Chapter 1
It is late, the night cool and quiet around their tiny camp, and Florina is awake. She sits in the circle of light cast by the small fire with her knees drawn to her chest and a thin cloak around her shoulders, her gaze flickering between the darkness beyond where Huey and the horses are tethered to the sleeping bodies of the other members of their little legion: Wil, and Sain, and Mark, and Kent. Florina looks last to Lyn, whose bedroll lies barely an arm’s length from her, and she takes in the line of the older girl’s jaw, the shadows the firelight casts upon the sharp cut of her nose and the curve of her cheek, and Florina remembers the strength she’d felt in Lyn’s arms when they’d wrapped around her earlier that day, and how wonderful the thought of never letting go had seemed.
“I think I might love you.”
The confession spill from her lips before she quite realizes what she’s said, and Florina claps a shocked hand over her mouth before she turns to gauge the reactions of her companions, words of denial – sharp, cutting things – already waiting on her tongue should the need to use them arise. But Wil merely rolls over on his bedroll, and Mark tugs her blanket tighter around her tall, lanky frame, and the knights barely stir at all, and it is only after long seconds pass and she is certain that they are all still asleep that Florina finally turns her attention back to her friend.
But Lyn hasn’t moved, and Florina lets out a shaky breath she hadn’t realized she’s been holding, and she passes the time with only the darkness and her thoughts and the soft glow of the firelight as her only company.
When Lyn wakes up a few hours later to take the next watch, she rests a hand on Florina’s shoulder and quietly murmurs her thanks before she takes up position beside the fire, and the last thing Florina remembers before she falls asleep is wondering if she had merely imagined the look in her friend’s eyes when she had replied, anything for you, Lyn.