Xanos Messarmos had not argued with, insulted, brushed off, or otherwise harassed Aurora for almost three hours. Indeed, he had not uttered a single complaint. The company of the half-orc, Aurora had to admit, had recently become quite tolerable.

Of course, his being asleep in the back of a cave probably had a bit to do with that.

The cave was deep enough to provide shelter from the wind and the snow and allow them the comfort of a fire for the night. Aurora was finishing off the second watch, waiting for the first rays of dawn to shine in through the entrance.

According to master Drogan, every minute wasted was an advantage lost. Taking his words to heart, Aurora had taken out her daggers and was passing the time attempting to improve her throwing technique.

It had been truly shocking how far her skills had deteriorated in the time since she had lost her fingers. The skirmish in the crypt had forced her to realize just how silly she had been to spend the months since the injury moping about instead of learning to cope. Aurora felt like someone who only thinks to by a belt once their pants are around their ankles.

She positioned the dagger between the remaining two fingers and thumb of her left hand, grimacing at the ache of missing digits some part of her brain insisted were still there. Before the injury, Aurora had impressed even her master with the speed and accuracy with which she could hurl knives at targets. Now, as she tried to execute the simple maneuver that would transfer the handle from one hand to the other, the dagger tumbled from her hand.

She hissed a curse that would have made Mischa's ears burn and bent to retrieve it. As she straightened, the sound of jangling metal reached her ears. She went to the mouth of the cave, dagger in hand, and squinted at the snow. After a moment she saw the source of the sound: a man on horseback, the metal plates of his armor clinking loudly with each laborious step the animal took.

What was an armored man doing out in the middle of nowhere at this time of night? Aurora frowned, not liking any of the ideas that sprung to mind. She considered waking Xanos, but just then the man rode into a patch of moonlight and Aurora glimpsed the banner lashed to the horse's saddle.

It was as though an iron band tightened around her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs. She looked at the banner a second time, hoping the embroidered eye surrounded by the sun's rays had been a trick of the shadow. The symbol remained, rippling gently in the wind, and Aurora drew back into the cave with her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

With numb efficiency, she emptied her canteen over the small campfire and ground the embers beneath her heel. Any footprints they had left outside should have been covered by several inches of snow by now; the man outside had no way of knowing she was here. With any luck, he would pass right by and–

"Glory be to Helm!" The man's voice was strong but surprisingly young. "We've found a place to spend the night after all, Justice!"

This time, Aurora's whispered curse would have made Mischa's ears bleed. A lantern was lit, and in moments the cave was echoing with heavy footsteps. Aurora avoided the halo of light as she snuck past the man, moving soundlessly though she doubted he could hear much of anything over the noise he was making. Drawing close enough to the man that she could see her breath condense on his armored back, Aurora slowly took the weight of his scabbard into one hand and sawed at his sword belt with the edge of her dagger.

The light of the lantern fell across Xanos' sleeping form, and the man stopped short.

"Of all the caves in all the world," the man exclaimed. "I cannot bloody believe it!" He gave the half-orc a less-than-gentle shove with the point of his armored toe. "Get up, you."

Groaning, Xanos swatted at him. "It's not morning yet, fool," he muttered. "Can't a man have his rest?"

"Certainly." The man set down his lantern and took hold of Xanos' blanket with both hands. "Half-breeds like you, however . . ."

One sharp tug later, Xanos was on his feet and glaring murderously. "There's no chance you're just a particularly ugly figment of Xanos' imagination, is there?"

"Hardly." The man's voice was fairly dripping with distaste. "Luckily, my purpose in coming here has absolutely nothing to do with you. Now, why don't you make this easy and be on your way," he cracked his knuckles loudly, "before I throw you out."

The sword belt gave way. As Aurora had intended, the man remained oblivious to the theft. Xanos noticed the movement, however, and his gaze met hers just long enough to let her know she'd been seen.

"Throw me out?" Xanos chuckled. "You think you're intimidating, don't you?"

"So I've been told," the man said in a voice like ice.

"And Xanos has been told that having a half-orc's boot lodged in a certain orifice can be highly unpleasant. Let's find out."

Predictably, the man went for his sword. His hand closed on empty air just as Aurora's dagger slipped between his plates of armor and pressed against the hollow of his throat.

"Relax." Her lips were almost touching his ear. "It's too early for this foolishness." She tossed his sword to Xanos, who caught it and smirked.

"Strange to be the outnumbered one, yes?" With his tusks bared and his eyes flashing beastlike in the lamplight, Xanos' human heritage was hardly apparent. "You're like a bad rash, Thisden. Irritating, unpleasant to look at, and impossible to get rid of for good."

The man spat at him. "I didn't come back to this frostbitten wasteland to visit you, you sanggletoothed oaf."

