Night has fallen fully on the camp, plunging it into a deep darkness that you only see on moonless nights. The thick canopy above has blocked out any light from reaching the floor below, leaving massive pockets of inky black between the neat, orderly lines of torches.

  Crouching in one of these pockets of darkness is Emily, staring with rapt attention at a small tent in the middle of camp, surrounded by serious-looking guards with wicked weapons on their sides.

  It took her a long time to find where Nora and Alastair are being kept, not expecting their “prison” to be nothing more than a small tent completely identical to the others. Although, she guesses that they didn’t exactly expect to be housing guests in the camp, when they lugged all of the equipment here. But either they’re tied up tight and can’t move, or Nora and Alastair must be in much worse condition than she expected, if they haven’t taken the opportunity to tear through the canvas and escape on their own. She half-expected to see them try to do just that, while she was sitting in the dark, trying to come up with a plan of her own. After all, knowing her friends, they wouldn’t just sit tight if they had the ability to make a break for it.

  She runs through her options again, trying and failing to find a solution that won’t end in her having to go on a magical slug fest against the entire camp. Could she distract the guards? She glances at the guards once again, counting them as she does so and taking note of how close they are to each other and how alert they seem to be. In the flickering light of the torches, she can barely make out their faces, the shadows cast on their faces turning them into featureless statues that barely shifts from side to side. They could be fast asleep on their feet for all that Emily knew, but she felt like that would be wishful thinking, and if she was caught trying to enter the tent not even her Archmage title would save her from the scrutiny of the guards.

  What if she just asked the Commander to let her see them, lean on her status and whatever he has planned for her to get inside? But then what does she do? Disarm the Captain? Cut down the guards? Slink away in the middle of the night, leaving a pile of corpses behind her? She doubts that her tenuous title would give her the ability to do that. So, that idea wouldn’t fly at all.

  Could she just mow down the guards and fight her way out, like she originally planned? She glances down at her hand once again, but once her rage settled, they stopped being the instruments of death that they looked like to her before. They were just… Her hands, again.

  She lets out a sigh, wishing that she had someone to brainstorm with. As much as she believes she’s intelligent, and has the ability to plan things… Emily much prefers the simple, straightforward approach.

  “Ma’am? Is that you?”

  Emily barely stops herself from screeching at the top of her lungs, her heart jumping into her throat as she spins around at the unexpected address. Standing in the torchlight is Bill, squinting his eyes as he tries to peer into the darkness at her.

  She stops holding her breath, willing her heart to calm down as she takes a step closer to the Squire, not exactly wanting to step fully into the light while she’s plotting.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” she replies, as she glares up at him, still a bit ticked off from their exchange earlier. “What, did you need something? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  He lets out a relieved sigh and rubs the back of his head, looking down sheepishly. “I just… Wanted to apologize to you about earlier.”

  Emily’s face softens just a bit. “Apology accepted. I’m sorry I got a bit mad, too, I just…”

  She glances at the tent, glad that Bill can’t see her in this light. “It’s a lot, you know?”

  Bill shakes his head, confused. “No, ma’am. I can’t say I do know. I never get mad. Ma says I just don’t have anger in me, all the happiness I’ve got takes up all the space where it would be instead. So I handled it real badly. It wasn’t my place to demand anything from you.”

  Emily lets out a chuckle, her heart lightening a bit. “Well, your ma’s right about that. So far, you’ve been nothing but kind to me. So, how about we forgive and forget?”

  Bill chuckles, a smile so genuine stretching on his face that Emily can’t help but smile back at him. “Consider it forgotten. I’ve always believed there’s no point in holding in all those negative things anyways. It just takes up room.”

  Emily shakes her head, amazed at how positive this man can be. She turns back to look at the tent, deciding to tackle the problem with fresh eyes once again. “Well, thanks for that.”

  “Anytime, ma’am.”

  Emily keeps watching the guards and the tent, and realizes that if she blows out the torches with a long-range wind blast, she could maybe sneak into the tent without anyone seeing her. It’d be hard, but she believes she can –

  “How do you know Sir Barrion, ma’am?”

  Emily’s blood turns to ice in her veins, as the world narrows down to a single wind bolt, slicing through the flesh of a man’s arm as easily as paper. She turns to look at Bill again, her heart pounding in her ears. “Who?”

  “It’s just…” He says, as he reaches for his side and draws the sword strapped to the side of his hip. It gleams in the torch light, the etching and swirls shining in dazzling splendor like a thousand gemstones. “This is his sword, right? I’d recognize it anywhere, I’ve cleaned it so many times I can practically do it in my sleep.”

  Emily gulps, her throat suddenly feeling very, very dry. She scrambles to think of what to say, her mind racing with horrible thoughts of a man getting eaten. “I… I don’t know. I just… Found it in the woods.”

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  Bill looks down and a shadow hides his features, but Emily can feel his eyes boring into her, disbelieving.

  “In the woods, huh? So… He’s never making it here, is he?”

  Emily lets out a slow breath in secret, trying to calm her heart. “I don’t know… The forest is really dangerous. Anything could’ve happened to him.”

