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173

Mateo slammed the crossbow down on its head and shoved his foot into the stirrup, keeping his eye on Ander's demented freak of a brother. The brute's tongue was hanging out, exposing a great gash right through the middle, as if it were trying to split in two like a snake's.

With a grunt of effort Mateo pulled the string back, feeling the familiar burn in his arms and back, until it clicked into place.

Banno was still standing on the upper level, watching him with that demonic eye of his, his head slightly tilted.

He saw the twins using this, he thought, pulling a bolt from the quiver at his hip. He must know what it can do, so why is he just standing there?

Mateo didn't have time to ponder such things. He slipped the bolt into the groove, braced the stock against his shoulder and raised it to eye level.

Banno was now crouched on top of the railing like the biggest, ugliest spider in the world.

Mateo blinked. Had he done that in the split second it had taken him to load the bolt? The rational part of his mind insisted it was impossible, that there was no way a Wolf of that size (with a missing foot, no less) could jump up and land on a railing no wider than the palm of his hand in the blink of an eye without making so much as a sound, but Ol' Dean's blood was still fresh in his memory. The suddenness of it. One moment still smiling, and the next, dead. He remembered how the wind had tugged at the brim of his hat, and then snatched it away.

Banno was fast.

Mateo centred his aim right through the monster's forehead. If he was going to be kind enough to sit still like a duck in a pond, who was he to complain?

His fingers played across the tickler, moving across the curve, slowly increasing the pressure. He could feel the string pushing against the roller, straining to break free. Agatha was a beauty, but she was a bitch to reload. He might only get one shot at this. It had to count. He had to strike at the perfect moment, or everything would be lost.

A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead, or maybe it was blood from his bandages, he didn't know. All of his focus, all of his concentration, was centred on this single shot. In the smudgy, flickering light, he adjusted his aim by the smallest of fractums, until Banno's leering face was visible just above the metallic point of the bolt.

He wasn't moving. He wasn't even trying to make himself a harder target. It was eerily disturbing, to say the least.

Mateo had seen behaviour like this before, while hunting. Sometimes a deer would raise its head and spot you while you were still getting your aim right. In that single second it could easily bound away through the woods, and that's what usually happened, nine times out of ten. But sometimes, that one time out of ten, it would just stand there, frozen, and look at you with those black, shiny eyes, unblinking. The greyfurs say it only happens when an animal is too young to understand danger, or so old that it actually wants to die, but Mateo didn't think so. On the rare occasions when it happened to him, he would get a very different feeling from those eyes - those black, endless eyes like midnight wells. It was like it wanted_you to see its life being snuffed out, like it _wanted you to see its eyes go dull, like it wanted you to feel every drop of its blood coating your hands. It felt like it wanted to curse you with its own death.

And then it would disappear into the underbrush with a flick of its bottlebrush tail, and Mateo would be left holding his crossbow with shaking hands, taking deep, haggard breaths and trying to calm the trip hammering of his heart.

Those were always the hardest shots to make.

But this wasn't the same thing. Whatever Banno was doing, it wasn't anything like a frozen deer. Part of it was that smile. But was it even really a smile? It was more like a grouping of cuts, of meat sliced open and cleaved apart into the vague shape of a smile, something your mind tries to cobble together like when it sees a face in the clouds. Part of it was that curious tilt to the head. Part of it was that eye, watching carefully, like a child trying to figure out a magic trick. There was no fear in that eye at all, but there was no bravery either. How could there be? Bravery was something that manifested in the face of danger, and right now it felt like Banno didn't perceive any danger at all. It was like he didn't understand he was in a life and death situation, that he could die at any moment. All Mateo had to do was squeeze... the... tickler...

Something was wrong here. Very, very wrong. Mateo was the one with the weapon. Mateo was the one with the advantage. Mateo was the one who would save the day and finally make up for all those horrible things he had said. So why...

Why did it feel like he was the deer frozen before a hunter's bow?

Why did he feel like the prey cowering before the hunter?

Banno sat perched atop the railing, licking his lips, waiting patiently.

Dammit!

Mateo blinked the sweat out of his eyes, trained his crossbow just above the spot where Banno's mangled muzzle fused with his forehead, and pulled the trigger. The catch released and the roller spun. The string straightened out with a satisfying thwack! and shot the bolt through the air at the same time as the recoil jerked Agatha's stock forward.

That was what happened in the first moment. As for the next...

The bolt stuck fast inside the wall, its metallic head buried deep inside the wood. A single drop of blood slowly ran down the shaft, gradually staining it a deep shade of red on its journey to the fletching.

Banno giggled as a fresh gout of blood flowed down his forehead from the brand new gash at the top of his head. It was an ugly sound, a sound that seemed to attack you with mirth.

"No..." Mateo whispered. It was impossible.

"Too bad, Grumpy. I guess your aim needs a little practice."

No. Mateo's aim had been perfect. There was something else going on here, something that couldn't be attributed to a lack of accuracy or a loss of nerve, and he knew what it was, because it was still going on.

Banno wasn't looking at Agatha or Mateo. He was looking at Mateo's hands, more specifically, the one gripping the tickler. He must have gauged exactly how deeply he had to squeeze it before the shot actually fired, and moved his head out of the way just before the catch actually released the string. That was the only explanation. Mateo knew Agatha and he knew where her bolts were apt to go.

And, apparently, so did Banno.

He jumped down from the upper level and landed in a nasty smear of dried blood, probably from whatever had happened in here before. As he stood up straight, he fixed Mateo with that deep, black eye, a huge grin spreading across his mutilated face. "My turn."

Mateo slammed Agatha down on the ground, slipped his foot into the stirrup, grabbed her string and pulled back as quickly as he could, feeling the first threads of urgency beginning to invade the shell of wrath he had constructed around himself. He fumbled with the quiver at his side, pulled out a bolt and slapped it into the groove. He raised Agatha up against his shoulder and Banno was much closer now. He was walking along like he didn't have a care in the world, lurching through the muck and the filth on his severed foot, an annoying gait that made his head bob up and down as well as left and right.

Mateo took a breath, steadied his aim, and waited for Banno's head to move back down and complete the cycle, but the moment his fingers touched the tickler, Banno suddenly sidestepped behind the grind stone in the centre of the mill, peeking out like a child playing hide and seek.

"Second shot, Grumpy. Better make it count..." he said, bobbing and weaving and ducking his head, still grinning like a maniac.

"This isn't a game!" Mateo shouted, the anger slowly building up inside his heart. The nerve of this thing, to be smiling with all that blood coating its hands... It was beyond disgusting.

"Come on, Grumpy, take the shot." Banno's head kept flitting back and forth, first showing up one side of the vertical drive shaft, then the other. "You said you were gonna kill me, right? Come on and try. Maybe you'll get lucky. Maybe you'll nail me right between the eyes. Come on."

Mateo tried to predict where Banno's head would pop up next, but there was no rhyme or reason to his movements. He'd peek out on the left side of the grind stone, then disappear behind it, then pop out on the left side again just as Mateo was getting ready to fire at the right. And then, the moment he switched his aim to the left, Banno would appear on the right side, grinning that crazy grin.

