0x06 - If I Stay (Part 2)

They talked until after the sun went down, throwing around ideas and suggestions, getting frustrated by all the dead ends they came to, until it seemed that there was nothing they could do to escape the situation save for Balinor's initial plan to run away before Halig made his move.

If they killed him – an idea desperation drove them to consider with queasiness – it solved nothing. Halig's disappearance would only confirm Balinor's location, and Uther would send others in his place. They'd win the battle but lose the war. Similarly, even if they forced Halig from Ealdor nothing would be solved. He'd still know who and where Balinor was, and would only go to Uther for reinforcements. Every idea they had all became pointless in the long term, even if it would grant them a short term reprieve.

Until, at last, Balinor put down his hands on the table and said, "We're going about this all the wrong way. Halig is only in it for the money, the real problem is Uther. Uther will never leave me be until I'm dead. So there's only one way we can do this…"

From there, their plan came together. The stars were coming out when Balinor slung her satchel, its overstuffed innards straining at the seams, over his shoulder and silently opened her door.

She kissed him goodbye, then whispered fearfully, "How long do you need me to stall before taking him there?"

"As long as you can. And remember, everything rests on making him see you as harmless."

Then he mumbled a goodbye, wrapping his arms around her as if he planned to never let go. They stood like that for a moment, then he pulled away reluctantly. Her door slide silently shut, leaving her alone in her dark cottage while he stole away into the night.

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"Hunith!" Halig hailed her heartily late the next morning when she stepped out of her door with a basket for the eggs and a pail for the milk. "I was wondering if I might have a word with you?"

Hunith's hands clenched on the handles, not expecting him to be waiting there. How long had he been standing there? What about the front of being a peddler? He couldn't have enough proof to arrest Balinor yet.

They'd gone over everything they'd said and done around Halig, as well as anything Old Ann could have told him, and everything was circumstantial. If they were in Camelot and the law stood behind him it would be different, but here in Essetir sorcery was still legal, even if it was vastly unpopular due to Cenred's tendency to use sorcerers as weapons against any who rebelled in any form.

So though the people generally were more than happy to turn a blind eye to a sorcerer being taken away, the people of Ealdor would not let a stranger drag away one of their own just on the timing of "Keith's" arrival and the shape of Hunith's necklace. There was strength in numbers, and Halig was cautious. He wouldn't gamble everything on being able to either convince or evade the people of the village as well as Cenred's patrols. He would either first seek proof or try to follow Balinor when he went out alone. And that gave them time for the plan they cobbled together the previous night.

It took all her acting ability to force herself to smile. "Yes?"

Halig's eyes were once again too intent upon her to suit the amiable smile on his face. "I've been looking for new ideas to add to my wares, and I think you could help me. Ann was telling me of some charming little baskets you had sitting on your windows around harvest time. Do you think I could see them?"

It was certainly not what Hunith had expected him to say, and nothing she had rehearsed the night before prepared her to answer that question. "No," she stalled, desperately scrambling to come up with a good excuse. "No, I'm afraid that's not possible."

His surprise looked faked, "Why's that?"

"I don't have them anymore," she spoke slowly to gain as much time as she could. A hazy lie formed in her mind. "We – Keith and I – we put them out with food for the spirits on Samhain."

"I see," he nodded, eyes never leaving her face. "But don't people normally take back the containers once Samhain is finished?"

"We left them in the woods," she lied while telling a kernel of truth. "It was dark, I don't think I could find the exact spot if I tried. They're probably not there anymore anyways. By now they must have been trampled by wild animals or rotted from the dew."

"Or carried off down the river," he said overly casually. Hunith forced herself not to react. How did he know that?

What else did he know?

"Perhaps," she said, trying so hard to hide her turbulent emotions that it came out woodenly.

His smile widened. "Such a shame. It was the man living with you who made them, wasn't it?"

There was no way he should know that, it wasn't something even Old Ann was aware of. As far as the villagers were concerned, the baskets appeared on Hunith's windowsills before Samhain and disappeared after. Whether it was Hunith or "Keith" who made them wasn't something they were privy to.

Though not knowing how he could have found that out was alarming enough, what alarmed her more was that he wasn't bothering to feign ignorance. Either he was slipping in his mask of innocent peddler, or he felt close enough to catching his quarry that he felt it unnecessary to uphold.

Hunith could only nod, not trusting herself to speak.

