Chapter 4

Clouds moved in from the east late that afternoon, smothering much of the sun's light. Athraigh Town was dull and darkened when Willow and Zeke first laid eyes on it, its sandstone structures hunched dimly together as though for protection from some unseen menace. Willow recognized immediately what a busy, lively place it must ordinarily be: like Fort Zephyr, one wide street dominated the community's layout and ran from north to south, with all other roads laid out in a grid pattern off of it. Clustered in merrily chaotic fashion along both sides of this main artery were not just buildings but row after row of street stalls, from which merchants could sell their wares or make purchases from the endless traders who came from all directions to do business.

To call the place empty did not do justice to the very particular quality of hurried abandonment so evident here. Doors swung eerily on hinges; bits of detritus wafted like tumbleweeds down paths. What few electric lights were still on flickered suddenly and then shut off as Zeke slowly approached the northern end of the main street. Willow half-expected to hear the moaning of ghosts over the restless murmuring of the wind. There should have been people beyond counting, voices shouting and bartering and bickering, colorful flags and banners snapping smartly in the breeze. But instead, as Willow climbed out of Zeke's cockpit after situating him beside the northernmost building, there was nothing to see but empty stalls and darkened shops, nothing to hear but the wind. The effect was eerie.

Then, suddenly, she did hear something else: raised voices. Threats. Anger.

"Don't want you destroying things before that gang even gets here," Willow said quietly to Zeke. "Stay here, and if I need you, I'll yell." Her hand reached into her pocket to clutch the small metal object hidden there, and she made her way carefully down the street.

The voices were coming from what appeared to be a large and well-appointed nearby inn on the east side of the street, which no doubt ordinarily did brisk business housing traders and others traveling through the town, but now, like the rest of the town, was nearly abandoned. Willow stepped through the unlatched front door and took a swift appraisal of the taproom she now found herself in. It was an open area with two long tables, several smaller ones, an empty bar, and a developing situation off to one side near the front windows. Three young men, evidently not much older than Willow herself was, had cornered a hooded figure.

"Imperial scum," one of the men was saying.

"We don't need your kind coming around here. We've got enough problems of our own to deal with, without rats from Guygalos infesting our town."

"I'm not Imperial," the figure protested, also in Helic, but his foreign accent belied his words. His voice sounded crazily familiar, but the very idea forming in her mind was ludicrous and so she pushed it impatiently aside.

"No? Then why don't you talk like us? You think we're stupid? We saw that Helcat you arrived in. Military issue."

"What's going on here?" Willow inquired in honeyed tones, coming further into the room. She kept her expression neutral and curious.

The three men turned briefly to her. "You shouldn't be here, sweetheart," the first one told her dismissively. "You're supposed to be evacuating with your family." They obviously had mistaken her for a much younger girl.

"Is there some kind of problem?" she pressed, approaching more closely. "Has this man done something wrong?"

"None of your business," snapped the second. "We're just taking care of a pest."

"Three on one? Not very sporting of you," she noted lightly. A bit of the dim illumination from outside fell across the bridge of the hooded figure's nose when he looked towards her. A familiar constellation of freckles was sprinkled over pale skin. Her mouth fell open. Was it -

But the first man was now at last giving her his full attention. "Get lost," he said threateningly, gesturing towards the front door. "Go find your mother." With this rude dismissal, he turned his back to her again and picked the figure up by the front of his jacket, pressing him into the wall. "Do you know what we do with Imperial vermin like you around here?"

"My mother is dead," Willow interjected loudly, all pretense of being a harmless little girl now cast aside, "and there's something you ought to know about me." Her hand emerged from her pocket, and with a soft click, she flicked open the switchblade she'd been carrying. "I've never liked bullies."

Before any of the men knew what was happening, Willow's hand shot forward like a striking snake, her blade leaving a shallow slash across the back of the first man's thigh. He shrieked in pain and surprise, dropping the hooded figure, crumpling to the floor, and clutching the back of his leg, which was already beginning to bleed profusely. Willow took this opportunity of confusion to give the third man an unexpected shove, so that he fell into the second, who then toppled over the first, until all three were on the floor.

She held her knife in front of her. "Get out of here!" she yelled. "I don't want to see you pathetic lot again, and there's more where all of that came from if I do!"

The uninjured pair, staring at her with wide eyes, grabbed the arms of their comrade and scrambled to their feet, fleeing from the inn. Willow watched them go, and it wasn't until they were well out of sight down the street that she turned back to the hooded man.