Strafe around, a voice spoke up in his mind. It had a certain logic to it, but at the same time, strafing around to the side would mean moving away from the door. If he had to back up suddenly his back would hit a wall, and against an opponent like Banno that would mean instant death. Maybe the open door at his back was the only reason Banno hadn't decided to rush him down, because he knew Mateo would be able to retreat and get off one last shot.

Even in a simple situation like this - one enemy, one crossbow, an enclosed space with one piece of cover between them, one open door - there were so many choices to consider, each of them a potentially lethal blunder.

Mateo licked his lips. His eyes kept darting from side to side, keeping pace with Banno's ducking and weaving.

His hands were shaking.

Calm down. Stay in the moment. Don't think about what will happen if you miss. Think about why you're taking the shot in the first place. Think about why...

Why?

"Ander!" Mateo said, and the moment he did, a change fell over the mill. Or maybe the change fell over him, he wasn't sure. This gap, this respite, whatever you wanted to call it, wouldn't last long, but there were a few things he needed to say, just in case. "I don't know if you can hear me over there, but if you can..." Mateo licked his lips again. It was almost turning into a nervous habit now. He could see Ander's hulking form from here, a vague shape in the shadows. He had managed to drag himself halfway up the stairs like a snail, slithering along on his belly, desperate to reach his love no matter what. It was something that would have annoyed, perhaps even infuriated, the old Mateo, but now it was something he understood so well it hurt. "I just want to say I'm sorry for the way I treated you since you got here. For the time I shot you, for all those things I said, for how I tried to keep you away from my mother. I acted little better than a child, but once this is over I swear I'll make it up to you. You can come over for dinner sometime and... and maybe I'll let you do some target shooting with Agatha. We'll line up some potatoes or something. That sound good?"

Ander's shape didn't move, but Mateo thought he might have seen a glint shining through the dark. He hoped it was a spark from his eye, and not just the candlelight reflecting off the blood soaked into his fur. He hoped there was still life in him. He hoped he could make good on his promise.

Mateo's eyes travelled up to the second level, where the vixens were tied up. "And to the little missy up there. Valery, right?"

A pause, and then a tiny sniffle.

"Don't worry, cutie. I promise I'll get you out of here, all right? Big strong Mateo, come to save the day. Just hold on a minute and I'll get you back to your Daddy, I promise."

For a moment her eyes seemed to brighten. It looked like she was about to say something, but then the light vanished and she looked down again, as if she was so scared she couldn't even risk the pain of hope. It was a look that broke Mateo's heart.

I'm racking up promises like there's no tomorrow...

Kiana was looking at him. It was a strange look he had never seen on her face before. He had seen anger, pity, sadness, even disgust, but never this. It was a bemused kind of look, like he had suddenly sprouted a second head. He supposed he could understand why she would feel that way.

"Kiana... I..." What to say to her? What could he possibly say now?

Stay in the moment.

He took a deep breath and simply said what he needed to say. It wasn't easy, but it was simple. "Kiana. I am so sorry for everything I've done to you. I'm sorry for being such a jerk, for acting like I own you, for presuming to know you. I'm sorry for all those boorish things I said. I'm sorry for - I'm not even sure if this actually happened or not, my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I think I may have thrown up on you at some point? And for that I'm sorry, too. But the one thing I'm the most sorry about, the one thing I hate myself for more than anything, is the night of the party. I've said a lot of bad things to you, but that one was unforgivable. I've never felt so bad about anything in my life, and I understand that you hate me. You should hate me. I deserve it. But... but if we make it out of this, if I can help, even in some small way, for you to get to see your little one down the line, then... I'm not saying you should forgive me, but if I do get you out, if I do help, then... then that'll go a ways towards making up for it, right? Towards making up for what I said? Even just a little?"

"Mateo?" She spoke his name like a question, as if she wasn't sure whether this Fox with the crossbow really was Mateo, or just a Fox who, by miraculous coincidence, looked exactly like him. Yet another thing he understood all too well.

And lastly, his eye fell on Nilia. She had slid down into a sitting position, leaving a smear of blood against the wall like liquid flames. She was clutching her broken arm and breathing in quick, short bursts, struggling to stay conscious. Every few seconds she would shut her eyes tight and grit her teeth in a spasm of pain.

Every scratch made by every claw, every puncture mark made by every tooth, every blow and strike, every broken bone - each of them told a story, and seeing her like that was like living each one. He could see Banno biting into his hand like a wild animal, chomping down on his arm, shaking his head from side to side until the bone snapped between his teeth. He could see that monster clamping down onto his jaw, tearing into his muzzle, so close their eyeballs were almost touching, so close he couldn't see anything else. His teeth, his claws, it was as though he could feel them all on his own body, drilling into him like red hot iron rods. He could feel all of it, because...

... did he not promise he'd feel her pain for her?

"Nilia!"

She opened one bleary, tired eye and looked at him through the railing's supports, as if she were behind the bars of a cage.

"I haven't forgotten all those promises I made to you!" he shouted, feeling like he was running very short on time. "I am not going to die, and neither are you! We are going to go on that hunting trip, just the two of us, and it'll be just like you said! No, even better! We'll wait for spring to come, and then we'll find a nice spot out in the woods and make camp, and then one of us will spot some tracks and we'll set out together, you with your bow and me with my crossbow, and we'll spend the day hunting, not even really caring whether we actually catch anything or not. And then, when it gets dark and we get back to camp, all dirty and sweaty and exhausted, we'll light the fire and plop down on some blankets and just stare up at the stars peeking in through the forest canopy, and it'll be wonderful because we're alive. We'll be there and we'll just feel what it feels like to be alive together. That's what I want with you."

A tear ran down Nilia's cheek and was quickly swallowed by the blood on her face. She moved her hand from her broken elbow and grasped her bear claw necklace in a grip so tight it made her fist shake. Looking into her eyes, it was as if he could actually hear her voice in his ear.

Don't die, you little rat. Don't you dare.

I won't, Nilia. I promised I won't.

Mateo's gaze travelled back down to the centre of the mill, where Banno was leaning against the grind stone, resting his chin in the palm of his hand in a pose of complete and utter boredom. "You know, I get the distinct impression you might have some... shall we say, 'unresolved issues' with damn near everyone here, but let me clear something up for you. All of those things you just said? They're meaningless, and here's why." He pointed at the stairs with his broken arm, blood flying from his dangling fingertips. "You see Ander over there? He's gonna die. No buddy-buddy target practice for you two." He swung his arm up higher, making the bone shards in his elbow rub together with a nauseating clicking sound. "Kiana up there? She's gonna die, too. Sorry, but you're never gonna make up for whatever it was you said." His dangling arm went a bit further. "And as for Nilia? She has annoyed me quite a bit, so I think I'll make her death extra slow. Maybe cut her open with that stupid necklace and hang her upside down, watch her bleed out. So sad, no cute little hunting trip in her future. Or yours. And speaking of you, Grumpy..." He rested his chin on top of the grind stone, one eyebrow cocked. "Are you ever gonna take the shot, or are you just gonna watch your friends die of old age?"

