Chapter 5 Tokens By Firelight
Tokens By Firelight
Auryn could hardly believe it when Resh pulled her aside and explained she’d somehow sedated all the horses, blinking at him in genuine confusion when he asked her to undo it.
“I didn’t mean to put them to sleep,” she said. “They were tired. So, I sang.”
He bit back a groan. Of course she had. When he pressed if she could unsing the lullaby, she only tilted her head and shrugged.
“How do you take back a song?”
He had no good answer to that. And so, they departed hours later—well past the point of proper expedition etiquette. It was a poor start by any measure. The sun had already begun its descent, and every delay gnawed at their chances of outrunning the Cycle of Dark.
The Reskala took to the road in tight formation, wagons creaking under the weight of rations and reinforced steel.
The draft horses—now very much awake, if a bit groggy—pulled steadily through the patchy terrain of the outer Moores.
Warhorses flanked the convoy, manes whipping in the wind, armor plates gleaming beneath a gray and brooding sky.
The Stone and Vanguard Wings surrounded the Arcane and Anvil at all times, keeping a barrier of bodies between the heart of the company and any threat that might encroach. Scouts rode ahead in a fan, searching for holes, pits, or muddy terrain that could stall the wagons.
Some menders were skilled and strong enough to carry wooden trays strapped to their chests part of the day, working on chopping herbs, grinding powders, and compounding oils for salves to save time for rest during the night.
Auryn walked beside Resh at the head of the company without complaint, barefoot still, her silver hair bound loosely at her nape.
When he offered her a cloak, she shook her head.
When he offered his arm, she didn’t take it but stayed close, her shoulder brushing his forearm now and then, a quiet anchor in the shifting light.
They didn’t speak of the glade. Of the flowers that grew out of season.
Of Astenos made docile. The memory lingered in Resh’s chest like an ember—not hot enough to burn, but impossible to forget.
Even Zarrek, ever skeptical, walked in silence for much of the day, eyes shadowed, hands flexing every so often like he needed to ground himself in the weight of his own skin.
By twilight, the wind picked up. Cold and strange. The kind that slithered under armor and made fire a necessity, not a comfort. A bad omen, to be certain. Cold shouldn’t have been setting in so soon after Fire, even in Duskfall.
He moved the company as far as it could safely go, not stopping for a rest. Not until the sun dipped low and the scent of rain kissed the wind. Only then did Resh signal for them to halt, and a roaring bonfire was kindled to gather the men beneath the stars.
When camp was finally struck, the men stayed quiet. Subdued. Edges frayed by the dropping temperatures. It was the kind of night where most wanted to keep their distance, chew their dried rations, and speak only if spoken to.
The campfire cracked and spat embers into the dusk, sending them swirling up into the velvet sky where the first stars had begun to emerge. They were not bright, not yet. Just hints of starlight, barely peeking through the remnants of daylight clinging to the horizon.
Auryn sat down beside him without hesitation, folding herself cross-legged like she’d done it a hundred times before. As though the ground belonged to her. As though he did. Like the space near his body was hers by right.
Resh didn’t look directly. She was too close. Too unbothered. Instead, he watched her out of the corner of his eye. She reached for one of the skewers resting near the coals, picked the meat off the stick with her fingertips, and gave a little hum of approval as she chewed.
Her hair, tangled from the wind, caught the light like woven smoke.
“Do you need anything?” he asked after a moment. “Blanket, water…shoes?”
She shook her head and brought her fingers to her lips. One by one, she licked them clean.
Resh stilled, dazed.
The crackling of the fire, the murmured talk of soldiers, the whisper of wind across canvas—all of it receded beneath the sudden, sharp awareness gripping him.
Her movements were unhurried, unconscious.
The flick of her tongue, the way her lips parted as she cleaned the grease from her knuckles—it was nothing. It was everything.
He looked away, but too late. The image had carved itself into his thoughts like a rune into stone.
Does she truly not know what her actions invoke? In me? In others? And her words, too. Wild. Untamed. Like that starlit hair.
Resh clenched his fists. Kept his gaze rooted on the meat cooking over the fire. His breath came slow and deliberate as he worked to control the direction of his thoughts.
This is not want. This is vigilance.
And yet an ache threaded through his hands, coiled around his spine. She shifted beside him, still nibbling at the meat, and the scent of her—wild mana and rain-drenched earth—rose again to meet him. He dared not look. Feared what he might become if he did.
