Still tense but less overwhelmed, she opened her eyes to see that as she had sat nursing her mental and physical wounds, Doren had started a small campfire. He was boiling some water – she must have been distracted for some time since he seemed to have found and returned from a stream somewhere nearby – and was starting to pull out the herbs and bandages from the packs the Witch had sent with them.

"We should rest here for a few days. We made terrible time today." Doren spoke without looking at her, a tension in his voice.

"I can keep going tomorrow. I can heal myself tonight." It was impossible for her to keep the joking tone she had used with him so far. She knew that she was asking him to defend her as she rested, even if just for the night. Rapid healing like what she intended required intense focus. This was far beyond their original deal, and they had not even discussed the length and difficulty of the journey ahead of them.

He lifted his eyes then, eyebrows raised. The tension in his tone was still there, but as she looked at him, she realized it was amusement. "It is difficult to follow exactly what your intentions are from moment to moment. A day ago, I thought you were toying with me, and just hours ago I saw you beaten by a crowd ignorant enough to be convinced you were a daemon. Now I can't tell if you are determined to avoid payment by destroying yourself or if you have a more complex plan." As he spoke, Doren leaned forward and smiled widely. "Was this all a trick after all? Is the punishment for me to watch you die a week away from the town and to be left without payment after having wasted a few days of my time? If it is, I must warn you that I am very wealthy insofar as time goes. Your machinations will leave me none the worse for wear."

Valla struggled to find her balance in this conversation, finding herself wrong-footed in the face of his teasing. This was by far the most she had ever heard this man speak. "I still just need tonight to heal. Not longer." She tried to laugh. "I will not break our agreement, I assure you."

The fire crackled softly, the thin and faint smoke winding upwards toward the feebly lit evening sky. It reminded Valla of the fog from that morning, and she shivered involuntarily. With a faint sound of snapping twigs and crunching leaves, Doren moved forward across the camp around the fire. As he sat down next to her warily, he extended his hand toward her, palm up. "If I help, it will be faster."

Valla wanted to reject his help. He would see her injuries again, and notice that one would not heal, and it felt wrong to allow someone to see her weaknesses.

Ignoring her pride, Valla nodded. "Well. You saw through my plan so easily."

He chuckled as he placed his hand on her shoulder. His behavior was consistently bewildering. "And here I get to thwart it." He sent a trickle of power through her, not directing it himself but simply adding it to hers as she focused again on healing, following her direction as she began knitting her cuts and fractures back together. It was noninvasive, leaving her to choose the focus, allowing her to ignore the wounds she wanted to hide. The fire seemed to grow brighter as the darkness deepened, well over an hour passing before Valla sighed and opened her eyes again, pushing Doren's hand and power away. He sat back stiffly, settling next to her and looking at the fire. After a long moment, he stood up, grabbed the discarded and now-cooled pot, and walked away through the gloom.

It took him some time to return, at which point Valla had composed herself and the sharp agony of healing faded into a quiet ache. As he set the pot – now filled with water –  again on the fire, she spoke again. "We have a long way to go. It will not be easy."

"To get the payment," she clarified when he did not respond. "We will go there first, as I promised."

As the silence wore on, steam began to rise from the pot as it neared a boil. Valla had relaxed into an accustomed vigilance, her power still but her senses open. Clouds covered the stars above but were lit through by moonlight, curling grey moved steadily by winds faster than the gentle evening breezes that stirred the branches overhead. An owl was calling nearby. Further away, half a league off, a wolf howled, calling to its packmates as they patrolled their homes. Nearby, something small and furred snuffled through leaf litter, grunting to itself as it found a large beetle that had been crawling through the mulch. Sat across the fire, Doren breathed steadily, heartbeat slow and calm. She breathed steadily, mapping the life and terrain around them, first with sight, then sounds and smells, then finally testing the thrumming undercurrents of power that linked everything with a small tendril of her own magic. The world, which had felt so muffled and distant, blurred by her weakness and confusion as they left the valley, finally settled around her.

"After we find the key, we are going to Carram so you can test the key in Lombard. I need to search the city afterward." She had closed her eyes but watched Doren's aura for his reaction. There was a sharpening of his focus onto her as she spoke, but no surprise or alarm. He said nothing, waiting for her to continue.

