They were waiting there for him. Behind them, the north gate was sealed shut, firelight dancing across the iron grating and carving monsters out of the shadows.

All four of the Winter Guard. All mounted.

The two smaller guardsmen grinned at him the way malice shook hands with vengeance, eager at the prospect of violence. Mikko looked forward, his mouth set in a grim line. Beside him, Isak fidgeted with his reins as he stared at Fia, making a living threat of himself. 

“You have the thief?” Mikko asked. “Is that the poor sop draped like some wet rag over that heräkuom horse you've fashioned?”

Fia slid his gaze from one man to another, taking in the whole of their group. Tucked between the two small guardsmen was the horse he had traveled here on, a dark bay mare dwarfed by the guardsmen’s war mounts. Why they hadn’t taken less notable horses on the road still sat beyond Fia’s best guesses. Perhaps to make a show of it, to instill fear in those they pursued, hoping to lure them into a profitable mistake. The empire had always preferred the grandiose gestures to the quiet ones. A habit that had worsened with each victory. Only General Virtan made a consistent practice of subtlety. 

Everything about them, though, whispered of the desire for a fight. And in returning here with the thief already bound, Fia had denied them all prospect of it. 

“If it is not him, then it is someone working with our thief,” Fia replied, pulling to a halt several yards away from the awaiting group. 

Mikko eyed him critically. Eyes narrowed, he dragged his gaze up and down Fia’s form, then took in the horse behind him and what little Fia had allowed of the thief to be seen. “You are certain of this?”

“Ithíofan does not make mistakes.”

A snort cut into the air as Isak nudged his horse forward. He said nothing, however, though the agitation now running through his mount sprung from its haunches over to the others, setting them all to dancing uneasily under their saddles. Even the little bay mare, riderless, was not immune. She turned her head and bit peevishly at one of the smaller guardsmen’s mounts, who squealed and clacked its teeth at her in retort. 

“That’s enough,” Mikko growled as he dismounted. He thrust his reins at Isak, who took them with a surprised blink and a comment with its head bitten off before it could make anything of itself, leaving him with his lips parted. He walked over to Fia and gave a slight tip of his head to the side. “So, who’s this asshole making a mess of things for me?”

The gesture had been obvious. Move aside and let Mikko make of the thief what he would, but as unquestionable as that should have been, Fia found his reaction lagging. His weight shifted. No foot lifted. Mikko raised an eyebrow at him just as the cold bit into Fia’s chest. Finally, he stepped several paces away from the thief. His horse pricked her ears forward, then swiveled the right one in his direction. Tension ate at the muscles of her neck. 

“Steady,” Fia murmured. “It’s all right.”

While she still stood there, taut as a hare beneath a wolf’s gaze, she didn’t make any further motion to move. Her flanks quivered. Her tail swished. But not a hoof left the ground. 

Mikko was careful not to touch his mare. Every time she breathed in, he took another half-step from her side, adjusting himself accordingly to each subtle movement. Always keeping himself inches away from her body. The fear most held of the heräkuom was ingrained as deeply as the need to eat and sleep and breathe, especially for those in the empire. They fed stories of their horrors to their children, as much to earn their obedience as to warn them of the terrors the darkest of dark things held within them. That fear lived as if it were another lung to them, so much a part of their existence most weren’t even conscious of its breath within them. But it betrayed them in the little moments, like the way Mikko subconsciously shifted himself to preserve his careful distance from the creature. 

A fool’s notion. That was what Fia thought of it all. 

“Does he have a name?”

“Does that really matter to you?” the thief asked, his voice carrying all the concern a newborn would have had for the current state of the economy. 

So blithely was the countering question delivered even Mikko stood there, silent in his surprise. 

After a moment, Fia said, “He did not give me a name."

“Well, it’s not like you asked, knight,” the thief replied. 

Fair point. Fia had wanted to ask, but the less he knew of this man, the better it had seemed for him.

For both of them.

Maybe.

“He speaks. So, he can answer,” Mikko said gruffly. He drew a sheathed dagger from his belt and slid the tip of it beneath the thief’s chin. Lifting it slowly, he continued, “Your name then.”

The thief smiled up at the head guardsman. “If I give it to you, can we call this whole thing squared up? I haven’t had dinner yet. Unlike you fine gentlemen here.”

