‘Lord, I haven’t prayed properly in some time,’ Draka sat on his knees, facing the wall beside his bed, his hands on the cold floor.

  Only the glow of the few cinders within the hearth remained to light the tops of his knuckles, had he opened his eyes as he prayed in silence broken only by Adrian’s hushed breathing.

  ‘I’ve let my pride take control of my heart and my actions. I let them cloud my judgment and break the binds with those whom You’ve placed in my care. Please forgive my impatience, my prideful neglect, my selfishness, arrogance, and…my loss of faith. I plead for mercy and strength to return to Your path and Your Will. I need Your guidance. And as I have failed them, I plead to You to continue blessing those who have relied upon me so that no harm comes to them while I strive to undo the damage which I have done by straying so far from Thy Will. In The Name of The Father, Through the Son, By the Holy Spirit, I plead the Blood of the Lamb, Amen.’

  He opened his eyes and sat back on his feet in the darkness. He looked over the stones of the wall in front of him. He knew that there wouldn’t be an easy answer. He had strayed so far from the path, had fallen from what he once had been. It wasn’t only the battle in Strasbourg, when he faced Christophe, that had broken his spirit. It was when Balor’s last breath had been released in his arms, when he had heard the voice of the Holy Spirit answer the denial of his request for healing in that time of need.

  Although he knew, as every Paladin knows, that such a thing is never their choice, but is always God’s choice alone, it still weighed on him, deep within his heart. A good man and his son to die so savagely when there had been a chance, when he knew it was possible, but was denied. Blatantly. And he didn’t understand why the Lord would deny such a thing. He knew he had no right to ask, either. It just…hurt. He needed to accept that it was beyond him to understand, beyond him to need to understand, beyond his position or place to require understanding. He must trust in the Lord and continue on with the faith that there was a reason he need never know.

  Faith that it was their time. That it was preordained. Predestined. Horrible as it was, his failure to save them was part of God’s plan.

  Draka eased himself back to his feet, careful not to wake Adrian, and slipped out the door into the cold morning air. It had rained during the night and the ground was covered in a layer of shimmering ice that crunched with every step he took. His breaths were puffs of white. He felt the air pierce through his shirt like little knife points.

  The eastern horizon was barely beginning to become a lighter shade of blue in the dark. The stars were still twinkling across the sky, scattered between misshapen brushstrokes of gray that moved slowly across them. The forest was a dark blanket surrounding the rippling swirl of the lake and the shapes of the village beyond it. Draka rolled his shoulder while pressing on the knot in it to soothe the ache in the cold. He needed to relearn how to ignore the colors and just pay attention to what time of day it was. He moved his arm back and forth, bending his elbow and extending it, up and down, back and forth, loosening it as much as he could. He needed to unlearn seeing the world how Maud taught him.

  He went to the shack across the road. Vigora and Pearl stirred from the stable against the house when he pulled the creaking wood door of the shack open. He winced when he saw Vigora peer over top of her stable door at him with a curious cock of one ear sideways. He shook his head at her for her to stay. Pearl’s head slid under hers with the same bent ear. He let out a long sigh at them and pointed for them to lay back down.

  Vigora blew butterflies at him and stomped a hoof. Draka rolled his eyes. He went into the shack and fished out the rope, his smallest bucket, and one of his trap nets, one of the stronger nets that he would use for larger catches. Then he grabbed the knife and closed the shack door behind him to hold up for the horses to see. The disappointed looks of the two horses both made him wish he could smile and his frustration tick higher.

  See, not saddles. Draka showed them. They both blew butterflies and turned their rears on him with flutters of their matching white long haired tails.

  He sat on the broken legged chair after propping it on a stone to balance it and cut at the net to size it down. Every so often, as he sawed at the ropes of the netting, he looked down the road to see if Enya was coming this way to begin the morning routine with Aurie. He should have sharpened the knife first. Yet another thing he’d neglected. He wanted to curse himself. What else had he been complacent about? What else had he let go? Let fester all this time?

  He finally cut all the bits he needed to. The net was sized down enough. He opened the shack door to reach in and set the knife inside. A quick wrap of the rope and remaining netting, he stuffed them into the bucket, and headed into the woods behind his house.

  He wasn’t dumb enough to go into the woods nearer the Abbey. No, he would go toward the river behind his house that twisted and bent past Aurie’s and Maud’s house. It was safer and—even better, now that he was thinking about it—was deeper and a faster current.

