Luchar swept his left arm from one edge of the ring of glowing mushrooms to the other, a loud hissing crackle emitting from his hand. As the knucklebone in his left palm dissolved, the rich odor of humus and rot was immediately overwhelmed by sulfur; Luchar tightened his nose and breathed through his mouth. In the wake of his hand, a ripple of blue energy arced across what had been a blank face of rock. Once the blue light reached the opposite side of the circle of mushroom, it split and yawned open revealing a dim cave beyond. 

Luchar let the warm hum of pain in his left arm fade from his awareness as he turned to his hound and his pup. His eyes fell on the narrow glowing collar around each of their necks. He smiled, letting the tip of his tongue rest on his bottom lip for a moment.  “It’s open,” he said with satisfaction, relishing the look of unease on their faces.

Moments ago, the space behind him had been a solid rock ringed with the strange mushrooms–a faerie ring, Luchar knew. The stream they had been following had led them here before terminating at the base of the rockface. The water had been gurgling and splashing from a fissure low in the slope, just below the mushrooms, moments ago. Now the stream flowed easily through the glowing portal and into the dark cave beyond. 

Heidrun’s eyes narrowed. “You’re both fools to want to do this. You’re entering The Otherworld as mortals. You’ll both be meals before the Sun next rises, mark it.” His hound pointed at the glowing portal. Heidrun’s low raspy voice lacked the tinge of mirth Luchar expected. Feeling a tinge of disappointment, Luchar noted that the blonde woman had resumed her mortal visage. Although her mouth and brows were neutral, Luchar had learned to detect her annoyance in the tension around her eyes. 

Luchar’s smirk deepened. He did not doubt his hound. He had been to The Otherworld only briefly before. Early in his training at The Citadel, he, like all the Fion in training, had been encouraged to wander the caves and tombs below The Citadel’s crumbling towers. A few of those adventures had led him through ancient barrows and into The Otherworld. That had been deadly enough, and the portal behind him would lead to something far worse than the den of some goblin or kobold, he knew, but what choice did he have? 

His life was forfeit if he didn’t bring back proof of Amaryllis’ death. 

Luchar scanned Bridget’s face as the pup watched Heidrun. The poor thing had been a difficult travelling partner. Any delay had quickly frayed the woman’s fragile patience, leaving her irritable and unreceptive. She seemed to care more about The Princess than her own life. Luchar marveled at just how deeply the royal brat must have gotten her hooks in his poor pup’s head. 

With Heidrun in the lead, they had made good time, cutting quickly through the woods, and that had eased the little pup’s nerves. His hound had already sniffed out the faerie ring and doubled back to report what she found. Luchar marveled again at this way his pet’s contorting limbs allowed her to fly through the canopy. Tracing the path a third time had been little effort for her. Luchar would guess that containing her frustration at Luchar and his pup’s inability to avoid the dense brambles along the forest floor had been, for her, more effort than the journey itself. 

Now, though, his pup’s brow was furrowed. Her jaw was clenched and her muscles were tight around her high cheekbones. She had an alert and pensive look about her. Bridget really did remind him of his father’s hunting hounds, he mused, smiling.  

His pup shook her head. “We are not turning around now. The Princess is in far greater danger right now than we will be.” 

Luchar’s eyes narrowed. Bridget was studying Heidrun intently, scanning her body. Following her gaze, Luchar saw Heidrun’s hand tentatively clasping the bicep of her opposite arm. There was a tension low in his hound’s eyes that he had not seen. She was scared. He frowned.

“Are you not a Sidhe?” Bridget continued. “Can you not just talk with them? Or are they so monstrous as to kill their own kind?” 

Heidrun’s upper lip curled into a snarl. “Careful not to run your mouth about things you don’t understand, little knight.”

Luchar felt his shoulders tense and rolled his eyes. Once two dogs developed an adversarial relationship, it was always such an ordeal to force them to behave around one another. He had so hoped they would get along. 

“Perhaps you could explain then,” Bridget demanded. 

