“Oli! Over here!”

  Oliver winced at the exuberant call.

  Since they had arrived in Jellis, Oliver had been taking advantage of the plush beds, the first down mattress he’d gotten to sleep on since he left his family home behind, turning in early and sleeping late. Logically, he knew that it was late morning, and that his companions had likely been up for hours, but it still felt far too early for that sort of energy.

  A yawn overtook him as he approached the wardens–his sleepy gaze didn’t note the third person sitting with Rose and Beryl until he had nearly reached the table. Oliver paused for a moment as he took notice of them. For a moment, he thought them to be the boy who had arrived the night before. The sky blue hair and slight build were similar, but this person was clearly a girl. Did he have a sister who had come in separately or something? Jellis was a big town, but Oliver was pretty certain he would’ve noticed that vivid hair.

  Oliver feigned another yawn to cover his confusion, and slipped into the empty chair between Beryl and the stranger. “Who is this?”

  Oliver had addressed the question to his companions, but the blue-haired girl was the one who replied. “I’m Cadence. I was just talking to your friends about joining your caravan.”

  “No can do,” Oliver replied automatically. “No room.”

  Based on Rose’s wince and Beryl’s huffed breath, Oli suspected he had arrived a little too late for that line to work.

  Cadence arched a finely-angled eyebrow, which Oliver noticed absently was the same brilliant blue as her hair. “That’s not quite what your friends told me.”

  Oliver gave the two warden recruits a flat look, then turned back to the strange girl. “Be that as it may, we… I mean, I…” He trailed off with a sigh. “Look, do you mind if I just borrow my friends for a minute?”

  The girl’s smile was a little too knowing. “Of course not.”

  Oliver stood, gesturing for the others to follow him to the bar.

  “‘Friends’ feels a bit much,” Beryl muttered as she stood up.

  “A cup of tea, please,” Oliver asked Maria, sliding onto a barstool while he waited for the others.

  Maria, the innkeeper, gave him a weary smile. “Any preference?”

  “Strong.”

  While Maria prepared him a cup of something to wake him up enough to deal with this nonsense, he turned back to Rose and Beryl, angled just right so that he could keep an eye on Cadence over their shoulders.

  “So what exactly did you tell her?” he asked them.

  “Assume she knows everything,” Beryl suggested. “She’s smart, and she knows more than she lets on. I’ll bet you a scepter she knows exactly who we are and why we’re here.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I like her,” Rose said primly, taking a seat and signaling Maria for a tea of her own.

  Oliver sighed, exasperation making him snap. “Well that’s just great. What if she’s with whoever is behind the attacks? She could just have a charm boon or something.”

  “Oh, almost certainly,” Rose replied, her tone airy. “To the charm part, I mean. Not the bandit part.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because she’s a silver squire, just like you,” Beryl butted in. Unlike Rose and Oli, the large girl had stayed standing, merely leaning against the bar, and her height had her practically looming over them.

  “According to her. What proof does she have?”

  “Elway, apparently. She claimed the sheriff is an old friend of her master, and that he’d speak on her behalf.”

  Oliver opened his mouth, then shut it, mulling Beryl’s words over. Realistically, that was about as close to an unimpeachable source as she could have.

  “Does that make her master the tall guy from last night?”

  “Probably. You did say he was dangerous.”

  Oliver frowned, thinking of the far-too-observant man. He had been high-level, certainly, but he didn’t look much like a knight. Although that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Adeline had told him, shortly after he decided to join her, that the Argent Order wasn’t wholly composed of full-fledged knights. That silver knights were as much adventurers as anything else, and that the Argent Order served as an acceptable public face for those adventurers and their accomplishments.

  Did that make this girl an adventurer? That certainly fit her better, and if that was true, then she could be a good ally to come along on their return trip.

  “Warrior’s name, you can practically hear the wheels turning in his head.”

  “I think it’s cute.”

  Rose’s compliment completely derailed Oliver’s train of thought, and he gave her a surprised look, face flushing.

  The redhead grinned, but any further response was interrupted by Maria serving them both their tea.

  “Hugo’s account?” the innkeeper asked.

  Oliver nodded. “Mind throwing an apple on there for me too? Need something I can eat on the move.”

  “Not a problem. Some barley toast too?”

  “Just bread please, no need to toast it.”

  “You wouldn’t need walking food if you’d wake up before noon,” Beryl teased, exaggerating only slightly. Oliver sipped his tea quickly to hide his blush.

  “So? Does that mean you’re good with her coming?”

  Oliver frowned. “Maybe. Is it just her? What about her brother?”

  Rose and Beryl traded a look Oliver couldn’t quite sort out. “Brother?”

  “Remember? The boy from last night, the one who came in with the scarecrow. They look so similar, I figure they’ve gotta be siblings.”

  The two girls traded another look, but there was no hiding their mirth this time.

  “Oli,” Rose turned back, her green eyes dancing, “that was Cadence.”