This was not at all like the little charade of "Hunith and Keith" she put on for the villagers. Her one man audience already knew the play for a play. He was sitting indulgently waiting for the right moment to run up on stage and rip the players' masks off, revealing the actors beneath.

"I should like to have a word with him about the way they're made," the bounty hunter moved towards her door.

Panic hit her full force. "No!" she cried, forgetting her lines. This was not in the script. This confrontation was not scheduled to happen yet.

Halig ignored her, apparently done being a considerate peddler. He threw open the door to her cottage, bathing the inside in the light of the late morning sun and exposing all that was within. And all that was missing, including the tall dark-haired man in question.

For the first time Halig looked thrown off, as if his script had been altered too by this new development. He stood there a moment, dumbfounded, mouthing the word impossible. Hunith wondered what he meant by that, and how long he had been watching her house waiting for her or Balinor to come out, that he would think it impossible one could have slipped by him.

He spun around and narrowed his eyes at Hunith dangerously, at last looking the part of a man who would shove innocent people in cages and haul them off to be executed. "Where is he?"

This was coming too soon. Several acts had been thrown out the window and now they were coming to the final act before the stage had been set. Hunith was being thrust on an unset stage in only half her costume, reading out her lines while she tried to think of how to get everything back on track. The audience focused on her, striding towards her and shaking her shoulders as he repeated the question. Hunith burst out sobbing.

"He left me!" she cried, anguished, tears running down her face. She blessed the tumult in her moods; she never would have been able to will tears otherwise. She did not have to feign her distress, only the reasons for it. After weeks of biting her tongue and forcing neutrality on herself it was strangely liberating to be over the top emotional. Perhaps it was because of the pent up stress of the situation, but it was much easier to act distressed than it was to feign calm.

"He told me he loved me, but he didn't! He never did! He lied to me! All this time…" She buried her face in her hands, shoulders heaving dramatically as she sobbed. She longed to peak through her fingers to see how he was taking her performance. Pudgy yet calloused hands roughly grabbed her by her elbow, dragging her down the street.

With her hand forced from her face, she could see several confused heads poking out of doorways and windows, watching the spectacle without understanding it. A couple of her friends made moves to step forwards, but she frantically shook her head. Being held up would buy her precious time, yes, but she couldn't predict how Halig would deal with those who tried to interfere with his hunt. She and Balinor had entered this stage knowing they couldn't ask for help from anyone.

Halig didn't stop until they'd reached the cover of the woods, where they could not be seen from the village. Whirling her around to face him, he held each of her shoulders in a vice grip. Hunith was not a short woman, but he towered more than a head over her. She could only see his broad chest that dwarfed her as though she were a lone bulrush stalk in a field, easy to snap in half with one hand.

He shook her violently. She would have to crane back her neck to look him in the face, but though she couldn't see his expression his voice was as hard and cold as granite when he demanded, "What do you mean, he left?"

Hunith sniffed, not bothering to wipe away her tears. Let her eyes swell up to a puffy pink, let her tears run clean streaks down her unwashed face. Let her look completely helpless and simple.

"He said he was tired of me," She forced the words out of her throat and hoped the choked quality added to her credibility, rather than subtracted from it. "He told me I was too clingy, and he had never been serious about me. He said he could do much better than me, and… and…"

Halig released her, and she took immediately took a step away from him. With the small amount of distance she could see his face, which was twisted in disgust at her display. "This is just great," he spat, speaking more to himself than her. "I spend months tracking this man, and just as I'm about to nab him he runs off because of some lover's tiff."

"Tracking?" Hunith inquired with fake innocence between her fake sobs. "What do you mean? Did he do something wrong?"

"Don't pretend you don't know. I saw how you reacted to the mention of dragons, I heard you yesterday."

Hunith's vision blacked, but after a few seconds of panic her brain returned and she forced herself to see sense. If he had heard everything he wouldn't have been waiting for Balinor outside her house. He'd know exactly where he was and they wouldn't be having this conversation. Trying for embarrassment rather than horror, she said, "Oh? W-What did you hear?"

" 'Don't you dare!'" he sneered, throwing her words back in her face. His eyes challenged her to deny she said any such thing. His voice was comically high as he mocked her, and his hands made ineffectual fluttery spasms. "'Don't tell me to calm down!' 'That you're lying dead in that man's courtyard while I sit at home pining!' 'To hell with the neighbours!'"

