It's been a minute since the last chapter. I can only apologize. But I'm here now, finally, with this. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you enjoy finally getting to see glimpses of who Camdyn truly is apart from being stuck reacting to her own (in her opinion) mortifying behavior. If you're still here, thank you.
I've taken a few liberties with the setup outside of Light's Hope. For the purposes of this story, it truly is a small military training yard, complete with a couple of modest barracks flanking the gates.
Camdyn was also meant to have retrieved Ashbringer by the time this chapter closed. Given her track record, I don't know why I was so surprised when she didn't stick to the plan.
This wouldn't have been at all possible without Eleneri's editing or my husband's patience with my teeth-gnashing.
Camdyn dutifully follows Varian from the kitchens, fully expecting him to lead her to the portion of the Petitioner's Chamber reserved for inbound travel. As they pass through the massive doors and into the throne room, she immediately begins to head toward the main hallway, only to be brought up short by a strong, inexorable pull in the opposite direction.
Startled, Camdyn looks down. Varian's fingers are wrapped around her elbow.
Varian's fingers are wrapped around her elbow. Confusion - well, it has to be confusion, doesn't it? Certainly nothing else. She can't feel anything else when her king is touching her - makes her stomach flutter. "General?" She hopes she doesn't squeak. She really doesn't want to squeak.
She manages to not squeak as she continues to follow him across the massive breadth of the throne room. When they cross in front of the Lion's Seat, he lifts his chin in the direction of one of the guards stationed there but doesn't break stride.
"Raquel." The guard somehow snaps to even stricter attention. "Fetch Farran. I need him in the library immediately."
"Yes, sire," she answers with a nod of her head before stepping down from the dais.
The closer they draw to the open doors leading to the gardens, the easier it is to notice the smell of the sea rolling in on the breeze. The air is thick with salt and the edge of a tang from metal smelting in the Dwarven Quarter, and Camdyn wishes she could stop just to breathe in the smell of fresh air. The smell of home. Her throat tightens unexpectedly, but she shoves it down. There will be time to rest - to be homesick - later.
She hopes.
Varian glances at her as they step into the gardens. "I'd prefer to avoid both interruptions and explanations," he says simply as they continue around the garden's perimeter. "The library is better for a portal in that case. Quieter than the Petitioner's Chamber."
Camdyn bites down the edge of a smile and keeps her gaze carefully forward. "Unless Professor Jones is present," she says.
If she didn't know better, she would have thought Varian's step hesitates for a fraction of a moment. She could almost swear his shoulders roll, though, and he chuckles quietly. "Neither Professor Jones nor his devoted students will be a problem."
This time it's Camdyn's step that hesitates, and what's becoming an omnipresent desire to melt into the floor tiles wells up again. For the briefest, barest moment, she had allowed herself to forget he was the king. Of course Professor Jones won't be an issue. She can feel his eyes on her as she shoves the irritation and embarrassment aside and lengthens her next stride so that her steps are once again in sync with his.
Her prayers that he won't ask her to speak go completely unanswered.
"You don't seem yourself," he says as they round the edge of the garden. His tone is far from intimate, but it also isn't quite regal. "What troubles you?"
She refuses to let her step falter this time. Her tongue, though, is like lead in her mouth and the swallow she forces to alleviate it feels dry and prickles her throat. "I think any who claim to feel like themselves in such dark times as these is a liar, your Majesty." It isn't the complete truth, but it isn't a total lie, either.
Camdyn's heart stops in her chest as a flicker of something indiscernible passes over Varian's expression, and then he hums a quiet sound of assent, making relief crash over her in a palpable wave that leaves her fingertips tingling.
"You are far from wrong," he says. "These are truly darker times than we've ever faced. But I refuse to believe these are times without hope."
"No dark time is ever without hope, Sire, so long as even a single light remains." They had been Everett's words when she was small, after their father had fallen, when it had been only the two of them left in a world that seemed determined to break their spirits. She had clung to them then and they had carried her through countless battles since. The ghost of a smile playing at the edge of Varian's mouth eases any lingering doubts about the propriety of sharing them now, with him.
