Archive of Our Own

"Now, Gav, the first rule of sneaking is to be sneaky," Lift said, and Gavinor nodded. That made sense. "Ya gotta wait until no one's looking, and then you go."

Lift surveyed the room seriously, so Gavinor did too. The table had a cloth on it that would be long enough to hide them; It was a good place to hide from the spren, if the evil ones came back. He wasn't sure how good it was for sneaking, but he pointed it out to Lift, anyway.

"Sure, kid, love a good table."

They crawled under it together.

"Now, see, that lady who brings your food? She's not real observant. I take your lunch from her all the time, and she has to go back and get a new one. Sometimes I steal that, too, but this time you're gonna take it, and we'll split it while we run."

"Okay," Gavinor whispered. He didn't understand Lift when she talked too fast or too much, but he did understand why she stole food when the adults said she shouldn't. Maybe you could be sure you had enough food now, but what about in a week when the servants forgot you existed and didn't bring any more, like they had in Kholinar? You had to keep as much as you could in reserve, all the time.

Lift crawled to the other end of the table, where the tall chair Gavinor sat in was. "Listen for her footsteps," Lift said. "When she stops here, she'll put the food down. Wait for her to walk away again, pop out, grab it, and run for the door. I'll be right behind you." Gavinor nodded again, grateful for her help.

They didn't have to wait long for his nanny to enter the room.

"Prince Gavinor?" she called. "Where are you?" Gavinor heard the thunk of her setting the plate on the table.

"Wait," Lift breathed in his ear.

"Your highness, I brought lunch." She moved towards the blanket pile Gavinor had made near his toys.

"Now!" Lift yelled, and they ran. Gavinor grabbed the plate with both hands and turned; a flatbread fell off, but Lift caught it before it hit the floor, stuffing it in her face. "Score!" she said.

At least, Gavinor thought so. It was a little hard to tell when her mouth was full. Gazing down at his plate from Lift's favorite spot in the vents, Gavinor felt disappointed; half of the food had spilled on his jacket, and he hadn't grabbed any forks to eat it with.

"Don't worry, you'll get better at not spilling when you've got more practice," Lift said, and stuck a finger in the mess of curry. She brought it to her mouth and licked up the sauce. "s'good. Your lunches usually are, part of why I steal 'em so much. Real sweet."

Following her example, Gavinor licked the plate—and his fingers—clean.

"Okay, Gav, your turn. Where are we going next? Who else's lunch are we going to steal?"

Gavinor nibbled on his fingernail, but he knew where he wanted to go.

"Bridge four," he said.

Lift grinned. "I like your style, kid. They eat a lotta stew; it's hard to steal that without a bowl, and sneaking through all those windrunners is tricky when everyone's in there. Good challenge."

Where Lift saw a challenge, Gavinor saw his only friends. He knew Drehy or Skar or anyone, really, would let him sit with them and eat a bowl of stew whenever he wanted, but his nanny never wanted to bring him. She said it "wasn't proper," and "no amount of elevation from the almighty would make soldiers polite company." Whatever that meant. Gavinor just wanted someone who would give him a hug when he was sad without asking a bunch of questions. Gramma was good at the hugs, but not the not-talking part. Uncle Renarin was good at the not-talking part, but he wasn't so good at hugs—but he was in bridge four, so maybe they had taught him the first part and were working on the second still, like Lift was helping him be more sneaky.

"Well, windrunner barracks are this way," Lift said, and crawled down the shaft. "All the barracks have big tunnels like these near 'em, so if you ever wanna find a whole bunch of people at once, just follow the big tubes."

The shafts did get bigger after a while, and Gav was able to stand up and walk, though Lift still had to crawl. Sometimes, Lift would stop and look through a grate and call Gav over to look too, while she whispered advice. It was a lot to remember, but Gavinor did his best.

"Alright," she said when they reached her destination. "The rest of 'em aren't there, just the big Horneater, so now's our best chance. When I jump down, follow after me, grab a bowl, stick some stew in it, and run out the door. I'll make the floor Awesome if we get chased."

She didn't give Gav a chance to ask her to repeat that again, jumping down into the kitchen and speeding off with ease. It was a long way down to the floor, so Gav jumped to the counter instead.

"Aha!" Rock yelled, grabbing Gavinor by the waist. "I have caught you, little thief."

