In Kuroinu

Leonora wanted us awake at dawn.

We were not awake at dawn. We were awake at dawn plus forty minutes, because Llusse had thrown a boot at the tent pole when Leonora called first light and the tent had collapsed on top of her and Tianne, and the next twenty minutes were Llusse swearing in Elvish while Tianne calmly re-staked the canvas around her.

Leonora stood beside her horse and watched this. Her eye was twitching.

"This party," she said to no one, "is not a party. It is a logistical emergency."

Filia came out of her tent with her armor half-buckled. "We'll be ready in ten."

"You were supposed to be ready thirty minutes ago."

"And we'll be ready in ten."

Leonora's eye twitched.

The march was worse. Leonora wanted the formation she'd outlined at the gate. Hearing it once and following it were different things.

Within an hour Llusse had drifted from the left flank to behind the group because she'd spotted a hawk she wanted to track. Mila had migrated from the rear to directly beside me because she'd remembered she hadn't told me about the spice merchant in the capital who'd sold her turmeric for half price and she needed to explain the entire negotiation while her tail wagged. Tianne had stopped to examine a wildflower she didn't recognize and was now two hundred yards behind us, kneeling in the dirt with her staff across her lap, taking notes in a small journal she'd produced from somewhere.

Leonora rode back. Looked at the empty left flank. Looked at the civilian walking beside me instead of in the rear. Turned in her saddle and squinted at the priestess who was now a speck on the road behind us.

"Does this always happen?"

"Yeah."

"How are you alive."

She rode ahead and didn't speak for the next three hours.

During that time, Llusse and Filia got into an argument about whether rangers or swordfighters had better tactical instincts ("I see threats before you can reach them." "And then you shoot them and I still have to clean up the ones you miss." "I don't miss." "The goblin on the ridge outside Ur." "That was A RICOCHETED shot and you KNOW the wind-"), Mila found and catalogued three edible plants growing along the roadside, and Tianne caught up without explanation and fell into step humming again as if she'd never stopped.

The road climbed through hilly country with scattered trees and long grass that bent under a steady wind from the north. Cooler up here than in the capital. The sun kept disappearing behind fat clouds and coming back. Mila had her cloak on by midday and Llusse's ears were angled back against the wind.

Leonora called a rest at noon. Exactly noon. She had an internal clock synchronized with the royal observatory.

"Twenty minutes," she said. "Eat. Hydrate. Resume."

"Twenty minutes isn't enough for a hot meal," Mila said.

"A hot meal isn't required."

Mila looked at her. Then at me. Her tail had gone still.

"Mila," I said. "We'll have a hot dinner."

Her tail started again. Leonora's mouth thinned, but she didn't push it.

The afternoon was long. The road was good but the wind picked up and by late afternoon the sky was the color of old steel and the trees were bending hard and Leonora called camp earlier than scheduled because the weather was turning.

They found a clearing sheltered by a rock outcrop and thick oaks. Leonora dismounted and began staking the perimeter. She didn't ask for help. She didn't need it. Every motion was clean and fast and she had the camp boundary marked before Filia had finished unloading the mule.

"Watch rotation," Leonora said. "Four shifts. Three hours each. I take first. The swordswoman takes second. The archer takes third. The hero takes fourth."

"I'm not taking third," Llusse said.

Leonora blinked. "The rotation is assigned by combat capability."

"Third shift is the worst shift. You wake up twice and never get deep sleep."

"The rotation is-"

"Give me second. I'll switch with Filia."

"The rotation is assigned by-"

"I don't care how it's assigned. Third shift is garbage and I'm not doing it."

Leonora stood very still. She had the look of a woman who'd commanded soldiers for years and had never had a subordinate say "I don't care" to a direct order. Filia was biting the inside of her cheek.

"Fine," Leonora said. The word sounded like it cost her a year of her life. "Second and third swap."

"Great." Llusse walked to the fire and sat down.

"Haruto," Filia said.

Leonora turned to her.

"His name is Haruto. Use it."

Red hair and blue eyes against dark hair and darker eyes.

"The security briefing designates him as the hero," Leonora said. "I'll use the official designation."

"You're not in a briefing room. You're at camp with six people and he's one of them."

"The formality exists for a reason."

"What reason?"

Leonora didn't answer. She walked to the fire ring and started building the fire with the same focused efficiency she did everything, hands moving without pause.

