on the side of the wagon again and sighed. It was good advice, but she felt like a hypocrite giving it. It seemed like everything she did these days was controlled, at least in part, by fear.

Annai started to walk away.

“Where are you going?” Quilla called after her.

“No farther than you went. I just need a moment.”

“Okay.” As long as it kept Annai and Vern from arguing more, it didn’t matter. And as long as she stayed in sight.

Annai stopped just before the spruce tree Quilla had watched the sunset from and gasped. She backed up several steps. “Uh, Quilla! Vern!”

Vern was already on her feet, rushing forward as a man came around the tree. He was carrying an axe and looked somewhat muscular, although certainly nowhere near the size of someone like Tarm.

Vern slid to a stop in front of Annai and motioned her back. Annai turned and ran back to Quilla.

The man held up his free hand. “Hey, hey! It’s all right. I’m not here to harm you. Vern, it’s me, Callum. Remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Vern said. “What do you want?”

“Jakka sent me. To escort you and the Catalyst back to the camp.”

“Did he? Why didn’t he come himself? Or Tarm?”

“They had to row out to the ship to coordinate with the captain. To make sure everything is ready to go as soon you get there.”

“I see.”

“He didn’t say the word,” Annai whispered to Quilla.

“Shush,” Quilla whispered back. “Do you have your sword?”

Annai nodded slowly.

Vern and Callum stood there silently for several moments, watching each other.

“Come on, Vern, it’s me! Would I lie to you, after the time we had together last year? Remember that night? That was one amazing night. Think I’d jeopardise the possibility of a second go?”

Vern chuckled. “Oh yeah, that night. That was certainly quite the night.” Her stance relaxed and she approached the man. “It’s not that I’m accusing you of lying. I’m just being cautious. It’s my job. You understand?”

He grinned as she put her arms around his neck. “I get it. You think before you leave on the ship, we might get a chance to...you know?”

Vern leaned in as if to kiss him. “No.” Then she grabbed the sides of his head and twisted.

They were too far away to hear the snap, but Quilla could almost feel it. She shivered as the man’s body to fell to the ground, his eyes staring out lifelessly.

Annai gasped.

“Truth is, Callum,” Vern said, “I don’t remember you or that night at all. So you must have been incredibly unremarkable.” She strode over to Quilla and Annai. “Quilla, unhitch the pony from the wagon. Annai, gather as much as you can carry from the wagon.”

“Why are we unhitching the pony?” Annai asked.

As Quilla started to do exactly that, Vern answered, “Because the wagon will make us too conspicuous, but I’m not so heartless to abandon the pony still attached to the wagon.”

“But will it be okay?”

“It’ll be fine. It’ll wander around for a bit and eventually wander where someone will see it and take it in.”

“But what it they—?”

“Ponies are too useful to kill, so you don’t have to worry about that. If the person who finds it doesn’t need it, they’ll give it or, more likely, sell it to someone who does. Here.” Vern tossed a bag from the wagon at Annai, who stumbled to catch it.

Quilla unstrapped the harness and then lifted the collar over the pony’s head. Once the pony was clear of all tack, she patted it on the shoulder. “Go on.”

The pony stood stubbornly still until Vern came over and it bolted. Quilla had to quickly jump aside.

“Sorry,” Vern said. “It just seemed the best way to get it to move.”

“Why does that pony hate you so much?” Quilla asked.

Vern shrugged. “All animals hate me.”

“I know someone else like that,” Quilla said.

“Really? Who?”

“Oh, just a friend. Though with her, the animals usually get used to her eventually.” She hoped Zandrue was okay, and not dead. Gods, she was probably dead.

“Yeah, it’s the same with me,” Vern said. “I just usually can’t be bothered to spend the time to get them used to me. Let’s get moving.”

Quilla quickly grabbed her things from the wagon. Not that she had much. She grabbed a couple bags of food as well. Between the three of them, they were able to carry most of the food.

“It’ll last a few days,” Vern said. “That’s all we need. Follow me and keep within the trees. There’ll be more than just Callum searching for us. Let’s not make it easy for them.”

They headed off in a generally southeast direction, keeping relatively close to the coast.

For the first while, Annai kept looking back, tears forming in her eyes. “What if Jakka and Tarm still make it back, and don’t find us?”

“They won’t,” Vern said. “I would have thought that was pretty clear by now. But let’s say they do make it back. They won’t be surprised to find us gone. They’ll come find us, so quit your whining.”

Annai scowled at Vern, but gave no reply. She kept looking back for the next while though. At one point, while Vern was a bit farther ahead, she said quietly, “Is it wrong that I liked him? I know he was a Darker, but…”

Quilla wanted to say, yes, it was wrong, but she’d be a bit of a hypocrite. She’d kind of liked Jakka too, and despite how annoying Vern could sometimes be, she liked her too. So she just shook her head. “It’s not wrong.” She reminded herself that, for now, they needed Vern, but with luck, they’d eventually be able to get away from Vern and other Darkers and make their way to Quorge. Then things would return to normal and they could go back to hating all Darkers.

They reached the trail back to Elbeth fairly quickly, but Vern kept them off it. Instead, they went deeper into the woods, but followed a route roughly parallel to the trail.

Quilla found herself looking up frequently. The trees blocked most the sky, but not all of it, especially directly overhead. Every now and then, something flew past, though it was too dark to tell what. Birds maybe, but the shapes seemed too big for that. More likely her imagination—she hoped.

