Disaris frowned. “It sounds awful.” She’d worried about him from the moment he’d set off with three other boys for Burnpool in the depths of winter. Everyone knew life as a Daesin soldier wasn’t easy, especially during the long war with Kefinor. She’d visited the local temple more times in the past seven months than she had in the past seven years, entreating every protection spirit she knew to watch over Bron, keep him away from battle as long as possible, and send him safely home to her and his mother. So far they had listened and granted her heartfelt prayers.
The pair of candles on the table had burned halfway down when Gheza began clearing cups and plates. “You might be an almighty battle mage now, Bron, but your amman will still want you home soon. Disa can walk you to the hill to see you off.” She gestured to Reylan with a tilt of her chin who lifted a dozing Luda off Bron’s lap and carried her to bed.
Bron bid them goodnight, with Disa promising her mother she’d return soon. Gheza waved them off, instructing them to take lanterns so no one tripped in the dark.
The return trek up the knoll was a much slower one. Bron held Disaris’s free hand with his as they walked, the lanterns they carried casting pools of light ahead of their feet. She sighed, wishing the night wouldn’t end. A few hours with Bron hardly made up for the many months without him.
“That’s the third time you’ve done that,” he said.
She glanced at him. “Done what?”
“Sighed, like we’re marching to the gallows instead of the top of the hill.” He didn’t look overly joyful either as he walked beside her.
Her fingers tightened on his. “I wish you didn’t have to go back to the garrison. I know you told us this visit was a reward for exceling in training, but it’s such a short time.”
He swung their arms in an exaggerated arc, ignoring her demands to stop it. “I’ll be back in no time. There’s a lot more training waiting for me, and I’ll earn another pass to come home.”
Disaris shook her had free of his and held up her hand, waving her little finger at him. “Promise?”
Bron curled his finger around hers. “Promise,” he said. “And I’ll still write to you, though I don’t know how often that will be.”
She held her tongue. He could write her every day, and it still wouldn’t be enough to assuage the ever-present emptiness inside her. When he’d first left for the garrison, he’d taken a small piece of her with him, and she wanted it back. Wantedhimback. Life felt gray in Panrin without him.
Once they reached the top of the knoll, they staked their lantern poles into the ground and sat within the wavering circle of illumination cast there. Bron eyed her for a moment. “Want to see a trick?” At her nod, he spoke strange words whose meanings she didn’t understand and sketched a design in the air in front of her.
Disaris gasped as the pair of braids coiled loosely into a bun at her nape unwound to slide like serpents over her shoulders. They then rose, as if lifted by an invisible hand, and shook. She yelped and tried to grab them, only to have them dance out of her reach. One arced over her head while the other braid swatted her nose with its tip.
Bron spoke more arcane words and sketched more designs, and her braids fell with a soft thud over her collarbones. He grinned. “What do you think?”
She laughed, lifting the braids to stare at them as if they were no longer woven ropes of her own hair, but strange creatures she’d never seen before or artifacts newly discovered in the most unexpected place. “It’s wonderful! I’m jealous!”
The magic no one realized he possessed until one fateful afternoon had come to life again, this time in a much gentler fashion. “Do you know more?” At his nod, she clapped her hands together. “Show me!”
He obliged her, directing a scattering of fallen leaves to spin around her in a tiny whirlwind before hovering above her head like a floating hat. Much to her awed delight, he even managed to levitate off the ground, leaving a hand-width of space between his backside and the grass. That spell didn’t last, and he landed back on the ground with a pained grunt. At Disaris’s enthusiastic applause, he gave her a lopsided smile. “I’m still a beginner. Learning spellwork is even harder than learning how to ride or fight.”
His offhand reminder of why he was at the garrison in the first place evaporated her happiness in an instant, leaving fear in its place. “I wish you didn’t have to fight,” she said, giving him her fiercest scowl. “I hope you never see battle.”
Bron simply smiled and quirked an eyebrow at her. “What a lot of wasted effort that would be if the army didn’t send me to fight. You worry too much, Disa. I’ll be fine.”
“So you say.” Please, she prayed silently, let him be right.
“You look like you’ve either eaten a lemon peel or cut an onion.”
She gasped, forgetting the urge to cry, and swatted his arm. “I do not.”
He chuckled and held up a hand in truce. “When did you get so short-tempered?”
“When I try not to cry,” she admitted. In all the years of their friendship, she’d never hidden anything from him, including her emotions. He’d never made fun of her for them.
It was his turn to sigh. He caressed her arm. “Don’t cry,” he said in his most soothing voice. “Your nose turns bright red, and there’s always a glob of snot stuck in your right nostril afterward. I can never figure out how you don’t notice it there.”
If anyone other than he said such things to her, Disaris was certain she’d die of embarrassment. But this was Bron, and she burst out laughing. “You’re such a fop-doodle,” she said between giggles.”
The amusement in his pale blue eyes gave lie to his frown. He shook a finger at her. “Fop-doodle battle mage, Disa-frog. Don’t forget it.” He joined in her laughter before pausing. “I almost forgot. I brought something for you.” He lightly patted his chest before reaching inside his tunic to pull out a thin object wrapped in linen. “Here,” he said, his expression far more somber and a touch sheepish as he handed it to her. “It took me three tries and four months, but I finally got it right.”
Disaris turned the gift over, running her fingers down its length, trying to guess what might be hidden under the layers of linen. She carefully unwound the cloth, letting it fall into her lap. She gasped when the last layer of linen fell away.
A slender hair bodkin, carved of wood with a lethal point on one end and a decorative crescent moon on the other, lay in her palm. She ran her fingers lightly over the wood, polished to a smooth, velvety surface sheened in lantern light. “Oh, Bron,” she said, holding up the bodkin to admire it. “You made this? At his nod, she held it against her cheek. “It’s beautiful!” She held the gift out to him. “Here. Put it in my hair.”