Mateo knew exactly what Banno was trying to do. It was the same tactic he had used so many times himself. Hell, he was so good he was practically a master. Feel around, get inside, find the trigger, then slam it down as hard as you could, again and again, until you made your enemy (or a loved one who didn't deserve it) explode from the inside out. It truly was a double-edged sword, one that could be used for good or ill, like when you tell a pregnant vixen that you hoped her baby would be a stillborn, or when you promise a quietly suffering Wolfess that you would share her pain. It was the ability to feel what someone else was feeling, to get inside their head, to understand why they felt that way, to find the one thing, the one thing that would allow you to hurt or help them. Then it was just a matter of zeroing in and hammering it down until your opponent burst into tears, filling you up with that momentary, evil joy that made you feel like the world's biggest scumbag afterwards.

That was what Banno was doing right now, minus the guilty conscience. He was a Wolf who liked to talk, who liked to play mind games. He believed he had found Mateo's trigger in Nilia, and he was absolutely right about that. Listening to him describing the way he would kill her did indeed fill Mateo with an urge to throw strategy to the wind and charge in blindly, transformed into naught but a snarling red ball of fangs and claws.

But there was something Banno apparently didn't understand, and that was that mind games could be played both ways, and that he was up against a master of the craft.

Mateo did not fully understand Banno (and thank the gods for that) but he understood enough to know that he was the absolute epitome of arrogance. To claim he was full of himself would be the understatement of the century. Here was a Wolf who, despite being on the verge of death, behaved like he was attending a summer picnic. There was no tension, no stress, no doubt. He truly believed there was no way he could possibly lose. The very thought of failure never even crossed his mind.

If I call him out on that... If I make him acknowledge that this isn't a done deal... I wonder how he would react to that?

Mateo allowed a ghost of a smile to spread across his lips. "If you're so impatient, Banno, why don't you come out from behind that grinder?"

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you? What's the matter, Grumpy? Am I not big enough of a target for you already? Do you need me to stand out there with my arms open wide?"

"Well, it's just that I find it odd, you see. You claim to be in such a big hurry to slaughter my friends, to carve them up and watch them bleed out, as you so artfully put it, but then why don't you try to charge me down? I bet you could disembowel me in two seconds flat and then continue your little... 'game' or whatever you want to call it."

A small frown creased Banno's brow, and Mateo made careful note of it. Just like Nilia, Banno had a face that was difficult to read, but for completely different reasons. With Nilia you had to use a spyglass to make out all the subtle little changes in her mood, but with Banno there was almost too much emotion going on all at once. He was always licking himself or pulling massive smiles, or laughing or growling. He almost drowned you in visual cues. It was the little things, like that slight frown, that betrayed his true feelings. And... what was this silence? Was this another clue? Mateo made another note and added it to the growing list in his head.

"Is it because we're too close, Banno?" Mateo asked. "You've had all this time to make a move, time that I wasn't even looking at you, and yet you chose to stay behind cover instead of attacking me like you really want to. Why is that? Are you afraid that I can't possibly miss from here? That's it, isn't it? You've gauged how far I have to pull the tickler to fire a shot and you've timed how long it takes me to ready another shot. You don't want to move until I fire because you need that extra bit of reload time to get to me. But that's the beauty of a crossbow. Unlike a regular bow, you can keep a shot nocked forever, which means that, as long as I don't fire, you're stuck there."

"That's a very dangerous assumption to make, Fox."

"Then prove me wrong. Come out of there and face me like a real Wolf. Charge me down like you did to Devin. Oh, but wait, there's no way you'd do that. You're scared of what will happen if I don't miss. You're scared of dying. You're afraid of failing."

"I can't die, you ignorant pile of vomit!"

Ooh, interesting. That wasn't so much a shout of anger as it was one of denial. But did he mean 'can't die' in a figurative sense? Or did he mean it quite literally?

Let's find out...

"Your words don't match your actions, Banno!" Mateo shouted, keeping Agatha aimed and steady, just in case a clear shot presented itself during the exchange. "If you 'can't die', then why bother taking cover at all? By taking cover, you're admitting that you most certainly can die!"

"There are still rules."

"What rules? Explain them to me!"

"I don't have time to educate a fake piece of trash like you! Just take your gamble and shoot the damn arrow!"

Curiouser and curiouser. If Banno believed that life bowed to a set of rules, then those rules would definitely be skewed in his favour. His massive ego wouldn't allow any deviations to this idea. He was 'special' after all, somehow different from everyone else. His certainty of surviving a gamble shot was proof of this, of his unveeringly egotistical way of thinking.

Mateo wanted to know more about these rules, and Banno wanted to get this fight over with as soon as possible, and he believed that he would win once Mateo took the shot and missed.

He could use that to his advantage, trade one desire for the other. Not only that, but dragging out this conversation would have an added benefit.

"Hey, Banno. Let's make a deal. If you tell me more about your rules, I'll take the shot. I'll even give you a countdown."

His remaining ear perked up behind the grind stone, and although Mateo couldn't see it, he was certain the brute was smiling back there.

"There's no point in explaining anything to a fake bag of meat, but if it will get you to hurry up, then fine. I'll explain it to you, plain and simple."

"I'm all ears."

Banno's eye briefly peeked out from behind the grindstone, a shining black orb in the dark. "I cannot die."

Mateo waited for some kind of clarification, but none came. Apparently Banno considered it to be axiomatic. "No matter what?"

"No matter what."

"Even if you take a crossbow bolt through the head?"

"Bah, I knew you wouldn't understand."

"Just answer me this: what would happen if a crossbow bolt went right through the center of your face?"

"I would die, obviously."

"Ha!"

"But that won't happen. It cannot happen. The world won't allow it, because the world is just an extension of myself. Everything that exists is just an offshoot of me. Killing me would be like killing everything."

Oh sweet merciful gods up in heaven, this puppy is even crazier than I thought.

Mateo cleared his throat and played along. "So what you're saying is... it _is_technically possible for you to die, but the conditions required for your death to occur can never happen. Is that it?"

"That's one way to put it."

"So if you were trapped in a fire, you might get burned, but any potentially fatal injuries just won't touch you. All the falling beams will miss you."

"Yes."

"If you get caught in a hail of arrows, all of them will miraculously miss your vital spots."

"Yes."

"If you get tied up, slathered in deer blood, and thrown to a pack of starving mountain lions, they will all suffer fatal heart attacks before any of them can come close to tearing your throat out."

"Yes. Now will you uphold your end of the deal? Will you take your damnable shot?"

"Oh, but we were having such a nice discussion about your apparent immortality. Ooh! What about old age? What happens when you turn ninety? Or will you simply stop aging somewhere along the line?"

"Take the damn shot!"

"What if you get sick?"

"Fox!"