  As Draka went, he searched the ground, hoping to see a stone the size he wanted. Something heavy yet light enough that it wouldn’t tear his arm apart. He found a few that looked right at first, but when he kicked the dirt away and dug around them, found them to be too big or too dense. Another bunch were far too small. A pebble would be useless. He needed the stone to be at least a little heavy. By the time he reached the riverbanks, he had no luck in finding anything close to what he was looking for and threw his hands at himself in further disappointment. More frustration.

  The wreckage of the boat was a bit upstream from where he was, toward the bend of the river where it would shallow and snake over the road towards Strasbourg after a kilometer or so. Must have been where Adrian first met Nina, Draka chuckled a little at that. Big red spider with long legs. He shook his head. More like a fox in his opinion, but to each their own.

  He searched the riverbed for a stone more his size, the icy water soaking through his boots as he stepped into it, his searching hand distorting the watercolors of the sunrise while his other hovered the bucket filled with the wrapped rope and net above it.

  Stop seeing things her way! Draka bit down as he searched. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about what she said, what she meant, or feel her gut him with her words again. And that's what they did, just by remembering them. He remembered every word.

  The softness of a stone made him pluck it from the cold water and hold it up so he could see it in the dim morning light. It was smooth and almost glass with how it shined and reflected his image back at him on its dark surface. He had seen this kind of stone before. Obsidian, maybe. He rubbed at it with his thumb. He grinned, remembering what Balor had once told him. That peculiar tradition in this place. Not quite purple, but it is pretty, even to him, and really, he could care less about any sort of rocks, including diamonds. Yet—he pocketed it.

  Just in case…you never know.

  He found what he was looking for. A stone that wedged firmly in the bottom of the small bucket. Not too heavy, not light enough that its weight was unnoticeable, and not sharp on the edges that would punch a hole in the bucket. He was shivering, his hands beginning to burn with ice as he climbed back onto the slope of the riverbank. He wrapped the bucket and stone tightly in the net before tying it tightly around the rim. Then, with the rope he brought, he weaved it through the net and tied it again, this time with a fishermen’s knot. He made loops wide enough for his wrist and knotted them to stay wide.

  Although he was shivering still, Draka eyed the river less than a meter from where he braced himself on the slope. There were bits of ice floating with the current. He drew in a breath, slipping his wrist through the loops he had made, and leapt in, the bucket plopping in like a ball at the end of a chain.

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  The current pulled at the bucket, pulled at the rope, pulled at his arm, pulled at his shoulder, pulled at his back, at those prickly veins in his fingers. He tightened his fingers around the rope like he would his sword. The cold water moving through his shirt, coating his stomach that was flexing against the assault of the glittering tiny icy crystals in the milky flow of the river. Jarring cold water filled his leather breeches, soaking his boots and the bare feet within them. His teeth clattered even without him grinding them against the flood of the ache that crept in a slow splash from his shoulder outward across his body and down his arm.

  He clenched his jaw and lifted his chin, tightening his grip on his sword—on the rope. He bent his knees, lowering himself deeper into the crystalline flow of the water until his chest was nearly submerged, taking the medium-high guard stance. The current was pulling the stone harder with him no longer blocking the current the same way he had been. He felt the constant pressure on his shoulder, but not a tear. His wrist was burning from the rope—from the icy water. His fingers were numb, wrapped around the rope. His toes were numb but for the fire of the ice overtaking them. His legs were scratching knifepoints.

  Draka rotated his stance in an intentionally slow, fluid movement, in opposition to the strong current of the river. The force of the water pressed over him in every part of his body, in every way it could, pummeling him into submission, but he moved against it, refusing to let it win. The pull on his shoulder, as he rotated his wrist like he would if he were gripping his sword to bring the blade around, was excruciating but not tearing. He felt his eyes water in the strain. The stone was being carried, his shoulder rolled and shifted.

  Slow.

  Draka rotated his arm and wrist.

  Slow.

  He teetered his shoulder to compensate and twisted his hip.

  Slow.

  He felt the ache splice through his shoulder and down his upper arm like a lightning bolt. He straightened and stepped to block the current from the bucketted stone. He was out of breath as he began to wind the rope and pull the stone back to him, shaking like a leaf. He was losing feeling in his fingers. Time to go back before his next visit from Maud and Aurie consists of amputations, he rolled eyes at himself.

