Greyhaven — The Wagon Yard
The merchants arrived two mornings later, filling the wagon yard with shouting drivers, sweating horses, and crates that apparently belonged everywhere except where someone had just put them.
Orion was helping the stable hand shift a stack of feed sacks when he heard a young woman object to a wagon's load.
"Those shouldn't be up there. They're going to slide as soon as you take a turn."
The loader glanced at the crates. "They're tied."
"To the rail. Which is already splitting."
Orion set his sack down and looked. "She's right. Bring the heavy ones lower and spread them out. If we put the smaller cases between them, you can lash the load to the frame instead."
The woman turned toward him, brushing her black hair away from her face. She seemed close to his age, with her sleeves rolled back and a sword at her hip.
"You know wagons?"
"Enough to know what happens when you load them badly. I traveled with a merchant."
"Then could you help me before someone decides the solution is more rope?" She held out her hand. "Sofia Blackheart."
He shook it. "Orion."
She hired him to reorganize the load, then kept him through the morning helping with pickups and deliveries around Greyhaven. When she asked where he had learned the work, he told her about traveling with Cyrus: keeping stock dry, balancing a wagon, and knowing which goods were likely to be damaged if someone got careless.
"My father says most people learn after they break something," Sofia said, checking a delivery against her ledger. "You sound like you had someone watching you."
"Usually while telling me I was doing it wrong."
"Was he?"
Orion smiled. "Often enough."
By midday, Damien and Saphira had joined them. Damien helped with the heavier work while Saphira checked the small packages against Sofia's instructions, asking whenever she wasn't sure.
At lunch, Sofia bought them food and explained that her father owned the company. She had come to oversee this run herself and would be returning to Brackenford once the business in town was finished.
"You're running the deliveries on your own?" Saphira asked.
"With drivers. And with my father expecting a full account of every mistake when I get back." Sofia rested a hand on her ledger. "I'm trying to make it a short account."
Damien glanced toward the loaded wagons. "You hiring escorts for the return trip?"
"If I find people worth paying. I can handle a weapon, but I can't watch both wagons at once."
"We've heard about trouble north of town."
"So have I. The return road runs that way for a while before turning west." She looked at Orion. "You three looking for more work?"
He glanced at his companions before answering. "Depends on the terms."
Before agreeing to anything, they went over the route, supplies, duties, and payment. It would be a five-day journey at wagon pace, provided the roads held up. Meals were included, part of the fee would be paid before departure, and the remainder on arrival. Sofia wanted guards who would watch the cargo and the people handling it, not disappear whenever the wagons stopped.
"That sounds workable," Damien said. "Let's make sure you know what each of us can do before you hire us."
Saphira appreciated that he didn't answer for her. She told Sofia she was still learning to fight, though she could help with supplies and stay alert on the road.
Sofia considered her, then nodded. "That's more useful than someone who tells me they're a master swordsman and falls asleep on watch."
They agreed to give her an answer by evening.
Hawthorne Inn — That Evening
Damien spread their supplies across the bed while Orion checked the proposed route against Jace's list.
"It takes us farther west," Orion said. "We'd be moving with a reason instead of just riding from town to town."
"And earning while we do it," Damien added. "If it goes well, she might have more work for us. Her company travels through places we've never even heard of."
Saphira sat by the window. "You mean they could tell us things."
"Eventually. I'm not going to start asking her about Malden before we've even finished unloading her wagon. First we do the job and give her a reason to trust us."
Orion nodded. "Cyrus used to get work from people who'd seen him do a good job somewhere else. Sometimes that was worth more than what they paid him."
"Exactly. Work, people who know the roads, and a sensible explanation for why we're traveling." Damien folded a clean cloth around a box of ammunition. "It's better than waiting here until somebody recognizes a poster."
"What do you think?" Orion asked Saphira.
She looked from the supplies to him. "I want to come. I know I'm not as useful in a fight yet, but I don't want to stay behind."
"You're not staying behind. I'm asking whether you want us to take the job."
That made her sit a little straighter. "Then yes. I think we should."