"Your foot is missing, as well as your eye. Therefore you must concede that it is possible for you to lose parts of your body. If you lose enough parts, or if you lose a big enough one, such as your head, you will die. You must admit to this."

"That won't happen! It's never happened! Therefore it cannot happen!"

"What? That's true of literally every living thing, right down to the worms beneath the earth! Just because they haven't died yet doesn't mean they can't!"

"_You're_the worm!"

"A worm who's still alive. A worm who hasn't died yet. A worm who isn't bleeding from every orifice. A worm who still has a fully functional set of limbs, ironically. Right now I'm more immortal than you."

"You're no more alive than this rock!" Banno said and smacked his bloody palm across the grind stone. "You're only pretending to be alive because the rules demand it! Every rock has a slightly different shape; some are smooth, some are rough, some have moss, some have layers. You have the most annoying shape of any rock I've ever met, but in the end, a rock is just a rock. You're not alive! You're not real!"

"But you are?"

"I am real!" A meaty thud emanated from behind the grinder as Banno thumped himself in the chest. "Vallah inside me is real! Valery is real! And the little passenger inside Kiana is real! And if you and that bitch of yours hadn't shown up, her yolk would have been inside of me by now!"

Her yolk?

A sudden wave of nausea rushed up Mateo's throat and he had to clap a hand to his mouth to keep from vomiting right there. A memory, so fresh he could almost smell it, flashed through his mind. The memory of his mother, standing in the middle of the dusty road, a basket of eggs in the crook of her elbow. He saw the basket slip off her arm, saw the eggs tumbling out. They cracked and splattered all over the road, their yolk seeping through the dust. And among them, like a single red rose amidst a sea of sunflowers: a spot of red, slowly running down the gentle slope, picking up grains of sand along the way, a great splatter of blood where none should exist, an unborn baby chick, ripped from its shell before it could hatch.

Mateo hastily put his hand back beneath Agatha's stock, where it belonged, and centred his aim on the grindstone, ready to flick it in whatever direction Banno chose to pop up in. No easy task, considering how weak and shaky his arms suddenly felt. Even his breathing was unsteady, and was it any wonder? The longer he talked to this thing (yes, a thing) the more he felt like a deer caught in the sights of a hunter. There was simply no end to the depths of this creature's madness. It went deeper than he ever could have imagined.

The time for talk was quickly coming to an end. Whatever was going to happen, it would likely start and finish in a matter of moments.

"You want to know what I think, Banno?" Mateo said, lightly dragging his fingers back and forth across the tickler. "I think you're wrong. I think the way you see the world is wrong. I think the way you see everyone else is wrong. And most of all, I think the way you see yourself is wrong. I believe that you are not the axis of this world. I believe that everyone is alive, just like you are. I believe everything and everyone is real." Mateo licked his lips, knowing that this would be it. He had found Banno's trigger, and no matter what happens, no matter how bad it might be, if he wanted even the slightest chance of getting Nilia and the others out of this alive, he had to pull it. "Not only do I believe you can die, I believe you _will_die, and when you do... I believe the world will continue on without you."

Dead silence, save for the howling of the wind at his back. Flakes of snow blew in from the open door and swirled around his feet before getting stuck in pools of dry blood, where they slowly melted away.

"YOU'RE WRONG!!" Banno burst out from behind the grinder like a serpent, not so much pushing himself off the ground as flying above it, his mouth opened wide in a roar of fury.

Mateo squeezed the tickler on pure reflex, feeling the tug of the recoil through his shoulders before he was even aware he had fired at all.

An explosion of blood erupted from Banno's stomach, but it didn't slow him in the slightest. He lurched on, raising his functional arm above his head, his claws glinting in the candlelight like shards of melted stone...

"Mateo, duck!" Nilia screamed, and that was enough to snap him out of his stupor. He ducked and rolled just as Banno swiped that monstrous arm through the air. His claws sliced through the doorframe in a shower of splinters and wood dust, ripping out a chunk of wood roughly the size of Mateo's head.

"You little bastard!!"

Still on his back, Mateo hooked his foot into Agatha's stirrup, grabbed the string, and pulled back like someone working one half of a two-fox saw.

Banno roared, sending ropes of blood and drool spinning through the air on sour breath. The bolt had embedded itself into his stomach almost all the way up to the wooden fletchings, and a steady stream of blood was pouring down his ugly, buckskin pants. He pushed off the wall and lurched along, but instead of walking on his stump like before, he was now dragging it behind him. Even in the grips of panic, it was a change Mateo couldn't help but notice.

It's working! he thought, feverishly pulling back on Agatha's string. It's actually working! He's -

Banno raised his massive arm above his head.

Oh crud! Come on, Agatha! Come on! Don't be such a stubborn bitch!

Click.

Mateo rolled away just as Banno's claws came crashing down, embedding themselves into the floorboards right where his head was just moments ago.

He jumped to his feet and ran, wanting to put as much distance between himself and that maniac as possible. Now that the hard part was done, all he had to do was -

"Hurlk!"

The clasp of his hood suddenly dug into his throat with a painful jerk. He looked back and Banno was right there, grinning his crimson grin, a big handful of his cloak rolled into his fist. "Get back here!"

Mateo fumbled with the clasp. His finger slid in beneath the hook and -

Banno yanked him back with such force his feet actually left the floor for a moment. He twisted the hook and ducked immediately, which was a good thing because Banno's claws went tearing through his hood and ripped it into ribbons of green fabric in an instant.

Mateo stumbled away, breathing so quickly it felt like he wasn't breathing at all. His cloak (which belonged to his mother, by the way) was now just a shredded mess of tatters at Banno's feet.

Foot and stump, you mean. The lame bastard...

A great torrent of blood burst out of Banno's mouth, courtesy of the bolt lodged in his stomach, and he came lurching closer, dragging said stump behind him.

He was definitely slowing down.

Mateo reached for the bolts at his hip, but his hands were shaking so badly they kept slipping loose and clattering to the floor.

"Scurry all you want, little mouse..." Banno said, blood pouring from his mouth with every word. "Sooner or later... you'll wind up between my teeth."

Mateo finally grabbed a bolt and slapped it into place. He raised Agatha up to eye-level, walking backwards at the same time. Banno's ugly face bobbed into view, exactly in line. "Do the world a favour and drop dead!" he shouted and pulled the tickler, releasing the catch and shooting the bolt forward.

If only Banno hadn't seen him fire his crossbow so many times before, things might have ended right there. Unfortunately his timing was perfect, and he had begun to raise his arm the moment Mateo's fingers touched the tickler.

The bolt pierced his forearm all the way to the fletchings, and the red, blood-sodden tip stopped just short of the cavernous hole of his empty eye socket.

Banno lowered his arm, revealing the twisted face beneath; the hatred, the anger, the snarling teeth drenched in blood.

Mateo bolted for the door, thinking that if he could get outside he'd have enough room to manoeuvre for another shot, but Banno cut him off with a simple sidestep.

"Where are you going, Fox?" he asked, smiling and growling all at the same time, the safety of the outside world so clearly visible above his shoulder.

