They talked through the afternoon and into the evening, the setting sun listening to their mutual stories. Cadence being saved by a wandering man who claimed to be an adventurer. Oli joining an order of knights that followed in the footsteps of those same adventurers. Allana and Tenebres alike being trained by yet another man who claimed the same allegiance.

  The four young adventurers–there was no getting around that title anymore–sat in a circle and looked at each other, their faces for once betraying mutual shock. Olivia’s eyes were wide with surprise. Allana kept blinking in the evening sun, as if she couldn’t quite believe her ears. Tenebres’s eyes narrowed as he analyzed the situation. Cadence appeared distracted, as at that moment, nothing filled her mind as much as a joking deflection she had heard Storyteller make to Ryme his first day in Felisen.

  “Would you believe it was a coincidence?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t either. We’ll have to call it fate, then.”

  “Fate,” Cadence found herself saying out loud. Slowly, another thought began building in her head, a small coincidence she had noticed before suddenly magnified by the knowledge they had all shared. “Oli, didn’t you say your trial duel was the first day of spring?”

  The squire nodded. “All the trial duels in the Court were fought on the first day of a season, and I turned sixteen over the winter.”

  “Me too,” Cadence told her. “And I went to the barrens on the same day–I remember it, because all the hunters were having a meeting to discuss duties and patrols for the spring.”

  “Hmm,” Allana pursed her lips thoughtfully. “That’s weird.” Three sets of eyes turned to her, still lounging atop a tall boulder. “I mean, I never really kept track of the calendar, but I’m pretty sure I met Geoffrey in the early spring.” The wraith paused, chewing her bottom lip for a second. “No wait, it was the first day of spring. Telik had sent me the note a week or so before, telling me to go to the meeting on that day specifically. I remember thinking it was weird.”

  Now all eyes turned to Tenebres, who raised his shoulders defensively. “Don’t look at me. Kellen’s cult wasn’t really big on calendars. All I know was that it was somewhere near the end of winter when they tried to kill me–I had snuck out a couple days before, and I remember that the air had just started to warm.”

  “End of winter, start of spring,” Cadence mused, unnecessarily.

  “Too much of a coincidence to ignore,” Olivia said. “All of us ended up making contact with adventurers, and having our lives changed, on the first day of spring?”

  “Speak for yourselves,” Tenebres said. “Even if the sacrifice was on the first day of spring, I certainly didn’t meet any adventurers.”

  “But you have to admit,” Cadence told him, “Something weird happened. Something changed and caused that ritual to save you instead of killing you.”

  “And it put you on the path to Emeston, and me, and Geoffrey,” Allana pointed out. “If they hadn’t tried to sacrifice you, you might still be in the cult right now. I’d either be dead or bound to Telik, and without us, these two wouldn’t have had a chance against Xythen.”

  “What are the odds?” Olivia asked.

  “Too small to even consider,” Cadence replied. “Because it wasn’t luck at all–it was fate.”

  That claim hung in the air for a few long moments, too heavy to ignore but too certain to argue.

  “Want to maybe explain what you mean by that?” Tenebres finally asked.

  Cadence rolled her shoulders. “I don’t know. It’s the sort of thing Storyteller–that’s my mentor, the one who saved me–would say all the time. He was a staunch believer that fate guided us. He probably would’ve said all of this made complete sense. I mean, he was even the one who led me to Jellis, where I met Olivia and got embroiled in this whole mess.”

  “There’s our composition, too,” Oli said thoughtfully.

  It was Oli’s turn to get a trio of surprised, questioning looks.

  She shrugged, wilting a little under the collective attention of the group. “Well, think about it. We have a sturdy damage-dealing frontliner, a mobile scout and attacker with debuffs on her attacks, a battle mage that can make expendable utility bodies, and a flexible ranged attacker that can take on other roles if needed. All we’re really missing is a healer, and even lacking that, I know sentinels that would give their right hand for a cadre as solid as we are.”

  “And we only just met,” Allana muttered.

  “We do fight really well together,” Tenebres admitted.

  Cadence nodded. Her eyes swept over the group, and she cleared her throat. “Look, I’m just going to be upfront here and propose something. Corpse hag or no, I think it’s worth continuing to journey together for a while.”

  Allana huffed, rolling her eyes. “Cadie, we tried to kill each other a day ago. We barely know each other. Don’t you think that’s a little presumptuous?”