"While true," he says as they reach the doors to the library, "I'll continue to pray that there is more than a single light in this darkness." He ushers her through the doors with an upturned palm, and everything else, even him, momentarily slips away.
For as many years as she can remember, Camdyn has loved the Keep's library. It's a treasure trove of information and stories unrivaled by anything save the Explorer's League Library in Ironforge. The times she has been allowed access have been few and far between, but they have always been breathtaking. Despite the circumstances, now is no different.
She doesn't even have to glance around to find any spines she doesn't recognize; one sits directly at her eye-level on the shelf before her. It takes a massive force of effort not to reach out and run her fingers against it. Instead, she begins what she hopes is a surreptitious scan for any other new finds, building a running mental catalog of how many she's never seen and estimating how much time she'll need to request for her next visit to study them all.
Her calculations are interrupted by a slight addition of weight on her elbow. She looks down to find Varian's fingers closed around it again. His eyes sparkle a bit with amusement at her expense, and her throat restricts while damnable heat creeps up her neck. "Farran is almost here," Varian says.
Determined footfalls echo through the open door, and she can almost curse herself for having been so distracted as to have missed them. Varian's hand falls away from her elbow, and she's finally able to quell the spreading blush.
Moments later, a lanky man with dark hair dressed in robes of Stormwind blue stands in the doorway. "Your Majesty," he says with a brief bow in Varian's direction.
"We need a portal, Farran," Varian responds with a gesture around the edge of the bookshelf. Camdyn leads the way with Farran following close behind and Varian bringing up the rear.
As they step around the bookcase, Farran's long stride quickens and he moves even farther back than Camdyn expects, nearly racing for the back corner of the library. Once they've reached the back row of shelves, he glances around and then nods to himself, seemingly satisfied. The sleeves of his robe hang low over his hands, and he shoves them violently up over his elbows before wiggling his fingers and then allowing the arcane power to build and swirl between his palms.
"Where do you want to go?" He doesn't even look at her as he asks, his gaze instead flicking between the wisps rolling over his knuckles and the table nearest her.
"Light's Hope," Camdyn answers. "The graveyard behind the chapel." Farran looks at her then, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. She can't help but give a half-hearted shrug. "It'll be deserted this time of night. I figure it's safer that way."
Farran makes an amused snort. "A paladin worried about 'safe'," he mutters. "You're lucky my brother has business dealings with the Crusade. I've gone with him a time or two to Light's Hope and know the graveyard."
The magic flows from his fingers into the rough yard of space between her hip and the table, spiraling and then coalescing before her into a portal. The eye of the portal widens, and what had once only been the smallest pinprick of light grows and expands until she can see Light's Hope wavering in the portal's epicenter. A heavy warmth she hadn't expected settles in her gut at the sight of it.
She scrambles in her belt pouch for her coin purse, finally finding it stuck beneath her inkpot with its drawstring tangled around her miniature pestle. It takes a moment of fumbling to free the drawstring, but finally she does, and then withdraws two silver pieces and holds them out to Farran.
Instead, he stares at them in consternation for a moment before starting and then hesitantly reaching for them, frowning the whole time. The momentary worry that it wasn't a large enough tip flashes through her; two silvers is the customary rate, but he is a mage in service to the king. She hesitates and fingers the drawstring of her coin purse again. Farran says nothing, however, still frowning at the silvers in his palm.
Taking it as an indication that he doesn't expect more, Camdyn tucks her coin purse back into her belt pouch and secures the latch. As she straightens, she catches sight of Varian from the corner of her eye. He, too, is frowning in the direction of Farran's hand, but there's no darkness under the set of his brow.
The realization that she might have caused some grave offense to her king makes her heart stutter in her chest before common sense gets the better of her. If Varian had been offended, he would be sure she knew it.
As she turns to face him fully, she can see that the corners of his mouth are beginning to quirk upwards ever so slightly.
