“LEEV AT!” Guinevere shouted. She batted Zydnus off the chair from which he applied a bandage to her face. He tumbled backward toward the bar.

“Do you want help or not, you big, dumb, barbarian idiot?” he said.

The big dumb barbarian idiot hung her head in shame. She was sprawled about a stool. Sweat poured down her brow. Bags clung to her eyes. The burn across her cheek had not healed; now it was infected, and now it oozed and leaked and wept and likely more, too, which mercifully had so far occurred away from Eris’ disinterested eyes. The smell was sweet and rank.

“Iehm surrey,” the barbarian said. “Oo-ke, Iehm reaedie.”

“You better be sorry—I…gah!” Zyd sputtered in place, but after a few moments he climbed back up to his perch and once again resumed the changing of the linens. “Just stay still!”

The changing of the linens. Eris liked that.

“Is that a sacred procedure for your people?” she said. “’The changing of the linens?’ The swapping of the bandages?’ That must ameliorate the pain, to know some far-off deity at least enjoys your suffering.”

Guinevere only whimpered. She was feverish and not altogether present, if ever she was. Eris supposed some lessons had to come the hard way.

“There,” Zyd said, “don’t touch!”

“Ieh wooen’t.”

The dawn was early. The streets outside still quiet. With minutes slow, the Ancient Cheeseman was filled with orange sunlight and a sense of tangible anticipation that always preceded long journeys. The dread of the road, the longing to remain in comfort, and the desperation—and excitement—to begin sooner before later.

Rook descended the staircase with a mutt at his heel. He had his satchel, his traveling supplies, his sword and a plain dagger, and wore a new jacket: tightly cut, dark, short, high collared and long-sleeved, fastened with buttons at the front.

“How is she?” he said.

Guinevere coughed on cue. “Ieh kinoot coam.”

“Not unless we intend to carry her,” Eris said.

“No! No way!” Zyd said. “She’s staying here!”

“You can look after the last of my gold,” Rook said. He reached into his pocket and set a small pouch down at the table beside Guinevere.

“It is not like there is any use for currency on the road, after all,” Eris said.

“All the more room to bring more back! Besides, she can spend it on Pyraz.”

“Aren’t you bringing him?” Zyd said.

“I’ve never seen a dog bound through a snowbank, but I can’t imagine anything one foot tall fares well in blizzards.”

“That hardly seems a good reason,” Eris said, “after all, we are bringing Zydnus.”

“Hey, that’s not funny!” Zyd cried. “I’m three feet and six inches. And—hey, Rook, did you know Eris stole my lantern?”

“She did?” He gave her a wary look.

“Do not even ask,” Eris said.

“Yes, she did! I know it! It’s all over her face! She’s a lantern thief!”

“Perhaps,” she said, “we leave him with the barbarian and take the dog in his place. Pyraz is far more discerning a creature."

"Just give it up already!"

"For the last time, I did not take your lantern!”

“Yes you did! Rook! Make her buy me a new one!”

“Rook, make him leave me be!”

Rook retreated toward the inn’s door. “Entangling myself in this will bring no good. You can fight while we walk! The dawn burns bright to keep the dark at bay // So come now, friends, and let’s away!”

They both stared at the door even as it snapped shut at his departure. It was Guinevere who broke the silence:

“Ez en a guud muud.”

“Yeah, well, don’t worry, Eris will ruin it soon,” Zyd said. “Lantern stealing witch.” He grabbed his backpack off the ground and a few more of his spare things, gathering them together, and then he followed.

Only Eris was left in the inn, pondering the sight. Pyraz reclined against her leg. She gave him a scratch against the ear; then, remembering who she was, stood and followed after the rest of her party.

To the people of Rytus, man and halfling alike, the mountains to the south that barred access to Chionos were known only as Kalmas, or ‘the’ mountains. There were mountains enough to go around elsewhere throughout the realm, but none were so vital a barrier: it was Kalmas’ peaks that stopped the storms, in their estimation, and kept their lands warm, safe, calm, and unravaged from the spells which had decimated their neighbors. No number of warriors could ever compete with the protection offered by the stone of that singular mountain range.