  Once back at the house, he pulled his wet clothes off and laid them in front of the hearth. Adrian was still asleep. He stoked up the fire after changing his clothes and sat in front of it with his brown pelt wrapped around him.

  As he watched the fire blaze beneath the empty pot and basked in its warmth, a grin spread across Draka’s face. He will get strong again. Now, he knew how.

  “Oh, thank the Lord,” Adrian clambered from his mat and sat beside Draka, pulling his blanket tightly around himself. “It is c-c-c-cold here.”

  Draka chuckled. It’s autumn. Then cocked his brow. There was no way Adrian forgot what it's like in the Steppes or everywhere else to the east.

  Adrian’s bare feet poked from beneath the blanket, away from the fire.

  “Is it morning already?” Adrian looked over his shoulder at the closed front door. He was squinting sleepily. He rubbed at his eyes. “You need a window. Why is there no window in here?”

  Draka shrugged. His teeth were still clattering loudly. He tucked the pelt over his chest a little tighter, though he edged his feet a bit closer so that his toes got a bit more warmth. The last thing he needed was to lose another one of those.

  Adrian yawned. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you,” he said through it, “I dueled Karl yesterday. Maud’s reputation is saved. Also, I marked him.”

  Draka frowned into the hearth.

  “I know,” Adrian was shivering, too. He was bundled in his blanket as if he were completely engulfed in ice, with his foot out the side as a stem. Another yawn. “It wasn’t too disfiguring. Just the cheek.”

  Draka nodded. Not much he can do about it now. He turned to see Adrian’s expression. He didn’t seem bothered by it. Instead, Adrian had the expression of being worried he was in trouble. Draka reassured him with a thankful grin.

  Adrian sheepishly grinned back. Then, he turned to the fire. He rubbed at the sleep in his eyes. “There was something else I didn’t get the chance to tell you.”

  Draka leaned over his knees and put another log into the hearth.

  “Mother will be here Monday or Tuesday.”

  Draka forgot to let go of the log until the fire seared the hairs on his hand and jerked it back. He whipped his hand, hissing and blowing at the tiny sparkling fires of his hairs on them. He eyed Adrian, hoping he was joking, but the look that Adrian gave him was far too serious.

  “The way I figure it,” Adrian rolled his shoulders to make the blanket tighter around him. “You pick yourself a wife here today, marry her tomorrow, introduce her to the village Sunday, and then to mother when she gets here the day after that. Otherwise, your only other option is to run naked into that Abbey and hug the first demon you meet.”

  Draka rolled himself backwards, stretching out onto the cold floor with a long breath.

  Adrian didn’t move from where he was. “I hear they’re looking for you anyway. Could really speed things up. Think of all the legends it would spark.” He held up a hand and spoke with a bardic tone, as if drawing a picture in front of him, “Draka Luminis. Paladin. King. Martyr who ran naked into the depths of hell to embrace a demon in the name of loving literally anyone else.”

  Draka couldn’t help but laugh.

  Adrian looked at him over his shoulder. “Wait until you hear about his three miracles,” he began counting on his fingers, “Silence while being nagged by multiple women, chaste for twenty-three years despite being constantly propositioned, and—last but not least—has kept two women, whom aren’t related to you, married to you, or otherwise beholden to you besides as a courtesy because of your kindness to them, taking care of you as if you were all those things, and not murdering you for nearly a year while—and let’s be honest about this, Draka—being you.”

  Draka curled from laughing so hard.

  “Maud threw the chocolates I got her at me, by the way,” Adrian said once he caught his breath. “I think she prefers truffles. If those don’t make her feel better, I have no idea what to get her.”

  Draka sat up. Then he shook his head, biting the side of his lip. He pointed at the shelf beside the hearth, where a bowl was dripping with melted frost, filled with red and yellow apples.

  “Fruit?”

  Draka nodded. Not pebbles. He mused. Those mean something different. But fruit, she might like better. She always has fruit with her.

  Adrian nodded with a smile. “So, that’s how you kept them from murdering you. And all this time, I thought it had to be all the money you were throwing their way instead of putting in a window.”

  Draka might have felt a bit salty for that, but was grinning thoughtfully into the flames.

  No, Draka was soothed by the warmth in his heart joining that of the flames licking the air from chute above them, not fruit. Friendship and the most confusing and frustrating kind of love I've ever felt.

  Though it dampened the warmth he felt, Draka let out a long sigh. This, too, shall pass.

  He stoked the fire with the poker.