Picking Up the Trail
The rain finally stopped during the night.
Lark woke to silence, the absence of that constant drumming on canvas so disorienting that she lay still, convinced something was wrong. Then she registered the quality of the light filtering through the tent fabric, pale gold instead of gray, and understood.
She pushed herself upright and crawled out of the small tent she shared with Pippa, blinking in the unfamiliar brightness.
The world had transformed while they slept.
Mist rose from the wet earth in ghostly ribbons, catching the early morning sun and scattering it into a thousand tiny prisms. The trees lining the Ember Route glistened with moisture, their late spring leaves a vivid green that seemed impossible after so many days of drab sameness.
The oaks here differed from the red oaks of Autumncrown.
These were green oaks, their leaves broad and glossy even this early in the season, and Lark had been noticing more of them with each passing day.
They were a sign of the changing landscape, of the gradual shift from the lowlands toward the High Greenwood that waited on the eastern horizon.
Noctis was already awake, pacing the perimeter of their camp with unusual intensity. His nose skimmed the ground, then lifted to catch the air, then dropped again. His tail was rigid, his ears forward, his entire body taut with focus.
Darian emerged from his own tent a moment later, his dark hair sleep-tousled, his injured arm held carefully against his side. He took one look at the wolf and froze.
“He’s got something,” he said quietly.
Lark nodded. She had traveled with Noctis long enough to recognize the difference between his usual alertness and this singular concentration.
He was tracking something with a purpose she recognized.
She crossed to him and knelt in the wet grass, letting him come to her.
He pressed his nose against her palm, whined once, then turned to stare fixedly to the northeast.
“Rion?” she asked.
Noctis whined again and took several steps in that direction before looking back at her, his meaning unmistakable.
The tension she had been carrying for days drained away, leaving her almost lightheaded.
They had lost the army’s trail. The rain had washed away every boot print and wagon track that might have guided them.
She had been navigating on faith and general direction, trusting that the Ember Route would lead them where they needed to go, but unable to know for sure.
Now they knew.
Pippa crawled out of the tent behind her, curls wild from sleep, and stopped short at the sight of Noctis straining toward the northeast. “Is that what I think it is?”
“He’s found the trail,” Lark confirmed. “Or at least Rion’s scent. He knows which way to go.”
Pippa’s face crumpled briefly before she caught herself, pressing one hand over her mouth. When she lowered it, her eyes were bright, but her voice was even. “Then we should get moving.”
They broke camp with renewed energy, the oppressiveness of the past week’s uncertainty lifting now that they had clear direction.
The sun continued to climb as they walked, burning away the mist and warming the air until Lark pushed back her hood for the first time in days.
Noctis trotted ahead of them with his nose to the ground, occasionally veering off the road to investigate some trace only he could detect before returning to lead them onward.
The surrounding landscape was changing. The lowland forests of the Ember Route were giving way to rockier terrain, the undergrowth thinning as the ground began its gradual ascent toward the distant mountains.
Green oaks dominated the hillsides now, their canopies dense enough to filter the sunlight into shifting patterns on the forest floor.
Lark caught glimpses of the High Greenwood on the horizon when the road crested a rise, a dark smudge of peaks still days away but no longer impossibly remote.
They made good time. By late afternoon, Lark estimated they had covered more ground than on any single day since leaving Autumncrown, the dry weather and Noctis’s certainty lending speed to their steps.
When the sun began its descent toward the treeline, painting the sky in shades of amber and rose, they found a suitable campsite in a small clearing sheltered by a tumble of boulders.
“Fire tonight,” Pippa said, dropping her pack with obvious relief. “Actual fire. I might weep.”
“Please don’t,” Darian said, but there was a tenderness beneath his usual dryness. “I’ve had enough water for one week.”
He gathered wood while Pippa cleared a space among the rocks, arranging stones in a ring. Lark helped where she could, but found herself watching as Darian knelt beside the prepared kindling and drew a small pouch from his pack. Inside were a steel striker and a well-worn piece of flint.
Lark knew what was coming. She had seen it done a hundred times in Summerbright, where fire was a practical necessity and magic was thin.
But watching Darian’s hands work, the scrape of steel against stone, the shower of sparks that caught and flickered and died, caught and flickered and died, made her throat tight.
Rion would have simply held out his hand.
A thought, a breath, and flame would bloom in his palm.
She remembered the first time she had seen him do it, that night in Wintersorrow when he had built a fire to warm them, the light dancing across his face and turning his eyes to molten gold.
She remembered the way warmth had spread through her as she bedded down next to it, just from knowing she was no longer alone.