Heirdrun stepped directly in front of Bridget and forced her face an inch from the ex-knight’s. “It is no business of yours, mortal. Why do you gnash your teeth at everything I do and say? I am no monster. It was your ilk that burned my village to the ground.” 

Bridget let her greaved foot drop heavily an inch from Heidrun’s narrow turnshoe. All the while she stared the blonde woman down, unblinking. “And a monster like you killed my friend’s father. Flayed him alive for his own child to find.” 

Luchar raised his left hand, the fingers already half-closed, watching to see if either of them would notice. Feeling the warm hum of pain begin to snap and course through his left arm, he found himself hoping neither of them would. 

His hound hissed and rolled a shoulder, and her limb began to elongate with a sickening pop. 

His pup stuck out her lower jaw and feigned a headbutt. Heidrun flinched back, and Bridget used the space to begin drawing her sword.

Smiling, Luchar clenched his hand and felt the pain rush out of him. There was a sizzling crackle, and his hound let out a high shriek that sent a shiver down Luchar’s spine. She seemed to explode outward, her long arms flexing, waving, and contorting. A whole array of motion and expression, as she sank to her knees in the freezing stream. 

Flecks of icy water flying around her, Bridget turned to face him, eyes wide, sword still half-drawn. Luchar smiled at her, feeling the spikes of pain build in his arm. Bridget moved to close the distance, and he closed his fist again. His dogs reacted in such deliciously different ways, he noted.

While his hound had been all outward motion, his pup merely snarled, as her body went tense and pulled inward. One hand was still tightly wrapped around the hilt of her sword. The other was barely restrained inches from grabbing her collar. It took a moment, but she too fell to her knees. He shivered as he contemplated pushing her further. How much more would it take to get the poor pup to scream and flail, he wondered?

Luchar walked over to his pets and stooped, no longer able to keep his pleasure from showing on his face. He reached out and cupped Heidrun and Bridget’s jaws and guided each to face him. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. He was greeted with the familiar acrid pine of his hound and the sweet, metal-and-leather-tinged sweat of his pup. The musk of sex and the faint floral scents that he had detected when he first met Bridget had faded. A half-smile crept over half his face.

He missed this dearly. Training and tending to his father’s hounds had been one of his few joys before he had been whisked away to The Citadel. 

“Now, now, pets. You are litter-mates, remember? I don’t think you should be fighting.” Luchar searched each of the woman’s eyes in turn. “I think you should apologize and make up.”  

Bridget’s cheeks went red. She turned and faced Heidrun’s inky eyes again. “I do not wish to fight you madame Heidrun. I apologize for my short temper. You are not the monster that preyed upon Kettenbach.”

Luchar raised a brow in surprise at the name. His eyes flicked between his dogs. Was Bridget attempting to goad Heidrun? He let the warm hum of pain begin to spill back into his left arm. 

“Kettenback?’ Heidrun spat. Her brow furrowed and her lips split into a snarl again. 

Bridget’s eyes went wide, confusion clear on her face. “Yes, the village I grew up in?” She searched Heidrun’s face and then turned up to Luchar for explanation. Genuine confusion was written on her face. 

Luchar looked down into that pleading gaze. He let the pain in his left arm dissipate. Something deep in him stirred. He wanted to feed that instinct in her. “You grew up in Kettenbach?” 

“Yes?” Bridget answered in confusion, still searching his face, glancing now and again at Heidrun. “It’s where I grew up.” 

Luchar felt his stomach plummet. He looked into his poor pup’s long face for a moment. His heart ached painfully, and he looked down to stare at the stream below as it passed by. She had passed the village. He had found evidence that his poor pup and that awful royal brat had stopped within view of the smoldering ruins of Kettenbach. If that village was Bridget’s home, she would have discovered what had happened. 

“When did you last visit Kettenbach?” Luchar offered, his voice still soft and tentative. 

“A decade or more, why?” Bridget asked, concern rising in her voice. 

Luchar’s vision snapped to his hound. Seeing her lips part, he stared her down, willing her into silence. He shook his head slowly.