They gave Sofia their answer before supper and left two mornings later. Saphira rode behind Orion, her bow secured with the rest of their equipment. Damien took the other horse, moving between the two wagons whenever the road narrowed.
The Westbound Trade Road — Four Days Later
Sofia was easy company. She asked Orion about places he had visited with Cyrus and told him about the mistakes she was determined not to make on her first independently managed run. When a driver complained about a stop, she listened, checked the horses, and made the decision herself.
Orion respected that. He also found it easier to talk about trade than almost anything else; it was work he understood, from a time he hadn't spent constantly looking over his shoulder.
Saphira understood why they got along. That didn't make it any easier to watch Sofia step close to him over a ledger, laughing at something he said while their shoulders nearly touched.
She looked away and tightened a strap that was already tight.
"You could go talk to him."
Saphira froze. She was beside the supply wagon, away from the others, and the voice seemed to have come from somewhere near her ear.
She turned. No one stood there.
(I'm doing it again.)
"Doing what?"
Her fingers slipped off the strap.
"Who's there?" she whispered.
"Right here. You don't have to look so far."
One of the drivers called for help with a loose cover. Saphira went to him quickly, grateful for something she could understand. By the time they finished, she had almost convinced herself she was overtired.
That evening she sat beside Orion while he cleaned his equipment. He asked about her ankle and whether the riding had made it ache again. She said it was fine, then stayed longer than she needed to, enjoying that his attention was on her.
She nearly mentioned the voice. Instead, she asked him to check how she had tied her bow to the saddle.
The following morning brought something Orion couldn't explain either.
He heard a scrape from beyond a bend. The lead driver kept urging his horses forward, apparently unaware of it. Looking into the trees, he found the movement of leaves unusually clear. Gaps between branches seemed easier to pick apart, and when a bird crossed the road he followed it with a sharpness that made him blink.
Saphira leaned forward behind him. "Your eyes."
"What about them?"
"They've gone gold."
He turned enough to look at her. "Both of them?"
She nodded.
Orion rubbed his eyes, then looked back toward the bend. The scrape came again, followed by a low voice that shouldn't have reached him through the leaves.
"Stop the wagons," he called.
Damien saw his expression and moved immediately. Sofia raised a hand to her lead driver while Orion swung down, leaving Saphira to hold the reins.
"What did you hear?" Sofia asked, joining him.
"Someone ahead. More than one." He looked toward the trees. "Get behind the wagon."
A man stepped onto the road with a crossbow leveled at them.
"Little late for that."
Bandits emerged from both sides of the road. One caught the lead horse's bridle; another moved toward the second wagon while their apparent leader demanded that everyone put their weapons down.
Damien stayed near the rear wagon, watching the men trying to surround it. Sofia drew her sword.
"You can leave," she told the leader. "You're not taking the cargo."
The crossbowman shifted his aim toward her. Orion caught the movement before he expected to, grabbed her sleeve, and pulled her behind the wagon as the bolt struck wood.
Then he was moving.
He hit the crossbowman before the man could reload, drove him into the roadside bank, and turned toward the nearest bandit. The man's shoulders gave away his swing so clearly that Orion stepped inside it almost without thinking. He knocked the weapon aside and drove an elbow into the man's jaw.
The strange clarity stayed with him. He could hear boots scraping behind him, see a hand shift on a blade before its owner committed to the strike. It didn't tell him what to do, but it gave him more time to decide.
At the rear wagon, Damien intercepted a bandit climbing toward the cargo. A controlled burst from his Brand sent the man off the wheel and onto the road. Damien ducked a second attacker's club and struck him in the stomach, careful to keep the force away from the wagon and its frightened driver.
Sofia fought beside Orion once he cleared the crossbowman. She could use the sword she carried, turning a cut aside and forcing its owner back toward him. Orion caught the opening and dropped the man with a hard blow to the ribs.
Saphira had dismounted and taken cover as instructed, holding her bow. She could see Sofia close beside Orion, the two of them watching opposite sides of the same fight.
"You're really going to let her do that?"
Saphira looked toward her shoulder.
A tiny bird of flame stood there, its feathers moving like the tips of a fire. It tilted its head at her as if they had been speaking all morning.
"Do what?" Saphira whispered.