The kindling caught at last, a small flame licking upward, and Darian sat back with a satisfied nod. He began adding larger pieces of wood, building the fire with the methodical patience of someone who had done this countless times on campaign.
Lark looked away before he could notice her staring.
The evening settled around them as they ate a simple meal of dried meat, hard cheese, and the last of the bread they had purchased at the crossroads.
The fire crackled cheerfully, casting a warm circle of light against the encroaching darkness.
Noctis lay near Lark’s feet, his head on his paws, eyes half-lidded with contentment.
Across the fire, Pippa sat close to Darian, but not quite touching.
Their shoulders were perhaps an inch apart, a distance that seemed deliberate rather than natural.
When Darian passed Pippa the waterskin, their fingers brushed, and she pulled back quickly, a faint flush rising to her cheeks that she tried to hide by taking a long drink.
They had been doing this all day, Lark realized. The careful spacing. The abbreviated touches. The way they seemed to catch themselves whenever they drifted too close, as though proximity required permission.
She wondered if they were doing it for her.
Later, when Darian had taken first watch and settled himself on a boulder at the edge of the clearing, Pippa moved to sit beside Lark. The fire had burned down to glowing coals, casting just enough light to see by.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Pippa said.
“I’m always quiet.”
“True. But this is a different quiet.” Pippa hugged her knees to her chest, her eyes reflecting the ember-glow. “Are you alright?”
Lark considered the question. She was not sure what alright meant anymore, or if she had ever truly known. “I’m fine.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
Pippa was silent for so long that Lark thought she might let it go. But then she spoke again, her voice softer now.
“Darian and I have been trying to be … careful. Around you.” She paused as though searching for the right words. “We didn’t want to make things harder. With Rion gone, I mean. We thought seeing us together might …”
“Might what?”
“I don’t know. Hurt you. Remind you of what you’re missing.” Pippa’s fingers twisted in the fabric of her trousers. “It sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”
Lark was quiet as she watched the coals pulse with heat, orange and red and white at the center, and tried to sort through the tangle of things she was feeling.
“I noticed,” she said finally. “The distance. The way you pull apart when you think I’m looking.”
Pippa winced. “We weren’t very subtle, were we?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry. We were trying to be considerate, and instead we were probably just being strange.”
“A little,” Lark admitted. She turned to look at Pippa, at the worry creasing her friend’s forehead, at the genuine care behind her concern. “You don’t have to be careful around me. I won't break because you’re happy.”
“I know you won’t break. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. But strong people can still hurt.”
Lark had no simple response to that. Seeing Pippa and Darian together did remind her of Rion.
Everything reminded her of Rion these days: the way the light fell through leaves, the sound of a fire crackling, the space beside her where someone should have been.
But the reminders were not the problem. The problem was that she didn't know what to do with them.
“I don’t know what Rion and I are,” she said quietly. The words came out before she could think better of them. “Were. Might be. I don’t know how to feel about it.”
Pippa’s expression softened. “You don’t have to know. Not yet.”
“It’s easier when things have names. Categories.
When I was with the Order, everything was simple.
Contracts, targets, payments. There were rules.
I understood them.” Lark shook her head.
“This is different. And I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel, or if what I feel is what I’m supposed to feel, or if any of it even matters when he might be … ”
She stopped. The word she had almost said hung in the air between them.
“He’s alive,” Pippa said firmly. “Noctis has his scent. We’re going to find him.”
“I know.”
“And when we do, you’ll have time to figure out the rest. The names and categories and whatever else you think you need.” Pippa reached out and squeezed Lark’s hand briefly. “But for what it’s worth, I don’t think feelings need names to be real. They just are what they are.”
Lark looked at their joined hands, then at Pippa’s face. “When did you get so wise?”
“I’ve always been wise. You just weren’t paying attention.” Pippa smiled, and some of the tension between them eased. “So we can stop being weird now? Darian will be relieved. He’s terrible at pretending not to care about things.”
“You can stop being weird,” Lark agreed. “Though I make no promises about Darian. He seems to have a natural talent for it.”
Pippa laughed, the sound bright and unexpected in the quiet night. From his position on the boulder, Darian glanced back at them with a questioning look, and Pippa waved him off with a gesture that somehow conveyed both reassurance and affection.
They sat together in comfortable silence after that, watching the coals fade from orange to ash. Somewhere in the trees, a night bird called and was answered by another. The High Greenwood waited on the horizon, growing closer with every passing day.
Lark didn't know what she felt for Rion. She wasn't sure she would recognize the answer even if it presented itself clearly. But she knew she needed to find him, to see him again, to have the chance to figure out what all of this meant.