*Weekly updates* "There are no leashes now, no bindings," she says, her voice a dark lullaby in the flickering candlelight, "and it is their sacrifice that gave us this. Nothing can ever repay it. No one can ever take it from us. So now, in this hal...
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Recovering was a challenge Ben had never foreseen.
He should have; it is only sensible, logical that the expulsion of great power requires great sacrifice, that the bow should require—demand—some dark sacrifice. He can see that now. After everything.
Not that it's really over.
Ben has a notion, an understanding no one will quite tell him, though he thinks he can see it in their eyes sometimes, that he's never really going to recover from this. That he'll never regain full functional use of his hands again. Not like they used to. They're black now, black and stiff, shriveled almost, as if something essential has left them, as if green fire has burned them away.
I'll never lift a sword again, he thinks. Though, I think, I could still hold a bow.
He's been foolish. Unbelievably foolish. The demonstration has been costly—perhaps it would have been too costly, had news of it not spread like wildfire, igniting little fires everywhere it traveled.
They know now there's a chance, he thinks. They know now there's hope.
That is something he'd give his hands for.
There's a knock—Davelin, who stepped up when Ben fell down, coming now to bring more news. But it is not just news the Smith Skiller enters with.
There's a group of men with him, unfamiliar to Ben, but bearing the signs of hard travel.
"They come from Roften," Davelin tells him. "They've got a message for you."
"Come from Rikki Moorjin," the tall, thin one says, and he's rolling an unlit cigarette between his fingers like a habit, a reflex. "We were stationed up there with the beast-caller, Iaves. Got some things to tell you and a favor to return."
He's dead, Ben thinks, knows, though he could not tell Davelin how. He's known since he used the bow, and it's only confirmed now in the look on their faces.
"Go ahead and tell me then," Ben answers.
The man chews for a minute, as if tasting the words.
"Your friend is dead," he says. "When he heard of the returning army he had us stage an ambush. Meant to kill the two leaders, the blond Roftenian woman and the Solveig nobleman who traveled with the Paragon. He was cut down by the woman when we engaged them, but not before he killed one of those masked creatures the Paragon has. Us remaining were taken captive."
"And you escaped?" Ben prompts.
"Nah," the man answers. "We were cut loose. That same Solveig man came back, took out the guard, and set us free in the dead of night."
"The Solveig nobleman?" Ben asks sharply.
"Aye, the blonde one. Told us to come find you. Told us to pass you a message."