"Get that close to him. Look at her."
"They're fighting."
"And she's finding plenty of reasons to stay beside him. Are you going to let this homewrecker steal your man?"
"He isn't—" Saphira stopped as Sofia caught Orion's arm to turn him away from an incoming blade.
The bird leaned closer. "Then why does it bother you?"
Saphira knew she should be watching the bandits. She knew Sofia had done nothing except help. But the sight caught against a fear she had been trying not to name: that Orion would find someone braver, stronger, easier to have beside him, and there would be no reason to keep her there.
Heat swept through her before she could answer.
Orion glanced toward her to make sure she was still behind cover. With his sharpened sight, he caught something small and bright on her shoulder.
Then the brightness spread.
Saphira's blonde hair lifted and streamed into flame. Fire outlined her body, gathering into a fitted mantle and flowing panels unlike the clothes beneath it. She stood upright, no longer crouching behind the wagon, and a curved bow formed between her hands.
Orion stared.
"Saphira?"
She drew a blazing arrow with a confidence she hadn't possessed during any lesson. Her eyes were fixed on Sofia, still beside him.
"Get away from him!"
She released.
At that same instant, a bandit lunged out of the trees toward Orion's unguarded side. Sofia stepped back to turn her sword, and the man crossed the arrow's path.
It struck him before his blade reached Orion, throwing him sideways into the dirt. Flame flashed across his coat. Orion stamped it out while Sofia kicked the fallen weapon away.
For a moment, everyone nearest them stopped moving.
Damien looked from the groaning bandit to Saphira's fiery bow. "Well. That's one way to get him off Orion."
"Good shot," Sofia said, breathless.
Saphira lowered the bow. The anger on her face faltered as she realized where the arrow had gone.
"He was too close," she managed.
Orion heard movement behind him and forced himself to turn back to the fight. There would be time to ask questions if they got everyone through it.
The remaining bandits recovered first. Two rushed Damien together; he knocked the nearer man off balance and used him to block the second. Orion crossed to help, intercepted a blade, and drove its owner down. Sofia kept the drivers behind cover and disarmed a man who tried to reach them from the other side.
After that, the bandits' confidence broke. One ran for the trees. Damien caught him before he got far, hauling him back by the collar.
"You wanted us to stay put," he said. "Only fair you do the same."
By the time the last man surrendered, the bow had vanished from Saphira's hands. Her hair settled back into its familiar blonde, and the fiery mantle faded, leaving her in her traveling clothes. She swayed and caught the side of the wagon.
Orion reached her immediately. "Sit down."
She obeyed, too shaken to argue.
"Are you hurt?"
"I don't think so. I'm just tired." She stared at her hands. "I don't know what happened."
He looked at her shoulder. The little bird was gone too.
"We'll talk once we're away from here."
They checked the drivers and horses, then bound the bandits beside the road. The man hit by Saphira's arrow was alive, though he made considerably more noise than anyone else. They dressed his burns as well as their supplies allowed before binding him with the others.
Sofia checked both wagons and recovered the scattered cargo. Nothing important had been lost. With no one left free to follow them, the group resumed the journey.
Westbound Trade Road — Later
Saphira rode behind Orion again, her arms around his waist. Damien stayed nearer the wagons, giving them room to speak while keeping an eye on the road.
For a while, Orion listened to the horses' hooves. His vision had returned to normal, and Saphira had told him his eyes were blue again. Everything else was harder to put back where it belonged.
"Start with what you remember," he said eventually.
She rested her forehead briefly against his back. "I heard someone talking. It happened before today too. Once at the inn, when I was asleep, and again on the road. I thought I was dreaming or talking to myself."
"What did it say?"
Saphira hesitated. "Different things. Today there was a little bird on my shoulder, made of fire. It was talking to me, and then I got hot, and everything changed."
"I saw something on your shoulder."
She lifted her head. "You saw it too?"
"Just before you changed. I thought I was seeing things because of whatever was happening to my eyes." He exhaled. "But I saw the rest of it too. That part wasn't just you."
"You can stop talking about me as if I'm not here."
Orion went rigid. Saphira's hands tightened against his coat.
