The demons gave chase, loping alongside the galloping horse. The Painted Man shoved his bow back in the harness and took up a spear, spinning it in a blur as he stabbed at corelings coming from every direction. One got in close, but he kicked it in the face, the impact ward on his heel throwing it back with a flash.

All along, Twilight Dancer continued to run.

Charged from the night’s killing, they remained fresh and alert when the Riverbridges came into sight at dawn, though neither man nor steed had rested all night.

It had been fifteen years since Riverbridge was destroyed. It had been a Milnese village then, but Rhinebeck had wanted a share of the bridge tolls, and had attempted to rebuild the village on the south side of the Dividing River.

The Painted Man remembered the audience where Ragen had told Duke Euchor of Rhinebeck’s plan. The duke had raged and seemed ready to burn Fort Angiers to the ground rather than let Rhinebeck toll his bridge.

And so arose two merchant towns, one on either side of the river and both calling themselves Riverbridge, with little love lost between them. There were garrisons for royal guardsmen, and mounted travelers were taxed on both sides of the river. Those who refused to pay could either hire a raft to ferry them and their goods—often for more than the tax—or swim.

The Riverbridges were the only walled villages in all of Thesa. On the Milnese side, the walls were piled stone and mortar; on the Angierian side, great tarred logs, lashed tight. Both went right to the river’s edge, and the guards who patrolled the walltops often called curses to their counterparts across the water.

The guards on the Angierian side had just opened the gate to greet the morning when the Painted Man rode through. His hands were gloved, and his hood pulled low to hide his face. It may have seemed odd to the guards, but he made no effort to explain himself, holding up Rhinebeck’s seal without slowing his steady pace. Royal Messengers were given free passage on both sides of the river. The guards grumbled at his rudeness but did not hinder him.

There was fog in the morning air, and most of the Bridgefolk were still warming their porridge as the Painted Man passed through the towns, all but unnoticed. It was easier this way. His painted skin tended to lead half of them to shun him like a coreling, and the other half to fall to their knees and call him Deliverer. He honestly didn’t know which was worse.

From Riverbridge, the road to Miln was a straight run north. The average time for a Messenger to make the ride was two weeks. His mentor Ragen’s average was better: eleven days. Astride Twilight Dancer and fearing no darkness, the Painted Man made the trip in six, a trail of demon ashes in his wake. He passed Harden’s Grove, the village a day south of Miln, at a full gallop in the dead of night, and it was still hours before dawn when Fort Miln came into sight.

As much his home as Tibbet’s Brook in some ways, the Painted Man was overwhelmed by the emotion he felt at again seeing the mountain city he had sworn so many times never to return to. Too distracted to fight, he set up a portable circle and made camp while he waited for dawn, trying to remember what he could about Duke Euchor.

The Painted Man had only met Euchor once, as a boy, but he had worked in Euchor’s Library, and knew the duke’s heart. Euchor hoarded knowledge as another man might hoard food or gold. If he gave Euchor the battle wards, the duke would not share them openly with his people. He would attempt to increase his own power by keeping them secret.

The Painted Man could not allow that. He needed to distribute the wards quickly to every Warder in the city. There was a network of Warders in Miln, a network he had helped build. If he got the wards to Cob, his former master, they could be everywhere before Euchor had time to suppress the knowledge.

Thinking of Cob opened a floodgate of memories he had long suppressed. He had not spoken to his master or anyone else in Miln for eight years. He had written letters but never found the strength to send them. Were Ragen and Elissa well? Their daughter Marya would be eight now. What of Cob, and his friend Jaik? What of Mery?

Mery. It was she who had kept him from coming back those early years. He could have faced Jaik again, or Ragen and Cob. Elissa would have railed at him for leaving without so much as a goodbye, but he knew that she would have forgiven him when she was done. It was Mery he did not want to see. Mery, the only girl he had ever allowed himself to love.

Does she still think of me? he wondered. Did she wait, thinking I might return? He had asked himself those questions a thousand times over the years, but after she had rejected him once, he had never dared seek the answers.

And now…he looked down at the tattoos covering his skin. Now he could not face any of them, could not bear for them to see the freak he had become. He would trust Cob, because he had no other choice, but better for all if the rest thought him gone forever, or even dead. He thought of the letters in his pouch. They said enough. He would see them delivered, and let all know the sender had died a good death.

A great weariness overcame him, and he lay down. As sleep took him, he saw Mery’s face in his mind’s eye. Saw the night they had broken.

But his dreams changed that past. This time, he did not let her go. He gave up his aspiration to become a Messenger, staying on to run Cob’s warding business, and instead of feeling confined, he felt freer than he did walking the naked night.

He saw Mery’s beauty in her wedding dress, saw the graceful swell as her belly grew, saw her laughing, surrounded by happy, healthy children. He saw the smiling customers whose homes he made safe, and he saw the pride in Elissa’s eyes. A mother’s pride.

His limbs twitched in the dirt, trying vainly to call his mind back from the vision, but the dream had hold of him, and there was no escape.

He saw the night they had broken again, this time as it truly was, with him riding off without another word after their argument. But as he left, his mind’s eye followed Mery instead, watching her over long years spent walking the walls of Miln, looking out for his return. All the joy and color was washed from her face, and at first the sadness only made her more beautiful. But as the seasons passed, that sad, beautiful face grew gaunt and hollow, with lines of sorrow about her mouth and dark circles beneath lifeless eyes. The best years of her life she spent waiting atop the wall, praying, weeping.

He saw the night they broke a third time, and with this last vision the dream turned into full nightmare. For in it he left, but there was no sorrow, no great pain. Mery had spit in the dirt at the city gate and turned away, finding another instantly and forgetting he had ever existed. Ragen and Elissa, so wrapped up in their infant daughter, had not even noticed he was gone. Cob’s new journeyman was more grateful, wanting nothing more than to be like a son and take over his shop. The Painted Man started awake, but the image remained, and he was ashamed of his horror, for he knew it was selfish of him.

That last vision would be best for all, he thought.

After a dozen years of beating elements, the place where One Arm had breached the wardnet of Miln was still a different color from the rest of the wall, the Painted Man noted as he broke camp in the morning, packing away Twilight Dancer’s warded barding.

The three dreams still haunted his thoughts. Which would he find inside? Should he try to find out, for his own peace, if none other?

Don’t, the voice in his head advised. You came to see Cob, so see him. You’re not here for the others. Spare them the pain. Spare yourself. The voice was with him always, urging caution. He thought of it as his father’s voice, though he had not seen Jeph Bales in close to fifteen years.