  Oli’s eyes went wide. He shot a look from Cadence, then back to the two of them, shaking his head. “No, that’s not right. It was a boy who showed up. They might look similar but…”

  “Elder’s beard,” Beryl swore through a rough laugh.

  “Last night, she was a boy,” Rose agreed. “Today she’s a girl.”

  The slender girl gave her friend a brief look. “I think they’re called celestials, right? People who don’t consider themselves one thing or another?”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Beryl shrugged. “If you say so. I had her pegged as eclipsed.”

  “Nah, she’s too comfortable with either presentation. I think.”

  Oli listened to their conversation with an increasing sense of… of something he couldn’t quite describe. It wasn’t quite panic, or anxiety, or excitement. For a moment, he felt like he was on the verge of something…

  “Here you are, lad.”

  Maria’s sudden interruption caused something dark and bitter to whirl around in Oliver’s mind, blowing away the enchanting, terrifying exhilaration. Without as much as a “thank you,” Oli grabbed the slice of dark bread and the apple Maria had set on the bar for him.

  Cadence looked up as he approached, Rose and Beryl only belatedly following his sudden movements.

  “Well?”

  “My friends are convinced you’re worth bringing with us,” he told her, his voice tight from the sudden surge of frustration that had overtaken him out of nowhere. “I’m a little harder to persuade, though. Come on.”

  #

  “Seriously?” Cadence took a couple tentative swings with her practice sword, adjusting to the length of the carved stick.

  “Yep. You told Rose and Beryl you can handle yourself, and we’re due to start our morning practice anyways. This is as good a way as any to get a grasp of what you can do.”

  Cadence pursed her lips. Oliver watched her face closely, trying to read whatever was going on in her mind. Her eyes drifted around the empty stretch of field outside Jellis, from him, to Rose, then to Beryl. Both girls were standing off to the side, looking vaguely embarrassed by his aggression. A few unreadable expressions flicked over the girl’s face, before she nodded.

  “Okay. What are the rules?”

  “No special attacks!” Rose called from the sidelines. “I’m not putting you idiots back together!”

  Cadence nodded absently. “Fair enough. How do we know who wins?”

  Oliver casually twirled his own practice sword in a smooth series of circles. Cadence watched the motion closely, and Oli felt a grim smile stretch his lips. She must’ve been realizing what she was getting into. “Disarm or clear defeat. Beryl will call it.”

  Cadence blew out a breath. Her eyes darted around again, as if looking over the trio, then she nodded firmly. “Okay, I can do that.”

  Oliver snorted out a breath. “If you say so.”

  Cadence rolled her eyes, but a wide grin spread across her own face. “You’re such a boy.”

  That same flurry of anger and resentment suddenly surged through Oliver again, and his grin fell away as he went on the offensive.

  He opened with a Gust Blast, the powerful gale throwing Cadence off-balance for a critical moment as Oliver crossed the space between them, practice sword flashing through the most brutal combination of attacks he had. It was one of his go-to techniques, and his sword moved with the practiced ease of dozens of hours of training and years of conditioning.

  By contrast, Cadence’s defense was sloppy. Already knocked off guard by his opening gust, she had little chance to block his attacks, her flailing weapon only barely managing to stop two cuts that were aimed at her head and allowing several others through. The wooden sword slammed into her ribs, thighs, and arms with all the force of his sudden anger.

  But the girl didn’t even flinch, barely wincing at the no-doubt bruising strength of his attacks. Oli realized that she must’ve had some sort of defensive ability like his own Reinforced Defense, but it was too late. The attacks he had expected to put her down were insufficient, and she reclaimed some of her own momentum, taking the fight back to him. Her own attacks were as untrained as her defense though, little more than a series of overhead chops that Oliver was able to easily parry.

  Each of his ripostes proved just as useless, however. No matter how hard he hit the girl, her own defense rendered the wooden sword impotent, and Rose’s restriction meant he couldn’t use his own special attacks to do some actual damage. Before long, the simultaneous effort to both block and keep up the offensive had begun to wear him down, and the momentum of the fight shifted.

  Oliver gritted his teeth, frustration building ever higher in his chest. He had to go for the head–the girl was fastidious about blocking any attacks he sent towards her face, although her ability no doubt protected it. Oli knew firsthand how hard it was to resist the body’s reflexes to protect yourself, no matter how good your defensive abilities were. If he could get a good hit on her head, it might throw her off enough to–

  Suddenly, everything about Cadence’s stance changed. Even as his sword came down in a brutal swing, her own flashed up to meet the attack in a clean parry, sending his weapon rebounding up and to the side, leaving him open. It didn’t matter, of course. Oli had his own Reinforced Defense ability, this girl couldn’t do real damage with her fake weapon anymore than he could. He braced himself for the hit–but instead of a futile riposte, Cadence dropped her weight low, one leg bending while the other scythed out in a low kick, taking his legs from underneath him while he was off-balance.

  His back hit the ground hard, breath knocked from his lungs. Before he could recover, Cadence was there. A kick sent his sword flying from his weakened hand, and then the tip of her wooden sword was at his throat.

  “Match goes to Cadence!” Beryl called from the sideline.