On approach to Vandens it was visible from far-off. It looked blue and distant and mundane and otherwise mountainous. The name was fitting.

Zyd could not let the business of the lantern be. He spent the duration of ten miles harassing Eris on its location, before sulking the rest of the day in silence. Rook practically bounded the whole trip in leaping strides. At some point the display of energy had gone on for so long that Eris was reduced to giggling. She felt ridiculous for it, like it was beneath her, and found amusement in his mirth only under distress. When he turned and saw her smile, she was forced to deflect with a sneer of contempt:

“You are an absurd man.”

“Then we’re both of us absurd together!” By now he was jogging at his companions’ walking pace.

“May I inquire after the cause of this distemper?"

"I have no idea what you mean!"

"I mean your giddiness, 'tis most disturbing. You did not catch rabies from the barbarian, I hope?"

“If you must know, sorceress,” his absurdity was forcing her to smile again, so she covered her face with a hand, “I am impassioned by the restoration of the freedom stolen by these two months in jail. I’m thrilled to be back on the road!”

“I was in jail. You were not.”

“An injury is like a cell. It locks you within your own body, even as your mind batters at boney bars. Therefore, jail. But no longer!”

“So you prance.”

“Precisely! Pained, I prance practically in pace with pens in paddocks!”

“You forget that we are as likely to find our swift and undignified deaths at the end of our journey as we are treasure and glory. Does it not seem distasteful to prance into your own grave? That will not fit on a headstone.”

“Maybe not on yours. That shows how constrained your ambition is. My headstone will be as tall as I am and twice as wide, and when onlookers bear it witness, they’ll say, ‘there still was a stone too small for Rook Koraki!’”

“Such space! It would be best we started filling it now, no? ‘Dismembered by a lizard?’ ‘Battered by a statue?’ ‘Taken captive by highwaymen?’ Truly, your list of accomplishments is vast."

“Like anyone else,” he said, somewhat tamer, with sobriety, “my headstone is a work in progress.” Here he finally settled and returned himself to walking. “Most women would be thrilled to know to know their mere presence was enough to make men jog in place.”

“Then you may count me in the minority who prefers men who do not reek of sweat.”

“I am quite serious. I’m grateful to be back with you and Zyd. Even as we prance into our graves! I’d like you both to know there’s no one I would more prefer to be buried alongside.”

Zyd was some distance back, but he heard this and shouted, “I don’t want to be buried anywhere near a thief! She'd steal my topsoil!”

A pause. “Did you really steal his lantern?” Rook asked.

“No! I did not! And I cannot believe you would give credence to Zydnus’ ravings!”

“Just asking…” Another change in disposition, back toward joviality. “Oh, Eris, you wouldn’t believe how horrible the temple was! Brother Erzinti spent two weeks teaching me how to read Rytusian. If I didn’t show progress, no green beans for me. There wasn’t a single girl there; no poetry, no music, no games, no sports, wine, or meat; after I talked to you in the jail, I almost throttled him, just to get out, but his fat neck was too wide for one hand’s fingers to find full purchase—so you’re right, I’m giddy I at least have something better to look at than gray walls and bald heads!”

He motioned first toward the mountains, then off toward the woods, then conspicuously toward Eris, which was a flattering gesture she both noticed and fell victim to all at once. He then again took the lead, calling out,

“Bring all foes forth, I shan’t back down // A freeman e’er I’ll stay! // If verse I write won’t bring renown // With blade ye knaves I’ll slay!”

Eris watched him go. Zyd caught up with her.

“Great,” he said. “You’re a lying thief and he’s crazy! What’s his problem? Is he drunk?”

“Not with wine,” Eris said slowly, “but I think he may be.”

Three days and sixty miles saw them arrive at Vandens. The last of their traveling funds went toward restocking supplies and a night at the Auroch’s Head. Human company was appreciated, even if they served smaller portions of worse food. Eris for one enjoyed no longer feeling like a giantess.

