Feet firmly on solid ground again, Griff dug through the piles and pulled out the intricate silver vambraces of lore as Alys cheered. They toasted with cold tea while Griff fitted them on his forearms to heal his stab wound for good, though Prancer the mule didn’t seem to feel much like celebrating with them this morning—no doubt realizing that most of this would be his burden to carry out of the Mire on top of the heavy silvers.
The part of Mal that loved shiny things hated knowing that none of this was his to keep as he started stuffing gold and dustybaubles into a mostly empty pack, but the gleam of the sun on Griff’s borrowed bracers struck him with sudden inspiration. Pulling a few pieces of the treasure back out, he called Griff and Alys to his side.
As he held up a delicate silver crown and nestled it into Alys’s hair, the serpent diadem at its center somehow untarnished, he told her, “Wear this until we’re out of here. So you never forget who the fuck you are.”
Next, he placed a crown of sculpted marigolds and lupines—clearly an elven design—gently onto Griff’s dark curls, and couldn’t help but think it seemed to have been made for him.
Last, he picked up a sturdier silver crown, its practical and proud design suggesting dwarven origins, and crowned himself too. “We’ve earned these, at least until it’s time to hand them over,” he declared with the authority of a king. “Like Wynnie always says, there are no prizes for suffering—only winning.”
And something in his face must have shown just how much he enjoyed seeing Griff in that crown—and in those legendary vambraces, and the handsome silver breastplate he was going to have to wear because it wouldn’t fit in any of Prancer’s saddlebags—because the next thing he knew, the dark-haired man was leaning in for a slow kiss with plenty of tongue.
They’d fucking done it. They’d killed a wraith. They had the treasure. Making a life together now seemed easily within their reach too.
Still kissing Griff, Mal put an arm around Alys, pulling her into a tight hug at the same time. They couldn’t have done this without her, mistakes and all. Noticing Mal’s shift in posture, Griff slipped an arm around Alys’s shoulders, and despite the many miles ahead on the road to home, they stayed just like that for a few minutes. Crowned in their victory. Together.
What did Mal really know about curses?
He was more fortunate than most. In fact, he had everything; a sister who always stuck by him and his hero, his knight, ready to stay through the battle ahead.
All day they followed the creek’s meander back into a darker, denser area of the Mire where poisonous flowers gave off the sweetest perfumes.
By the time they reached a slope with an adequate break in the trees, a wildflower-dotted embankment colored with splashes of fireweed and a running bramble of what looked like ordinary blackberries, a faint layer of sweat coated Mal’s face. He was finally starting to feel the way the hours without a drink stretched on.
Still, for now it was nothing he couldn’t ignore as Griff settled in the dry grass and rolled up his pant leg so that Mal could have a turn as healer, replacing his bandages again.
“You might as well look at my shoulder, too, while you’re at it,” Griff said, signing with his hand as he spoke and bringing a pleased grin back to Mal’s face despite his fatigue. It was a shame the elven bracers only worked on magical poisons and not on mauling wounds. “Two-for-one special, right?”
“Prizes, remember …” Mal murmured into the curve of his ear. A promise for later, when he had shaken off the worst of the withdrawals and they could put on those crowns again to properly enjoy them. Costumes really did something for him. For now, he glanced at Alys tending the mule and the turtle and waved her over.
“Ready to be home?” Griff asked Alys as she settled in beside him, Muffin poking his head out from her cupped hands.
“I’m ready to see Rodric and Mags and Derry,” she answered after some thought. There was something raw in her voice, anuncertain note that had replaced her usual airy detachment. “But … beyond that, I don’t know yet. I know I don’t want to be the Warg of the West anymore. She’s officially retiring.”
“No more sword practice?” Mal asked, surprised, because while the Warg of the West wasn’t really her, neither was putting her blade down for good.
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” Alys assured him, her blue eyes clear and present as they met his. “Griff still needs someone to show him a few things, and who better than me? But I’ve decided I want to move out of the cottage, me and the kids. Out of Wynnie’s shadow. If being out here has shown me one thing besides a lot of undead, it’s that I’ve got to learn to do things my own way—and accept a little help when I need it. And then, maybe … well, I like drawing and painting a lot. I like that perhaps more than anything. I think I’m good—”
“You’re amazing, Alys,” Mal interrupted before she could even finish. “Always have been. Nobody else can draw like you, and you always get the little details just right.”
Her cheeks flushed scarlet.
“He’s right,” Griff added confidently. “I’ve seen the elven painters at work, and some of your landscapes rival theirs. You should start charging for your art.”
His words brought even more heat to her face. Her lips parted as if to acknowledge the compliment, but no sound came out for a moment. “All right,” she agreed at last, still pink. “I bet I could do some portraits to start. And as for the rest … I suppose I’ve got my whole life ahead of me to figure out what I’m going to make of myself. At least now my feet are on the path.”
She stood again as they prepared to trek on, running a hand down her braid. And for the first time since they’d set off from Linden, she seemed to stretch up toward the sun like a flower finally unburdened of rain.
“Who knows?” she continued, blue eyes full of the afternoon sky, not gazing toward any far-off horizon or castles in the clouds today but at her oldest friends. “Maybe one day I’ll be the kind of friend you both deserve, the much-less-selfish kind. Maybe I’ll even become the knight Rhun never had the chance to be for me—the one I needed.”
Mal’s throat tightened, but he still managed to say, “That’s your best idea yet.”
Maybe Alys was in for some prizes of her own. But as for the ones he had promised Griff, he realized they would have to wait even longer as his body began to turn on him throughout the rest of the evening.
Through sheer stubbornness and knowledge of his looming deadline—just under a week remaining to make it all the way home—he managed to travel through most of the next day before finally surrendering to the vomiting and shakes, at which point they made camp on the driest ground they could find.
Griff put Mal up on his bedroll, which smelled far more pleasant than the one on which he had sweated out his last fever. Then the foreman went off in search of a deep pool where he could wash Mal’s old bedding while Alys stayed to mop his flushed, sweaty face.
Later, they traded places, and it was Griff who held out Muffin’s cookpot for him each time a little bile threatened to come up. Putting a clammy hand over Griff’s, he confessed, “I think … we’ll be here a little while, like you warned me. You rest that leg, I’ll sweat out my weight in whiskey, and there’s a chance we can still make it back just in time. Then we’ll have our victory dance.”