  “So?” Cadence asked, her rich brown eyes dancing with humor. “Am I good enough to hold my own?”

  “Primal’s breath Cadence, that was awesome!” Rose came running across the field. “I thought he was being too hard on you, but then he was on his back!’

  “It was pretty good,” Beryl admitted as she approached, her tone more reserved but still carrying a small chuckle.

  “Thanks!” Cadence replied brightly, as if she wasn’t still holding him at swordpoint. Fake swordpoint, but still!

  “Yeah, yeah. Can you let me up now?” he grumbled, reaching up to slap the tip of Cadence’s sword away. In the wake of the fight, Oli found himself calming down, the bitter wind leaving him as quickly as it had come.

  Cadence looked back down, a slender blue eyebrow arched. “As soon as you admit I’m good enough to come with you.”

  #

  Later that night, Oliver slid into a chair across from Cadence. The celestial looked up at him, surprised. She had stuck around for the hours of training Oliver and the wardens had been doing to keep themselves sharp in Jellis, keeping up gamely with the trio. Cadence didn’t have the training that Oliver or even Beryl and Rose had spent years on, but she was clearly naturally talented, and took easily to the demands of combat.

  Oliver had spoken with both Hugo and Elway, and neither proved an impediment to Cadence joining the caravan. After the difficulties they had faced on the road, Hugo was pleased to have another battle-gifted along, especially one who would have to pay their own way. Meanwhile, Elway admitted to not knowing the youth personally, but vouched for the knight she claimed to be her master.

  All of which meant that when they left Jellis in a couple days, the blue-haired celestial would be joining them, regardless of what Oliver thought about it. Which, he had eventually decided, was a good thing, because he couldn’t even sort his own feelings about the fluid teen out, much less express them to anyone else. His wounded pride, confusion, jealousy, and bitterness mingled with a sense of wonder and excitement he couldn’t quite place.

  It was this cocktail of confused feelings that drove him to Cadence’s table, a mug of cider in each hand. “Do you mind if we share a drink?”

  Cadence looked up in surprise, but a smile quickly bloomed on her face, a more confident reflection of his nervous grin. “Of course not!”

  “Maria said you like cider, so…”

  “Thanks!” Cadence eagerly grabbed her mug and took a gulp. She gave a satisfied groan before she set the mug back down. “I love the cider they make here. I keep meaning to make it out to the orchard to see how they do it.”

  Oliver nodded an awkward agreement. He was suddenly back to that first night at the Grime and Glory, when he met Rose and Beryl, with no idea of what to say. Only he was the one who had started this conversation! What was wrong with him?

  “Something you wanted to talk about?” Cadence asked, their smile turning a shade indulgent.

  Oliver frowned, then tried to force the petulant expression away. “This morning, when we fought. How did you do that?”

  Cadence shrugged. “I don’t know. Just felt right in the moment, you know? You had already shown that it was a waste of time to slug away when we both have defensive abilities, so I figured I’d take a different tact.”

  Oliver frowned at their conclusion. Only in the aftermath of the fight had he realized just how thoroughly she had exposed his weaknesses, the same weaknesses Adeline had focused so much of her attention on addressing. Cadence had relied on her defense to let her be more aggressive, wearing Oliver out and leaving him exposed when he tried to meet and counter all of her attacks. He still just couldn’t get the hang of purposefully taking a hit that Reinforced Defense would let him ignore.

  Another thought deepened his frown. “Wait. How did you know I had a defensive power? You hadn’t hit me yet.”

  Cadence blinked, then their smile widened. “I guessed.”

  “You guessed?”

  “No. But I promise you wouldn’t believe the real answer.”

  Oliver rolled his eyes grumpily, deciding that Rose and Beryl must’ve told her. “Why do you do that?”

  “What?”

  “You’re hiding things, but you’re making a show of it. You know more about us than we know about you, then you rub it in like that.”

  Cadence huffled a little laugh, her eyes dancing again. “We all have secrets, Oli.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Yeah you do. Have you told Beryl and Rose yet?”

  “Told them what?” The bitterness began to build in Oliver’s chest again. There was only one thing the celestial could be talking about, but there was no way they could know that! He could barely even admit it to himself most of the time!

  Cadence’s smile slowly died away. She looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head. “It’s okay. You’re not ready yet. It can take a while sometimes. But… Well, it looks like we’ll be spending a bit of time together. Let me know if you want to talk about it sometime, okay?”

  The room seemed to dance in Oliver’s gaze. He could swear he could feel his own heartbeat in his ears as this gir- this celestial, with their mixed, bold, open presentation, spoke to him so easily, as if they could see the darkest secret in his heart, as if they had shined a light on it.

  After a moment, Cadence frowned. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed. But I’m… well. Yeah.” They paused, unsure of how to proceed, and finally told him, “It’s okay. Don’t worry.”

  They gave him a last, lingering look of sympathy, then they stood up, leaving Oli reeling, the ground underneath him crumbling away as her words unburied things he had hidden away years ago.