Mateo took a step backwards and Banno answered by taking a lurching step closer, keeping the distance between them the same, not allowing him enough room to load another shot.

Mateo's eye fell on his left arm, the way it dangled and swung with every step. There was a great big hole right there in the crook of his elbow, with a slick piece of bone sticking out past the fur. If he could get past on the left side... It would be risky, but it was worth a shot, right? A damn sight better than standing still like some tharn deer and waiting for death, anyway...

Mateo bent his knees a little and started to lower Agatha, like he intended to use the stirrup again, but then made a mad dash for Banno's left side instead. The frozen air burned in his lungs, his broken rib screamed bloody murder, and it felt like his heart was about to explode, but he could do it. Banno was too slow and lamed up. He was going past, he was going -

Banno's arm - his broken arm - swung up from out of nowhere and nailed Mateo right beneath the chin, slamming him down onto the back of his head. For a moment the world flashed a brilliant shade of white, as if he were back outside, caught in a blizzard, and when he opened his eyes, Banno was staring down at him, his fangs bared, dripping blood onto his face in sporadic drops.

"The world will continue without me, huh?"

Mateo tried to sit up and Banno slammed him back down using the same broken arm. The bone now stuck out of his flesh like a crudely carved spear.

"Now look what you did!" Banno thundered. "After all the effort I went through to get that back in there!"

"Why are you still alive, you giant freak!? Just drop dead already!" Mateo didn't bother trying to break free of Banno's grip. If Nilia couldn't do it, he didn't have the slightest chance, broken arm or no broken arm. So instead, he focussed on what he could do. He slipped his foot into Agatha's stirrup...

Banno raised his leg, the one that ended in a meaty stump, and slammed it down right in the centre of Mateo's stomach. All the breath rushed out of his lungs in a painful whoosh and he gasped for air, unable to believe that anything could hurt this much. He had been kicked in the gut before, but this was different. The sheer weight pressing down on him was enormous. He tried to scream, but could only cough, and that's when Banno began to twist his leg, to grind it back and forth, and as if that wasn't enough, Mateo was pretty sure the piece of bone buried somewhere in that diseased, rotting hunk of flesh was now working its way through his clothes, towards the soft meat of his belly, where it would drill right through him like a rusty nail, infecting him with whatever gangrenous bug was taking its sweet, sweet time in devouring this monster from the inside out.

Mateo grabbed the string and pulled back as hard as he could, grinding his teeth against the pain. He expected Banno to stomp down on him again at any moment, but when that didn't happen, he risked a quick peek and was alarmed by the knowing smile creeping across his face.

"Aren't you forgetting something, Fox?"

Mateo didn't waste any time. He locked the string in place with a satisfying little click and made a grab for his quiver...

It was empty.

Banno laughed, and the more Mateo fumbled with the quiver, looking for a bolt, just one bolt, just one single bolt, the harder his laughter became, until he was practically hacking blood.

"That's what makes me real and you fake, Fox. This is what it means when I say the world is just an offshoot of me. It won't allow me to die. Everything always works out for me. Always. That's the way it's always been, and that's the way it will continue to be. There is no other -"

Mateo reached up, grabbed the bolt sticking out of Banno's stomach, and ripped it out in a gush of blood that poured out all over his face in a disgusting splatter. A loose coil of intestines poked out of the wound, dangling like a letter 'U', swinging in the spray.

"What?" Banno looked down at his own gushing innards, a look of confusion spreading across his features.

Mateo slipped the blood-soaked bolt into the groove and aimed his crossbow straight up at Banno's head.

This is it. This is the end.

Banno grabbed the crossbow, covering the tip of the bolt with the palm of his hand. "You cannot kill me," he said. "To kill me would be to kill yourself and everyone you claim to love. To kill me would be to kill the world."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take," Mateo said and fired the bolt. There was an explosion of blood and the gruesome, cracking sound of wood and metal tearing through flesh and bone. It splattered over Banno's already bloodied face in a fine spray, and then it was quiet.

The bolt had gotten stuck halfway through Banno's hand and the blood was slowly running down the fletchings.

Watching those beads of red pooling together, growing heavy, filled Mateo's mind with yet another memory.

He was hiding in a juniper bush, watching two figures in the middle of the road. It was dark and he could barely see anything, but he didn't need to see much to tell what was going on. One was small, the other was huge; a massive creature, far bigger than any Fox could ever be, a monster straight out of a child's nightmare, hunched over and breathing so loud it sounded like a starving bear.

The small one said something. It was too low to make out, but he recognised the voice and the shape of her shadow. It was Kiana, his fiancé, his betrothed, she who had gone missing - no, kidnapped! Snatched away in the middle of the night! Begging for her life while this... this_thing_, this monster stood looming over her, sizing her up like a juicy steak.

He stepped out, raised his crossbow, and fired, thinking he had saved the day, thinking he had become the hero, thinking he had rescued his beloved damsel in distress, but she jumped in front of it, laying her life on the line to protect this massive, hulking creature he had tried to save her from.

She would have died. He would have killed her, had the 'monster' not blocked the bolt with his own hand.

He remembered standing there, in the middle of the road, his crossbow feeling so heavy in his arms, watching the bolt sticking out of Ander's hand. The blood had flowed down the shaft and pooled together at the fletchings just like this, growing heavier and heavier until -

They dripped onto his face, and Banno was still there. A true, living, breathing monster.

He had failed for a second time.

Banno curled his fingers around the bolt and gripped Agatha's stock. It splintered and cracked, then exploded into a shower of wooden shards, leaving Mateo holding only three quarters of a useless piece of junk, now emblazoned with the nonsensical name of 'Agat'.

I have to get up, I have to move, Mateo thought, but those thoughts were as useless, as biteless, as the broken stock in his hands. A crossbow couldn't fire without bow or string, and he couldn't get up with Banno pinning him to the floor.

Banno lifted his hand up to his face, bit down on the bolt, and ripped it out with his bare teeth. He crunched it in half and spat the pieces away, then inspected his wound. There was a small hole going right through the centre of his palm now, bordered on the sides by slick pieces of bone and sinew that moved back and forth ever so slightly as he wiggled his fingers.

Banno was looking at him through that hole; a single, blood red eye bordered by flesh on all sides.

If only I had more time!

Banno roared. It was a sound unlike anything Mateo had ever heard. No animal could come close to making a sound like that. It was like the sound of a bellows pushing wind through a furnace, but instead of wind, it was actually blowing thunder, and instead of a furnace, it was travelling through a cavern of flesh. Banno lifted his arm, dripping blood, and all Mateo could do was to raise Agatha's remains like a shield.

It didn't help at all.

Banno's swipe connected with the broken stock and drove it directly into Mateo's face. The rounded corners that had so snugly fit his grip over the years rolled over the bridge of his muzzle and slammed into his forehead, awakening the pain of the claw marks beneath his bandages in a flash of red.

Mateo screamed as blood poured past his temples in two thick streams. Agatha's last bits clattered to the floor somewhere in the shadows, and now he didn't even have that to defend himself with.