  Cadence shrugged. “Allana, you’re using a nickname for me already. Look, I’ve never been much for pretending when something feels right. And the four of us just do.”

  Tenebres swallowed–but he met Cadence’s eyes, bright red and bright blue staring into each other. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree.”

  “Seo,” Allana groaned, exasperated.

  “Did you have any better plans for what to do next?” Tenebres asked her sharply. “You and I both know we’re not going back to Emeston anytime soon.”

  “I thought we wanted to learn more about your gift,” Allana replied, “and figure out who Sebastian Freehold is.”

  “We can do that,” Cadence said easily. “I don’t have any real plans either, besides exploring the Realm, trying to level up some, and helping people whenever I have the chance.”

  Allana frowned, but she begrudgingly admitted, “That doesn’t sound too bad to me.”

  “Maybe not to you,” Olivia said, “but I have commitments back in Correntry.”

  “Do you though?” Cadence asked. Olivia gave her a fierce look, but she continued, “You said yourself Adeline was going out on other jobs while you were gone. She might not even be in Correntry anymore. And exploring the Realm helping people sounds like exactly what you said the Argent Order does.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Olivia blushed. “Well… Still.”

  Tenebres ventured, “I don’t know about anyone else, but I wouldn’t argue some time to relax in Correntry after all of this is over. It might give me time to do some research on my gift, anyway.”

  “If we survive, I’m down for that,” Allana agreed.

  “Pessimist,” Cadence teased her.

  “Realist,” Allana corrected with a smirk. She looked back to Oliva. “So how about it, Tall, Bright, and Broody?”

  Olivia frowned, her blush deepening a shade. “Maybe. After I talk to my mentor.”

  “Deal,” Cadence said. “We kill the corpse hag, we settle things in Jellis, and we head up to Correntry.”

  All four young adventurers nodded, and each held private their respective feelings of comfort, after so long.

  “Sure, it’s just gonna be that easy,” Allana said, snapping her fingers for emphasis.

  #

  Over the next few days, the newly formed party found themselves falling into a comfortable routine, as if they had traveled together for weeks. Cadence’s knowledge of woodcraft, drilled into her by Ryme, surpassed Tenebres’s half-remembered camping trips, but the two combined were able to make much more comfortable camps than either could alone. Between them, Cadence’s archery and Allana’s speed were enough to ensure they had fresh-caught dinner to roast most nights, and Olivia had become decent at setting up comfortable sleeping areas while Tenebres coaxed their nightly fire to life.

  The four quickly found themselves bonding over shared interests and idiosyncrasies. Oli and Tenebres shared an interest in the workings of magic, and Cadence’s lessons with Storyteller allowed her to contribute to their conversations occasionally, even as Cadence and Tenebres bonded over their shared childhoods in little villages, both happy to trade stories without drifting into the darker topics of Culles’s fate or the threats that loomed over Felisen.

  “Hunter is way more important,” Oli argued, one evening. “Farmers and ranchers and the rest of them don’t matter without hunters to protect them.”

  “That doesn’t mean they’re economically valuable though,” Tenebres replied. “If anything, they’re a drain on a village’s resources. They need the income from farmers and ranchers to buy the gear they need to function!”

  “You’re both wrong,” Caden called over absently, not looking up from the rabbit she was dressing. “Laborer is the most important gift in the Realm’s economy. They drive the lumber and mining trades, they assist the farmer gifted, and they act as porters for merchant caravans. Without laborers, the whole thing falls apart.”

  Olivia gave the celestial a narrow look. “Are you sure you haven’t studied this stuff?”

  Allana remained more aloof than the rest, but even she recognized that her standoffishness was more by habit than anything else. It had taken months for Tenebres to worm his way through her emotional defenses, and even if she had softened in their time together, it wasn’t so easy for her to let her strange new companions into her heart. She continued routinely bickering with Olivia, but there was less of the real vitriol that had defined their earliest conversations. Besides which, their arguments segued well into their nightly training sessions, with each helping the other to expand their skills against fighting styles they had little experience against.

  “Primal’s beard, hold still!” Olivia cursed, her sheathed sword swinging through the empty space Allana had occupied a moment before. She just barely spun around in time to get her shield in the way of one of Allana’s covered daggers, but the second still slipped under her guard.

