“Oof,” he said, and Vivian immediately lifted herself off him.
“Sorry. I should’ve been more careful, considering.”
“You’re not to blame at all.” Olvir sat up. The world was suddenly full of facts: he was sitting, and Vivian standing, on red grass. Overhead, the sky was blue, with a few wisps of white cloud near the mountains. He was mortal, sore, and incredibly tired. “Besides, when it comes to physical injury, you were the worse off by… Should you be standing on that leg?”
She didn’t appear as though it pained her in the slightest. Vivian’s eyes were red and her cheeks showed the tracks of tears, but she looked perfectly happy in that moment, and her smile at the question had more than happiness in it. There was an awe there that Olvir recognized very well.
Remembering the anchoring power he’d sensed when Vivian had brought him back, he wasn’t all that surprised by her answer. “The Threadcutter is merciful.”
“She is.” Reflexively, Olvir made the sign of the Four. “Was She the one who brought us out of the Battlefield?”
Vivian nodded. “She left almost as soon as you came back. You were handling contact with two gods—or one and a half—far better than most humans would manage, She said. There was no sense in risking a third, and the window we opened was closing fast at any rate. The window you opened, really.”
Olvir lacked the strength or the wit for embarrassment. “I’m honored,” he said. “And thankful. And I rather hope the Dark Lady didn’t mean for us to start walking now.”
The air echoed with Vivian’s laughter. “I doubt it. She didn’t give us a schedule, but She did say that nothing in this land would harm us. I interpret that to mean we can make camp as we choose—and I think we’re past the point where a few hours will make a difference at home.”
“You know the storms are gone,” Olvir said, realizing only then that he hadn’t told her earlier. “Did the Dark Lady tell you?”
“No.” Vivian settled herself down onto the grass at his side, sitting with her legs folded and her pack in front of her. “But if you hadn’t, and you were still you—which I have it on good authority that you are—you’d still be trying. Probably while your brain melted in the process. I can’t imagine you relaxing in the face of duty.”
It was Olvir’s turn to laugh. He reached out, although his arms felt limp as dough, and took one of Vivian’s hands. “And you should know, my love.”
* * *
Vivian was content simply to sit there for a while, Olvir’s hand in hers, watching him. His smile and the pressure of his fingers gradually pushed back the memory of his previous vacant expression. Experience said that she’d probably still recall it on particularly restless nights, but experience also said she could live with that.
He was there, after all: body, mind, and soul.
After that fact had finally started to sink in, Vivian leaned back and took a real look around. The grass had dried in their absence to a lighter red, the black and silver outlines of trees rose against a deep-blue sky, and the sun was turning a rich gold as it set in the west. Between Vivian and the sunset, the Battlefield lay, iridescent in the light.
“Odd,” she said. “I would’ve expected it to vanish or change when you freed Veryon.”
Olvir shook his head. “He was only trapped there. He didn’t have much at all to do with creating it. And what—” Modesty still made him clear his throat before he could say the next words. “What I did just set matters closer to right now. Veryon still died there, he still suffered, he’s still changed from it, probably. I couldn’t make that not have happened.”
That is almost certainly for the best,Ulamir put in.I wouldn’t wish pain on the Queen of Death, nor on my ancestor, but the world’s spun itself out quite a length since that moment. To reverse it… I have not the slightest idea what changes it would make.
“Ulamir says that’s a good thing,” she summarized. “He understands magic—and time—better than I do, so I’m inclined to agree.”
“I think I am,” said Olvir. “But I’m very glad I wasn’t in a position to decide. Changing history would be considerably beyond my judgment, even if it were possible.”
“I’m fond of your judgment. But…yes. Above all our pay grades, I’m convinced.” Vivian thought of scars, of memories, of legends. She remembered abandoned caves and a weary, wise voice all around and through her. Off in the distance, the Battlefield glimmered. “So it’ll stay there forever.”
“I can’t see that far. But I can’t imagine any reason it wouldn’t remain.” Olvir studied her expression. “That doesn’t mean we have to stay here and watch it. I can walk now, though I can’t promise I’m good for many miles.”
The strange landscape swirled, colors dancing across its surface, edges melting and then re-forming. Trying to follow its changes hurt, but Vivian no longer felt any urge to try. Neither did she have the dizzy, sick feeling that had come over her when she’d first seen the place.
Scars were always startling. Most were uglier than this one.
“No,” she said. Turning away from the horizon, she focused on Olvir instead and raised one hand to cup the side of his chin. His skin was rough with a day’s growth of beard, the bones of his jaw solid and strong. “No, I think we’re fine right here.”
* * *
Later, under the rich purple twilight of an evening in late spring, they roused themselves enough to spread out bedrolls, to shuck off boots and armor, and to eat. They drank the last of their water too. Olvir luxuriated in the knowledge that the creek was close, just as he did the clean air on his feet.
They would start walking in the morning. Then they’d refill their waterskins, pick some of the silver apples that grew by the stream, and make for the mountain path. Olvir expected the journey back to be faster, with neither storms nor undead bears likely to present obstacles. Whether it was or not, he was content. Speed mattered far less now.
Vivian agreed when he mentioned it. “Without Thyran and the weather, the army should be able to send the Twisted scurrying north, especially with Amris’s reinforcements coming from the west. And if they can’t, the two of us won’t turn the tide. Well, probably,” she added, after a comment from Ulamir. She gave Olvir a curious once-over. “Do you think you could instantly make them disintegrate, like you did Thyran?”