Banno struck him again and a bolt of pain surged through his head, so fast he could barely even comprehend it. He wasn't even looking up anymore, but to the side, giving him a view of the wall, bathed in red shadows. Wait... red? That wasn't right... shadows were supposed to be black.

Weren't they?

Mateo blinked, but the darkness remained the deep shade of aged wine, freshly tapped from a cedar keg. It even had that slight blur to it, like he was looking at it through one of those fat glasses with the wide bottom... Maybe that explained why the world was tilting beneath his back. Not only could he see the angle of the planks listing dangerously to the right, he could actually feel it happening... the glass tilting... about to spill its contents onto the floor. Or perhaps into a waiting maw...

Mateo tried to raise his head and a fresh gout of blood flowed out of his cheek and down his neck. He reached up instinctively to cover the wound and it happened again: a quick, vicious impact ringed by the sharp tug of claws digging into his flesh, ripping his skin wide open even as his face was being wrenched to the side, and now all he could see was the heavy base of the grinder in the middle of the mill floor, a great big stone with a circular groove along the top, and a second stone above that, resting on its side like a giant coin, held in place by cogs and gears and poles of wood that simply didn't make any sense anymore. They bled together and into each other, forming black lines inside the red.

Banno struck him again and again, alternating between blunt, backhanded blows and animalistic swipes with his claws, beating him left and right with the same hand, over and over.

Something broke loose and a tooth went sailing out of his mouth, leaving small drops of blood behind as it skittered across the floor. A moment after that a terrible crack filled his head and a bright line of pain went screeching through his jaw.

Mateo looked up, barely able to see through the swelling around his eyes, and saw a monster looking back. A great black demon with a mouth as wide and as red as the gates of hell, cutting loose a thunderous roar he could barely hear through all the blood leaking from his ears.

Mateo tried to say something, and that's when Banno's fist collided squarely with his nose. The crunch of bone inside his head was like biting down on a chunk of ice, both in sound and vibration. Blood splurted from his nostrils and shot into his mouth all at the same time, and a surprisingly coherent thought managed to slip in between the cracks of all this chaos tearing through his body, and that thought was:

He's beating me to death.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it) Mateo didn't have enough time to contemplate the actual meaning behind this thought.

Banno reared back, a totem of death itself, and slammed his fist straight down into Mateo's jaw, sandwiching his head against the floor with a crack that sent a wave of blackness washing over his vision.

Mateo didn't pass out completely. Maybe he was in too much pain for that. When he opened his eyes again, the world was still an alarming shade of red, but there was something else in there, too. A red even deeper than the shadows, almost black, flowing across the floor like a slow, small river, seeping between the cracks, leaving... leaving him behind...

If only I was stronger... If only there was more time... more time for it to work...

Where are they? Are they safe?

Where is she?

Mateo blinked and turned his head, feeling the sharp stab of broken bones inside his mouth and jaw.

Banno was above him, far, far above him, a creature that was not truly a Wolf. He was something different, something more, but at the same time, something less. He was saying something. His mouth was opening and closing, his lips sliding across his crimson teeth, forming the distorted shapes of muffled words.

"False face... False face! Nothing beneath the fur but dead skin... dead blood... dead meat... dead bone! Dead! All of it dead! Dead dead DEAD!!"

There was something moving beyond that screaming face, so far away, so high up, pushing its way through the shadows.

Mateo blinked, trying to focus, and slowly the red haze began to clear. He could almost make it out... something... some brown smudge, climbing on top of the railing above their heads...

Banno placed his hand on Mateo's chest and began to push his claws inside. The pain was excruciating, and Mateo's vision immediately began to cloud over again. He grabbed at the claws, but his hands simply fell away, too weak to grip onto anything.

"This is what you get for trying to end the world, you sick, twisted Fox!"

Five daggers driving themselves deeper and deeper, five points of pain coalescing into a single, throbbing ball beneath his collar bones, and a sense of pressure, building, pressing him down, crushing him like a cockroach underfoot.

"This is what you get for trying to kill Valery!"

The claws were moving down, cutting through his flesh in five straight lines.

"This is what you get for trying to kill Kiana's little passenger! The yolk inside the shell!"

He could feel his flesh being cleaved open, slowly, first one inch, then two, going down lower and lower...

"I will skin you alive!"

Searing lines of pain so intense Mateo couldn't even scream. He could barely even breathe. All he could do was gasp for air, unable to expand his chest because of the sheer weight pressing down on him.

"I will peel you open like a weasel and watch you squirm!"

That movement again, that brown smudge pushing through the layers of black and red, so high above.

Mateo reached up. His own arm looked so small, so weak, so frail compared to Banno's, but that shape up there... he had to push it away. He had to... he couldn't let it... it wasn't safe, it would get hurt... for him? That wasn't the way it was supposed to go. It was supposed to be the other way around! He was supposed to feel her pain!

He made a promise, didn't he?

Nilia dropped down from above, right onto Banno's back. For a second the pressure on Mateo's chest increased to such an extent he almost blacked out again, and then it was simply gone, leaving only the searing, throbbing sting of claw marks and the wet warmth of his own blood behind.

"You damn bitch!" Banno shouted, reaching up over his shoulder, his claws dripping with Mateo's blood.

Nilia slipped her good arm around Banno's throat and began to squeeze, her face contorted with the sheer amount of effort and concentration it took just to hold on. "I will choke you out with one arm if I have to, you demented bastard!" Her weight pulled him off-balance and he staggered backwards, flailing his arm above his head. He grabbed a lock of her hair and ripped it out, but Nilia didn't even flinch. She hooked her legs around his waist and latched on like a tick, her bicep bulging against his throat.

Mateo tried to call her name, but all he could manage was a rather painful uprising of blood through his nose. He tried again, and this time managed to wheeze out a pitiful "Nil..."

Banno thrashed and flailed, bending forwards and backwards in an attempt to buck her off. The loose coil of intestine kept slapping at his hip with the most nauseating sound Mateo had ever heard. It was a sound that belonged on a butcher's killing floor, not a dusty old grain mill.

Banno ran backwards and slammed Nilia into a wall with an impact that seemed to shake the entire building. She gasped and bit down on her lip in agony, but wouldn't let go. If only she had both hands to work with, she might have been able to put Banno down, but as she was now, it was nearly impossible. All she was doing was delaying the inevitable.

Why isn't it working yet? Why is he still standing!?

Banno slammed her into the wall again, hard enough to make a fine layer of dust sift down from the floor above.

"Let go of me, you stupid bitch! I said let go!" He rammed her into the wall yet again, and this time a thin line of blood began to creep out from behind her lips. Mateo tried to tell himself it was just from her cut mouth, but he knew that wasn't true. This blood was too fresh.

"N... Nil..." Mateo tried to sit up and a whole new wave of pain washed through his side. He could feel his broken rib sliding around in there, slicing through his body with every wrong move. He gritted his teeth and kept going, eventually elevating himself up to the point where he could get up on his elbows.

