“We were.” Hendrik chuckled more quietly now, looking rather proud of himself. “Thanks. Again.”
Dagan nodded. “Thank you. For telling me about him. I can tell you loved him intensely.”
Hendrik laughed again, but this one sounded singularly helpless. “Apparently, I did.”
Quietly, but feeling it was right, Dagan ventured, “It’s alright if you still do, you know.”
“How?” Hendrik asked with a shake of his shaggy head and a heart-rending sigh. “How can anyone live like that?”
“I’ve never had to do it. But when my sister Helen lost her partner young, she said she had to simply keep living. Keep him in your heart and mind, so he lives on with you.” Dagan sighed. “She said it gets easier.”
“I’m not murdering anyone or talking to myself right now, so I guess, yeah, it’s gotten a little better.” Hendrik’s smile went bleak.
“And you’re talking about it. Even finding humor in it, disturbing though it is.”
“It does feel good. Compared to not talking about it, I mean. I didn’t expect that.”
“Then why did you open up?”
“I thought you should know. That I killed those priests. It’s your job to make sure the woods are safe, so you should know where I’ve been and what I’ve done.” Hendrik spread his hands wide as if in surrender.
“Thank you,” Dagan said, once again oddly touched in the most unexpected of ways.
“I wish I could do more for you.” Hendrik shook his head. “You saved my life. A few moons back I might’ve hated you for it.”
“You weren’t doing too badly,” Dagan pointed out. He believed that Hendrik had lost his interest in life at one point. Who wouldn’t, in the circumstances? But he also knew that if Hendrik had actively wanted to end it, he’d had ample opportunity before Dagan had discovered his makeshift camp.
Hendrik had lost much, but not his will to fight. Dagan saw it now, clear as the sun in summer, clear as his bright, earnest eyes.
“I was just waiting to end,” Hendrik said. “I didn’t know there was anything else in the world to live for.”
“You’ll stay with us, then?” Dagan’s heart swelled at the thought, both with affection for Hendrik and all he’d been through and a little pride in himself for helping him along. “In the Heart Wood?”
“I don’t know. But I know it’s possible now. I know a lot of things are possible that I never imagined, back in the City. Thanks to you.”
“Anyone might’ve found you.” Dagan wished he could stop thinking about it, let alone say it aloud, but there it was.
Hendrik shook his head. “Maybe. But I don’t know if anyone could’ve disarmed me like you did. And I don’t mean my paring knife.” He smiled. “Take the win. It’s yours.”
“If you insist.” Dagan reached out once more and took Hendrik’s hand. He squeezed it, and Hendrik squeezed back, giving him a nod. “Hungry?”
“Starving.”
One more squeeze, and Dagan unfolded himself and stood, stretching. “I could eat an entire deer by myself. We’ll be in the Wildcrafter Conservancy by the end of the week.”
“I almost want to keep traveling. See more of the forest.”
Oh, how his tune had changed. “You can do anything you like, after you see the Council. Explore the possibilities.”
“Yeah. I think I will.”
Part III: Hendrik
Chapter 1: Mushroom Conservancy, Heart Wood
Not-Kass hadn’t spoken to Hendrik since long before Dagan had appeared in his camp, golden-eyed and silver-tongued. At first, Hen had been sure Dagan would be an assassin sent by the See to send him after Kass into death. He’d expected to welcome the thought but hadn’t; instead, he’d found himself ready to fight, woefully under-armed as he’d been.
The more Dagan made him want to laugh, the more Hendrik let himself trust him, though, the more he wished Kass was still with him, even if it was just in his head. Kass would’ve adored Dagan, with his pretty smile and easy flirting—and all the other reasons he’d adored Jak, in truth. Now Hen knew Dagan was nothing like Jak, after all. Jak was a consummate professional, a man who read the minds and wants of others with ease and control. Jak had never tried too hard a day in his life, not for anything, Hendrik was sure.
Dagan tried too hard every time they met a stranger in a settlement. At first, it had puzzled Hen; perhaps he’d just forgotten what people were like, or maybe it was that people in the Heart Wood—that terrifying and monstrous dark forest of the night mare—were different. But the more denizens of the wood he encountered, the more he realized that no, it was just Dagan who was like that. The man was beautiful, thoughtful, devoted to his job, quick-witted, and charming. What was it about encountering strangers that made him lose his mind so quickly, every time?
This wasn’t the only mystery Dagan presented, but it was the one Hen pondered as they set up camp in the wilds of the Mushroom Conservancy. They found a spot beneath a weeping willow at the edge of a clear, as-yet-uncorrupted lake. Though they’d bathed at the brewery, it was midsummer hot and sticky that week. The water, mostly shaded by the trees, was cool and inviting, and almost before he’d set down his pack, Dagan jumped out of his clothes and ran into the lake. He swam out to the center quickly, feet creating a flurry in the water behind him.
Hendrik stripped down to his shorts and walked into the lake slowly, carefully. He wasn’t afraid of the water, not after making friends with the sea for so many moons. But he still had a healthy respect for it.
“It’s nice out here,” Dagan called. “There are tickly little water-plants everywhere.”
“I can’t swim,” Hendrik called back, flushing.
Dagan kicked closer so they didn’t have to yell. “But you went into the ocean? Bathed in it?”
“I didn’t go out past the waves. Almost got pulled out a few times, but not on purpose.” Hendrik ducked under water to cool his face, then ran his hands through his hair to stop it dripping in his eyes. Fire and stone, he needed a haircut. It had never been this long in his life.
“Do you want to learn?” Dagan asked.
Hendrik frowned. “I don’t know. I think I might just be broken. I sink.”
“Let me see.”