She raises a fist to her shoulder and nods sharply, fighting the vestiges of adrenaline that are still leaving her shaky and threatening to cause a blush. "General," she says.
His face softens and his head inclines in her direction. "Light's speed, Camdyn."
She turns back to the portal, and Farran, too, nods to her before turning and bowing to Varian and then exiting the library.
Camdyn refuses the urge to cast a final look in Varian's direction before stepping through the portal.
The first thing to hit her, even before she's fully crossed, is the smell. The incense, sweet mustiness of parchment and warm earthiness of leather immediately give way to the cleanly sharp, herbaceous scent of pine. Though the Plaguelands lie just beyond the walls of Light's Hope, the pungent stench of rot never dares to so much as waft in on the breeze.
The sun is red and brilliant as it sinks down behind the mountains, giving her more than enough light to see plainly as she takes a breath of the clean fresh air and then takes off at a run around the edge of the graveyard to the front of the cathedral. As she races through the gate near the front of the chapel that marks the border of the graveyard, she can see the front training yard.
It's empty and silent.
Camdyn's heart is in her mouth. She isn't sure what she expected, but it certainly wasn't this. The barracks are dark and silent. Craftsman Wilhelm's forge sits cold and dark, wholly untended, and Duke Zverenhoff and Quartermaster Breechlock are missing from their tent. Even Fiona's caravan and Khaelyn Steelwing are gone.
Light's Hope looks abandoned.
Her pulse thumps in her ears in time with the impact of her boots on the ground as she runs up the steps of the chapel. She shoulders bodily through the massive doors, and the tension in her finally loosens as Lord Tyrosus's deep voice reaches her through the widening gap. He sounds clipped and terse, but it isn't panic; it's authoritative command, and years of training have her responding to it instinctively, her nerves settling and her next breath a little deeper.
As the doors open enough for Camdyn to slip through, she sees Lord Tyrosus and Lord Shadowbreaker huddled over a small table where there once was a pulpit. Brother Barthalomew stands close by, the bones of his feet almost indiscernible from the white tile of the floor. He spots her first, but doesn't alert Tyrosus and Shadowbreaker, only inclining his head in her direction and shifting position just enough to allow her to sidle between his body and the table.
She closes the door firmly and whirls on her heel to face the front of the chapel again. "Lord Tyrosus!" she calls as she takes the first step down the aisle. It's a struggle to keep her stride purposeful and not simply run the rest of the way to him. She feels like she's done nothing but run for two days straight.
His head jerks up from the table at the sound of her voice, frowning. "Camdyn," he answers, sounding slightly astonished, his face softening as his eyes light with recognition. She slows to a stop as she reaches the table, nodding briefly both to Brother Barthalomew and Lord Shadowbreaker. She has only enough time to process that a map lays stretched out between them across the tabletop and that it isn't a map of Azeroth as a whole before a heavy gauntleted hand grips her shoulder almost paternally. "We heard what happened on the Broken Shore from the survivors of Highlord Fordring's excursion. I've also heard we have you to thank for having any of them back at all."
She shakes her head once firmly. "That's not true. And it isn't also what's most important right now. Highlord Tirion-"
"I know," Lord Tyrosus says, his voice warm but final. The corners of his mouth set and his hand falls away from her shoulder. "The Legion devastated us. I still can't believe it." Under the gruff authority, his voice is raw at the edges. It's too close to her own feelings, and a tight lump forms in her throat. "But we have to go back. Tirion had the Ashbringer with him."
Grief rips through her again as she realizes that the map on the table must be the map of the Broken Shore. "That blade cannot fall into the Legion's hands." He looks up at her again, his eyes sharp and appraising. It takes every bit of her training to simply stand still under the weight of that gaze. "You're the only paladin from the battle on the Broken Shore in any condition to lead us to the place where Tirion fell. The Ashbringer could be anywhere on that infernal island by now, but starting there is as good a place as any. Get some food, get your wounds seen to, and then come find me. We leave within the hour."
She nods sharply. "Yes, sir. I also bring word from King Varian. He requests an accounting of our numbers and to know who leads us after Tirion's loss."