Hunith's heartbeats calmed to a normal rate – he hadn't heard anything truly important. Then his next mimicked words, the unnatural highness twice as exaggerated as any of the previous quotes, made them stop again. "'I'm pregnant!' "

It was silent except for her fake sobs, which increased to hide the way she was nearly hyperventilating.

What was she to do?

What could she say, to convince a man like this to leave her baby alone?

Would Uther pay for him to bring in the mother of a dragonlord's child, executing mother and unborn babe at once?

Would they throw her into the dungeons until she gave birth, ripping the child from her arms to drown in a well?

She needed to convince him that he had misheard or misunderstood her somehow, or that she had lied, anything just so he didn't look to her womb with gold coins in his eyes.

"But even that didn't stop him!" she cried, begging this would work. She could think of no other way to fool the ruthless bounty hunter. "I – I thought… if there was a baby… even if he didn't stay for me, for the sake of a child – his child! … but even that didn't stop him!"

"Are you saying you just made it up?" the bounty hunter asked incredulously. "You lied about being pregnant to try and force your man to stay?"

Hunith nodded, her shoulders still shaking with deliberate sobs and her too heavy breathing. "I know I shouldn't have, but nothing else was working! He was leaving me!"

"And you didn't think he might get suspicious when no baby ever came?" Halig asked as though amazed by her sheer stupidity. He rolled up the utmost contempt into one word and pronounced it like it was all the explanation he needed, "Women."

Any other time, Hunith would have slapped anyone who said that word in that tone. Now she blessed him for his contempt for the other sex. If he wanted to underestimate her and give her an advantage over him, she was not going to protest.

The bounty hunter brought the conversation back to his original point. "But you can't deny you knew about him when I heard you screaming about dying in Uther's courtyard."

"Uther?" she said, blinked her moist eyes at him, "You mean Uther Pendragon? The king of Camelot? What's he got to do with Keith?"

"Don't pretend you don't know."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said, mind in chaos while she tried to figure out how to turn her words from earlier into something innocuous. "I never said anything about Uther's courtyard. I was talking about Lord Pactshen."

"Really?" Halig said in distrust, "I'm sure."

"Keith was saying he was sure he could find a job in the manor," her lie was growing as she spoke, and she was terrified she'd end up accidentally contradicting herself. "I – I told him of the rumours of how the lord's servants are treated, but he didn't listen. He said it was all just smoke with no fire. And now… now he's gone and… and he'll be beaten and left for dead…"

Halig didn't look convinced, but she thought she saw doubt flicker through his eyes, there and gone in an instant. "And the dragons?"

"Keith was rather strange when he gave me the necklace," she and Balinor had spent nearly an hour practicing this one lie.

Whether or not Halig decided to trust her, and thus whether or not their plan would work, hinged on her making him believe she was just a foolish, naïve, besotted woman who swallowed every lie she'd been told by a handsome man asking her for shelter. That he had seen her with the dragon necklace and watched her turn white when a connection between Balinor and dragons was suggested was a kink they were aware of, so they'd prepared in advance an explanation to smooth it out.

After all the time they spent rehearsing this one line, she was not going to mess it up now.

"I also thought when he gave it to me – who gives a woman a carving of something so terrifying? But he's normally so kind… And then yesterday, it was only when you asked about whether he's interested in dragons that I realized how this is strange but… whenever he's restless or bored he pulls out a block of wood and starts whittling away at it. But he only ever carves one thing, it's only just dragons. It's so weird. It's – it's creepy."

Halig looked like he wasn't sure whether or not he should believe her, and she pressed her advantage. "I didn't want to, but I couldn't stop myself from thinking… what if – what if he was getting an interest. Not just in dragons, but some of the thing he says when he thinks I don't hear him… What if he takes up an interested in… in the dark arts?"

She let horror filled the last words, screwing up every inch of her face to be a fearful peasant.

She must have been convincing, because most of the suspicion seemed to leave Halig's face, and he said with icy ire, "With that man it wouldn't be taking up an interest, it would be returning to old habits. You've been harbouring a sorcerer."

"No!" Hunith protested in feigned desperation. "He isn't -! He can't be! Keith would never-!"

Halig actually seemed to get some kind of perverse relish out of her supposed heartbreak. "I assure you, he is," he said with something that was almost amusement. "And his name's not Keith, it's Balinor."

"Wh- His name isn't even Keith?! But, but!"

