“I take it back,” Cadryn whispered, his lips cracking, “You’re a terrible healer.”

Deafening Silence glared at him in false rebuke. “I can always put the arrow back, if you prefer.”

He waved her off, “That’s alright; you’ve done quite enough already.”

She frowned. “Now I’m beginning to think you’re serious,” she said, then leaned over his bed and opened the shutters, bright morning light came pouring in. “But I’m going to put that down to you being stuck in this bed for the past two weeks.”

Cadryn groaned, touched the bindings of the wound, had his hand batted away.

“Leave it, the outside is healed, but the deeper tissues will take longer. You’re on light duty, for a month, understood?”

“Yes, Healer,” he said, and sat up, slowly. His head was still feeling sloshy and he rubbed the newly healed skin where the bow’s tip had cut him about the eye.

“That will scar less if you leave it alone, unless that’s it’s your aim, to make it worse?” she asked.

“Not at all,” he said, “I’m not indestructible, am I?”

“No, but all told, there are worse ways to learn that lesson.”

The image of the burly bandit’s demise came flickering through his mind. “Indeed . . . so that Knight, Vaast.”

“Captain Vaast, never forget the title, what about him?”

Cadryn weighed his words, then settled on a statement of facts. “He wanted them to try. He wanted to kill them all.”

Silence put a hand over his, squeezed it. “Maybe, maybe, not. It’s best not to judge a man’s intent when you can ask it.”

“Does that apply to a woman as well?” he asked, and regretted it immediately.

Silence rose, collecting her healer’s kit, “I try to see the best in people, Cad, you should do the same. . . If all you see are monsters, then it becomes easy not to care when you destroy them, yes?”

Cadryn recalled his own thoughts, before his fateful encounter with Darcy’s arrow. He touched the bandages. “Right, I’ll try. Thanks, Sil.”

She nodded, “Anytime.”

While he’d been worried that the weeks of light duty would mean endless guard post watches. Cadryn had been relieved to discover that word of Darcy’s abortive raid, and their rescue of Flick the Fancy (a local legend), resulted in nearly daily visits of townsfolk bringing offerings of thanks or just good cheer.

Amber personally delivered an oversized cask of her family stout to the Toll house. A gesture not lost on any of the Keepers, it also led to Cadryn having to defend himself from suggestions of an improper relationship with the maiden proprietor.

Fraternization within the army was consider an unavoidable reality, with the locals, an abuse of power. The very notion that anyone, least of all himself, would be able to put one over on Amber Kellen amused Cadryn endlessly.

The weather took a turn for the wet, something his fellow Keepers informed him was sure to be short lived. It was, and with the end of the rains came a new addition to the courtyard: Emmi Baker’s Sweets Shop.

“It’s a what?” Sefton asked.

Cadryn ran a hand through his lengthening hair. “A stall, built on a cart, for selling breads and treats.” He waved off Sefton’s darkening expression.

“There’s a prohibition on establishing business within the toll house. A prime source for corruption . . . It’s a good restriction.”

Cadryn doubted if there were such a thing as an Imperial restriction Sefton Atwood didn’t like. “It’s not a business, more of a, well. . .”

“Charity,” Gita piped up from the window, where she was watching Emmi hawk her treats. “It’s to help pay for Cadryn’s recovery.”

Sefton cleared his throat, and adjusted the collar of his robes. “Did Silence do a poor job of treating your wounds, Cadryn?”

“Not at all, but—“

“The Empire cares for its own. This a primary tenant, not only of the military, but our entire society. Why would you not explain this to the child?”

“Have you met any children?” Cadryn asked.

“I doubt he ever was one,” Gita added. “Sprung forth whole from head of the High Seneschal.”

“Robes and all.”

“That’s enough!” Sefton snapped, biting back a grin. “Fine, the girl can stay. But we’re spending whatever she gives us on something for Kellen’s Veld.”

“That’s a wise, and just, allocation, spawn of the High—“

“Out!” Sefton shouted, “Both of you.” He added swatting at Gita.

The two fled, their victory intact. Sefton, for his part, was merely glad he’d maintained some semblance of order. “That’s how you got run out of the capital, old friend,” he said to himself. “Too soft.”

The remaining days, of that first week of recovery, were the easiest, and most peaceful days of Cadryn Bence’s young life. Emmi began to make cookies in crude likeness of the Keepers, the Neeft, and even the bandits. Cadryn took a special joy in eating the grinning mouth that represented Darcy. Things were good, and simple.

Cadryn should have figured it wouldn’t last. He found them on the first day, of his second week, of light duty: Footprints, leading around the outside of the Neeft, or more specifically, the Citadel. The discovery had him back in Sefton’s office, who, after a little pushing, decided the best course of action to catch a prowler, was to use one of your own . . .