That royal brat’s hooks were even deeper than he thought. He felt his blood beginning to boil as he worked out the implications in his mind. He willed himself to let go of his rage. His poor pup would be free of all that soon enough. 

All the while, Heidrun maintained Luchar’s gaze. The minute indications of fear around her eyes passed, and she began to laugh, low and grinding. Her lips split revealing rows of narrow needles. 

Luchar glared at her, trying not to blush. “We do not have time. Come, The Princess is waiting.” He stood and walked through the portal into the darkness beyond. 

 Bridget stumbled awkwardly through the pitch black cave, Heidrun creeping less than a foot behind her. After walking for over half an hour or more–Bridget could not be sure–the only light left was the faint white-blue glow around the two women’s necks. That illumination extended only inches, little use apart from making it easy to spot the two of them from a distance. For any practical purpose, Bridget was blind, forced to extend her arms in front of herself to avoid low outcroppings and stalactites. Meanwhile her heavy greaved feet crashed into the rocks and freezing water below. She felt a fool, and her toes were beginning to freeze.

Heidrun, by contrast, seemed to leap easily from one stone to another, easily dodging the rocks above and the icy water below. When Bridget’s hands failed to detect an outcropping, or her foot caught a rock and sent her stumbling, Heidrun was there in an instant to giggle her wretched scraping giggles. 

Bridget’s nerves were already worn thin, and her blood was hot. She wondered why she did not simply draw on the monster–the woman, she corrected herself. The ex-knight struggled, though, to think of her in those terms. 

“He has to clasp his left hand to harm us,” Heidrun hissed out from the darkness, causing Bridget to jump. 

Bridget tried to turn and evaluate Heidrun’s face, but she saw only the loop around her neck and the glimmer of Heidrun’s inky black eyes. “What of it?” She had barely spoken before another rock sent her stumbling. 

Heidrun emitted a long series of laughs that might have been mistaken for something scraping along the cave wall. “We could overtake the witch-knight. If you grasp his left hand and keep it open, I can do the rest. We can be free of his control,” Bridget could just make out Heidrun’s talon jabbing at the faintly glowing ring around her neck. 

The ex-knight shuddered realizing that Heidrun had resumed her monstrous form in the darkness. She might be inches away in, poised to strike for all the ex-knight knew. “Luchar is a woman.” Bridget corrected. 

“Luchar is what she has chosen to be all his life.” Heidrun hissed. “You’d do well to realize that, and the danger we are in.”

Bridget snorted. 

Far ahead of her, Bridget could just make out the mouth of the cave, a splotch of navy floating in the black. As she grew closer, she could just make out Luchar’s figure framed in the center. She stared at their distant form waiting to feel anger or fear. 

“Is that so, sidhe?” Bridget smirked. “If we are to be such fast friends in this battle against the terrible monster, Luchar, perhaps you can share why you are so afraid to enter The Otherworld?” Bridget paused for a moment but heard no answer. “I saw the way you looked at that portal. You know something.” 

“I’ll share nothing of the sort, lapdog,” Heidrun hissed. 

Bridget turned forward again. She thought about the collar around her neck. The longer it stayed the less she hated it. Luchar was cruel to be sure, but they also had a softness to them that Bridget struggled to put to words. The thought of feeling nothing around her neck frightened her a little. 

Bridget’s lips tightened. “Then I trust you less than Luchar. At least she has shown her belly.” 

“Fool girl, Luchar has done no such thing.” Heidrun narrowed the distance between them and Bridget could feel the blonde woman’s cold breath on her shoulder as she spoke. An acrid smell filled the ex-knight’s nose. “The witch-knight is kin to the same filth that burned down Kettenbach. It was my village too. I mourn it, as you do, I reckon. We can have our revenge.” Her voice was long and low, like a blade drawn against a whetstone. 

“What lies are you weaving, monster? Kettenbach still stands.”

“What?” Heidrun’s voice was sharp and angry. “How can you not know? Did you not pass it by on your way to my cabin? The place is a black and blasted wreck.” 

