In Kuroinu

Llusse wasn't talking to me.

She wasn't talking to Filia or Tianne either, which meant the three of us were getting the same treatment, which meant it was about last night, which meant she was going to make this entire departure miserable.

Dawn was grey and cold. The capital's north gate was open and the road beyond it stretched into low hills and thin mist and I wanted to go back to bed. I hadn't slept. I'd been pinned between two women who slept like they were trying to merge with me through osmosis, and by the time the light came through the window I'd lost feeling in my left arm and Tianne's hair was in my mouth.

Leonora Ofallon was already at the gate when we arrived. Full armor. Horse groomed. Pack organized. She'd been waiting long enough that she'd moved past inspecting her horse's hooves and was adjusting her saddlebags again.

She looked at our group and her mouth thinned.

"You're late," she said.

"We're on time," Filia said. She was walking a little stiffly and she hadn't looked at me all morning and her ears were pink whenever Llusse glared in her direction.

"I arrived an hour early. You arrived on time. You're late."

Llusse snorted behind me. First sound she'd made since breakfast, where she'd sat at the far end of the table and eaten her porridge with the intensity of someone imagining it was my face.

"Llusse," I said.

Nothing.

"Llusse."

Her ears twitched. That was it.

"She'll come around," Tianne said. She was walking beside me with her staff in one hand and her pack over the other shoulder. There was a fading gold shimmer at her fingertips that came and went with her heartbeat, leftover from last night, and she kept flexing her hand and watching it.

"When?" I asked.

"Give it a day."

"That's optimistic," Filia said.

Leonora was watching this exchange from horseback. She looked at me, then at the three women around me, then at Llusse stalking ten feet behind everyone, then back at me.

"The party consists of six," she said. "The hero. Three adventurers. One support staff. And myself as escort."

"He has a name," Filia said.

"The security briefing lists him as 'the hero of Lesdea.' I'll use the designation."

Filia's jaw tightened. Leonora's horse turned north.

"March pace is three leagues before midday rest. Formation: I take point. The hero in center. Combatants on flanks. Non-combatants rear."

She rode ahead without waiting for agreement.

Llusse muttered from behind us. "She's fun."

Filia looked at her. "She's the strongest knight in the kingdom."

"Like I said. Fun."

Mila appeared at my elbow. She'd been loading the supply mule and her pack was larger than her torso and her ears were up and her tail was going and she looked like she'd been awake since four in the morning because she had. She'd packed food for a week, spare blankets, a cooking kit, dried herbs, something that smelled like soap, and a small jar of honey she'd tucked in last because "Llusse likes honey in her tea and she's going to need tea."

"Ready?" Mila asked me.

"Yeah."

"Your pack's uneven. The weight's sitting too high."

She adjusted the straps on my shoulders. Her fingers were quick and warm and she pulled one strap tighter and her knuckles pressed against my collarbone and she was close enough that bread and herbs and the faint animal warmth of her fur-tipped ears was right there.

"There," she said. She stepped back and her tail wagged once. "Better?"

The pack sat different. She was right. It was better.

"Thanks, Mila."

She smiled and fell into step beside me and her tail kept going and the morning was warmer than it had been.

We walked north.

The capital dropped behind us in pieces. First the outer wall, then the farmland, then the last scattered houses where farmers watched us pass and children waved. The road was good packed dirt that would turn to mud in rain and the hills were green and the sky was clearing into pale blue and the mist was burning off. Leonora rode fifty yards ahead, straight-backed and silent, her armor catching light when the sun broke through. She hadn't looked back once.

Filia walked on my right. Her sword was clean and oiled and she'd tied her hair back tighter than usual and she was quiet. Not her leader-thinking quiet or her planning quiet. Every so often her eyes would find me and they'd hold for a beat too long and her ears would go pink and she'd look away. She'd been doing it all morning.

Tianne was on my left. She was humming. Low and absent, a hymn slowed down to walking pace. The gold was fading at her fingertips as the morning went on, and she kept looking at her hands like she was checking on a science experiment.

"It's lasting longer," she said.

"The glow?"