Aurora flinched in surprise, and the man squirmed as the tip of the dagger broke his skin. "He's been to Hilltop before? Why didn't anyone tell me?"

Xanos snorted. "Between almost being eaten by a giant wolf and finding you bleeding to death on the floor, it never occurred to me. You want Xanos to alert you each time a pompous fool with a bad haircut passes through town?"

"No," she said tightly. "Just the ones riding under my father's banner."

"Your father?" Xanos and the man asked in identical tones of bewilderment.

"This is certainly surprising," the man continued. "You're just the one I was hoping to see, Aurora Morninglight Dawn."

"Morninglight?" Xanos snickered. "No wonder you hate your father."

"Exactly," she said flatly. "He tried to kill me, and now he's sent someone to finish the job. But it was his fondness for redundancy that really pushed me over the edge."

The man cleared his throat. "You think I came all this way to kill you, my lady? Nothing could be further from the truth." Carefully, he craned his neck to look at her. Even this close up and in poor light, Aurora could tell that he was a very handsome man. His nose and chin could have been sculpted from marble, and his upper lip curved as smoothly as the finest bow. His eyes were light, blue or perhaps green, and as they gazed into her own she had the feeling that he could see every embarrassing thought that had just flitted through her head.

"My lady Aurora," he said gently, "please accept my most sincere apology. My sudden arrival must have startled you terribly. But I assure you, I came not at your father's bidding, but at my own." His accent was straight out of one of Mischa's romance novels, but even so his voice made Aurora feel like she'd swallowed a dozen butterflies. Her words tangled on her tongue as she tried to ask every question at once.

"Why are you . . ? I thought . . . why didn't . . ?"

She might have continued on in this articulate manner, had not Xanos jabbed her with the end of the man's scabbard.

"It's called a complete sentence," he said. "Give it a try sometime."

"Do that again and I'll stick that scabbard up your nose," she replied. "Happy now, jackass?"

"Watch your mouth, girl," he grumbled. "You and Thisden are standing quite close together. Xanos is sorely tempted to kill two birds with one ball of magical fire."

"Cur! You dare threaten lady Aurora?" The man once again reached for his sword, realized Xanos was holding it, and settled for shaking his fist. "I shall smite you for your insolence!"

Glares were traded all around. At last Aurora interceded, not without some reluctance.

"No one needs to be smited– uh, smitten. Xanos, sit down and keep your mouth shut." She released the man but kept her dagger at the ready. "And you, whoever you are . . . Either you start explaining or I start cutting things off."

Though visibly ruffled, the man quickly recovered enough to flash her a smile. "As my lady wishes," he said, and bowed. "I am Thisden Nightmark. For several years, I have pursued knighthood under the tutelage of Sir Aurelius Beckingforth Dawn."

Xanos laughed.

"Still a squire, eh? Always a bridesmaid, never a bride."

Thisden stiffened. "Sir Aurelius is quite busy with the duties of Paladinhood. I am proud to serve him faithfully until such a time as he deems my training complete. There's no shame in being a squire."

"Ha! Then why do you look like you've smelled a skunk every time I call you one?"

Thisden frowned deeply at the half-orc. "The only thing I smell is a half-orc in dire need of a bath."

Aurora cleared her throat. "Where is my father now?"

"He departed for Neverwinter not long before the city was quarantined, escorting an important shipment from Waterdeep." Thisden bowed his head. "He never said what the shipment contained, and I have yet to hear anything back from him."

"I hope he enjoys the Wailing Death," Aurora said without inflection.

Xanos shook his head. "You have all the luck. Xanos' mother is hundreds of miles away from any plague, more's the pity."

"Your mother deserved a far better son," Thisden snapped. "And you, my lady . . . You must leave the past behind you where it belongs. The enmity you feel toward your father is a relic of years gone by. You must learn to let go of it."

"Spoken like a true idiot," Xanos said. "The past is a source of strength. It is what drives one onward!"

"So says the half-orc in a dress," Thisden retorted.

"Robe!"

"I can only pray you're wearing something underneath– no, for the love of my eyesight, don't show me!"

"All great mages wear robes," Xanos said huffily, letting the hem of his garment fall back to the floor. "We are secure enough in our masculinity to not need trousers."

"Good point," Aurora said, gesturing at her own trousers. "I'm terribly insecure about my masculinity."

Thisden looked at her askance for a long moment, then shook his head. "In any case," he said, "perhaps I ought to start at the beginning." He smoothed his hair and smiled again, but this time Aurora's pulse kept a steady rhythm. "You see, for the first year or so after Sir Aurelius accepted my petition, I was unaware that he had a child. It was only when I stumbled across his study while in search of armor polish and saw a painting of you that I realized the truth."