"You've been taken in," he said with a definite snort of laughter. If Hunith hadn't hated him already for the fear he was causing her and Balinor, then she'd hate him now from the sick pleasure he got shattering a woman's life.

Hunith hung her head, letting despair and hurt and sorrow flicker across her face, murmuring just loudly enough that he could hear her, "Is there anything he didn't lie to me about?"

With those words, she morphed her face into anger. "Take me with you." Halig looked startled. "Take me with you, I'll help you find him."

"Why would you help me?" he said warily, like a fox that had spotted a trap and was trying to make out what it was.

"Because I gave everything I have to that scoundrel, and he was lying to me the whole time! He didn't even tell me his name! He was a sorcerer! I want to rip him apart with my bare hands!"

"That would just reduce the fee; Uther pays better if they're still fit to be executed when you bring them in." That was the single most repulsive thing she had ever heard. Halig continued, scornfully, "So it's a good thing I don't need your help."

"You don't even know where he went," she said her pre-thought out excuse, which was instantly made null when he countered with,

"Lord Pactshen's manor, according to you." he raised an eyebrow, giving her a look so mocking she gritted her teeth.

Hunith cursed her hastily thought up lie. Improvising, she made up, "You'll never get him once he's there."

"Why's that?" he asked indulgently, humouring her with a condescending smirk on his face.

"Because… because once he's there he'll have no need to hide his skills in the dark arts!"

"How kind of you to worry about me," Halig's face hardened, and he scoffed. "But if the use of magic stopped me from catching sorcerers then I'd have no food in my belly."

"Even if they're protected by a lord?"

He wasn't scoffing anymore. "What?"

"Of course I didn't realize when he told me where he was going," Hunith tried to iron out the crease she'd made with her poorly thought out cover for her poorly thought out yelling fit. She was so stupid, how could she have screamed all that the previous night without a care for who heard, when Halig could have – and did – hear her just as easily as any of her neighbours? Channeling all her self-rebuke into her words and letting him think it came from a spurned lover, she said heatedly, "But who would scrub floors day after day, when all he has to do is reveal his magic and the nobility would sweep him off his feet with riches in exchange for his services? The people pay quicker when the collection man can end their lives just like that!"

She snapped her fingers, and left him to think over the implications of trying to snatch away a noble's pet sorcerer from under his nose for a minute. "Once he reveals himself to the lord, it will be much more difficult to get to him. Fortunately for you, I know that he owes quite a few people around here quite a few favours and they won't be happy when they discover he's taken off. He'll need to take a way they won't expect, and all this last week he's been asking me for directions to one route: the way through the Tunnels."

"The what?" He said distrustfully.

"The Tunnels," Hunith said, "An underground labyrinth of twists and turns that changes with the tiniest tremors of the earth, leading to a series of dead ends, so even if you find a map of it somewhere it'll be obsolete by now. You'll never get through it without someone who knows them to guide you."

"I could just ask someone else."

"You could," she acknowledged, "but then you'd have to explain why you want to go, and why you're arresting Kei- Palimor. I don't know how much you get paid for this, but would it be worth it splitting the fee?" He grimaced at the thought. "All I want is to get back at him. That's payment in and of itself."

"You're very keen on this," he looked like he was trying to peer through to her eyes to her very soul, to read what secrets lay there.

"They say hell hath no wrath like a woman scorned," she said grimly.

He looked her up and down, a contemplative gleam in his eyes, and then he drew so close to her she could feel his hot breath on her forehead. It smelt of rotting eggs. She fought the urge to vomit, determined not to lose. Her deceptions were hanging by a thread, she couldn't afford to showcase her morning sickness. "You'll show me the way through the Tunnels, and nothing else. Any strange moves, and I'll make you wish you were never born."

She nodded, and with her in front they went deeper into the woods, in the direction of the Tunnels. She wondered uneasily if looping so that the river lay between them and the Tunnels, forcing them to search for a crossing since the bridge had collapsed in the heavy winter rain, would take up enough time that the stage would be set when they arrived.

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Inside a poorly lit cavern, a man stood poised over a large bubbling cauldron, chanting a string of harsh words in an archaic tongue. Out of the potion rose a steaming miniature humanoid shape, dripping in viscous red liquid. A misshapen bulge was tied around the figure's neck like a hideous scarf, its long thin fibers unmistakeable even soaked in potion as anything but human hair.