The whole of the next day was spent in the shadow of Kalmas. The road south to Vandens was busy with travelers and traders, but farther south still loneliness overcame them. The canopy grew thick overhead and the cobblestone way underfoot sprouted roots, weeds, and brush. Progress slowed. What little trade there was with Chionos took the more sensible route oversea; rare indeed was the desperate soul who walked into the everblizzard. This route was uphill, rocky, and difficult.

“Do we cross the mountains?” Rook said as dusk fell.

Eris snapped her thumb. A green flame appeared on her index finger, casting jagged shadows all throughout the path; to the left and right, trees stood like boney, withered, weeping paupers in alleyways. An oppressive atmosphere. She almost preferred darkness.

“There is a passage,” she said. “A tunnel.”

“And on the other side, it's a death trap!” Zyd said.

By the time the sun set entirely, they saw it in Eris’ light. An arched mouth hidden by trees. A number of rocks from an overhanging cliffside had, over who knew how many millennia, slid and fallen into the way.

The arch itself was hewn from enormous black bricks.

They approached to the trees and gazed into the darkness within. A tunnel that led to oblivion.

“We should camp now,” Rook said.

“No!" Zyd said, "we don't want to waste a second of day on the other side!"

“He is right,” Eris said. She retrieved a torch from her pack and lit it, transferring the flame off her finger. As the pitch around the wood ignited the fire turned from green to orange.

“Any idea what’s inside?” Rook asked Eris.

She shook her head. “I suspect the mountain has changed since this tunnel was built.” A guess, given the clear Esenian masonry. “But that is all.”

With those words they proceeded inside.

The tunnel was tall, twenty feet, but only half as wide. The trio walked abreast, and slowly, checking every wall.

A freezing draft of wind crept down onto them as they walked. The fire of their light protested at the chill. It was most unnatural. Even as their hair blew, the air around them was stale.

“…how much was this bounty?” Eris asked.

“Six thousand drachmae,” Rook said.

“That’s two a piece,” Zyd said.

“Still two years' wages for a laborer,” Eris said.

“A lifetime’s wages for a popsicle!” Zyd said.

Progress was measured in temperature. Each step took them deeper into winter: a day marked off the calendar in a single second. Easy to forget that it was still high summer. It had been too hot to dress warmly on the approach, but now they stopped to put on leathers and their winter attire, which they did have the prescience to pack.

As they delved deeper, the easy path of the tunnel grew more perilous. Chasms opened underfoot; the torch spotted potholes that plunged to the Earth’s core, at first small enough to step over, then large enough to require more care to bypass. Then the opposite: the path came to sudden termination, and only when they stepped back did they realize that two halves of the tunnel had become disjointed, like broken bamboo shafts stuck carelessly back together.

There was a wall of rock five feet high where the tunnel broke. Zyd took the torch, going first; then Eris, then Rook, climbing to the top, whereupon they saw: the gap.

A chasm two hundred feet spanned the distance between where they now stood and where the tunnel resumed. It was raised considerably, another thirty feet above them, so they had to crane their heads up to see it with their torch raised. To the left and right of the chasm was a trench.

Interminable. Reaching out to infinity, a break in the mountain, like the whole range was a gemstone cleaved in two with its parts placed distantly on some titan’s shelf.

A rope bridge extended from one side of the chasm to the other. It was anchored by two large metal posts hammered into the stone underfoot. Covering so much ground, and so much height, and when not even perfectly aligned in the first place—

‘Precarious’ was a vast understatement.

The bridge was not original. It looked relatively new.

“Levitation!” Zyd said. “Do your levitation thing!”

“Can you levitate?” Rook said.

The mana in the air was thin. She still had her necklace, but she would have to rely primarily on herself for such magic in a place like this. “Only in an emergency,” she said. “If we fell, for example.”

Rook took a step onto one of the bridge’s wooden boards.

Jumped.

Wiggled.

It held.

“All together, or one by one?” he said.

“One at a time!” Zyd said.