Tyrosus makes a noise deep in his chest, and his mouth twists. "I'll be sure to send the answer to Stormwind as soon as I know it myself."
Tyrosus's answer makes her blood run cold with the realization that she has no idea where Everett is. A lump forms in her throat, and she swallows past it. "Where is everyone else, sir?" Despite her efforts, her voice is still rough, edging on raw.
"We pulled them back to keep them safe," he says softly. "Brother Barthalomew?"
Brother Bartholomew clears his throat, an affectation Camdyn thinks he must have carried over from life, before shuffling over to the left-hand windows of the chapel. He digs the spike on the end of his axe between two specific joins of floor tile. With a single, sharp twist of his wrists, a portion of the floor measuring at least four meters by seven meters rumbles and then scrapes back into itself, revealing a stone staircase beneath.
Shock and confusion leave her staring dumbly from the steps to Brother Barthalomew to Lord Tyrosus and back again. Nothing she had ever seen or heard had prepared her for the possibility of a hidden room under Light's Hope. Somehow, of all the things she has experienced in the last two days, this feels the most ludicrous, and she isn't sure how to respond to it.
"It's a hidden sanctum," Lord Shadowbreaker says gently as his hand comes up on her shoulder. "Kept apart and secret for times of great need."
If Camdyn ever had a true brother, more of a peer and less of a parent, it would be Grayson Shadowbreaker. Everett raised her, Gaibrial trained her, but Grayson had been her mentor in the order proper. He had led her through her early adventures and more than once helped her mend her wounded pride as surely as Everett had mended her skinned knees. She can't feel Grayson's hand on her shoulder through all the layers of leather and plate, the but weight of it is as massive and devastating to her nerves as the first blow of a siegebreaker to a dam, and it makes her throat burn and her thighs quiver with the mere effort of standing.
"Everett's downstairs," Grayson murmurs, voice low and soothing. "He's been... hoping to see you again. Go get cleaned up, and I'll fetch you for Tyrosus in an hour."
Hearing her brother's name is all it takes to send Camdyn barreling down the stairs.
She manages to make the hard left just fine, though she takes the next hard right a bit wider, and when she nearly vaults the final small set of steps at the bottom, she almost slams directly into the paladin standing guard at the foot of the stairs on the left. He looks vaguely familiar, but she can't place him and doesn't really care to try.
The room she's stumbled into is split into two, each side a mirror of the other in shape and structure. The side to her right houses a rectangular table long enough for a dozen paladins to sit shoulder-to-shoulder on each of the long sides and take a meal, and three large curved alcoves. The alcove at its head has a map of the Broken Isles pinned to the wall, a second has no fewer than a half dozen massive bookcases reaching from floor to ceiling set from stones into the wall, and the third has a projection of Azeroth slowly spinning over a metal pedestal of what appears to be Titan make.
On her left, she sees an identical table, two library alcoves, and what she thinks are weapon stands in the alcove at the table's head.
Before her, the hallway seems to stretch for miles, passing through at least one more set of rooms before dropping off at the end into what appears to be a chapel that almost rivals the Cathedral of Light in size.
There's a continual low buzz of conversation, punctuated by the occasional clatter of weaponry and armor, and the smell of stew permeates the air. There are too many people to pick out her brother, and she doesn't have the time or the patience to go the length of what feels like an underground city to find him.
She whirls around to face the paladin at the foot of the stairs. "Everett Morris," she says to him, the words pressing their way out of her mouth. "Have you seen him?"
There's the sound of running feet behind her before the man she'd asked can answer. Hands clamp onto her shoulders, turn her around, and then she's pulled into a hug so tight that the joins of her armor actually squeak in protest.
"By the Light, baby sister," Everett murmurs into her hair, "I was so damned worried."
The adrenaline surge of being grabbed is immediately negated by the weight and warmth of her brother's face pressed to her temple. Her knees almost buckle, but his arms tighten around her and support her, giving her the strength to stand. She buries her face in his shoulder, her nose pressing into the side of his neck. The comforting, familiar smell of his shaving soap and the sound of his voice and the feeling of his skin is all too much. It's the last of anything her frayed nerves can take, and the tears begin to fall in earnest.