Bridget felt her blood go cold. She felt dizzy, and a cold sweat was collecting under her tunic. “Liar,” she shouted. For some reason, she remembered wildflowers and The Princess’ broken pump. Shielding her face with one arm, Bridget doubled her pace and closed the distance to Luchar. 

She found them standing at the mouth of the cave overlooking a valley below. She arrived at their side and gasped to see the sight below. 

A bright, waning crescent moon and a sea of stars hung over a high-mountain valley below. Most of the valley was cast in darkness, but she could make out a cluster of sparkling towers on the valley floor. They were visible in the flickering yellow light of several dozen bonfires raging at their bases. The surface of the towers glinted and sparkled strangely in the wild light. 

Around the fires, Bridget could just make out the shadows of figures dancing wildly in the firelight. The movement of their forms seemed erratic and too long. Even as her eyes adjusted to the moonlight, she could not make out anything more than wildly turning silhouettes.  

Bridget turned to see Luchar staring back into the cave behind them. “Where is Heidrun?” they asked, their eyes scanning the tunnel. 

“She was just behind me a moment ago,” Bridget offered and turned to search the dim portal. 

Luchar shook their head. “We don’t have time. Hopefully she will find us on her own.” They turned and began to work down the narrow path that ran along the valley wall. 

She hoped the monster would never find them.

After perhaps a quarter of an hour, Bridget found herself watching Luchar’s face in the moonlight. It was narrow, sharp and thin. The dark circles of kohl around their eyes and their unkempt locks gave their face an aspect of hunger–in multiple senses, she realized. The sharp, high cheek bones and bright hazel irises shining out from the dark rings gave them a dangerous, predatory look, like a jackal looking out at her from the edge of a campfire. At the same time, their visage had a lean neediness to it, as if she was not sure if the jackal wanted to share the warmth of her fire or the warmth in her veins. 

“Amaryllis hates you, you know?” Luchar said, their eyebrows raised. They did not meet her gaze.

They had been walking along a winding set of switch backs after emerging from the caves above. The path was narrow and grown over with thistle and worn down by time.  

Bridget stumbled for a moment on the narrow path and had to press herself into the valley wall. “That’s…” Bridget’s blood ran cold. She felt the same tide of self-hatred that had been threatening to drown her since the night Amaryllis left rise up inside her again. She pushed it down. “Leave it be. We need to focus.” A hot current ran through her neck, and she cried out in pain. The wave hadn’t hurt enough to cause her muscles to seize, but it was enough to bring her full awareness screaming back to her drowning body. She glared at Luchar. “What are you doing?” 

Luchar’s hungry half-smile was the only answer she received. “This is important, pup. We can not go wandering into a mysterious palace overrun with powerful Sidhe ready to flay us alive while you’re still half-brainwashed. I don’t think you should be parrying anymore.”

Bridget flinched at the phrasing. She wanted to demand they explain why they had shocked her, but she knew they would deny it. “Fine.” She considered the question again, trying to keep her head above the wave as the tide rose again. “I hope she does not hate me.”

“Do not hope that, Syr Pup,” Luchar chided.

“I should hope that she hates me?” Bridget fired back in confusion.

“Yes! Without question, pup. A woman like that. Pray that she hates you,” Luchar returned.

Bridget sighed heavily. “Why in the world would I want The Crown Princess of my kingdom, the woman I hurt, to hate me. I should rather hate myself.”

“She would have you do that, yes. And I am trying to prevent exactly that.” 

“No, you are trying to poison me against her.” She flinched again as another current of pain shot through her. “Ow!” She glared at Luchar. 

Luchar turned and closed the gap between them. They inspected her neck. Placing one hand on her shoulder, they pushed the thumb of the other against her jaw and pushed lightly, guiding her to expose her neck. “That looks painful, pup, but I don’t see any burns.” They met her gaze and held it for a time searching her for something. “I’m sorry it hurts, but we have to get these kinks out of your head, pup.” 

