With moonlight as her only lamp and the cobblestone road cool under her bare feet, Lili felt—briefly—clever.
And brave.
She had outfoxed the guards of this kingdom called Albion. For all their iron and their banners and their big blue roofs—whatever craft or half-forgotten lore let them raise such heavy things—they were still only men. And men, she had learned, could be fooled.
The road itself felt like a marvel. In the North there were no stones like these—no ancient Roman faces smoothed by centuries of passing feet. On them her soles went quick and light, silent as a thought. It felt good. Almost playful.
Then the bridge's black spine cut into view between trees.
Torchlight gnawed along its edge. Three burly men stood watch: two leaning into easy talk, the third throwing a stick for his sheepdog. The animal bounded out and back again, delighted with life despite the hour, tail wagging like a banner of its own.
Lili's confidence thinned at once.
Before the men—or worse, the dog—could catch her scent, she slipped right, into brush and reed, aiming to skirt the checkpoint and take to the water as planned.
The ground promptly decided to betray her.
Twigs jabbed her feet. Hawthorn snagged her cloak. Nettle kissed her shins with sharp insistence. Flint chips hid like teeth and scraped her pale skin. The tidy rhythm of stone and trimmed verge dissolved into August mush and hidden malice.
"Au—au—au," she hissed under her breath, every other step.
In the North, bare feet were for warm planks by the fire or smooth sand at the shore. Cliffs and paths were for reindeer leather boots. She was a climber, yes—but not a barefoot bush-creature.
The night life took offense at her intrusion.
Birds burst up with indignant chittering. A hedgehog decided this was no place for philosophy and bumbled away. A family of rabbits exploded into motion, white tails flashing like insults.
"Sorry—sorry—go back to sleep," she whispered, which helped nothing at all.
The shrubs opened suddenly onto sedge and willow root—and then water climbed her calves.
Her thighs.
Her waist.
Her dress drank greedily and dragged. A cold shiver punched through her when the ripple kissed her navel. She scrambled sideways for shallows, legs turning heavy, mud sucking at her steps with obscene affection.
Somewhere a duck hurled itself into the air and stitched a crooked line across the moon, quacking outrage as it went.
Lili fought her way back to ankle-deep water, then sank again to her knees. Cold mud hugged her calves like hands that did not ask permission.
"Fine," she muttered through clenched teeth. "This is… all fine."
With effort she slogged to the grassy rim and hauled herself out—soaked, shivering, and newly resolved to avoid anything that looked even vaguely wet.
She had barely caught her breath when something cool and slick slid along her shin.
Wriggled.
Latched.
Instinct made her swat. Her fingers closed on a small, black, slippery body that refused to be shooed.
"Ew—ew—ew!"
She sucked in a breath, pulled both legs close, and went to work. Pinch. Peel. Flick. The first leech let go and hit the water with a soft plop.
Then she felt more.
Half a dozen.
Then more.
Tiny mouths steady at their thieving.
"Ew! Disgusting—no—stop—get off me—damn it—no, you can't drink my blood, you leeches—whatever you're called—eww!"
Blood beaded in neat pinpricks where the fine teeth had fed. When the last black worm wriggled back into the dark, she sat trembling on the edge of laughter and tears, veil askew, dignity drowned.
Inside her, the small sun said nothing—only a steady warmth, patient as a hand held firm.
Be brave for the baby.
She nodded to no one, dragged her cloak tight around her, and moved on.
Turning right would have taken her away from the bridge, but a narrow stream barred her path and—perversely—kept curling her back toward it. The water twisted and re-twisted like a sleeping serpent, sending off side arms that forced her always closer to the torches. Unhelpfully, the bridge remained the shortest crossing to the mainland.
Soon she was within sight—and hearing—of the watch, but not so close that they should notice her. She could still swim from here. A patch of dry scrub led to the water's lip. Between her and the channel to Albion's larger island lay gravelly shallows paging into dark—no swamp, no leech-nursery. On the far bank, the forest stood in a dense, black line like an unspoken riddle.
She wasn't from these lands.
She didn't know their plants, their animals, their quiet ways of killing the unwary.
But choices were thinning.
She stood, hesitating.
She had planned to slip in and swim. She wanted to. But her feet still burned, and the thought of her whole body vanishing beneath a writhing veil of leeches arranged her face into a grimace she couldn't politely name.
Courage wavered.
Ideas did too.
The torches on the bridge crackled softly, patient as fate, while the river whispered at her feet—cold, dark, waiting.
Then suddenly a rustle cut her thought.
Another—closer.
The brush behind her shook; a twig snapped; torchlight breathed copper over willow bark, swelling and shrinking like a living lung.
A sheepdog burst out first—black and white, with a tan splash over the brows—tongue lolling, joy uncontained.
"Warf!"
Lili squeaked, flinched backward, and sat down hard in the shallows. Sand took the fall kindly; cold water took her breath far less kindly, punching the air from her chest in a sharp, humiliating gasp.
"Fenton!" a man's voice called, amused and exasperated at once. "What've you there, boy? Fenton—did you find someone?"
Albion through and through—the accent poetic and sing-song when it wasn't trying.
Lili froze.
Speaking would let the North climb straight out of her mouth, waving flags. She flapped a hand to shoo the dog. Fenton barked helpfully, delighted, advertising his discovery to the world.
Torchlight shouldered through the shrubbery like a living thing, breathing hot over leaves. A guard heaved into view—kettle helm shoved back, gray threaded through a brutish beard, blue tabard over mail that rasped when he moved. Fire painted his cheekbones like war paint and threw Lili's wet face up out of the dark—naked, small, exposed.
"Ah—what have we here?" His voice was thick and close. The torch lifted higher, bright as a brand. "Thou lass—what in God's name doest thou abroad at this hour?"
The black-and-white beast bolted to his boots and snarled a joyous bark, tongue lolling, eyes hot coins in the firelight. Lili had never known dogs—only wolves—and the way it pranced, eager, teeth showing, felt like hunger.
The torch broke the water into plates of copper; his mail turned to scales; her breath sawed in her throat.
She darted a glance to the channel—the only door left—and gathered herself to dive.
He must have seen the decision coil in her shoulders.
"Hold, girl!" he barked, voice cracking like a whip—and then he came at her.
Boots crashed into the shallows; the torch roared; water slapped her calves. A gauntleted hand—rough, iron-rimmed—closed on her shoulder. Fingers bit. She twisted, slipped; the world went sideways.
His chest hit her back like a wall and folded her into him.
The smell of wet wool, smoke, and iron swallowed the night as he dragged her bodily out of the black water and into his arms.