“What’s your story?” Serenity asked.

  “Where should I begin?” Ryan replied, shifting his weight.

  “All of it,” she insisted.

  “What she means is—” Tru started, but her sister cut her off.

  “I mean the whole story. Who are you? Why were you there, and why did you risk your life to pull us out of that hole?” Serenity’s voice was demanding, the vulnerability of the night before replaced by her usual sharp-edged curiosity. “And how,” she added, her gaze narrowing, “did you get me to open up like that?”

  Ryan was taken aback. The tender, weeping woman he had held in the moonlight was gone; the warrior-maiden was back. He looked into the fire for a moment before beginning.

  “I don’t know the whole story of my past,” he said softly. “But I know my father was Chief Johan of Twin Peaks. Our family led that village for ten generations. I was meant to be the eleventh. I was a child the night of the attack—woken by my mother’s panic as the world outside our door turned to fire. My father had taken the fighting men to reclaim a caravan lost to bandits. We were defenseless.”

  Ryan paused, the memory of the bells and the screams clawing at his throat. “We ran for the storehouse caverns. Not everyone made it before the gate was sealed. Yami, my father’s captain, tried to reason with the raiders, but they only answered with flaming arrows to burn us out of the dark. Yami led us through the secret passages into the deep mountain. I remember crawling through the smoke to gather grain so we wouldn't starve. We left before the dawn found us.”

  “That’s terrible,” Tru whispered, her playful nature finally silenced. “What happened then?”

  “Exile,” Ryan said. “Yami led us to the dwarves of Fjalls-r?tr. Only half the village survived the trek. Most of the women were widows; over the years, they drifted away to find new lives, new husbands. Only a handful of us are left in the mountain. We dream of home, but until the bandits are dealt with, dreams are all we have.”

  “Well,” Serenity stated, her eyes fixed on him. “That answers the first question.”

  “What more do you want?” Ryan asked, his irritation rising.

  “You knew the bandits held the village. You haven't been back in twelve years. Yet you went anyway. Why?”

  “I don’t rightly know,” Ryan admitted, and as he said it, he realized how strange it sounded. “I’ve been trading on behalf of the dwarves for years. I always avoided this region. But... something drew me. I ended up by the stream where my father and I used to fish. I got lost in the memories. The next thing I knew, I was on the ridge overlooking the village, and I saw the two of you. I had no intention of entering the gate, but I felt... compelled to follow you.”

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  “That leaves the final questions,” Serenity said, stepping closer. “Why did you help us? You could have slipped through that hole in the wall alone. Instead, you stole horses and risked a chase to bring us with you. Why? Is it because you think women are helpless?”

  “No.”

  “Is it because you think we’re pretty?”

  “No!”

  “What? You don’t think we’re pretty?” Tru interjected, a smirk returning to her lips.

  “Stay out of it, Tru!” Serenity snapped. She turned her focus back to Ryan, her face reddening. “Answer me, dammit. Why?”

  “Because I couldn't leave you behind!” Ryan shouted, standing up to meet her interrogation. “There was no logic to it. I just couldn't. I know what they do to outsiders, and I wasn't going to let that happen to you.”

  Serenity’s face went from red to a deep crimson. Without a word, she turned and sprinted out of the camp.

  “What now?” Ryan asked, exasperated.

  “Leave her,” Tru said, walking over to him. She wrapped her arm around his, interlacing her fingers with his and leaning her head on his shoulder. “I think it was fate. The Creator sent you to rescue us. It’s destiny.”

  Ryan pulled his arm away, a sudden surge of restlessness hitting him. “It’s not like that. The Creator doesn’t meddle in the affairs of common folk. I’m nobody.”

  He stormed off toward the edge of the wards. As the silence of the woods closed in, he heard a voice—distant yet strangely intimate. It was a voice he recognized from the deepest corners of his memory, though he couldn't name the speaker.

  “You haven’t answered her final question yet,” the voice whispered. “But you will, in time.”

  Ryan spun around. The woods were empty. The voice faded like a dying echo, leaving him shivering in the morning heat.

  When he returned to camp, Tru was dousing the fire. Serenity returned at midday, her eyes downcast.

  “I’m sorry,” she muttered.

  “It’s fine,” Ryan said, though the mystery of the voice still sat heavy in his gut. “Where are the two of you going? Back to Myrkvier?”

  “NO!” Serenity barked at the same time Tru chirped, “Yes!”

  Ryan turned to the half-elf. “Where, then? Back to your village?”

  “No.”

  Ryan stared at her, waiting.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said, her face flushing again.

  “Like what?”

  “Just stop.”

  He didn't stop. He kept his gaze level until she finally broke.

  “If you must know... I’m going to kill every last one of those bandits.”

  “By yourself? That’s suicide!”

  “Nobody else will help,” she said, her voice hard. “So I have to do it.”

  “That’s crazy,” Ryan pointed out. “You’d need an army to retake that valley. It’s a fortress now.”

  “Then let’s build an army,” Tru suggested brightly.

  “And who would lead it?” Ryan asked. “Serenity?”

  “You,” Serenity said, meeting his eyes with a terrifying certainty. “It has to be you.”

  Ryan looked at her, then down at his calloused, travel-worn hands—the hands of a trader and a farmer.

  “Why me?” he whispered. “I’m nobody.”

  Serenity returned the skeptical glare he had given her the night before, her gaze cutting right through his excuses.

  "Are you sure?”