Rock's hugs were so warm. Gavinor squirmed until Rock let him turn and throw his arms around his neck.

"Hello, little prince," Rock said, hugging him back. "Your friend has disappeared with my stew, but the joke is on her. It is not yet finished! There is no meat!" Rock sighed. "What good is stew with no meat?"

Gavinor shrugged, not showing his face yet.

"Airsick lowlanders," Rock muttered. "But there is chance for you yet, little one. Come help me peel these cremlings from their shells, and I will teach you the best ways to eat them."

Rock sat him on the counter and fetched a set of metal tools.

"Like this." Rock poked the tool under a cut down the spine of the cremling and lifted the shell right off. Gavinor tried to imitate him, but it didn't work very well. Where the tool was small in Rock's hands, it was too big in his, and the cremling shells he dumped in the bowl by his feet were in a lot of pieces.

It was quiet, working with Rock in the kitchen; it gave him plenty of time to think. "I miss Skar and Drehy," he said eventually.

"They miss you too, Kimi'okamua. Every time you visit, they are very happy. Although, usually it is because one of your uncles brought you here. The little thief bringing you is new, but she can stay for lunch, too, next time. Eating should be done seated, not running." Rock had a twinkle in his eye while he watched Gavinor work on another shell. Gavinor doubted Lift would sit down to eat lunch with bridge four—she had too much fun stealing it. But it was nice that Rock would invite her, anyway. Gavinor would have to tell her the next time he saw her.

For now, though, he looked forward to seeing Skar and Drehy again. Gavinor loved bridge four, but those two had saved him from Kholinar. They were his favorites.

Drehy held Gavinor by his swaying ankles, keeping his weight balanced on his shoulders. "Having fun up there?" he asked, keeping his tone light. "You've got the best view, so high up."

Gavinor's grip in his hair tightened while he thought, and Drehy waited him out. He hated thinking of a kid as having battle shock, but the palace had been nothing shy of horrific, and the way he was acting reminded him of when bridge four had started coming alive again in Sadeas's camp. Many of them had taken weeks to talk regularly, too. With a little time and encouragement, Gavinor could be saved just as they had been.

Drehy carefully didn't think about how Kaladin would have done it, the same mix of stubborn insanity and intelligent adaptability that had demolished every barrier between bridge four and the lives they had today, and the way he'd seen the light go out of his eyes as Adolin had dragged him up the oathgate platform. Kaladin was fine, Gavinor was fine, Drehy was fine, and they were all going to make it out of this. They were.

"Pretty," was what Gavinor decided on. "I like trees."

"Yeah, they're got their most colorful flowers displayed for you, little prince; they bloomed after the weeping."

Walking just in front of them, Ishnah pinched a blossom off a low-hanging branch and handed it to Gavinor. "You should be practicing the cover story," she told Drehy in a mild voice. "Bazilar isn't a prince, he's the second son of?" She let the question hang.

"Um. One of a Veden highprince's landlords, who sent us to escort his son home from a trip to the Alethi capital gone wrong, uh..."

Ishnah raised an eyebrow, and waited.

"Rut—no, Thir, uh." Drehy chewed his lip. "Help me out, Gav? Do you remember?"

"Ithilir."

"Oooooo, getting shown up by the kid, are you, Drehy?" Red called from somewhere behind them.

"Apparently I am." Drehy couldn't keep a smile from his face, though. He was totally winning the "make Gavinor speak" competition.

"Refill the water skins first before you jump in!" Skar laughed. Drehy grunted, continuing to untie the laces on his boots. They hadn't seen a river in days, and now that they'd found one, he wanted nothing more than to get clean. He was a civilized man, and civilized men washed their asses.

Well, some didn't, as evidenced by Red's look of confusion when Drehy had explained that he was picking overripe afloofah plants to scrub himself with, rather than eat. A few had found themselves poked on sticks and roasted over the dinner fire to help stretch their rations longer, anyway, but they were pretty tough and chewy. Gavinor had refused his outright.

Keeping his sweaty feet downstream of his waterskin, Drehy waited impatiently for it to fill. He swapped it with Skar's, eyeing him coaxing Gavinor out of his clothes. It was warm enough outside they could do laundry, too, or their best approximation of it, and sit around the fire in their skins. It was odd, sure, with Ishnah there, but even someone as respectable as Ishnah had to bend to necessity.