It's slow and silent at first, little more than barely ragged breathing and a slow trickle from her cheek to his shoulder, but it builds in her like a tidal wave, the grief and the anguish and the fear and the loss pulling on her soul until it's too heavy to bear, and she's openly sobbing in his arms, chest heaving with the effort just to breathe.
She cries until she's sure both the collar of her gambeson and the shoulder of his shirt are soaked through, until all that's left are dry hiccups, but she still can't stop.
"Ev. It was terrible. Just terrible." The words are little more than a rasp of sound, and they don't do justice to the horrors she witnessed and to the grief she carries. But they're the only words she has.
He doesn't ask her to elaborate. He doesn't even say anything. He responds the same way he did when she had nightmares as a child: he shushes her and makes to smooth his hand through her hair. His touch is soothing and familiar, and she eventually lets herself be calmed by it, cheek still pressed to his shoulder.
Callused thumbs stroke carefully against her cheeks as he turns her head so he can really look at her, and she winces at the pain in his grey eyes, at the pinched skin between his eyebrows as he spots the gash on her temple. Guilt that she hadn't thought to heal it herself before she saw him gnaws at her gut even as he sighs and hovers a hand over her temple. Light warms her skin, coursing into her until it doesn't hurt anymore. Until the cut on her forehead is healed and her heart doesn't ache, until she just feels tired and spent instead of ravaged and raw.
"Come sit down and let me look at you," Everett says, leading her away from the foot of the stairs and to a nearby table. He directs her onto the bench, and she dutifully sits. "Is there anything else?" he asks as he sits next to her and pulls her left hand into his lap where he begins unbuckling the straps of her gauntlet.
A small part of her is equally amused and annoyed that he's undressing her as he did when she was a toddler, but the larger part of her is too tired to protest and is grateful for the moment to let someone else care for her. Grateful for a moment where she doesn't have to make any decisions. "No," she says as Everett pulls the gauntlet off and turns her hand over in his own, inspecting it to his satisfaction before placing her hand back in her own lap and reaching for her right one. "That was the only injury I had left. Promise."
He huffs a tiny noise as he works the straps of her right gauntlet. "They've got bathing stations set up down the hall and behind the privacy screens on the left," he says, almost under his breath as he pulls her gauntlet off and begins squinting at her fingers. He finally places it back in her lap, seemingly satisfied. "You go get cleaned up," he says as he stands from the bench and then bends to kiss her forehead, "and I'll see about getting you some fresh clothes and some food."
Camdyn's hand shoots out of its own accord, latching on to his, desperate for the touch and the contact. "I can't." Everett's eyebrows shoot up, and he stands stock still, waiting for her to finish. The reality of what she needs to do is too heavy to voice, weighing down her chest. But she forces a deep breath and exhales, ignoring how tremulous it sounds. "I have to go back to the Shore."
Everett's face looks like she might as well have reached up and slapped him. She's almost positive he even rocks back in his heels, just a fraction. "What?"
"Lord Tyrosus needs me to lead him to-" There's a catch in her throat. The swallow she forces past it makes her belly jump. "- to where the Ashbringer fell."
The storm clears from behind Everett's eyes, and he crouches in front of her. He places his free hand - the one she isn't clutching between both of her own - on her knee. "I understand," he says. It's little more than a murmur, but it's enough. They're both paladins, both soldiers, and they both know orders are orders. The knowledge still makes the lines around her brother's eyes deepen as he frowns, looks somehow older and grayer and more tired than he had a moment ago. "How long before you leave?"
"An hour."
"Do you need me to come? I can-"
"No!" The thought of it makes her heart stop. Felfire and brimstone flash across her subconscious, and she's almost sure she can smell burning flesh and the stench of death. Her nose stings as tears threaten again. "I wouldn't be able to do my job."