A small flame rose beside his shoulder and resolved into the bird Saphira had described. It fluttered once, then perched where he could see it without turning far.
"Keep looking at the road," it said. "I'd rather you didn't walk us into a tree."
Orion pulled the horse to a halt instead.
Damien turned in his saddle. "What now?"
"Give me a moment."
The bird looked pleased with itself. "You can call me Ember."
Orion stared at it, then at Saphira. She stared back with an expression that made it quite clear she had no better explanation.
"Where did you come from?" he asked.
"You. You kept pouring your power into her. Some of it stayed." Ember tilted her head. "I'm a very small part of what's inside you. Now I'm in her too."
Orion's hand closed around the reins. "Did I hurt her?"
"I'm sitting right here," Saphira said, although her voice wasn't entirely steady. "I don't feel hurt."
"You were healing her," Ember said. "That's why I'm here. What you saw earlier was closer to the shape I can take through her."
"The hair? The clothes? The bow?"
"Yes, Orion. That part."
He tried to fit the small, sharp-voiced creature in front of him together with the thing he had heard inside his own head.
"And I can do that?"
"You can draw more of that power into yourself too. Eventually. Your version won't look the same."
He glanced back at Saphira's restored clothes. "So I'm not going to turn into a girl?"
Saphira made a strangled sound behind him, somewhere between disbelief and laughter.
Ember stared. "No. That's the question you chose?"
"It seemed worth checking."
"What's inside you is much closer to the raw, beastly power. It'll express itself through you in its own way. Assuming you learn how to handle it instead of letting it handle you."
The amusement left Orion's face. "Then why don't you sound like this when I hear you? Usually it's angry. Deep. Like something trying to tear its way out."
Ember's feathers stirred. "You call that power the Demon Phoenix. It's Chaos, Orion. You've felt what that means. I'm only a little part of it; you're carrying far more than she is."
"Do all Shards have someone inside them?"
"I don't know." She answered without hesitation. "I can tell you about what I am, not every fragment someone might pick up. Chaos doesn't need to speak to make itself felt."
Orion looked down at his hands. He remembered losing control, remembered how readily the fury could feel like his own. Hearing a small bird explain it did nothing to make those memories less frightening.
Saphira pressed closer. "Are you going to keep changing me?"
"That took a lot out of me," Ember said. "I'm not doing it again right now. I'm going back inside to rest."
"Inside me?"
"Where else? I can recover by feeding on a little of your own chaotic nature."
Saphira straightened. "I don't have any chaotic tendencies."
Ember gave her a long look.
"I don't," she repeated, more firmly, suddenly very aware that Orion was listening.
The little bird's eyes flicked toward the wagons and back to her. "Of course."
Orion glanced over his shoulder. "Saphira—"
"She's being difficult," Saphira said.
"I gathered that," Orion replied.
Ember yawned, a tiny flare escaping from her beak. "You two can work it out. I'm tired."
She fluttered to Saphira's shoulder and dissolved into a warmth beneath her cloak.
Saphira sat very still. Whatever she had said, she knew there was anger inside her. She had carried it through too many days when showing it would have brought another punishment. Freedom hadn't erased what her father and Morrison had done. It had simply given her room to feel it without looking over her shoulder first.
She wasn't ready to explain all of that to Orion. She was even less ready to explain where she had aimed the arrow.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
She considered the question before answering. "I don't really know yet."
"Neither do I." He looked toward the wagons, then back at her. "Tell me if you hear her again. Or if anything feels wrong. Don't sit with it by yourself."
Saphira loosened her grip slightly. "I thought you'd think I was imagining things."
"A bird just called me an idiot without actually using the word. We're past that."
She laughed, and some of the strain left her shoulders.
Damien rode back toward them, looking between their faces. "Can we move, or is there something else I should be worried about?"
Orion gathered the reins. "Probably. I'll explain when we stop."
"That's becoming a very familiar answer."
They caught up with the wagons. Saphira settled against Orion's back as the horse resumed its steady pace, watching Sofia ride beside the lead driver.
When Sofia glanced back and raised a hand in thanks, Saphira returned the gesture. Her other arm stayed around Orion.