  Bill lets out a sardonic chuckle, as he tilts the sword from side to side, admiring the details of the blade, the light catching on its surface and sparking in the night. “Yeah, anything could’ve happened to him, alright…”

  The pair stand there in silence for a moment, Emily not daring to break it, feeling the tension and fear rising in her chest. Just as she’s about to say something, anything, that could get her out of this situation - Bill stops rotating the blade, cutting through the silence once again.

  “Hey, do you remember that garden out back in your manor? The one with all the rose bushes? Man, I used to love walking past it as a kid. I’d stop and sniff ‘em whenever they were in bloom, until my ma would clobber me across the ear and say I’m gonna sniff the colour right off of ‘em.”

  Emily forces a light laugh out of herself, hoping that it sounds genuine to him, because it sounds hollow and fake to her ears. “Yeah, I remember them. It was my favourite place to sit in the evenings.”

  Bill lets out a disappointed sigh, as he widens his stance, holding the blade towards Emily.

  “Ma’am, there’s no rose garden at the Stanners manor. You’re not from Wrenfall, are you?”

  Emily feels her gut sink, as she lets out a breath, the game finally up. “No. I’m not.”

  “I’m gonna have to insist you surrender.”

  Emily starts preparing her Mana, her heart clenching in her chest as the glow slowly illuminates the space around her, revealing her slumped figure to Bill.

  “Please, don’t make me do this.”

  Bill shakes his head sadly, as he takes another step towards Emily. “I ain’t making you do nothing. If you give up, this can all go down peacefully.”

  Emily shakes her head, before pointing her hand at Bill, the mana racing through her body and out of her hand in a concentrated blast of wind that Bill just barely dodges, the spell clipping past Bill’s ear in a painful whoomph. He stands there stunned for a moment, before he swings out his sword at Emily, his stance practiced but slow and lacking the speed and certainty that Sir Barrion had.

  Emily dodges the clumsy swipe easily, aiming for Bill again and managing to hit him painfully in the chest. He’s blown back, coughing and wheezing, but manages to keep his feet. “Just walk away, Bill. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He rubs his chest and stands up straight again, taking a few deep breaths before shaking his head, spluttering out the words that Emily didn’t want to hear.

  “I can’t… Surrender. Not to… Sir Barrion’s… Killer!”

  He lets out a shout and rushes Emily, his blade held high in an overhead sweep that Emily can see coming from a mile away.

  She takes a shaky breath and resigns herself, holding up her hand at the charging man.

  “Don’t make me do this.”

  Bill reaches Emily and swipes hard for her, missing her by a mile as she dodges to the side, the sword clanging against the hard-packed dirt. Emily raises her hand up, the glow highlighting Bill’s shocked and panicked face, as the two lock eyes for a moment.

  And Emily releases a short wind blade right at his throat, the sharp wind biting in deep to his flesh and burying itself halfway through his throat.

  Bill drops his sword, as he grasps his throat in surprise, blood gushing out of it in a macabre fountain down his shirt. He gasps for breath but can’t find it, stumbling away from Emily in shock and fear, his eyes wide and panicked.

  Emily shuts her eyes to the terrible scene, as a numb, tingly feeling spreads through her limbs. She chastises herself for being such a coward, and forces her eyes open, determined to see the consequences of her actions through to the end.

  Bill collapses, gasping and clawing at the ground, his feet kicking out from under him, and Emily’s demeanor shatters. Tears flow down her face, as she rushes to Bill, holding his throat closed as regret and despair washes over her.

  “I’m so sorry… I’m so, so sorry… I didn’t want to.”

  She feels his life slip out from between her fingers, as the boy stares up at her, his mouth opening and closing but nothing coming out.

  “I had to… You didn’t give me a choice…”

  His struggling starts to still, as the last of his life blood spills on the floor. He looks up at the canopy, as the air leaves his lungs, and Emily feels his heart stop beating.

  “It’s not my fault…”

  Emily’s vision goes blurry from tears, as she stands up on wooden legs, feeling numb and hopeless. She wipes her nose and looks around herself, at the war tents, at the torches, at the glittering sword once wielded by both knight and squire, and at the smiling, happy boy, now reduced to nothing.

  “It’s not my fault… It’s this stupid, stupid war…”

  On autopilot, Emily drags his body into the darkness, giving her a few more minutes before he’s discovered. Once he’s out of sight, she gives him one last look, a numb resolve settling in her chest.

  “We could have been helping those who really needed it… But instead, we're just fighting each other... And for what?”

  She lets out a sigh, as she looks at the tents again. She wants it all to end.

  But how?

  She'll need an army for that.

  But what army?

  She walks away from Bill, her heart not able to stay near him any longer. As she wanders around the tents, listening to the occasional snore, she realizes what she needs to do.

  She walks towards Blue’s pen and finds him sitting placidly in the now-empty horses stable, a new, clean sack on his head.

  “Come on, Blue. We need a distraction… And I have a plan.”

  Emily takes his leash and tugs on it, and the ostrich stands up smoothly on his powerful legs. She opens the wooden gate and leads him out into the torchlight, his feathery pelt shining and more clean than she’s ever seen it.

  With a gasp, she notices something lumpy on Blue’s back. Leading him a bit further, she finds the shiny outline of a new saddle, fitted onto Blue’s back, just for her.

  She starts hiccupping, as the tears seem to fall anew once again, and she leads Blue out of the camp, determined to end this once and for all and save her friends.

  Right?