The forest was not particularly thick, so directing their horses through the trees had proven simpler than Iarius feared. They traveled at a steady pace, pausing regularly so that Nessalir could dismount from Huunang and examine the environment for tracks. On three separate occasions, she'd determined that they had lost the bandits' trail, and so their little party had been forced to double back.

  When the sun began to set, it caught Iarius by surprise. He'd been so focused on their mission, so fascinated by the techniques the barbarian women employed to track their quarry, that he'd scarcely been aware of time's passage. Readily he would have believed that only two hours had passed since they set out from the edge of the road, and yet in truth it had been closer to nine.

  His stomach growled, and he realized with a start just how focused he'd been on their adventure, to the detriment of all else.

  "Here," said Nessalir, tossing him an apple she'd pulled from the packs on her horse. "I'll get a fire going and cook some meat."

  Iarius nodded, grateful, and bit into the fruit. It was, he could tell from the sweet taste, a Hesaran strain, likely picked up from a merchant stall back in Paeliig. "What if the bandits see the firelight?" he asked, once he'd swallowed.

  "Unlikely in these trees," said Nessalir. "Though I suppose if they have sentries in the mountain peaks, it is a possibility. Regardless, we will trade watches to ensure nobody sneaks up on us."

  She'd begun walking in circles, stooping occasionally to retrieve a dried piece of wood from the ground—a stick here, a fallen branch there. Iarius watched for a moment, chewing on another bite of apple, then, feeling awkward, he began to mimic her. Picking up proper tinder with one hand occupied by a red Hesaran fruit was somewhat unwieldy, but he managed.

  Soon enough, they'd constructed a small stack of firewood. Nessalir struck an axblade against a stone of flint, and sparks flew. They caught, and a fire began to smolder among the wood.

  "Is it a myth, then, that a virem draconem can breathe flames?" Iarius asked.

  "It is not," the barbarian woman replied. "But my body is more human than dragon, and my lungs were not made to contain fire. It is a painful thing, to summon the flames, and I require time to heal and recover afterward. I would rather not call the fire unnecessarily and be left at a disadvantage should I require it later."

  "I see." Iarius had never before considered whether a creature such as she could be harmed by her own flames, but then again before meeting Nessalir, he had never believed that a creature such as she truly existed outside the realm of fancy.

  Nessalir next retrieved a pair of fish from her packs, salted and, Iarius assumed, similarly purchased from the Paeliig market. She took a dagger and worked quickly, gutting and dressing the fish before spearing them upon iron skewers which she stuck in the ground to hang the carcasses over fire. She sat down and observed the flames, and Iarius found himself staring at her golden eyes.

  "You are curious about me," said Nessalir, never taking her eyes from the fire.

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  "Forgive me," replied Iarius. "I have never met anyone like you before."

  "Few have."

  "Your dragon's scales… how much of your body do they cover, if I may ask?"

  Nessalir turned her slitted pupils upon him, and she smiled in amusement. "So polite," she said. She raised her clawed hand and lightly brushed the side of her neck. "My hand, clearly, and my back; from my neck down to my tail. That is all. As I said, I am more human than I am dragon."

  "Is it difficult?" Iarius asked her.

  "Having scales? No, I should think not."

  Iarius shook his head. "That is not what I meant. What I mean to ask is… is it difficult to be, well, you? To be so marked, so different? In Paeliig, I noticed that even the Northerners kept their distance."

  Slowly, Nessalir's amused smile faded from her features, and Iarius worried that he had offended her. She looked at him in silence for an uncomfortably long time, before finally speaking:

  "Did you fear me, when you first saw me?"

  "I…" He faltered in his words. Iarius' first instinct had been to deny that he had, and yet the tone of Nessalir's voice, and the expression on her face, demanded only honesty.

  "Most fear me," said Nessalir. "For some, that fear is a blind terror, for others it is simply a wariness, for a select few, it is even a thrill. There are all manner of monsters who roam the Northern Lands; these wilds are old, and there is power within them. I, too, am a monster. I was born a monster, abandoned by my witch mother, raised as a weapon by the king of Lorveg. People see me, and they know me for what I am, and they act accordingly. It is no more complicated than that."

  Iarius considered this. "It sounds like a lonely existence," he said.

  "It is not so bad," said Nessalir. "As I told you: for some, the fear they feel when they look at me brings with it a thrill. I have never been wanting for companionship."

  The scholar frowned. "And yet you travel alone. Where then is this companionship?"

  Nessalir smirked, and she reached out to the skewers to retrieve the fish. She grasped them with her scaled hand, pulled them from the hot iron heedless of the heat of the flames. The scales, it seemed, offered some protection. A pity none lined her lungs. "I do not speak of traveling companions," she said. "Let us just say that my bed is rarely cold."

  Understanding came to Iarius, and he felt his cheeks flush. "I see," he choked out, and gingerly accepted Nessalir's offering of cooked fish and a knife with each to eat it. He did not meet her gaze as he dined, but he could feel her amused expression upon him.

  It was not that Iarius was a stranger to carnal pleasures—though admittedly there had been little time for him to indulge in that sort of thing since his entrance into the Acadaemium. It was just that he had never met a woman in Remura who had ever even hinted to him of her sexual exploits. It was a shocking thing to hear even the implication from a woman's lips.

  And yet, there was a familiarity to it. Iarius had heard speech like hers before, albeit usually more braggadocious in nature. Many were the men he'd encountered who'd spoken of their sexual conquests. Sailors bragged of the women who awaited them in every port. Soldiers bragged of the camp followers whom they'd taken to bed. Countless were the men Iarius had met who claimed they required no more companionship than a sheath for their swords.

  In Nessalir, Iarius recognized now the similarities to such men, and he recognized as well something else.

  For men like that, Iarius realized, were among the loneliest souls he knew.