A body rangy and hard, forged by centuries of deeds of the blade.
The white, star-shaped pommel of that blade glinting above one shoulder . . . beside the slender, pointed ear of an eldest elf.
Onlyone,the other cut cruelly close and centuries scarred over.
“By the shittingEight,” breathed Fern.
Astryx One-Ear, Blademistress and Oathmaiden, glanced around the interior of the coach, nodded, and held out a gloved fistful of reins.
“Found your horses. They seem fine. Looks like you are, too.”
When none of the carriage’s occupants moved to accept them, she shrugged and wrapped them over a coat hook set inside the door.
Then she vanished, muddy footfalls marking her departure.
Fern scrambled to lean out the doorway, bringing one paw up to her mouth to holler after the retreating figure, “Um,thank you!”
And then in a smaller voice meant only for herself, “Fucking hells.”
“You swear a lot,” whispered the coachman, joining her to peer after their departing savior.
Fern narrowed her eyes at him, gesturing with a slow sweep at the wreckage of pescadine anatomy radiating outward from the carriage and into the bog beside the road.
The coachman appeared to finally comprehend Astryx’s handiwork.
“Oh. Fuckinghells.”
The second, considerably less eventful half of Fern’s journey seemed to take three times as long as the first. She wasn’t sure who was more prone to the spooks, the coachman or the horses. Careful pauses were frequent, the pace positively leaden.
Still, no further perils beset them.
Days after their dramatic rescue at the hands of Astryx—Blademistress, Oathmaiden, etcetera—Potroast hooted in his sleep beside Fern as she read and reread her most recent correspondence with an old friend.
Decades ago, she’d met a brash young orc in the beachside town of Murk. Since then, in a move Fern would once have considered unimaginable, her friend had sheathed her blade for good and opened a “coffee shop” that was apparently extraordinarily successful. Fern didn’t even know what coffeewas.
Still, on the strength of fond memory and a series of lengthy letters, Fern had sold Thistleburr, the crusty little bookshop to which she’d dedicated twenty-five years of her adult life. She’d gathered the proceeds of the sale, a preposterously paltry valise of belongings, a satchel belonging to an absent companion, and an increasingly spherical and elderly gryphet, then booked a carriage to the city of Thune.
A new life awaited her there. A new start. A new bookshop. The embers of an old friendship to fan. Perhaps even something she might one day call family.
Also, she was clearly fucking insane.
There was one other letter packed into the satchel, a parting message from another old friend. She fished it out and her eyes fell upon the final lines, although by now she knew them by heart.
Always remember, although the unimaginative see life as a thread stretched from one point to another, birth to death, a life truly lived is a glorious tangle.
One is never lost.
And if one is lucky, one is never found, either.
Yours in the wilderness,
Zelia Greatstrider
1
Fern stared up at a wooden sign in the shape of a kite shield. A hammered hunk of metal representing a sword ran diagonally across the front. Two words bracketed the blade, chiseled above and below—
LEGENDS