Bridget shivered. She took in Luchar’s face again. For a moment she just wanted to fall into them and agree. Looking at the long lines of the younger warrior’s face she imagined again what the girl must have grown up around. A father who made it known that he cared more for his purse than her suffering. Being stolen by an order of murderous wizards when she was a child and raised to be a killer. Bridget could imagine how alone and scared she must have been. 

The ex-knight thought about her own first few nights at Castle Ohg’ir. She remembered the little girl sobbing uncontrollably in the barracks. The other trainees had not liked that in the least, and had let her know. 

“What are you thinking of?” Luchar asked, concern in her voice. 

“I was just thinking that it must have been very frightening to grow up in The Citadel.” 

“Oh, it was,” she replied, a smile drawing at her lips. Her eyes widened and glittered in the moonlight. “There were twenty apprentices taken with me to the foot of Mount Bannoc, and I can count the number still living on one hand.”

“Gods.” Bridget gasped horrified. “Children?” 

Luchar’s smile faded. “Yes, children.” Her eyes flicked back and forth for a moment. “Sorry, I forget sometimes that outsiders do not know how…” She chewed her lip, rolling it between her teeth. “Violent The Citadel can be.” 

“I am so sorry,” she offered.

“Thank you.” Luchar nodded, sighed deeply, and continued. “And I am sorry that Amaryllis was so violent with you. I was hit and put in jeopardy and nearly killed more than once. But those were all things done to my body. My mind was not violated as yours was.”

Bridget’s brow furrowed. Was that right? It seemed off somehow, but the younger warrior had been right before. Bridget knew, trusted as much as she could, that Amaryllis had played with her head. More and more she remembered The Princess using her crystal to clear her mind. She remembered repeating her oaths in a hollow empty voice. She could also, indistinctly, remember repeating the same words in front of other members of the royal household. “I still hope she does not hate me after what I did to her. I was a monster.” Another wave of pain shot through her neck. She cried out and met Luchar’s gaze. She tried to plead with her voicelessly to stop. 

“No,” Luchar said firmly. She licked her lips as she looked into the ex-knight’s eyes, “I’m sorry, but you’re just so beautiful. And you simply can not be allowed to talk about yourself like that. The only monster I’ve heard you describe is Amaryllis.” Luchar looked at her fiercely. “She used you for safety and protection. And then when you were useless to her, she abandoned you. She threw you out. What a disgusting way to treat a loyal dog.”

Bridget’s cheeks burned. Her thoughts were swimming. She felt both seen and degraded all at once. For a moment she had to fight away the image of Luchar pulling her by the collar around her neck. “She did not abandon me,” she managed to protest. 

Luchar tilted her head. “Come on. We need to keep walking.” 

Bridget kept pace close behind the hazel-eyed woman, eager now that the pair were on their way. She watched the Fion’s expression carefully as they walked. She thought about being abandoned. Being moontouched but raised like a normal child must have been a bit like that, she thought. Being made to feel that one’s own tears were the worst and most burdensome thing had cut Bridget deeply. It had taken years and the love of a few gentle knights, Golla most of all, for Bridget to even begin to heal those wounds. She couldn’t imagine being left alone–ignored on such a basic level. 

Scanning over the sharp lines of Luchar’s face thrown into contrast by the moonlight, Bridget felt she could see that little girl in the Fion warrior still.

“She did abandon you,” Luchar repeated. “And that is monstrous of her. To get that deep in your head and then just leave you to die in some backwater forest?”

Bridget thought for a long moment on Luchar’s words. “But I attacked her. She…” Bridget yelped again as another wave of pain hit her. 

As close as the ex-knight was, it was easy for Luchar to turn and touch her arm, “Shhh, I know it hurts. We can not alert the sidhe below us, though.”

Anger welled up in Bridget at that, “Then stop hurting me! This is your magic.”

“For your own good,” Luchar snapped back. “If we are to get The Princess out of your head before we are in the thick of combat, there is no other way.” Luchar’s brow furrowed as she searched the ex-knight’s face. “It is for your own good.” 