"The key is in the Pearlescent Canyon, on the other side of the desert from these mountains, in the cliffs on the North coast. If we are unlucky, it will take us almost a month to get there, given the terrain and my current weakness. The Lorr Desert is not easy even along the Paving, and we can follow the Paving northward for most of the way to the key, but it leaves us with twenty leagues of open desert to move through there and back. It is not a survivable journey for mundane folk, but we can make it."

A pulse of agreement from Doren in her mind's eye, and a muted surprise. At the location, maybe, but more likely because she had told him where it was. She had hardly enough information to find the hidden key easily, but it was now possible for him to get close enough to try to track it down. She had promised more, though. And she was surprised that Doren did not object to taking the empire's Paving. The trading route through the Lorr was protected by runes laid out north to south. The runes had been placed by the empire to secure the trading route and make the otherwise brutally impassable desert survivable. Before, all trade from north to south needed to cross the mountains east and then back again to the west, making a months-long journey take almost a year. The Southern kingdoms used the route but warily, suspecting – likely correctly – that the slowly expanding desert road was made for conquest as well as for merchants.   The runes protected travelers along the Paving, which despite its name, was an unpaved trail, loosely marked by the runestones. The runes defended against desert wolves, daemon incursions (which were more common in the desert, although no one knew why), and other external threats. It also modulated the temperature swings from unsurvivable to punishing. Even with the protection of the Paving, the desert killed many who dared to cross it.

"On the cliff above the Canyon’s river at the northern fork, on the East side. The key is in a small alcove there, hidden behind a boulder the size of a mountain goat. It should not be hard to find." She swallowed, her throat dry after the healing. Doren's surprise was stronger now, and she saw him shift, as though to speak. "I do not remember why I hid it there, only that I did. I remember carving the alcove and hiding the key, but nothing before or after." She paused. "I was not hurt, then." More surprise, but muted. He was keeping his emotions buried, likely wary of her doing exactly what she was and seeing his reactions. Frustrating, that she could only sense the outlines, and guess the reasons. She stopped speaking entirely and opened her eyes. Doren was staring at her and flinched ever so slightly as she met his gaze.

"The canyon is easier to reach from Carram than it is from here. Going there makes sense if we are going to the capitol afterward." Was he reassuring her? He hesitated. "Did you live in Carram, then? Before?"

Now it was Valla's turn to be surprised. He should ask her more about the key, about what exactly she had in the Lombard vault. He should be accusing her of trickery in tying him to her for the journey to the key itself. He should not be asking her questions about her life. Unless, she realized, he was trying to learn more about who her enemy might be. Who the person he could end up angering was. That was practical, after all.

She nodded at the thought, then shook her head in answer to his question. Perhaps not the best way to communicate. "I am not sure." She held his gaze, smiling softly, waiting for frustration. He only nodded acknowledgment, aura still cool and calm, bemused but unoffended and clearly relaxed. "I only know I spent time there. But I remember other places as well." She stopped speaking again, almost angry now, holding her smile bitterly. Withholding details should enrage him. It was his life at stake here, as well as a fortune that would be enough to buy at least a minor Title.  He met her stare. The campfire burned lower, charcoal glowing red in fractured patterns, like the scales on a dragon's neck just before it unleashed liquid fire. Eventually, Doren stood and added something from one of the herb pouches to the boiled water. The scent drifted to Valla. Willowbark. He stirred it, and then turned to his pack and pulled out a bag of what Valla knew were nuts and dried fruit.

"I thought you were a sphinx or an elemental from a children's story, tempting me with wealth before consuming me. I thought I had wandered out of reality and into that tavern and found myself in a parable about greed and dishonor. I'm still not sure it isn't true." Doren looked away then into the forest, eyes unseeing.

"Then this is where you should leave and take your reward. And I will follow you and destroy you as you revel in your new riches." Valla found she could smile more easily now. When Doren looked at her again, she bared her teeth slightly, letting her mirth turn menacing and tinging her eyes with a sheen of power. He did not flinch, although she saw him swallow and saw his aura flash with fear, then calm. Voice rough, he chuckled, turning back to the food and medicine. "I'll wait until you fall asleep, of course."