"An hour is enough time to think ab-"
"No."
Everett watches her for a moment, his expression slowly fading from concern into paternal affection. He pats her knee as he stands, her armor ringing slightly under his palm, and there's an impish smile lurking in the corners of his mouth as he looks down at her. "Well, then. The Crusade may still need you, but you smell like a demon's outhouse. And an hour is more than enough time for a bath."
Before Camdyn can so much as splutter in indignation, Everett tugs her to her feet. She barely has enough time to grab her gauntlets off the table before he drags her back to the main walkway where they turn away from the staircase leading back up into the chapel. They cross under a massive stone arch and step into what look like training rooms. A row of privacy screens flanks the left side of the walkway, while medical cots sit in neat rows on the right.
The Crusade had, apparently, been expecting more survivors from the Shore. Three dozen cots sit waiting, but only a half dozen are in use.
For a moment, hope lightens her chest. Eight survivors of Tirion's regiment had been on the gunship with her. She counts the cots again to be sure, her pulse sounding in her own ears. Perhaps two of them hadn't been as badly wounded as it had seemed. And then she sees it: at the end of the line, nearest the cathedral, two cots swathed in white, the bodies on them nothing but unmoving lumps. Her stomach wrenches, and her fingers grip Everett's.
"It's not fair," she spits.
Everett squeezes her hand gently as they continue down the walkway. "War never is, buttercup," he murmurs. The name he's called her by since he took her in is a slap in the face and makes his words even more stark.
"I know." It scrapes out of her throat, barely even sound, but loud enough if the second squeeze of his fingers is any indication.
He finally leads her around a privacy screen. There's a simple metal tub filled with clean, steaming water and an equally simple washstand. A soft-looking, clean towel and wash rag sit folded on a three-legged wooden stool, and a plain vanity sits in the far corner, a comb and brush laying neatly on its wooden top. Everett finally releases her hand, and his broad shoulders droop a little. It terrifies her in ways she can't describe. For as long as she can remember, her big brother has been a stoic rock for her to build her own foundation upon.
Camdyn never knew their mother, and she barely remembers their father. But she does remember the terrible days after their father's death, when she had been nothing more than a little girl convinced she had been left alone and abandoned, absolutely certain that the gods were enacting some terrible vendetta against her personally. And then Everett had come for her, and even though he cried for their father just as she did, he never seemed to wear his grief.
But now, seeing the weight of yet another war he's living to experience pressing down on him, a primal, visceral anger rises up in Camdyn, bubbling under her skin.
"It isn't right," she seethes. Her tears are hot as they run down her cheeks, and this time her jaw aches from the force of clenching her teeth together. Her gauntlets clatter to the floor by her feet, and her hands crank into fists, her fingernails biting into her palms.
Everett's back is still to her, but she watches as his shoulders rise and then fall with a slow, deep breath before he turns around.
There's lightning in his eyes, but there are also lines on his face that she can't recall ever seeing before. He looks weary, and it breaks her as surely as the subtle slump of his shoulders does. "War isn't ever fair," he says again, his voice low and measured and so worn. Camdyn chokes down her rage, trying to temper and quiet it so as not to add another burden to his load. But her tears just won't stop.
He cups her chin in his left hand and raises his right to her face, wiping her cheeks with his fingertips. "It isn't ever fair," he repeats gently. "And most times it isn't even understandable. You know that. You've lived through enough of them. I've always prayed you'd never live through another."
She swallows down a hiccup, and her hands slowly uncurl at her sides, relaxing against her brother's touch. "This isn't even a war, Ev," she finally whispers. The thought of giving it full voice is still too much, but she needs to speak the words all the same. "It's a massacre. We lost so many people, good people, and I had to watch so many of them die. I saw things that will haunt my nightmares forever." Pain twists his face, and she reaches up to wrap a hand around his wrist where he still holds her chin. "Gul'dan means to utterly destroy us. We have to stop him. I just don't know how."