After a couple hours, Vern called for a brief stop. “Just to catch our breath, and for me to do some thinking.”

“Thank the gods,” Annai said, sliding down against a tree. She buried her head in her arms and sobbed.

“What are you crying about now?” Vern snapped.

“Fuck off!” Annai snapped back.

Quilla went up beside Vern. “Just let her be. She’s been through a lot.”

Vern groaned. “Yeah, like the rest of us haven’t?”

“I don’t really know,” Quilla said. “Maybe you’ve been through a ton more, but when it comes down to it, I know next to nothing about you, so just let her fucking be, okay?”

“Whatever.”

“You said something about needing to think. What about?”

“About our next steps.” Vern knelt down and poked at the carpet of needles on the ground. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but several Volgs have flown overhead.”

Quilla gulped. So much for imagination. “I noticed.”

“They’ll sniff us out eventually unless we do something they really don’t expect.”

“Such as?”

Letting the needles in her hand fall to the ground, Vern stood back up. “If you were them, what would you expect us to do?”

Quilla thought for a moment, glancing up at the sky again. No shape flew by at that moment, but one could at any time, and eventually one would get lucky and notice them. She looked in the direction they were travelling. “I’d expect us to head back the way we came and try to get back to Ulises.”

Vern nodded. “They might have even gotten out of Tarm or Jakka that that’s where we’re supposed to go. They’ll monitor the whole route back to Arnor City. Even if we do manage to avoid them, what do you think will happen when we get back to Ulises?”

“Presumably, he’ll try to find an alternative for us.”

Vern crossed her arms and stared at her.

“The Volgs and the Darkers with them will still probably try to get at us, but they won’t be able to act as openly in the city. Can you imagine the Bloods’ reaction to Volgs. I hate Bloods, but…”

Vern continued to stare at Quilla. “Quilla, think. They were ready for us.”

Quilla sighed. It was obvious, but she’d been trying not to admit it to herself. “Someone in Ulises’s group betrayed us.”

“Yeah. Might even have been Ulises himself, though I doubt it. Still, we won’t be safe with him.”

“So what do we do?”

“We turn around, go the other way. We go deep into the forest and make our way to Zunsen lands. They’ll work out eventually that we must have done that, but we’ll have a huge head start. Volgs’ sense of smell isn’t like a dog’s. They can’t track us that way very long after we’ve passed. It’ll be a lot harder for them to find us.”

Quilla gulped again. That’s what Vern had meant about sniffing them out. Quilla had thought it was just an expression for finding them. “All right. Let’s do that. Give me a moment with Annai.”

She started to turn away, but Vern put a hand on her arm. “Quilla, if I could just ask one more time…”

Quilla groaned loudly. She wanted to make sure Vern was aware of her reaction.

“Please, hear me out.”

Quilla turned back to face her.

Vern kept her hand on Quilla’s arm, and placed her other hand on Quilla’s other arm. She looked her straight in the eyes. “Eventually, they’ll find us. It might be days, weeks, even months, but they’ll find us. I will do my best to protect you, but I’ll fail. I can’t fight them all. They’ll kill me and they’ll kill Annai. They’ll take you and if they turn you over to the Volgs…”

“I know,” Quilla said. “They’ll try to extract my powers and then kill me. Dyle told me.”

Vern nodded. “And whether they’re successful or not, it will be torture. It will be terrible torture. They won’t let you die until they succeed, but you’ll want to die. If we bond, I might actually be able to stop that from happening.”

There was a tear forming in her eye, and Quilla blinked several times to dislodge it, hoping Vern didn’t notice—which was a pointless hope, as Vern was still looking her directly in the eyes.

“You don’t want to be a prisoner of the Volgs again.”

No, she absolutely didn’t. She couldn’t go through that again. She’d kill herself first.

Should she get the tattoo? Gods, it was everything she reviled, but it might be necessary. Might? Fuck, it was almost certainly necessary. Vern had previously said she didn’t need to believe it; she just needed the tattoo. And she could get it somewhere out of sight. Maybe on her back or something.

“You’re shaking,” Vern said.

Quilla hadn’t noticed, but she wasn’t surprised. She was terrifying herself even contemplating this.

Vern let go of Quilla’s arms and placed a hand on each of Quilla’s cheeks. “Look, I know I can be a bit of a bitch sometimes, and you don’t know me very well, and you understandably have a hard time trusting Servants—Darkers—but I honestly want to help you. And strangely enough, Annai too.” She broke into a smile and shifted her hands to Quilla’s shoulders. “I admit, at first, my only reason to help Annai was to not make you angry. But I’ve kind of taken to her. I can imagine I’d be a lot like her if I’d had the pampered life she’s had. Please. I promise, if you say no this time, I won’t ask again. But I can save you. Please give me that chance.”

Quilla stared into her eyes for a moment longer, still shivering. “I’ll think about it.”

Vern smiled. “That’s fine. We can’t do it now, anyway. It’ll be a few days at least before we can stop long enough for me to tattoo you, even a small one. So take the time you need.”

Quilla nodded. The truth was, she’d already decided. She just didn’t want to admit it yet. A few more days of pretending it might not be necessary was the only way she was going to get past the fear of it.

“Mind if I hug you?” Vern said.

“Oh, uh, okay.”

Vern put her arms around Quilla, and more slowly, Quilla put hers around Vern. They hugged for a few seconds, Quilla shivering even more.

Gods damn it! She was going to get a fucking Darker tattoo. Her world had most definitely gone to hell.