“If we go together, the chances I can get us all safely to the other side are vastly increased,” Eris said. Then again, she thought, if she fell alone, she was almost certain she could save herself. And if Zyd fell…there were positives to such a scenario. “But it would be dangerous. We should go one by one.”

They all shared glances. Eris sighed.

“I will go first,” she said.

So she did. With tortuous care she walked up and across the bridge. Every step as if her life depended on it. All the while she was ready to grab her necklace and lift herself back up if she fell, no matter the toll it exerted on her, and she was so concentrated that she nearly tripped over herself in surprise as the wood underfoot turned back to hard stone.

She made it to the other side.

Zyd went next. He did not go slowly, nor carefully. He scampered across at full speed, and once on the other side, safely, he hyperventilated against a tunnel wall.

Rook was more cautious. He weighed as much as Eris and Zyd combined. She watched him with tightness in her chest and a hand on her necklace, the torch raised high still. All went well until the halfway point; there the bridge shook. He stopped.

Waiting.

Eris looked to the anchors.

Silence.

A snap—

Immediately, before she saw anything, she tapped the Manastone. She drew forth all its energy and sent out hands to grab Rook and hold him in place.

Every ounce of concentration kept him in place. She felt all his weight on her mind, like a migraine, pushing down on her, but still she brought him forward—

She felt his hands on her shoulders. She stumbled back, dropping the spell, and then she saw a stunned Rook against her. And…

A bridge still behind him. It had not collapsed.

One of the ropes had snapped, but only one: there were another eleven, just on that side.

Fire in her hand…

She gasped in pain and pulled away from him, and opening her palm around her necklace, a torrent of ash poured from her fingers. A burn was left where once had glowed a blue stone.

“Levitation,” he said.

“Indeed, I thought…in case we needed to flee across quickly at some later point, it was best to cast the spell now…or, in case the bridge had not held after all, and I had lost sight of you…”

They were very close to each other still.

“I understand,” he said.

“Good.”

“I’m hungry!” Zyd whined. “Can we eat dinner?”

“Not yet, I think we’re almost through,” Rook said, “let’s keep going.”

They continued some distance on and less than half a mile later, they reached the tunnel’s end. Chill air greeted them—and in the torchlight they saw falling snow.

A sea of white stretched out infinitely into blackness. The only sign of more than frost: evergreen trees in the distance. This was Chionos, the land of summersnow and the everblizzard. Technically a forest, somehow.

They turned back and made their camp under cover from the storm.

There was no room for reclusiveness nor supplies for the indulgence of an extra fire that night, so, unusually, they all slept near each other. Drifting out of consciousness. Savoring rest. A single organism asleep.

Eris was not asleep.

Eris was awake

Eris was thinking.

Eris was angry.

Eris was angry at herself.

She loathed that, no matter what she did, and no matter how hard she tried that night, she could not stop thinking about him. That was why Eris was angry. That was why Eris was thinking.

It wasn’t just how he looked, as it had been when first they met. It was how he smelled. The sound of his voice. The feeling of his presence. The—well, nearly everything, she realized.

But he was a man. A boy. A warrior, mundane. In control of no great power, nor talents for anything but athleticism. Impoverished. He was preposterously silly and possessed of incomprehensible inclinations toward friendliness with lamentable fools like Zydnus and Guinevere. He was, in summary, everything mundane she disliked. There was nothing about him, as a person, per se, that appealed to her. Were he a magician like her, or still an aristocrat, it would have been different, but now…yet why was she still thinking about him, even late into the night?

Rationalization was required to proceed. She found it with surprising ease thusly: he was a boy and she was a girl. She had something he desired, as was always part of her plan when dealing with men, but he too had something she desired. That desire henceforth unabated was the source of her confusion.

With but a taste from the masculine spring, her focus would be restored. Her infatuation had nothing to do with Rook in particular and everything to do with proximity to someone her age who fulfilled the requisite characteristics. That was all Rook was. A list of physically desirable qualities.

That was what she told herself. It made perfect sense.

She was sixteen.