Everett sighs and then lets his hands fall away from her face. His gaze slides past her shoulder, growing distant as he sets his hands on his hips. "You drive them back, one battle at a time," he finally says. "It's all you can do. Make them earn every inch of ground they try to take, and then refuse to let them have it."
It isn't the answer she'd hoped for, but at least it's a truthful one. Everett reaches up again to chafe the pad of his thumb across her cheek, presses a kiss to her forehead, and then steps toward the border of the privacy screen. "I'll see about finding you a clean gambeson and underpadding," he says. "Does your armor need any repairs?"
"No," she answers, trying to force away the rawness of her throat. "It should be fine."
Everett's eyebrow arches imperiously. "'Should be' or 'is'?"
"Is," she corrects. "It is fine."
He nods once in response. "I'll leave the gambeson and padding out here." And then he's gone.
The silence eats at her when he leaves. There are still others - the hum of conversation carries over the privacy screens - but for the first time since the Broken Shore, she is both alone and sober. It would be easy to succumb to the quiet, to let her fears and her anger and her pain fill the void. But she had never been drawn to what was easy. So instead, she carefully releases her hammer from its baldric and sets it aside before pointedly focusing on each step of her armor doffing, on each strap of leather and the give of each hinge closure.
Taking her hair down is no easy feat, stuck fast as it is with ichor and sweat and grime, but she carefully pulls each ruined hairpin free and sets it gently aside.
When she finally sinks into the steaming water, she mentally recites the names of her brothers and sisters who didn't make it home, and then says a prayer of thanks naming those who did. She turns herself over to the fragment of Light she carries within herself. Anger slowly gives way once again to grief, and then that, too, gradually eases.
In war, she knows, the hurt and the anguish will come in waves. The trick is to avoid drowning in them.
When she can finally take a breath that doesn't leave her lungs feeling constricted, she picks up the wash rag and the soap. She takes her time, letting herself feel the scuff of cloth against her skin, the slick slide of lather, focusing on every sensation. Washing her hair gives her time to focus on the feel of her fingertips against her scalp, the weight of the suds in her hair, and the feeling of that weight lifting as she scrubs.
Three washes later, and satisfied that not a speck of ichor remains in her hair, Camdyn finally rises from the tub. The water is cool as she steps over the lip of the tub and reaches for the towel, but it feels good against her skin in the slightly chill air of the chapel. It's a biting contrast to the heat of armor she's been trapped in for almost two days straight, and yet another way to scrub the experience of the Broken Shore from her skin.
Sticking her head around the edge of the privacy screen, she sees Everett has been true to his word. A small stack of clothing - topped by a new pair of underwear and a new breastband - sits neatly folded well within her reach.
She could rush through getting dressed and rearmored, but the solitude, the peaceful quiet are a balm to her nerves. So she stretches the moment out as long as possible. In nothing more than her underthings, she moves to the vanity and combs through the length of her hair. A quick check of the vanity's drawers turns up a pile of leather strips. She uses one to tie her hair back into a serviceable ponytail. She'll probably have to braid it closer to her head before battle, she knows, but for now, this will do.
After that, with no further distractions to focus on, it's a matter of a few minutes to get into her fresh underpadding and her armor.
As Camdyn exits the makeshift bathing chamber, a passing squire yanks the clump of soiled linens from her arms. She's left blinking after him for a moment, wondering if she should chase him down and say something, but then she sees him stop at each of the bathing chambers and collecting each of their linens as well.
Shrugging it off, she simply stands in the walkway, taking in the fingers of warmth seeping into her soul, wondering if the Light within herself is calling back to the Light swelling within this holy place. Her brother's hand curls around the back of her neck over her gorget.
"It's almost time," Everett murmurs.
Camdyn can't help the wince. She doesn't want to go back, but she knows she has to, so she steels her resolve and turns to her big brother. He doesn't look quite as weary or old as he did before, and it mends a crack in her spirit she doesn't want to think about. "I love you, Ev." She isn't sure if she ever tells him enough.
Everett smiles a little, something small and wistful, and then his arms are folding around her and bringing her in to his chest. "I love you, too, buttercup."