  “Is that what you’re going to say when a specter starts dodging around?” Allana asked with a smirk.

  “No, I’ll do this!”

  The Gust Blast caught Allana off-guard, throwing her backwards, straight into a nearby tree–but before the squire could take advantage of it, a complex pattern of glowing lights appeared in the air above her.

  Olivia paused before the display, studying the intricate, dancing glow carefully, and didn’t notice that Allana had moved until a dagger tapped the back of her neck.

  “You have too many tricks,” Cadence observed, watching from one side.

  “Look who’s talking.”

  Cadence and Allana got on much better. The first time Allana had flirted with Cadie, right in front of Tenebres, the celestial could have been knocked over by an errant breeze. But rather than expressing any offense, Tenebres merely rolled his eyes and continued working on the fire, the corners of his gray lips upturned into a smile. As Allana had said, they had established early into their vaguely defined relationship that they weren’t exclusive.

  And they weren’t the only ones with an obvious attraction. More than once, Cadence and Allana had noticed the hints Tenebres was dropping at Olivia–a lingering touch while they spoke, frequent eye contact, little smile, a habit of walking near each other when they were traveling. Still, the boy was too subtle–just as she had proven in Hugo’s caravan, Olivia was completely oblivious. One night, while hunting, Cadence and Allana discussed it.

  “I think it’s part of her dysphoria,” Cadence explained. “She’s so uncomfortable in her own body that the idea of anyone else being attracted to her is impossible.”

  “Still though,” Allana said. “It’s so obvious. I don’t think Tenebres is crushing on her, but he definitely wants to get some.

  “You should’ve seen her when we were in that caravan together. One of the warden girls, Rose, all but threw herself at Oli and I still don’t think she figured it out until Rose literally kissed her.”

  Allana snorted. “Well, I’m not telling them. This is too much fun to watch.”

  #

  “We should make it to the compound entrance by midday tomorrow,” Tenebres announced. It was their third night since they had learned of their shared interests as adventurers, and already, there was little sign of the tension that had hung around them on their first day together.

  Cadence, sitting by the fire, nodded in acknowledgement, while Allana, leaning against a nearby tree, watched with serious eyes.

  Oli was honing her sword, a nightly habit once she had finished practicing with Allana. “We should take a quick catalog of supplies,” the squire suggested.

  There was a general chorus of assent, even Allana not arguing. “Tenebres and I each still have a health potion on us,” she volunteered.

  “They’re not fantastic, though,” Tenebres chimed in. “Middling at best. They might keep us moving after an injury, but they won’t save anyone’s life.”

  Olivia nodded seriously. “I’ve got a couple restoration potions. The good stuff, for stamina and focus.” The squire missed the health potions Adeline had given her months before, but they had gotten used in the aftermath of the caravan fight.

  Cadence took out her replenishing flask and shook it, making a sour face at the sloshing liquid sound inside. “I’ve got maybe two swigs of energy potion left, and that’s it. I’m almost out of my good arrows, too. The fire wight burned most of them too much for them to recover.”

  “Okay,” Oli nodded. “Not as much as I’d like, but all we should need, if we do this right.”

  The group nodded. Led mostly by Oli, as their most trained strategist, and Allana, as their most experienced combatant, they had spent some time each night discussing the best ways to use all of their powers together.

  “The first rule of fighting someone stronger than yourself is not letting them get a hand on you,” Allana told them. “If we give this hag time to respond, the results will probably be bad.”

  “So we use our abilities,” Olivia agreed. “Distract her, then get a hit in, distract, attack, wear her down, never let her focus on any one of us. Tenebres leads–while the hag is dealing with an imp, Cadence can get in a couple shots. By the time she responds to Cadence, Allana is ready to drop a distraction, like Compelling Pattern, and I blindside her with a Reckless Strike. She turns to deal with me, and Allana gets her from behind. She tries to answer Allana, she gets another imp.”

  “I don’t care how powerful a moderate ranked outsider is–it’s four-on-one,” Allana told them grimly. “We keep the pressure on, keep her from responding effectively, and we can take her down.”

  All four of the young adventurers nursed their own concerns about the plans, but they all kept quiet about them. They didn’t have any better options–and none of them tried to suggest leaving the hag to someone else. They had all seen the fate of Culles. They refused to give the hag the chance to do the same in Geltis or Jellis.