Blissfully unaware, Auryn’s gaze drifted toward the horses tethered just beyond the light of the fire. “They are afraid,” she observed.
Resh blinked, caught off guard. Still struggling to recover. “Most beasts don’t like the dark, especially when the Cycles are changing.”
She mulled this over for a moment. “Why do horses have four legs?”
“That’s just the way they come,” he replied, bemused.
“But not Astenos,” she murmured, licking a smear of grease from her thumb. “He has six.”
Resh turned to face her more fully. “Auryn, Astenos is a Kelavari war-steed. Bred and bound through ancient bloodcraft. Don’t go near him carelessly. He only responds to me. He’s dangerous.”
She shrugged, utterly unconcerned. “He likes it when I sing to him, just like the others. They don’t like the silence.” She tilted her head, listening to something no one else could hear. “They fear the shadows.”
Her voice held no embellishment. Just quiet knowing, the way someone might comment on the temperature of the wind or the salt in a stew.
Further around the fire, Zarrek and a few of the men spoke in low tones, their conversation drifting between tactical logistics and the looming storm. The scent of rain had lingered for hours.
“If it hits before we reinforce the wheels, we’ll lose half the carts,” one muttered.
“We should tarp the smaller wagons and reinforce the bracers with cord,” Zarrek said. “If the rains hit early—”
“They won’t,” Auryn interrupted. “First, frost will come. Then rain. The winds sweep north.”
All conversation stalled.
Zarrek narrowed his eyes. “You know this how, then?”
She looked up at him, silver eyes reflecting the firelight like polished moonstone. “Can you not hear how the wind whispers as it moves? It yearns for mountains.”
A beat of silence. Then Zarrek let out a huff, rubbing at the back of his neck.
“Forgot who I was talking to.”
She stood. Resh’s attention snapped to her.
Her movements weren’t sudden, but there was a deliberate stillness to her that always made him tense.
Not danger—but something older. More aware than a woman her size had any right to be.
She crossed the fire circle and stopped a few paces from Zarrek.
The old warrior watched her approach with arms folded, jaw tight.
Then she just…stared.
A minute passed. Maybe more.
Finally, he scowled. “Go play with the mud, girl. Your presence is a distraction.”
She didn’t blink. “You have magic in your veins,” she said. “The pain is there. Long years of it. And thirteen, too. Not twelve.”
Resh caught the flicker in Zarrek’s face. The shift from mild annoyance to something between alarm and disbelief.
The other men looked between them, confused.
“What’s she talking about?”
“Thirteen what?”
But Zarrek raised a hand, firm and final. “Back to your posts. Now.”
The authority in his voice left no room for questioning. The men scattered, muttering, their footsteps fading into the night. Zarrek turned to follow them.
Auryn touched his arm. “Her pain was not your fault,” she said. “The Rivers remember.”
The breath punched out of him. He turned back to her, and in the flickering firelight, Resh saw something he never had before.
Zarrek—who never flinched, never faltered—had gone pale.
Utterly, unmistakably pale. Whatever this woman had stirred in him, it wasn’t just memory.
It was grief. And she’d peeled it open without effort.
Auryn didn’t wait for him to reply. She turned and walked back to the fire, lowering herself beside Resh as though nothing unusual had happened.
She took another skewer and bit off a piece of charred meat.
As though she hadn’t just broken his strongest warrior with a single sentence and walked away untouched in the fallout.
Her fingers curled around the edge of the skewer and she picked at the end like someone who hadn’t yet decided if she liked the taste.
The wind picked up—cold and whispering—and the fire bent sideways, sending sparks dancing into the night.
Resh glanced at her bare feet, tucked up under her knees.
Pale. Dusty. Yet, somehow, whole despite the rugged terrain.
“Auryn,” he said, “you should wear shoes.”
She didn’t look up.
“There are nettles and vines out here that could hurt your feet,” he continued. “And thorns. And bugs.”
Still chewing. Still ignoring him.
He sighed and ran a hand down his face. “You’re not indestructible.”
“I don’t like the way shoes feel,” she murmured. “They keep me from listening.”
He blinked. “Listening?”
She swallowed and turned to him, eyes unreadable. “The earth hums. Beneath everything. Stones, roots, the space between things. If I wear shoes, I miss it.”