Filia watched her go. Her mouth was a line.

"Let it go," I said.

"She's impossible."

"She's doing her job."

"Her job doesn't require being rude."

"It kind of does. She's military."

Filia gave me a look that said she had opinions about the military and all of them were uncharitable. She went to help Tianne with the tents.

Mila cooked.

It was the best meal we'd had on the road and it shouldn't have been, because we were working with dried provisions and whatever herbs Mila had foraged during the march while keeping pace with Leonora's schedule. But Mila had a thing. The stew had chunks of dried venison she'd rehydrated in broth and seasoned with something peppery and a little sweet and the bread was flatbread she'd made on a hot stone and there was honey for the tea because Mila planned ahead.

Llusse ate three bowls and said nothing, which from Llusse was a five-star review.

Tianne sat cross-legged by the fire humming the hymn from yesterday and mending a tear in her sleeve. Filia was oiling her sword. The firelight caught the copper in her hair and she looked up once and found me watching and her lips pressed together and she looked back down.

Leonora ate alone.

She was sitting on a rock at the edge of the firelight. Back straight. Plate on her knee. Precise bites. Even pace. She'd set her plate down at intervals to scan the tree line before picking it up again.

I filled a second bowl and walked over.

She stiffened when I sat down. Her shoulders pulled back and her hand moved toward her sword belt before she stopped it.

"You don't need to-"

"The food's better over here."

She looked at me. Her eyes were dark brown, almost black in the firelight. She was looking at me the way she'd look at an entry on a threat assessment that didn't fit any category.

I ate. She didn't say anything. I didn't either. The fire popped. Llusse and Tianne were arguing about whether the forest to the north was deciduous or coniferous and Llusse was winning because she'd been in it before, decades ago, when she was young by elf standards.

After a few minutes Leonora picked her plate back up. The pace was the same but her shoulders had dropped.

We finished in silence. I collected her empty plate along with mine and walked back to the fire. Filia was facing that direction and her eyes tracked from Leonora to me.

"Making friends?" Filia asked.

"Working on it."

"She's not a friend project."

"Everybody's a friend project."

Filia shook her head and went back to her sword.

Night came fast. The wind died down and the clouds thinned and the stars came out sharp and white. The fire was banked to embers and the camp was quiet.

Leonora took first watch.

She stood at the perimeter with her back to the camp and her hand on her sword and she was a silhouette against the starfield, straight and still. She hadn't moved in an hour. The forest was quiet. Nothing was coming. She was watching anyway.

I waited until the camp was asleep. Filia breathing deep in her tent. Tianne curled on her side, the gold finally gone from her fingertips. Llusse on her back, mouth open, snoring like a kitten choking on a leaf. Mila in her bedroll near the supply packs with her tail curled around her ankles.

I boiled water over the last coals. Found the tea Mila had packed. Poured a cup.

Leonora didn't turn when I approached. She'd known I was coming.

"Tea," I said.

I held the cup out. She turned her head. Looked at the cup. Looked at me.

She took it. Her fingers closed around it with her grip positioned so our hands wouldn't touch. Deliberate.

"You should sleep," she said. "Your watch is in six hours."

"I'll sleep."

"That's an order."

"You're my escort, not my commander."

Her jaw shifted. She took the cup and drank and the steam curled past her face and for a second, half a second, her jaw relaxed and her shoulders dropped and she held the cup with both hands, letting it warm her fingers. She was tall. I hadn't registered that before. Taller than Filia by an inch, and in armor with her shoulders squared she took up space. But her hands around the cup looked cold.

"It's chamomile," I said. "Mila packed it."

Leonora drank again. "The beastkin girl plans well."

"She plans for everything. Her name is Mila."

Leonora's eyes moved to me. Held. The starlight was on her face and her expression was flat and giving me nothing.

"Good night," she said.

"Good night, Commander."

I walked back to my tent.

Filia's tent had crept closer to mine since we'd set up camp. She'd moved it while I wasn't paying attention. On my other side, Llusse's blanket had migrated past the tent flap and was pooling in the dirt between her tent and mine like it was trying to cross the gap on its own.

I lay down. The stars were visible through the open tent flap and the fire was embers and the camp was quiet.

Behind me, at the perimeter, Leonora was still holding the cup.

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