"I suppose...I owe you doubly now, my wingless savior," he said softly, a familiar voice speaking now in the Common Tongue. He pulled the hood of his jacket back at the same moment that a shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds outside, revealing a shock of copper hair, a red sunrise facial marking above one eyebrow, and preternaturally green eyes.

"Phoenix!" Willow shrieked. "It...it is you!"

She just stood there, utterly stunned, chewing at her lip for a moment, brain working furiously to integrate the reality of his presence before her.

He grinned. Perfect white teeth, tiny gap between the front two. "You're looking lovely as always, Willow," he said gallantly.

At the sound of her name, she was finally able to snap back to the present, and she dove into his arms.

He laughed joyously, kissed the top of her head, and held on tight, face buried in her hair as he exhaled, all irreverent comments forgotten. "Oh, heavens, Willow, I thought I would never see you again."

Tears had sprung to her eyes of their own accord, and she coughed a half-laugh, half-sob into his shirt. "I've missed you so much," she told him. "Are you alright? Did those boys hurt you?"

"Oh I'm fine, darling, just fine. You - are you alright?"

"I think so! I just - that was very, very scary," she hiccuped.

"Scary? You were scared? Had me fooled...and those three clowns, too. I've never seen such a deliciously bloodthirsty gleam in your eye." He paused, recalling watching her take down the last remaining enemy Zoid in a battle against a group of bandits outside of Fort Zephyr a bit over a year ago. "Actually, I take that back."

She laughed, hiccuping again, and pulled back a little, scrubbed her fists against her eyes. "I thought my heart was going to beat right out of my chest," she admitted. "I'm amazed you couldn't hear it!" She pushed her hair back behind her ears and took a few deep breaths, feeling the adrenaline beginning to dissipate.

"You always were just as brave as you were beautiful," Phoenix said fondly, taking both her hands, kissing the back of each. "Thank you, Earth princess." Beams of afternoon sunlight cut across his face, casting long shadows. The green of his irises was so bright they seemed to be glowing.

She could do nothing but smile back at him through tear-glazed eyes, still scarcely able to believe that the friend for whom her heart had ached for so long was...right here. Right in front of her. Less than an arm's length away.

He pulled her to him and embraced her once more, resting his chin on the top of her head, sighing happily. "It's wonderful to see you again. And not just because you so swiftly dispatched those cretins."

"Why were they trying to hurt you?"

"Wrong place at the wrong time? I don't know. Everybody here seemed very stressed today. But honestly, I've no idea what happened. Perhaps it was simply because...I'm different. You would know all about that."

She nodded, cheek still pressed into his chest, arms wrapped tightly around him. Phoenix felt different to her, having apparently gained back the weight he'd shed when lost in the desert. He'd put on some new muscle, too. He was still lean and lanky like he'd always been, like he probably always would be, but now, he was warm, solid, strong. The great fright of confronting those three strangers was still fading, but aside from Dan, no one else could make her feel this comforted and safe.

"I just want to state for the record," he continued, stroking her hair gently, "lest you've thought me some kind of unfeeling monster all this time we've been apart...that I think the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, besides having to leave Heinrich behind to join the army, was leaving you. All alone in that ruin."

"I understand why you had to go. Heinrich needed you. Please...please tell me that he's okay? And that you found him?"

"I most assuredly did. That's a story unto itself, but the part that matters is, he's living with me now and doing just fine. And what about you? I trust you heard from your Dan fellow, yeah?"

She nodded again. "We live in a little village called the Wind Colony," she murmured into his chest.

He nudged her away from him just far enough to look into her eyes. "He came back for you, just like I knew he would. I'm so very glad that...your faith in him was not misplaced." A small smile played about his lips. "'Thank you, Phoenix, for so generously correcting my misguided ways,'" he said in a falsetto voice. "'It's a good thing you're always right, Phoenix.'"

Willow giggled, giving him a little shove, but then turned serious. "I shouldn't have ever doubted you," she said. "Or him. Thank you, for finding Hafen and sending her to me. I don't know how things would have turned out if you hadn't helped."

"Not at all, not at all. I was merely trying to make a dent in the massive imbalance between who owes whom," he replied good-naturedly. "You did save my life out in the desert, after all."

"And then you saved mine, when I accidentally ate those weird berries," Willow reminded him.

"Ah yes, that I did! I'd almost forgotten. But...you've gone and upset the balance again today, with this latest adventure. How can I ever begin to repay you, kind lady?" He winked at her then and grinned through a teasingly, enticingly bitten lower lip.

Willow couldn't help but laugh. Oh, how she had missed him.