Aaron arrived at Salt’s Mane rather behind the news of his own death. Which made for an awkwardly pointed conversation with the guards, who’d watched a lone traveler approaching—suspicious enough, that—only to have him introduce himself as a dead boy.

They were of the opinion that he should spend a little time in those cells they’d kept the suspected dragon doppels in. Either that, or significantly more time dead. Aaron was of the opinion that he’d rather decline either offer, thanks much, and could they please get someone sensible down to sort this out, like his sister or Lieutenant Lochlann or the Lady?

Turning into a deer mid-refusal had, perhaps, not helped his case. It had definitely helped his land speed, though.

So. He was staying very much out of shooting range, helping himself to a few tender spring leaves at the edge of their nice non-sacred forest when they got around to fulfilling his request. More or less.

Which is to say: they sent a hunting squad after him. But it included Rose and Lochlann, and their borrowed horses of debatably horsey nature, which made him far less inclined to just bolt all the way back to Onekin and hope Prince Connor hadn’t heard of his death yet.

Seventh Down, nominally under the control of Lochlann, snorted down at him. Aaron held his antlers proud and tall as any horse, and didn’t put up with bullying from the pooka-blooded mare.

“Aaron,” Rose said. “You…”

He wasn’t sure she knew how to finish that, in light of current circumstances. But she drew her spine up straight, and found a way.

“We expected you days ago. I sat your wake, which was terribly depressing, and then we had to ride out to check on a sighting the next day and I was so tired I ran into a tree branch—”

With some help from her own pooka-blooded horse, no doubt. The Lady’s mare certainly came off as more dignified than Aaron’s, but one did not get the name Shenanigans for no reason.

“—and I would have fallen straight off if I hadn’t the good sense to cling to it as my horse rode out from under me and now my squad won’t stop calling me Princess Dryad, which is entirely your fault. I expect you to take full responsibility.” She ended with a haughty tilt of her chin.

Lochlann was a bit more concise in his welcome: “Are you riding back with us, or are you trotting?”

The rest of their squad was a little farther back. And spread out, in a rather encircling fashion. At least they were polite enough to keep their crossbows lowered, though that might have had more to do with the lieutenant and their tree fairy being in the way. In any case: Aaron unclasped the stag cloak. Rose made as if to offer him a hand up onto her horse, but Lochlann intercepted Aaron’s own hand, pulling him up behind him. Reasonable, that the good lieutenant wouldn’t trust Aaron with his princess. Though he apparently trusted Aaron with his own back, which was certainly something.

Aaron ended up in the cells, after all, with the princess and lieutenant sitting outside. He could have tried running again, but. He supposed this was his own display of trust. And… it felt oddly safe, sitting with the carved rock to his back and forged bars to his front, inside a human stronghold. He fell asleep sometime after Rose ran off, promising to be right back with food. He woke up to his sister come to assess his identity.

Of all people, he trusted Adelaide to tell if a brother of hers had been replaced.

“Your horse ran all the way back to Helland,” she said. “Without you.”

“Smart of it,” Aaron said.

“Are you going to tell me why?”

“Are you going to tell me why they haven’t cleared the dragons out of that outpost yet?” Because the reason a messenger might disappear shouldn’t have been a hard string to unravel, for those aware of the gap in their defenses.

“The place was empty, when the replacements got there to staff it. But we figured something must have happened to you around there. We’re running extra patrols along the coastal road, now. As you should have seen, if you’d come that way.”

He had. He hadn’t been any more inclined to explain himself to militia folk he’d never met than he’d been to the guards here. Better to speak directly to the people who knew him; particularly the one who carried kirin’s bone like a talisman.

Aaron pointedly flicked his gaze to her sword. “Can we skip to the part where you get me out of here?”

Adelaide Sung, Junior, let out a sigh. Then they repeated the song and dance that had gotten the suspected dragon doppels cleared. Those of them that hadn’t been offed for singing the wrong song, in any case. Seeing as Aaron was quite certain he wasn’t a doppel or anything other than he’d been the last time they’d met, he was able to answer with impeccable honesty.

Lochlann eyed him, but didn’t raise any are you entirely human questions that might have been lingering from his own try at questioning Aaron over kirin’s bone, near a year ago.

Adelaide was soon letting him out, with a sort of grudging manner he suspected might just be a sibling thing.

Then she was hugging him, which was… a thing he wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to, particularly when people sprang it on him like this, and it was tight enough to make the near-healed knife wound she’d given him twinge. But he had the thought that if he wasn’t already going to be seeing her on and off all spring, she might be a person he’d send letters to.

* * *

“You don’t have to go back out again,” Rose said. “There are plenty of messengers; Orin can find someone else he trusts.”

Orin, she’d said, not King Orin. Aaron had a letter for Connor, but none for Rose. And she did not have any letters for her elder brother, though she had quite the stack to send to her twin.

And… that was an option he had. To just stop. Orin had tasked him with this, but Orin was a king, not his king. Probably not anyone’s king for long, with the other nobles already pushing him off to a place they could more or less ignore. Aaron could just… do something else.

Like join a squad here, and fight the dragons directly? Perhaps spend more time with the Lady, and continue his Late Wake training? He didn’t even know what they did this time of year, besides scouting. Or the rest of the year for that matter. Which was probably a gap in knowledge that Markus wouldn’t have had, with his official apprentice training. And while more regular access to her would make certain of his pursuits easier to find opportunities for, it also gave him more of a chance to give himself away. Or have someone else give him away. How many of his sister’s staff had she told his true identity to? How would they act around him, that they wouldn’t have around the brother they’d actually known?

He could go back to Onekin, instead. But the last he’d been there, the guard captain had made some noise about his experience spying in the Downs, and how perhaps he could give tips to those about to be stationed there.

Aaron didn’t want to get himself killed fighting children, dragons or otherwise. Didn’t want to help redcoats kill more of his own. Couldn’t join a caravan and disappear off somewhere else on Last o’ the Isles, because they were mostly running militia supplies this time of year. Couldn’t wander off into the wilderness and forget about all this, because he’d had a few days’ taste of that and was lucky nothing had gotten a taste of him. Racing between towns carrying mail was about as good as it got.

“Just stay here,” his princess said.

“I don’t think I can do that,” Aaron said.

* * *

The Lady was far less concerned.

“Well done, not being dead,” she greeted him.

“It’s a state I enjoy,” he replied.

“Have you practiced much?”

“You’ve no idea,” he said, to which she snorted.

“We’ve a meeting,” she said, and named a date in the late spring; a time when the dragon attacks would normally have settled down. The Late Wake’s spring meet, when their spies came in from the field. Normally reserved for their senior members, but she would rather like him to attend, lest her subordinates try finding her new student on their own. Best to get introductions out of the way, rather than having him get pounced on the road.

He was unclear how literally the pouncing would be.

“Lana will still be off somewhere, unfortunately,” the Lady said, dropping a name he’d never before heard. “Ugly cloak business, I suspect; you know your old teacher.”

Well. That was a fear he hadn’t known he’d needed to have. But given that the Lady was his new teacher, it stood to reason that Markus the Late Wake apprentice had indeed had an old teacher. May she take as much time away as she pleased.

“Try not to be late,” the Lady said. “In any of its definitions, if you please.”

She plucked a twig from his hair on her way out. A twig Rose and Lochlann and his sister had decidedly abstained from pointing out.

The Lady had no business being his favorite, even for a moment.