Bridget’s eyes went wide. She felt like she had been slapped. Reeling, she tried to put the emotions into thoughts, words, but nothing came.

Luchar pulled on her hand leading her around a bend in the narrow switchback. “You still have not even told me what exactly happened the night she left you. I have my doubts as to whether you hurt anyone at all. I do know though that Amaryllis left you to die. Does that sound like something a person who loves you would do?” 

Bridget shook her head. Tears were forming in her eyes now. She felt, again, like she was covered in filth. The tide was rising higher, and she struggled to breathe.

Luchar nodded as she observed Bridget’s face, still leading her by the arm. “I know it hurts, pup. I am sorry.” Luchar scanned the ground for a long moment carefully watching the path ahead of them. “You mentioned earlier that you grew up in Kettenbach.”

Bridget nodded, happy that the subject was being changed from Amaryllis. “Indeed, I did. It’s a small village at the outskirts of the Aesvithr. Heidrun’s cabin reminded me a great deal of the village.” 

Luchar let out a pained gasp, “Oh, pup.” 

Bridget cocked her head. 

Luchar stopped then and turned slowly. She met the ex-knight’s eyes. Tears were welling at the corners of the Fion’s eyes. “Do you not remember the village you passed before entering the forest? I know you stopped nearby. You would have seen it.”

Bridget’s mind felt like it was trying to pull at something lodged in a vat of porridge. She could tell it was there. She could reach out and touch the memory, but the more she pulled it toward her the more it was sucked back into the depths of her. “Yes, Amaryllis broke her pump there.” 

“What did the village look like?” 

“It was burned to the ground. Blackened.” Bridget offered. She felt nauseous. The wave was over her head now. She could not breathe. 

“Good pup.” Luchar nodded. “You know what was done to that village.” 

“Fion.” Bridget spat, biting her lip. 

Luchar flinched. She broke the ex-knight’s gaze and her cheeks went red. After a moment, she nodded, “Good pup. More than that though. It was the High King Cahry’s Pretoriate. Amaryllis’ father’s men burned that village to the ground. And killed every living soul.” 

Bridget was dizzy. She leaned against the valley wall that had risen beside them as they had descended. 

Luchar moved forward and took her arm in her own. “You know the name of that village.” 

Bridget could hear her own voice shouting angrily at Amaryllis. She remembered the panic and the fear. She had run from the slaughter at Castle Oh’gir with the Crown Princess on her lap. There had been no training or plan for that. The Knight Captain had never once briefed her on what to do if the keep itself was lost and the king himself was killed. Those were the unthinkable things that she could not allow. She was supposed to die before allowing either. She had run to the only place she knew to go, “Kettenbach,” she whispered. 

Luchar nodded. “Good pup.” 

“No, no, no,” Bridget began to sob. Her chest was caving in on itself. She wanted to leap from the narrow path. She wanted to be anywhere but in her own skin. 

Luchar held her arm firmly.

Tears began to flow down her cheeks, and she bent toward Luchar to embrace the young warrior. 

Luchar stepped back. “Shhh, pup. Be strong. No crying.” 

Bridget felt as if her innards had been wrenched out. She tried desperately to pull the tears back inside her. 

“I am so sorry she did this to you. Amaryllis mistreated and abandoned you. She is a monster. I promise we will find her and make her pay,” Luchar cooed. 

Bridget’s stomach did another somersault at the suggestion. She did not want to make Amaryllis pay. She wanted Her Lady’s love. She wanted Kettenbach to still be standing. She tried to put the feelings to words, but only a few half sobs escaped her lips. Desperately she fought them back inside her. 

Luchar reached up and grabbed her jaw, her hazel eyes flashed in the moonlight, “I think you are a beautiful dog. If you were mine I would have kept and cared for you. I would never have abandoned you.” She brushed a tear from the ex-knight’s cheek. “Now, no crying. We have a princess we need to find.” Luchar turned, and, still leading Bridget by the arm, walked her to the valley floor.