No sooner did the sound hit the air did Fia react. A cracking, sharp and painful. He lunged to the side, back toward his mare, just as the thief spat something dark onto the ground. Blood. Fia didn’t need light to know what it was. But before he could move again, Mikko thrust the sheathed point of his dagger into Fia’s chest.

“Didn’t ask for your help, vertniell.”

“And I didn’t ask for that,” the thief muttered. He worked his jaw, then huffed indignantly. “Are manners not a thing among the upper echelons of imperial society anymore?”

Fia inhaled. He could still hear the sound of Mikko's dagger striking the thief reverberating in his head. “You’re an idiot.”

Laughter broke over the thief’s tongue and fell out into the air. “I thought I was clever.”

“I have my hands full enough with my current squad,” Mikko said, his voice bubbling with a threat. He ground the dagger into Fia’s chest, the effect no more than a dulled thrust against his leather cuirass, but the point made. “Do not make this any harder than it has to be for either of us. Fia, step back.”

Bháridnac’s ears went flat. Setting a hand to her flank, Fia moved as he had been directed, his chest burning as though winter had set down roots inside his lungs. 

“Name,” Mikko commanded again. 

With languid ease, the thief rolled his head to the side. Looking not at Mikko but directly at Fia. Already, a bruise was forming along his chin, marring the skin all the way to the left corner of his mouth. “Elios.”

Fia said nothing but stared back at the thief in defiance more than anything else. He had tried to make all of this less painful than it had to be. In fact, he felt with an undying sense of certainty that this thief knew as much as well, and yet, he had gone out of his way to antagonize the very sort of people who would gladly have hung him for being no more than a soul stained with shadow. 

How could he not be aware of how few of them were left in this world?

Or was that the point? 

A life already on borrowed time as far as the empire was concerned. Was it fun to live it so recklessly? 

Could Fia say he wouldn’t have done the same if not for the terms of his contract cutting into his every attempt to do so? 

“Elios.” Mikko rolled the name off his tongue with all the disgust of a child getting its first taste of bitterness. He smiled, though, as he said it. Undeterred. “I hope you’ll continue to cooperate.”

The thief attempted a shrug. “Not quite sure what for.”

Mikko tapped Elios between his shoulders with the dagger. “The egg. Does that stir a memory for you?”

“Can’t say that it does.” Elios quirked an eyebrow at Fia. “Does it stir something for you?”

Fia’s only response was a solid, uncompromising glare at the thief. Another laugh slipped out of the thief as he dropped his head, for once, looking appropriately defeated. 

“Mount up, Fia,” Mikko said as he turned and strode back toward his horse. “We’ll take him with us and see if he won’t want to talk by the end of this.”

“We’re leaving now?” Fia said, taking a step forward. “We can question him here. There’s magic all over this place. His magic.”

Mikko hauled himself back into his saddle, then urged his horse forward as he tore the reins from Isak’s hands. “If the damned shadowscrawler won’t talk, we are to deliver him to the emperor to receive his punishment.”

“We don’t have the egg,” Fia stated point-blank, his tone sharp enough to split stone. Within him, winter fought with summer, turning his chest to slush. Everything in him said not to leave this place. The whole damned darkness bled with that singular truth. He walked toward Bháridnac’s head and set a hand to her muzzle as he stared up at Mikko.

The guardsman met his gaze head-on. “You said he’s linked to the theft, did you not? Then, we have ways of finding the egg. Now mount up, Fiarac.”

Before Fia could reply, Mikko slipped past him and was quickly followed by the smaller guardsmen, the bay mare in tow.

Only Isak lingered behind, waiting for Fia to follow orders. He kicked his head toward Fia and said, “Up you go, blood beast.”

Fia turned back to Bháridnac. He exhaled, every breath forming icicles in his chest, then walked over to the mare's side. 

“I’m sorry, but did that lovely gentleman with the not-so-lovely touch just call you Fiarac?” the thief asked as Fia pulled himself up onto Bháridnac’s back. 

Rather than answer, Fia pulled the thief up against his chest and tapped on his right thigh. “Up and over, Elios. We’ve got a long ride ahead of us, and I’m not about to sit here with you like a sack of potatoes over my lap the whole way.”