Aurora knew which painting he meant. She had been so surprised when her father asked her to sit for the portrait, and so pleased. For three weeks she'd sat perfectly still for hours at a time, draped in furs and pearls that her father had never before allowed her to wear. She'd seen the finished portrait exactly once before her father had hidden it away, just long enough to marvel at how happy and fair she'd looked.

Aurora as she was now shared little in common with the painting. She was gaunt and muscled, her hair chopped roughly instead of carefully curled, and her clothes were muddy and rumpled. Heat rose in her cheeks– no doubt Thisden was making the same comparisons.

"I began to question the locals," he continued, "asking anyone who might have an idea of what had happened to you. It became a project of mine, a quest, an . . . obsession, if you would."

"Eh . . . Xanos does not like where this is going."

Thisden didn't spare Xanos a single glance, focusing his attention unwaveringly on Aurora.

"No one seemed to know what had happened to Sir Aurelius' beautiful daughter. There was no record of a funeral in your name, however, and my curiosity increased. At last, I worked up the courage to question Sir Auerlius himself."

Aurora swallowed hard. "What did he tell you?"

"Nothing," Thisden said ruefully. "He turned away without a word and left my curiosity at its peak. I resolved to put the matter out of my mind." He ran his hand through his chestnut locks, which clearly had a closer relationship with a comb than Aurora's had in years. "But Fate had other ideas. On an extended campaign to put good deeds to my name, I happened to pass through a tiny village called Hilltop."

Aurora's brow furrowed. "But I wasn't there that day."

"Unfortunately, no. But during my visit with Drogan, your fellow students brought up your name."

"You spoke with master Drogan?" Aurora's voice seemed distant to her own ears. "He never mentioned it."

"I was merely passing through on unrelated business, as I said. No doubt he didn't want to worry you."

"No doubt," she echoed numbly.

"In any case, I learned as much about you as I could from the townspeople." He took a step closer to her. "They spoke well of you, my lady. Your strength, your purity of heart. I knew then that you were everything I had hoped." Another step, and he was close enough to take her hand in his own. "I told your father what I had learned, and this time he confessed everything to me. The sad tale of your estrangement only strengthened my resolve, and I made plans to return to Hilltop at the first available moment."

Aurora looked down at their clasped hands, then up at Thisden. "Um . . . Your resolve to do what?"

The handsome man dropped to one armored knee and gazed up at her with sparkling eyes. "Sweet lady, I intend to capture your heart as you have captured mine."

She stared down at him, her mouth agape. His hands were warm. Finally, the whirlwind of thoughts that filled her head resolved into a single word: "Huh?"

Xanos let loose a roar of laughter that could have caused an avalanche.

"Xanos has heard more charming proposals from the back end of a goat! Even Aurora isn't desperate enough to fall for lines like that."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," she muttered.

"It's utterly ridiculous," Xanos went on. "You've never even met her before today!"

"It doesn't matter," Thisden insisted. "My lady, I've been in love with you since I laid eyes upon your painted smile." He gave Xanos a dismissive wave. "Pay this beastman no mind. He has no idea what he's talking about."

"On the contrary, Xanos knows only too well what kind of man you are." Xanos curled his lip in disgust. "You remember the story I told you about the roughneck who ran me out of town, Aurora?"

Aurora pulled her hand away. "Either way, I don't have time for this," she said firmly. "I'm in the middle of an important mission."

Thisden shook his head. "This is no life for you, my lady, toiling away in the cold. Come back to Waterdeep, where you can be protected like the treasure you are."

That hit a nerve.

"Protected?" She spun the dagger in her good hand so that it caught the light. "That's a funny thing coming from a man who not five minutes ago was one sneeze away from a trip to the fugue plane."

"I don't doubt your skill," Thisden swiftly amended. "I just cannot help but think that this dangerous lifestyle will leave you injured or worse."

Aurora held her left hand in front of his face. The light from the lantern threw the scars there into sharp relief. "Too late."

Thisden's eyes widened. He tried to mask his disgust and was only partially successful. Aurora turned her back on him.

"Leave," she said. "Go back to Hilltop and wait there until I get back. I . . . have a lot to think about."

"My lady . . ."

"The 'lady' has spoken," Xanos announced cheerfully, grabbing Thisden's shoulder and propelling him toward the entrance. "Go on, clod, peddle your wares elsewhere."

"Get your fat, greasy fingers off of me," Thisden hissed, shaking Xanos off. He quickly regained his composure, and bowed low at the mouth of the cave. "I will win you, lady Aurora. That I pledge, by my very honor!"

With that, he strode out into the snow.

A moment later, he strode back in. "I, er, forgot my lantern," he mumbled, then snatched up the offending object and made his second exit.

"Help me get this straight," Aurora said when the sound of hoofbeats had faded. "We just ran into your childhood archenemy in a cave in the middle of nowhere."

"Right," Xanos answered.

"The same man who somehow ended up as my father's squire in Waterdeep."

"Apparently."