"Get! OFF!!" Banno bent down, the loop of intestine swinging from his belly, and then slammed the back of his head against Nilia's chin. Mateo saw a brief flash of her face, her bottom lip soaked in blood, and then Banno did it again, driving her head against the wall.

Her legs went limp and slid away. Now the only thing holding her up was the tenuous grasp of her arm around Banno's throat.

Banno stumbled away, revealing the bright red starburst of blood running down the wall in wavy streaks. Nilia's blood.

Mateo tried to lift himself off the ground, but it felt like he had been tied down with invisible ropes.

"Nili..." The bitter taste of blood flooded his mouth. It poured out of his nostrils and across his lips, dripping down onto his shredded chest.

Banno lurched towards the centre of the mill, drawing a thick red line through the dust with his bloody stump. He reached up, grabbed a handful of Nilia's hair, and then pitched forward, flipping her entire body over the top of his head.

Mateo saw it all happen in the blink of an eye, every detail horribly distorted by the reddish haze covering his vision. He saw the change come over Nilia's face as she realized she couldn't hold on any longer, saw her grim determination turn to shock.

She landed right on top of the grindstone and her back folded over the edge with a gruesome crack. She opened her mouth to scream and a jet of crimson shot out like a fountain.

"NILIA!!"

She slid off the grindstone, onto the base, and then crumpled to the floor in a twisted heap, facing away from him, her sides rising and falling ever so slightly as she struggled for breath. The fur in the small of her back was stained a deep crimson, and a small pool of blood was slowly seeping out over the floor.

I have to do something!

But what could he do? He was just one tiny, insignificant little Fox, barely half Banno's size. Without his crossbow, he couldn't do anything. He was nothing...

You made a promise, you goddamned coward! You better get your sorry carcass moving right now or everything will stay exactly the same! You'll never get a chance to make up for the past and you'll never get a chance to try for a future! The last thing you'll do before you die is break every last promise you ever made, and everything everyone ever said about you will be right! You'll be just another jackass who never did anything good, who never improved anyone's life by being a part of it! Nilia needs you, even if you can't do anything useful, she still needs you! So you get over there! You drag your dead body through the dust if you have to! Just! Get! Over there!

Mateo rolled over onto his stomach, breathing heavily from his mouth. Blood kept dripping from his brow, his nose, his jaw, his chest, pitter-pattering down and fusing together into pools that grew at an alarmingly fast rate. He reached out as far as he could and dragged his body across the floorboards. His clothes were tacky and kept sticking on everything as if trying to hold him back, but Nilia was so close, no more than three or four strides. It was a distance he normally would have covered in a second.

Mateo pulled himself along by his claws, leaving weak little scratch marks in the wood. He could feel the cracks between the floorboards scraping against his belly as if to keep track of his progress.

Blood dripped into his eyes. He blinked it out. Vomit swelled in his gullet. He swallowed it back. Dark, hazy shapes clouded his vision. He shook his head and kept going, reaching out and dragging himself along, reaching out, farther and farther, until his hand finally found Nilia's shoulder.

"Nili..." he said, his voice barely more than a bloody gurgle. He gave her a gentle shake, but she didn't respond. She was still breathing, wasn't she?

Mateo blinked and tried to squint through the clouds, but even at this close distance he couldn't be sure. Everything was blurring too much. "Nilia...?"

He pulled her closer and she rolled onto her back, limp as a doll, her mouth slightly open and her eyes closed. Her face...

Oh gods... Oh gods, no... Please, no!

So much for your promise. All that pain, and you couldn't protect her from any of it.

There was so much blood leaking from the corners of her mouth her lips were red with it. There were puncture marks going across the bridge of her muzzle, so deep he could see the bone.

"I'm sorry..." he whispered, fighting to stay conscious. "I'm so sorry... I tried to keep my promise, but... I'm so sorry, Nilia..."

The most painful sob of his life burst out of him, hurting every step of the way. It hurt as it formed inside his chest. It hurt as it travelled up his throat. It hurt as it burst out of his mouth and nose. It hurt in more ways than just the physical. Never in all his life had he felt so small, so useless, so pathetic. All those grandiose promises he had made, thinking he would be able to uphold them all, thinking he could actually do something to make someone happy for a change.

Tears spilled from his eyes and fell onto her soft, still form, quickly disappearing amidst the bloodstains. He bent down and kissed her cheek, and that's when the last of his strength finally gave out and he collapsed by her side. The world went dark for a while, then came back. It was like there were plumes of smoke billowing inside his eyes, clouding out the sun, but he could still see her hand... lying next to her face, palm up...

He set his hand on top of hers, winding their fingers together. Even though he had seen it before, the sight of her hand engulfing his still sent such a strange feeling through the pit of his stomach. It was like riding a wagon when it hits an unexpected dip - a numb, tingly feeling like all your inner workings just got jumbled around, but in a pleasant way.

"I'm sorry..." he said again, not knowing if his voice was actually coming out, or if he was just imagining it, knowing only that he could never say it enough. "I promised I'd feel your pain for you... but I wasn't enough... I'm so sorry..."

The smoke grew thicker, replacing the red blur of the world with the peaceful darkness behind his eyes. Did he close them? He thought so. Did that mean this was the end? Was Banno going to come over and rip his head off?

At least he tried. That had to count for something, right? Even if he failed in the end, he still tried. He still... managed to change himself, if only a little...

He became a little different...

Didn't he?

Someone was squeezing his hand, and not gently, either. The pressure was so great he could feel his bones grinding together, throbbing in pain.

Mateo opened his eyes. Nilia had turned her head to the side and was looking at him with a deep frown creasing her brow, and even though there were tears streaming down across the bridge of her torn muzzle and past her temple, he didn't think he had ever seen her this furious.

"Nilia, I -"

"If you apologise one more time..." she said, struggling to speak clearly through all the blood in her mouth. "I don't care how badly you are hurt, and I care even less about how badly I'm hurt. I will get up and I will punch you in the face. Do you understand?"

"But I..." Mateo swallowed. "I promised I'd feel all your pain for you, but I..."

She shook her head. "Not like this, you jackass! Not like this!" She sniffed and blinked more tears out of her eyes. "Do you think I can't handle a few broken bones? You think I'm one of those dainty little vixens who needs a bandage and a kiss on the forehead for every little laceration? No, Mat... it's the inside stuff I'm bad at. It's the inside stuff I can't cope with by myself. That's what I need you for. Not... not this!"

"But I don't want to see you like this... I wanted to protect you... I wanted to save you and all the others. I wanted... I wanted to make you happy..."

"By getting yourself all beat to hell? That's not sharing my pain, Mat. That's adding to it. The way you feel when you see me like this... is the same way I feel when I see you like that."

"I'm -"

"Mat."

Mateo chuckled, despite himself. She really, really didn't want him to apologise. He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back. "I guess I messed up a little, huh?"

She shook her head. "You think you broke your promise to me, but you couldn't be more wrong. You said you'd feel my pain for me, and that's exactly what you've been doing. You've been making me feel so happy."