The figured hovered in the air before the man as though waiting for him to reach out and take it, but instead he slid his hands into his pocket, pulling out a rough blade. He slashed the blade across his palm with a grimace, and then lunged forwards and grabbed hold of the figure with his injured hand, squeezing. Red drops fell, a mingling of potion and blood.

With a command the frothing red liquid in the cauldron vanished, and in its place water filled in. It was still at first, then bubbles rose to the surface. The man stood patiently, hand clenched with white knuckles around the figure, as the water agitated. When it was churning, he let go, dropping the red humanoid shape into the cauldron with a small splash.

He clutched his injured hand to his chest, and bent down to dig around the sachet at his feet. Picked over plants were shifted around as he dug with his good hand, until he finally pulled out a flask of water and a roll of bandages. After washing the precise slice in his palm with water from the flash, he mumbled a string of powerful words as he wrapped his hand.

The man backed away from the boiling cauldron, leaning against the wall and wiping his brow with his good hand. Pulling out a small round band of wood from his pocket, he held it between the forefinger and thumb of his injured hand. He carefully set about carving into it with his blade, the often-done movement of his hand not as steady as normal.

Everything was done, now it was out of his hands. All he could do was wait in tense anticipation for the hours to pass until the ritual reached completion.

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The sun was an orange globe half-concealed by the treeline by the time Hunith and Halig reached the entrance to the Tunnels. She had led him on the longest detour she could pull off, "tripped" and "twisted her ankle" so she hobbled behind him at a snail pace until he got fed up and slung her over his shoulder, and insisted they stop to make torches so they could see inside the Tunnels.

She couldn't stall any longer. They were here.

She could only hope that Balinor had had enough time to get everything ready.

Halig set her down, keeping a painful grip on her shoulders as she stumbled on her hurt ankle. She hadn't truly sprained it, but there was already a mottled bruise the size of her fist spreading. Gingerly, she placed some of her weight on it and bit back a cry.

Halig's face was a deep scowl as he looked at her, and any degree of trust in her intentions he may have had was rapidly dissipating. She had been walking a thin line trying to delay him enough to give Balinor the time to set everything up, but not enough that he would suspect she was stalling him. She had a bad feeling her toes may have strayed across the invisible line more than once.

His fingers dug in her shoulders, and Hunith bit back a whimper. Pitiful foolish woman she might be playing, but she wouldn't let someone like him see her genuine pain. He hissed in her ear, his breath unpleasantly blowing on the sensitive skin inside, "I'm watching you. Any little tricks, any more little delays, and you'll be in for it. Uther doesn't pay nearly well enough for people who harbour sorcerers for me to normally bother sneaking them over borders on their own, but I'm sure two people in my cage won't make the trip any more difficult than one."

Hunith nodded, not trusting herself to speak and not sure if he would still believe the foolish jilted lover façade anyways. They entered the tunnels, lit only by the fire of the torch Halig held in the hand not holding her.

The only sound was their breathing and the echoing of their footsteps. Hunith could feel his eyes fixed on her back the whole way she led him, and her prearranged plans to "accidentally" lead him to a few dead ends died away. He would know what she was doing if she was that obvious; she had already turned a half hour trip into a half day trip.

She was unsure if her continued well-being despite his doubts over whether she was helping or hindering him spoke of a miracle, a testament to her acting ability, or a disregard for women so deep that he couldn't imagine even if she acted against him she could cause him any true damage. Perhaps it was a combination of all three.

Her heart picked up as she led him through the most indirect route she knew of, pounding sickeningly in her chest like a drunken drummer. Once again nausea rose in her, so she could not have spoken if she wanted to as she was concentrating on forcing the burning sensation back down her throat. She'd been through this several times already, and somehow managed to keep her condition from him each time either by force of will or claiming she needed to answer nature's call.

But whether it was the damp of the caves that made it so cold their breaths billowed like smoke clouds from their mouths affecting her constitution or the squeezing anxiety in her innards that would have been sickening enough without having to fight the literal urge to be sick, Hunith was at the end of her endurance. The corners of her eyes teared with the effort of holding everything inside, making the dark cavernous path even more indistinct.

She was so caught up in suppressing the need to vomit that she barely had enough attention to spare to lead him to the right destination and avoid a certain section of the Tunnels that would be disastrous for Halig to see. She was surprised enough to stumble when Halig suddenly jerked back on her shoulder, pulling them both flat against the wall. Refocusing her eyes and following Halig's intent gaze, she saw a long shadowed figure folded back against the wall of the tunnel up ahead. The silhouette was humanoid, leaning with its back to the rock wall, legs stretched out idly and head slumped forwards in a sleeping position, with the chin resting on the chest.