"And he wants to marry me."

"So he says." Xanos bent and calmly began to gather his bedroll.

"Well, thanks for clearing that up," she said peevishly.

Xanos paused and looked up at her. "Trying to figure out Thisden Nightmark is a waste of time. He's up to no good, certainly, but he's too stupid to cause any real trouble."

Aurora looked at the floor and toyed with the hilt of her dagger. "So you . . . you don't think he really . . ."

"Fell for you? Ha!" Xanos laughed, going on far longer than Aurora thought necessary. "Not at all."

"And why not?"

"For one thing, your hair looks like squirrels have made a nest in it."

Aurora ran her fingers through her hair and opened her mouth to protest, but Xanos cut her off.

"Not to mention your mouth is too big, and you're shaped like a fencepost. Xanos has seen fuller hips on a halfling."

"That's– "

"A male halfling."

"Okay! I get the point!"

Xanos shrugged and turned back to his bedroll, not quite quickly enough to hide his smirk.

Aurora rolled her eyes. "My inability to fill out a corset aside, Hilltop is an awfully long ride from Waterdeep. He came here for a reason."

"Who cares?" Xanos knocked the dirt from his boots and pulled them on. "With any luck, he'll get frostbite, or fall off a cliff, or get torn apart by wolves, or catch a highly contagious flesh-eating disease, or– " Noticing the look Aurora was giving him, he moved on. "If not, you'll have plenty of time to figure out what he's up to when the artifacts are safely ensconced in Drogan's laboratory."

"I guess you're right." She stared out into the snow, deep in thought.

"Xanos is always right," he answered automatically.

They finished their preparations in silence and left the cave. Thankfully, Belpheron's hand pointed the opposite direction from the trail of hoofprints. Aurora was glad for the wind and the deep snow– the physicality of the hiking kept her mind off everything else. At least, until they ducked behind a convenient boulder to take a break.

"So," Xanos began in a conversational tone, "your father tried to kill you?"

Aurora glared at him. "Gee, Xanos, don't mince words on my account."

"What are you getting huffy about? It's a simple question."

Aurora sighed. "Yes. I think that's what he meant to do, anyway. I ran away instead of waiting around to find out."

"But he is a paladin, yes?"

She nodded tiredly. "Listen, it's a very long story and I– "

"Don't bother. Xanos was simply curious." He took a hearty swig of water from his canteen and grinned. "If I had a gold piece for every time a relative tried to kill me, I'd move someplace warm and tell Drogan to stuff these damned artifacts down his trousers."

Aurora smiled back, surprising herself.

"One more thing," Xanos said. "All of that 'my lady' business earlier . . ."

"You've seen my blood dozens of times," she said, catching on. "Did it look blue to you?"

Xanos looked dubious. "Szaren referred to you the same way," he said.

Aurora considered a moment, then decided that the knowledge could do no harm.

"Technically, my father's a count," she confessed. "But he doesn't own enough land to make it more than a silly title anyway."

"A count?" Xanos gave his mustache a contemplative pull. "Huh. Who would have guessed."

"It doesn't matter now," she said. "I'm out here chasing kobolds through the snow just like you."

Xanos nodded and put his canteen away.

"Well, Countess Aurora Morninglight Dawn, are you ready to get off your bony aristocratic rump and find that dragon?"

"Certainly." Aurora pushed away from the rock and dipped Xanos an overelaborate curtsey. "Just don't call me that again or I'll knock your teeth in with my aristocratic fist."

Hundreds of yards away, Thisden Nightmark pronounced curse after curse on the head of Xanos Messarmos, reserving a choice few for other parts of the half-orc's body as well. If that greenskinned brute hadn't been there baiting him and keeping him on edge, Thisden was certain he could have won the girl to his way of thinking.

He was so caught up in his litany of hexes that nearly rode over the man who suddenly appeared in front of his horse. With a cry, the man hurled himself out of the way of the hooves, and Thisden reigned the animal back.

"Are you all right down there? What were you doing jumping out in front of my horse that way?"

The man dusted off the snow and dirt and scowled. "I was trying to flag you down, is all. Listen, I just need to know if you've seen a big ugly half-orc and a skinny blonde wench go this way. I'm damn near freezing my stones off wandering around after them!"

Thisden raised an eyebrow. "And just who are you?"

"Name's Finn," the man said fiercely. "And I mean to teach that pair what it means to cross me!"

Thisden quickly assessed the situation. Finn was big and burly– more than a match for a certain halfbreed. If Thisden's first impression proved true, he was also dumb as dirt.

"Well?" Finn tugged impatiently at his reigns, and Thisden resisted the urge to kick the man in the face. "Did you see them or not?"

Thisden grinned. "It looks like this is your lucky day, Finn."

A.N. Yep, I'm still alive. ;) Also, I still love reviews to pieces.