Ch.49 – Night Patrol

"I'll take the perimeter check tonight."

Leonora said it at the evening meal, sitting straight-backed on the platform with her plate balanced on her knee and her armor polished and her face giving nothing away. Nol had requested nightly patrols of the forest perimeter since the corruption clearing. The channels were still there. The corruption could return.

"I'll go with you," I said.

"That's not necessary."

"Someone should watch the watcher."

Her jaw tightened. "I don't need-"

"I know you don't need it."

She looked at me. The same look from the sparring platform that morning, direct and measuring and underneath the measurement a current that she was pretending wasn't there.

"Fine," she said. Like it cost her.

The forest at night was a different world.

The canopy blocked the moon and the only light was the bioluminescence. The fungi on the roots glowed blue-green and the bark of the older trees pulsed gold-white and the forest floor was spotted with light that moved when the wind moved the branches above, shifting and rippling like the bottom of a shallow sea.

Leonora walked ahead of me. Her sword was at her hip and her hand rested on the pommel and her boots were quiet on the root paths. She moved differently at night. The military precision was there but underneath it a watchfulness that was closer to hunting than patrolling. Her head turned at sounds I couldn't hear. Her shoulders adjusted when the shadows moved.

We didn't talk.

The silence was hers. She'd set it when we left the settlement and maintained it for the first quarter mile and I let her have it because Leonora's silences were load-bearing. She was working through something. The silence was where she did it.

The forest hummed around us. Insects I couldn't see making sounds I couldn't identify. The creak of wood, the rustle of canopy, the low vibration of the roots that I'd been feeling since we entered Alfheim. The Blessing picked up warmth from the living wood as we passed. The trees were alive in a way that pressed against my skin like proximity to a fire.

"You're faster," Leonora said. Without turning around.

"You mentioned."

"During the spar. Your reaction speed has improved by a measurable degree since last week. Your footwork is better. Your blade technique includes combinations I haven't taught you and Filia hasn't drilled."

"You catalog all your sparring partners like this?"

"I catalog threats."

"Am I a threat?"

She stopped walking. Turned halfway. The blue-green light from the fungi caught the line of her jaw and the loose strand of hair that had escaped her tie.

"You're getting closer to being one," she said.

She turned back and kept walking. I followed.

The path narrowed between root ridges. The canopy was thicker here and the bioluminescence dimmer and the shadows between the roots were deep and dark. Leonora's hand moved from her pommel to her hilt. Not drawing. Ready.

I felt it before I saw it.

The Blessing registered a presence. Large. Wrong. The warmth of living things had a feel to it through the absorbed senses and this wasn't warm. It was cold. The same cold I'd felt in the root caves, the purple-black corruption, the inverted magic.

"Stop," I said. Low.

Leonora stopped. Her hand was on her blade. Her body had gone still in the way that combat-trained bodies go still, every muscle engaged and none of them moving.

It came through the trees thirty feet ahead. Large. Multiple limbs, jointed wrong, the body a mass of corrupted root-matter and chitin. Bigger than the cave creatures. Slower. Its legs moved through the undergrowth in a deliberate pattern, avoiding roots, navigating the forest floor like it knew the terrain. Purple light pulsed faintly from its core.

Leonora's blade was half-drawn.

I grabbed her arm. Shook my head.

The creature passed. Moving east, perpendicular to our path, its legs clicking on the root ridges. It didn't look at us. It didn't change direction. It moved through the bioluminescent dark and the glow of its corrupted core faded between the trees and the forest sounds came back.

We were pressed against a tree trunk. I didn't remember moving. The adrenaline had done it, the Blessing-enhanced reflexes putting my back against bark and pulling Leonora with me and we were shoulder to shoulder against the tree and her hand was still on her blade and my hand was still on her arm and we were breathing hard and the creature was gone.

Her shoulder was against mine. The leather of her armor on my shirt. Her breathing through her nose, controlled but fast. The heat of her arm under my grip.

Neither of us moved.

The adrenaline was running and the forest was quiet and the blue-green light was pulsing on the roots around us and her shoulder was pressed against mine and I could feel her pulse through the contact. Fast. Hard.

I let go of her arm. She didn't step away.

She was looking at me. In the bioluminescent dark her eyes were catching the light and her face was half in shadow and her jaw was working. Her mouth opened like she wanted to say something and no sound came out.

"Leonora-"

"Don't."

She walked away. Three steps. Stopped.

Stood there with her back to me. Her shoulders tight. Her hand on her sword hilt. The blue-green light on her armor and her hair and the rigid line of her spine.

She came back.

Her hands went to her right gauntlet. The buckle at the wrist. She undid it slowly. Watching my face. Her fingers worked the leather strap and the metal clasp and she pulled the gauntlet off and held it in her left hand.

Her right hand was bare.

I'd never seen her hands without gloves or gauntlets. She was always armored. Always covered. Even during meals she wore her leather training gloves.

Her palm was wide and calloused. Sword calluses on the fingers and the heel of her hand, the same pattern as Filia's but deeper, harder, built over more years. A thin scar ran along the side of her index finger. Her nails were cut short.

She raised her hand. Placed it against my jaw.

The contact was warm. Her palm against my skin, her calluses rough on my cheekbone, and her thumb traced the line of my jaw from the hinge to the chin. Slow. Deliberate. The way she did everything.

"I don't do this," she said.

"I know."

"I'm here as an escort. A professional. My duty is to the queen and the mission and-"

"I know."

"I don't-" Her thumb stopped on my cheekbone. Her hand was steady on my face. The rest of her was not. Her breathing was fast and her jaw was clenched and underneath the gauntlet in her left hand, her fingers were trembling.

"I don't lose control," she said. "I don't let this happen. I've been a soldier for fifteen years and I don't-"

I covered her hand with mine.

She stopped talking. Her palm was pressed between my hand and my face and her pulse was hammering against my skin. Fast and hard and she was looking at me and her eyes were wide and her lips were parted and she wasn't breathing.

I held her hand against my jaw. Felt her pulse. Let her feel mine.

The forest hummed around us. Blue-green light pulsing on the roots. The distant sound of the settlement behind us. Her palm warm on my face and her pulse hammering and neither of us speaking and neither of us moving.

She pulled away.

The warmth left my face. She pulled the gauntlet back on. Buckled it. Flexed the fingers. Checked the fit. Every motion precise. Military.

She walked ahead. Didn't speak.

I followed.

She didn't speak for the rest of the patrol. Not a word. Her boots precise on the root paths and her posture straight and her hand on her sword and her face forward.

But she walked close.

Close enough that her arm brushed mine with every step. Through the leather of her armor and the fabric of my shirt, the contact was there. Persistent. Every other stride her forearm touched mine and neither of us adjusted our pace and neither of us moved apart and the brushing was a rhythm that lasted the entire walk back to the settlement.

She didn't say goodnight.

She climbed the staircase to her platform. I climbed to mine. The distance between us was twenty feet of vertical elf architecture and a decision she hadn't made yet.

I could still feel her pulse on my palm.