Hunith swallowed. Halig crept forwards silent as a cat, surprisingly stealthy on his fat feet. The candle illuminated the face, putting Balinor's sleeping features into sharp relief. Uncertainty tore through her as all her doubts when they'd first come up with the plan resurfaced. Her stomach clenched, and she thought she might finally lose the fight to keep her food down, when everything happened at once.

With only a great crack as warning, the rocky ceiling came tumbling down in a cloud of ash and rock. Halig jumped back with a cry of surprise, narrowly avoiding being clipped by a falling rock the size of his arm. And just before a wall of rocks and dust separated them, Hunith saw something that calmed her racing heart.

There was no smoky mist expelling from the leaning figure's face.

Halig let out a yell of frustration, grabbing the rocks and throwing them away violently. He barked out an order for her to help him, and she came forwards to do so silently. Her hands were scratched and dusty grey by the time they had shifted enough rock to climb through. The sight on the other side of the wall did make her lose the battle with nausea, even knowing what she knew.

The debris covered cave floor on the other side was dyed a rusty red with blood, a limp body pinned down on its belly by multiple large rocks. Two hands lay splayed to each side, their exposed flesh the only part of the felled figure untouched by injury. Shaggy black hair spread out like the remnant of a shattered ink bottle, mercifully concealing the vacant features.

The sound her own retching and breathless gasps did not disguise the sound of a blade being slid through from its sheath, nor the hacking sound of metal repeatedly striking into flesh and bone. When the sounds stopped she didn't look up from where she lay crouched, not wanting to see what she knew was there.

"You said you would tear him limb from limb," the smirk was audible in his voice, "and yet you're this worked up over blood."

She didn't meet his eyes, and he continued as though trying to get a rise out of her. "It's a shame I couldn't get him alive, but so long as I bring back a head as proof it's still a worthwhile investment. Say what you want about Uther Pendragon, but he knows how to motivate others to get rid of his enemies for him."

"Keep going straight and you'll come to the end of the Tunnels," she said wearily, wishing he would just go away. This day had been the longest of her life, she was more than ready for it to be over. The walk back to Ealdor – an hour tops now that she didn't have to stall – seemed like an impossibly long journey. "You can't miss it."

She never found out if he was disappointed she didn't provide him with a better reaction. The sound of his receding footsteps echoed down the Tunnels, receding into the distance. Hunith waited until she couldn't hear them anymore, then counted to 200. After she was sure he was gone, she pushed herself to her feet, swaying as she finally was able to stop hiding her exhaustion.

A bandaged hand steadied her, its owner letting out a hiss of pain and cursing softly in a familiar voice. "I keep forgetting to use the other one."

Hunith twirled where she stood and flung her arms around Balinor's neck, making him stumble back several paces with the unexpected reaction. His arms rose in response to wrap around her. "You knew it was just a poppet."

"But it looked just like you," Hunith protested, burying her face in his shoulder. That had been the point; after all, Halig wouldn't believe Balinor's "death" if the "body" didn't look just like him. But his prone, bleeding form was burned against the back of her eyelids, even if she knew it wasn't him.

The indent of the moleskin pouch that he wore at all times hidden under his tunic pressed into her cheek, reassuring her with this tidbit of information about him only she knew. His chest rose and fell against hers, and she'd never so appreciated the simple feel of him breathing. She inhaled his scent: wood, fire, sweat, herbs, and something that was just him. It calmed her. "The poppet, it'll last long enough for Halig to get it to Camelot?"

"It bloated as much as we could hope for in the timeframe we had. In this weather it'll retain most of the water and potion for several days, maybe a week if it's extra damp. It'll shrink a bit, but it won't turn back into straw until all the water evaporates. By then it'll be buried in the unmarked grave outside of Uther's citadel, with no one the wiser."

Hunith let out a sigh of relief.

The night previous when they had gone over every aspect of their situation, tossing about ideas and getting more and more frustrated, the way forward finally became clear when Balinor said, "Uther will never leave me be until I'm dead. So there's only one way we can do this: I have to die."

Hunith had come dangerously close to slapping him when he – perhaps sensing this – hastily continued with, "I mean, we have to make him think I'm dead."