"The residual energy from the triple circuit. It should have dissipated within minutes. It's been hours." She flexed her fingers. The gold pulsed. "I should document-"

"You said that last night."

The faintest blush. "I was more coherent this morning."

"You fell asleep mid-sentence."

"I was resting my eyes."

"You snored."

"Priestesses do not snore."

From behind us, Llusse's voice: "You snore."

I turned. She was still ten feet back and her arms were crossed and she was staring at the road but her ears were pointed forward and she'd been listening.

"Tianne doesn't snore," I said.

"She does. Like a kitten choking on a leaf."

Tianne stopped humming. "That's oddly specific."

"We shared a tent for two years." Llusse's eyes were still on the road. "I know what you sound like asleep."

"And what do I sound like?"

"Like a kitten choking on a leaf. I said that."

Tianne looked at me. I looked at her. We both decided not to push it.

The road climbed into the hills and the trees thickened and the capital was a smudge on the southern horizon and then it was gone. Just the road and the sky and the six of us.

"You've been quiet," Tianne said.

"Just thinking."

"About what's ahead?"

"Yeah."

The honest answer was worse than that.

Vault. The Black Dogs, an entire mercenary company that the Seven Shield Alliance trusted completely and that was going to turn on them. Seven fortress-cities, each with a princess knight, each with a traitor already inside the walls. Alicia's own minister selling her to a man who wanted to build an empire of rape. Claudia's adopted father planning to betray her. Maia's past catching her in the worst way. Kaguya's old friend coming to destroy her. Celestine at the center of it, too kind to see any of it coming.

And past Vault's human ambition, past all of it, Maou. The Demon King sitting behind the war like a spider in a web nobody knew was there. Kruul targeting Dragundaala. Guignol ready to turn a kingdom's blood against them. Sand already in Leuven whispering in Dirk's ear. Faran with his hypnosis egg in Crusch. Ingwill already inside Agraliel's walls.

And Olga. Fighting two fronts, her magic declining, the humans thinking she was the enemy when the real enemy was behind her and everywhere she wasn't looking.

I knew what Vault would do to Celestine. What Guignol would do to Catue. What Dirk was already doing to Lilia. All of it, playing behind my eyes like a reel I couldn't turn off, and I couldn't tell a single person walking beside me because they'd ask how I knew and I didn't have an answer that wouldn't make me sound insane.

The sun was warm on my face and the road was quiet and the birds were doing bird things in the trees and Filia was beside me and Tianne was humming again and somewhere behind us Llusse was being Llusse and Mila's tail was wagging and none of them knew.

An elbow hit my ribs.

"Ow."

Llusse had closed the gap without me noticing. She was beside me now and her green eyes were squinting at my face.

"You're making a weird face," she said.

"I'm not making a face."

"You are. You look like you're trying to do math and the numbers are sad."

"That doesn't-"

"Don't think." She looked at the road ahead. "It doesn't suit you."

I laughed. It came out before I could stop it and it was louder than I expected and Filia looked over and Tianne stopped humming and Mila's ears perked up and even Leonora turned in her saddle for a half second.

Llusse's ears went flat. "It wasn't funny."

"It was a little funny."

"It was advice. I was being helpful."

"You were being helpful by telling me not to think?"

"You're not good at it. You should stick to your strengths."

"And what are my strengths?"

She looked at me. Her cheeks went pink and her ears twitched and she turned back to the road without answering and walked faster and didn't look back.

Filia leaned toward me. "She's talking to you again."

"She hit me."

"That's how you know."

The road stretched north. The hills were getting taller and the trees denser and the air cooler and somewhere past the Great Forest and past the human frontier and past the seven fortress-cities, the world was darker than any of these women knew.

But Filia was walking beside me, hand on her sword hilt. Tianne was examining her fingertips, watching the gold pulse. Llusse was ten feet ahead now, ears swiveling back to track my voice when I spoke. Mila had fallen in beside Tianne and was describing the dinner she was planning and her tail was going. Leonora rode point. Straight-backed. Silent. The strongest knight in the kingdom, sent to babysit a party with the organizational structure of a summer camp.

The sun was warm and the road was long and what waited at the end of it was worse than anyone beside me knew.

But for now. This was enough.

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