And now the bittersweet sting of tears was in his own eyes as well, a warm trickle that flowed past his cheek. He had no desire to try to stop it. "But I want to do more," he said. "I want to make you happier than anyone else in this valley."

"Then..." A weak smile touched the corner of her bloody mouth. "Tell me about the hunting trip again. Tell me everything we're going to do once the winter is over." She closed her eyes, still smiling. "I want to see it. I want you to take me there right now."

Mateo didn't allow himself to think about the unspoken words that hung between them, the real reason she wanted to lose herself in a blissful dream, but it was still there in the corner of his mind, like a spider hanging from the rafters. Because why would you want to settle for a dream, unless you knew you could never -

"We'll set out early, before sunrise, when everyone else is still asleep and the morning air is so cold it's like a slap in the face," Mateo said, cutting off his own treacherous thoughts. "I'll have a new crossbow, Agatha II, and you'll - What's so funny?"

Nilia had been laughing softly, and now she shook her head. "You name your weapon. Is that a Fox thing?"

"No, that's a Mateo thing."

"That's silly."

Mateo loved that laugh. There was something different about it. That wasn't the kind of laugh that would be turned to the side, or hidden behind a sleeve or a handkerchief. It was an open laugh, an honest laugh, and if he could listen to it all night he would consider that a night well spent. But he sensed their time was running short, and she had asked to go on that hunting trip right now, so that's where he would take her, as far away from here as he could.

"We'll go up into the hills, to the south. There's plenty of game there. And if you stand in just the right spot at just the right time, you can look down into the valley just as the sun starts to rise. It gives even the smallest pebbles these huge, long shadows that spread out over the ground, and the sunlight bounces off the Farmer's River like it was filled with thousands and thousands of tiny suns itself, and you can't even look at it for too long because it's so beautiful."

"And also because the sun is in your eyes."

"That, too," Mateo conceded, "but mostly because it's so beautiful."

"Keep going."

"We find a nice, open spot to make camp." Mateo was speaking with greater urgency now. It was only a matter of time until Banno's shadow fell on them. In truth, he was surprised the brute had allowed them to speak for this long already. "I set up the tent while you gather some firewood -"

"Ha, that's cute." Nilia ran her thumb across the back of his hand while she pictured the scene. "Big strong Fox builds camp while dainty damsel gets the easy job, is that it?"

"Fine then, you set up the tent and I'll go pick up the firewood. Then I get all the credit when I spot the first tracks leading off into the wilderness."

"What kind of tracks?"

"Elk. Big ones."

"Idiot. Those clearly belong to a red deer. Where did you learn to track?"

"I stand corrected."

"Do we follow them?"

"Of course. It takes us all day. We go up and down cliffs, over fallen trees, through rivers and caves, and when we push aside the underbrush, we find them, a whole herd of elk - I mean, red deer. Just cropping in the sunshine without a care in the world. We -"

"You can skip ahead, Mat."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't care so much about that part, the actual hunting. I've been hunting my own food since I was a kid." She opened her eyes. "I want to know what happens after, when the stars are high and we get back to camp. Tell me more about _that_part."

"Well..." Mateo swallowed. She was looking directly at him, no longer imagining some distant fantasy. She was seeing him, and only him. "We... We arrive back at camp. We're both tired and worn out, all sweaty and dirty. You've got leaves in your hair and my clothes are torn. We flump down by the fire and sigh up at the moon while we rub our aches and pains, bitching and moaning about how sore we're gonna be in the morning, but it's a good kind of ache, the ache that tells you you've worked hard, you've done your best, and that it's okay to lie down and be still for a while. There's nothing quite like it, those first ten minutes of lying down after you've worked your tail off. I think it's about as close as anyone can come to absolute peace in this world, and we're just lying there, together, looking up at the moon and feeling completely at peace. And even though we both look like we just crawled out of a hole in the ground, there's nowhere else we'd rather be, and no one else we'd rather be with. Then my stomach lets loose a huge grumble and we remember why we came all the way out here in the first place."

Nilia smiled, and that encouraged him to keep going. He would keep going for as long as he could. For as long as he was still drawing breath, he would use each of those breaths to maintain that smile. "We roast some venison on the fire, if the hunt was successful. And if it wasn't, that's fine, too. Mother packed us some sandwiches, just in case. And when we're done eating, we stay up for a while and talk."

"What do we talk about?"

"Just stupid things. Like whether it's silly or not to name a crossbow -"

"It is."

"- and how many stars are in the sky -"

"Just the right amount."

"- and if eggs are better fried or scrambled -"

"Boiled."

"Shut up, or we won't have anything to talk about when we finally go on our trip!"

She laughed. "I'm sorry. Please keep going."

Mateo felt the gentle pressure of her hand and wished he could hold her more closely, more fully. He wanted to give her a soft, gentle embrace, and then fear for his life as she returned his affection with one of those bone-cracking bear hugs that made him feel like his eyeballs were about to pop out. They hurt like hell, but he had never felt as close to anyone as when she held him like that, with so much unabashed enthusiasm. It made him want to try even harder for her.

"While we're talking," Mateo said, "I keep glancing over at you, trying to be all sneaky about it, but obviously you catch me doing it."

"Obviously. And then I ask why you're being all shy after everything we've been through."

"And I shrug, and I throw some more wood on the fire, trying to give myself a couple extra seconds to think, and I say that... you make me feel shy. You make me feel fidgety. You make me feel happy and nervous and scared to death that I'll say the wrong thing, like I always do, something horribly stupid or mean, so now I spend an inexorably long time weighing each word to make sure it's safe before I let it out of my mouth, because I don't want to make the same mistake with you as I made with everyone else, because I want what I have with you to last forever, because... I've been lonely for a long time, and the scary thing about being lonely is that, the longer you stay alone, the less you notice it, but then someone like you comes along and suddenly it hits me all at once and I realize just how lonely and miserable I really was and I don't want to go back to that ever again. So I feel shy around you, even though I'm normally never shy. I feel that way because I... I want to be worthy of you, and I guess that, deep down, maybe I still feel like I don't really deserve you. That I'm not good enough, that I need to try harder, that I need to be more than I can ever hope to be, just to break even. I look over at you and I see this Wolfess, her fur caked with dirt, her hair all tangled like a rat's nest, briars and thistles clinging to her pants, and I think... by the gods, that is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. And I wonder if -"

"And that's the part where I lose all patience and kiss you on your stupid mouth just to shut you up."

"_Just_to shut me up?"

"Well, other reasons, too..."

They edged closer, and Mateo was amazed by how he could barely feel any pain at all. Maybe he was just too close to passing out to feel the worst of it, but he didn't think that was it. It was Nilia. It was all Nilia.

Their lips touched. He could taste her blood, and she could taste his. It was exactly the same.

"I love you," he whispered.

She smiled, said, "I love you, too," and closed her eyes.

It was done. They had said the most important things. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but it was as close as they could get. And now...

All that was left was to wait and see how things would end, if they would fade away in each other's arms, or if they would be ripped apart by cruel, black claws...

---

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