And from there, he told her about a complicated and obscure piece of magic which would turn a straw poppet into the image of a person whose blood it absorbed and whose hair was wrapped around it. The poppet would be just that, a life-sized doll, but it would look like him, and if punctured it would bleed with his blood.

Meaning that they could "kill" it with Halig none the wiser that it was never alive to begin with.

The downside to the spell was that it not only needed the poppet to be coated in a potion that took considerable time to prepare, but to grow to human size it needed to be left in boiling water for hours. Balinor explained to her that the effectiveness of the spell was dependent on how much water the poppet soaked up; the sooner it was taken out, the more quickly it would shrink and turn back into straw.

All day, Hunith had been haunted by the terrible worry that she would lead Halig to the trap too soon, and everything would be for nothing as the poppet turned back into straw right before his eyes, and he realized he'd been duped.

She let out a deep breath, feeling the tension leaving her body as she did so. It all worked. They were fine. Halig was leaving, Uther would soon think Balinor was dead, she'd talked Balinor out of leaving her, and she and he were completely fine.

After all the worry of the last day - had so little time truly passed since the lady found her in the woods? - it seemed almost too good to be true. She begged the silent heavens to let it last. She wouldn't be able to sleep for weeks without waking up and grasping for him in the dark, to make sure he was still there.

"It's probably best if we don't go home just yet," he warned her, "Halig has to go back for his cage, and he might stay the night in village."

She didn't think she could walk back anyways. Half a day of leading a ruthless bounty hunter on a wild goose chase through the wilderness had taken more out of her than she'd realized at the time. Now that the heightened emotions driving her had died down, she was left feeling limp.

"Mhhm," she murmured against his shoulder, eyelids dropping, thinking she could just fall asleep where she stood.

He scooped her up, startling her eyes open wide, holding her like a princess to his chest, and turned down the narrow path he'd been hiding in. Hunith closed her eyes, nearly falling asleep by the time he placed her down on a thin woolen blanket.

"You came prepared," she joked, still with her eyes shut. The cave was harder than her cottage's wood floor, but just then she didn't care.

"When I left in the middle of the night to go brew a potion in bitterly cold stone tunnels, I thought having something to keep me warm might be nice," he said with his wry humour. Gently, he called her name, "Hunith? Open your eyes."

She did so, even though her eyelids felt like they were weight down with lead. The cave was lit with a small woodless fire that he must have started with magic, though she hadn't heard him say the spell. Kneeling beside her was Balinor, his unwounded hand still supporting her back.

His other hand was held in front of her, and a small circle of wood stood out against the clean white bandage wrapped around his palm. She recognized it from its small size as the project he had been careful to hide from her for the last couple weeks. Tiny marks decorated every surface, and looking closer she saw it was a heavily stylized dragon's body wrapped so that it circled itself, tail meeting head.

He rolled it so that he held it between his thumb and forefinger, "I know this isn't a good time, but if there's one thing life has seen fit to teach me over and over it's that you're guaranteed nothing beyond what you have in the present. So even if the world goes up in flames tomorrow, at least I won't have to regret that I didn't ask you this now, while I still could."

He took his other arm from her back, trailing it down her left arm until it came to her hand. The soft glow of the magical fire illuminated the exhausted but loving look he was giving her. Tenderly, he took her left hand and separated one finger from the rest. Her eyes widened.

"Will you marry me?"

Responses flew through her head, all too insufficient to describe the way she was feeling just then. She tossed words around her chaotic brain, and as the moment dragged on and he waited for her she gave up on them entirely. Instead, she held out her hand and beamed her most radiant smile, nodding as he slid the ring he'd made her on her finger.

And for a moment she forgot she was in a freezing cave in the middle of the winter after a stressful day of worrying and walking all over the surrounding area. She held her left hand close to her face, admiring the ring and all it symbolized, and then took his good hand with hers, leaning against him and shutting her eyes.

She'd probably wake up in the morning with an awful pain in her neck from the way she slept. And then they'd still have to make their way back to Ealdor, where she'd have to make up some story to give the confused villagers over what had happened between her and Halig and where "Keith" was in all this.

Still, she couldn't find it in herself to worry about any of that just then. Because in that moment, everything was good.

/**

* I know faking a death is a little cliché as a solution, but in canon Uther thinks Balinor is dead before Gaius says he's in hiding. Yet Uther sent people to hunt him down 20 years ago, so he knew he was alive then. It's not too out-there to say that Balinor might have done something like this at some point in canon.

**/