Page 101 of Beds and Blades

“It will hold,” Caen said. “The eye does not bend back quickly once it has been reminded of its true shape.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Caen nodded, tired but satisfied.

I looked down at my broken glasses. I would miss them. They were the last working machine I had carried across worlds, and they had broken in the dirt in front of a thing with red eyes. I put the two pieces in my pocket anyway.

Some things you keep.

Caen went to the fire and poured deeproot for both of us.

“The vampire in the ruin spoke to me,” I said, taking a sip of the deeproot.

She did not look surprised.

“It said Morvanna knows I crossed. That she has known since the moment I arrived. That she is patient and looking for me.”

“That part is true,” Caen said.

“It said something else.” I turned the cup in my hands. “It seemed aware that I had been claimed.”

Caen was quiet for a moment.

That worried me more than an immediate answer would have.

“The dead are very interested in the bond,” she said at last. “They are things that refused their own ending. The claiming is the opposite of that. It is life choosing life, and accepting that life ends.”

“That is a cheerful design feature.”

“It is an honest one.”

I looked down at the ring.

It sat on my finger, warm and gold and impossible. Proof of belonging. Proof of exposure.

I asked her about the ruin before I left, because apparently even trauma had limits against professional curiosity.

“The old stones in the western draws,” I said. “Gaius said no one knows who built them. That they are older than the records. Is this true? Do you know anything about them?”

Caen refilled my cup. “They are older than Newardia. Older than the line. Older than the war with Morvanna. Older than Yravel’s order. There was something here before us.”

“A civilization?”

“Perhaps.”

“That is a deeply irritating answer.”

“It is the accurate one. A people. A power. A kingdom. Something else. We do not know whether our categories fit what they were. They left stones. Deep places. Doorways no one built in any history we still possess. No name. No books. No gods we can identify. They cut stone better than we do now, then vanished so completely that even the mages argue over whether they died, left, or became something else.”

I thought of the cut blocks in the hillside. The worked angles. The arches I had seen in the valley on my first day in Mytharo. The ruin of a doorway sinking into dark.

“Thank you,” I said. “For the eyes. For all of it.”

“Go find your soldier and let him comfort you,” Caen said, sipping her deeproot with dry amusement. “He has felt fear and pain from you across the bond all afternoon and has managed not to ride out and burn down a ruin about it. That restraint has a limit.”

“He felt all of that?”

“The body and heart carry more than people think.” Caen picked up her cup. “Let him see you whole.”