A single kiss, that would soothe her mind and restore her focus. Anything more would be a distraction, and would bring forth other unwanted hazards—and give him ideas. But a single kiss…what might the consequences be?

Mercifully, Eris had no shyness when it came to pursuing what she wanted.

Zydnus snored as the fire crackled. Rook was silent in his bedroll, hers very nearby. She rose up and was accosted at once by freezing air.

“Rook,” she said, almost a command.

The reply came at once, “Yes?”

Relief. This was easier without having to wake him. Now, how to phrase her thoughts…

“You find me attractive,” she said, another command.

He rolled onto his back. “What gave that impression?”

She scoffed. “You have eyes, for one, and you are a man.”

“I am?”

“Do not be coy!"

Here he rolled up to look her in the eyes. “You’re going to wake Zyd.”

“Let him be awake,” she whispered, hissing, “I do not care what he thinks!”

“You might not appreciate his chorus.” Now she was flustered. Uncertain how to continue. That gave Rook a chance to add, “That would not be an auspicious start as we profess our true feelings for each other.”

She rolled her eyes. “Is that what you are doing?”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

“I—are—no!”

He scooted toward her and tossed his bedroll in her direction, so that he could lay on his back beside to her, at which point he collapsed once more. He looked up at her. “So?”

“You are infuriating.”

“Be nice, or I might steal your lantern,” he said seriously.

Eris had no idea whatsoever how to handle this kind of behavior. She was frustrated, extremely, and in part because he still managed to be charming even as he harassed her.

“Forget it,” she said through gritted teeth. “Forget I said anything.”

She retreated to her roll and pulled it over her head. But moments later she felt his warm breath against her face; he was leaning over her.

“No, you woke me up, you can't end it there. I’ll be serious. What did you want to talk about?”

“You were not asleep!”

“I was nearly asleep. Actually I’ve been thinking all night about the bridge—”

“Ah, the bridge.”

“Yes. You would have let Zyd fall, wouldn’t you?” He read the answer on her face. “So the fact you were so ready to come to my rescue…”

“You are thinking on it too much,” Eris said.

“Am I?”

“We are partners. You have…broad shoulders, and are therefore useful for ferrying large amounts of gold and...silverware from one place to another. That is all.”

Now she was on her back, looking up into his eyes. “So your interest in me is restricted to...spoons?”

She disliked being below anyone, so she raised herself to his level. Her answer took some time.

"In a manner of speaking, yes," she said.

He frowned. “Perhaps be more direct with me, I’m too simple and ape-like to untangle your caprice.”

She put an arm on his tentatively. “We are both attractive people, and it is cold in a place like Chionos—and elsewhere in Esenia, no doubt. It…seems foolish, not to indulge in mutual desires, to some certain extent, if mutual they indeed be.”

For the next minute he stared at her dumbly, no doubt attempting in vain to untangle her caprice, before replying only: “Okay.”

He lunged for her.

She caught his chest with her palm. “Wait!” she said. “Do not consider this an invitation to ‘romance.’ I am not your wife.”

“You would make a terrible wife.”

“I know,” she said with a smile. “We are partners in this, as adventurers—and that is all I wish to remain. Between us. Nothing else. I merely need to…clear my head. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“I do not want a lover. Only…release.”

“Okay.”

"...it is desire, nothing else—"

"Stop talking," he said, and his lips cut hers off.

Both withdrawn and conceited, that strange night in the tunnel to Chionos was Eris’ first kiss. Their lips met, but far longer than just ‘once.’ They tangled themselves together by the fire and, as promised, went no further, yet they stayed with each other for a very long time. And while they were together, Eris, for the first time in months, thought clearly without Rook clouding her mind. Her plan worked. She was finally free. Those moments were the greatest in all her life, as spectacular as learning a new spell.

So it was only after they broke apart, after her lips were exposed once again to the freezing cold and after she was starved of Rook again, and after she was back alone in her bed—admittedly now closer to his—that she realized it hadn’t worked at all. He was a font of salt water that served only to increase thirst. And now that she knew how delicious he tasted, it was harder than ever to rest her mind.