The Evening Before Lira's First Scout Mission
The camp settled into darkness slowly, reluctantly, like an old man lowering himself into a chair.
Fires dimmed to embers. Voices softened to murmurs. Tents glowed faintly from within, candles and lanterns fighting back the night in small, private pockets of light. The watch changed—soldiers trudging to posts, others stumbling toward bedrolls, the endless cycle of an army that never truly slept.
Lira sat outside her tent, watching it all.
Her knife moved in steady strokes across the whetstone. Steel against stone. A rhythm she'd learned years ago, from her father, before he'd gone off to a war and never come back. The motion was comforting. Automatic. It left her mind free to wander.
Tomorrow, she left.
First solo scout mission. Not training. Not shadowing a veteran who made all the decisions and took all the risks. Just her, the forest, and whatever waited beyond the reach of torches and sentries.
She'd requested this. Fought for it. Told Captain Voren she was ready, that she'd prove it, that he wouldn't regret giving her a chance.
Now, the night before, she wondered if she'd made a terrible mistake.
What if I'm not ready?
The thought slid through her mind like a snake through grass. She pushed it away. It came back.
What if I miss something? What if someone dies because I wasn't paying attention? What if I freeze when it matters? What if—
She sharpened faster. The rhythm broke. She caught herself, forced her hand to slow.
Stop, she told herself. This isn't helping.
But telling yourself to stop being afraid wasn't the same as actually stopping. She'd learned that years ago too.
---
Footsteps in the snow.
She looked up.
Aldric stood a few feet away, wrapped in his worn cloak, staff in hand. His face was tired—it was always tired now, after months of Mirena's training—but his eyes were clear. Alert. He looked at her the way he looked at everything: like he was trying to understand.
"Couldn't sleep?" she asked.
"Could ask you the same."
She gestured with the knife. "This needed sharpening."
"It's past midnight."
"Knives don't know what time it is."
He considered this. Nodded slowly. Then, without asking permission, he sat beside her. Close enough that their shoulders almost touched through layers of wool and leather. He didn't speak. Just sat there, present, while she worked.
The rhythm returned. Steel against stone. The familiar sound of preparation.
After a while, she stopped.
"Aren't you going to ask?"
"Ask what?"
"If I'm scared."
Aldric looked at her. Really looked. The way he did sometimes, like he was seeing past her face into whatever was happening inside.
"Are you scared?" he asked.
Lira considered the question. Turned it over in her mind like a stone found on a path. Examined its edges, its weight, its shape.
"Yeah," she said quietly. "I think so. A little."
"Good."
She blinked. "Good?"
"Being scared means you're paying attention. Means you know it's real." He stared into the darkness beyond the tents. "Grog told me that. After I found out about—" He gestured vaguely. "Everything. He said fear isn't the enemy. Not paying attention is the enemy. Fear just tells you to pay attention."
Lira turned this over too.
"Huh," she said finally.
"Yeah."
They sat in silence.
The camp continued its slow settling around them. A soldier laughed somewhere—too loud, probably drunk. Another shushed him. Muffled voices, then quiet. Footsteps as the watch changed again. The distant nicker of horses in the picket lines.
Ordinary sounds. The music of people living ordinary lives, unaware of the weight Lira carried, the things she knew about the darkness waiting in the trees.
"You'll be fine," Aldric said.
She looked at him. "You don't know that."
"No. But I know you." He met her eyes. "You're the smartest person I've ever met. You notice things no one else does. You're fast and sneaky and you never give up." He paused. "When we were kids—when we first came here—you were the one who figured out which sergeants to avoid, which assignments were dangerous, which soldiers couldn't be trusted. You saw it all. I just stumbled along behind you."
Lira stared at him.
Aldric's face was serious. Earnest. Utterly without guile. He meant every word. She could always tell when Aldric meant something—he got this look, this open, vulnerable look, like he was handing you a piece of himself and hoping you'd be careful with it.
"I didn't know you noticed all that," she said.
"I notice you. You're my friend." He shrugged. "I pay attention."
Something warm moved in Lira's chest. Small but solid.
"Thanks," she managed.
He nodded. Stood. Brushed snow from his cloak.
"Come back tomorrow," he said. "I need someone to complain to about Mirena."
Lira almost smiled. "I'll try."
He walked toward his tent, staff tapping against the frozen ground, until the darkness swallowed him.
Lira sat alone with her knife and her thoughts.
---
Grog found her an hour later.
She'd moved. Couldn't sit still anymore, couldn't bear the close walls of the tent and the breathing of her tentmates. She sat at the edge of camp now, on a fallen log someone had dragged there for sitting. The tree line loomed ahead. Dark. Silent. Full of things that might be watching.
He sat beside her without asking. That was Grog—he never asked. Just appeared, settled, waited.
"You should sleep," he said.
"So should you."
"Different reasons."
She almost smiled. "Yeah. Probably."
They sat together, watching the darkness.
The wind moved through the trees. Soft sound, almost musical. Snow drifted from branches, catching the faint light from the camp behind them.
"Tomorrow," Grog said finally, "you go into the forest. You look for signs of Vargr. Tracks, mostly. Maybe camp remains, if they've been careless. You stay hidden. You observe. You come back." He paused. "That's all. Don't engage. Don't follow if they're close. Don't take risks. Just watch and return."
Lira nodded. "I know."
"What you don't know—" He stopped. Started again. "What you don't know is that I've done this before. Watched friends go into danger. Watched some of them not come back."
She looked at him. His face was hard to read in the darkness, but she'd learned. The slight tension in his jaw. The way his hands rested on his knees, still but ready.
"In the old timeline," he continued, "you were a scout. A good one. The best. You survived things that killed others. Made it through wars that swallowed whole companies." He met her eyes. "But you also took risks. Too many. Because you cared too much. Because you couldn't stand to lose anyone."
Lira's throat tightened.
"I'm telling you this," Grog said, "because I need you to come back. Not just tomorrow. Every time. For twenty-three more years." He paused. "We can't do this without you. Aldric can't do this without you. The thing in the dark—it's patient, but it's also watching. Waiting for weakness. Waiting for cracks. If we lose you—" He stopped.
Didn't finish.
Didn't need to.
Lira looked at the trees. At the darkness. At the unknown waiting beyond.
"I'll come back," she said quietly.
Grog nodded.
They sat together, two figures on a log at the edge of a sleeping camp, watching the forest where enemies hid and shadows waited.
The wind moved.
The snow fell.
The night stretched on.
And somewhere in the darkness, red eyes watched them both.