Drehy chucked his full water skins and his uniform to the stone bank, hoping they didn't land in the mud but unwilling to wait and see before he submerged himself. The moan he let out verged on pornographic, and he took Red's ribbing about it in good faith. Mostly. A mud fight was friendly, right?

Drehy surfaced for a gasping breath and heaved a handful of mud at Red's face. He missed, his throw going wide—and hitting Gavinor.

"Watch it!" Skar called angrily, moving to put his body between them and Gav.

Drehy winced. "Sorry, Gav," he said, ending the quick fight with a pat to Red's shoulder. "My mistake." He moved over to join him and wiped the smear of wet crem from Gavinor's cheek. At least it had missed his eyes.

Gavinor blinked, reached for a handful of his own mud, and launched it right at Drehy's chest. Drehy laughed and leaned back to fall into the river again. "You got me! I'm dead! Skar, avenge me, fight for my honor!"

Skar grinned, leaning down for his own handful of mud. "Or," he said. "I could make sure you're really dead. Let's get him, Gav."

Gavinor's smile reached his eyes as he stood up to launch himself at Drehy. "Ack! Betrayal!" Drehy yelled, flailed uselessly and spraying water and mud everywhere. Skar waded over, splashing water into his mouth every time he came up for air.

Drehy turned, dunking Gavinor for a moment before straightening up and holding him above his head. "I'd like to see you get me now," he teased. "You've lost your ally, Skar."

"And you've lost the use of both arms," Skar said, a wicked grin curling over his face as he looked up at Drehy. "Keep him busy while I get the mud, Gav."

He was in for it now, but it would be worth it, Drehy thought, to see Gavinor smile like that.

"Warm?" Drehy asked, bundling Gavinor into a blanket by the fire.

"Yeah," Gavinor whispered. He wiggled into the stump he was using as a seat, getting comfortable. "I had fun."

Drehy smiled kindly. "Me too, kid. We'll have to do it again sometime."

Spirits were high while they cooked dinner, pitiful as it was. Ration bars and afloofa again, but boiled this time. For variety. Red and Ishnah finished creating their stick-contraption that would allow them to hang their clothes near the fire before coming to sit. It was Vathah's turn to mind the fire tonight, and Drehy and Red were on watch later.

Would Skar yell at him if Drehy did his guard shift naked? It might give him a surprise advantage, made even better if he could find his enemies before they found him. People in Alethkar's backwoods found foreigners scary enough anyway; a tall, naked, armed, blond man running at them might just be enough craziness to make anyone reconsider attacking their group, regardless of how easy they looked to rob..

"Hey, Skar—"

"No." Skar didn't bother looking at him. "You've been gathering persuasionspren, and I know that look on your face; it never means anything good. No."

"That's not what you said when I came up with that scheme to get Moash to—"

Drehy stopped dead, wind temporarily taken out of his sails. They still hadn't talked about Moash. Seeing him again had been...

Skar rallied, forcing a smile. "That scheme was more useful accident than plan."

"True," Drehy sighed. "If Lopen hadn't come in to save us, we would have looked one of the ten fools, waiting with our—"

"Not in front of the kid, Drehy, have some decorum. Also, still no to whatever you were going to say."

"I didn't even get to explain myself," Drehy complained, giving an exaggerated sulk. Gavinor was watching them avidly, a few of his fingers stuck in his mouth.

Skar sighed fondly. "Be quiet and eat your dinner, you menace."

Drehy winked at Gavinor, treasuring the smile he got in response. "Yessir, being quiet now."

Skar looked grimly at their group, tucked into the western lee of a large boulder. He wasn't sure how far they would have to get from Kholinar to feel safe, but here—wherever that was—wasn't it. Some of the Fused could fly, and could be here in a matter of hours. But they had to rest at some point, insecure position be damned. Wrap their wounds with what bandages they were carrying and catch enough sleep to keep their bodies moving tomorrow.

Carrying Gavinor meant they didn't have to wait on little legs to keep up, but his weight in addition to the packs they were carrying would slow them back down. He wasn't sure what the best way to carry him was, either; chest-to-chest? Piggyback? Altering one of the backpacks to use as a baby sling? Skar was a soldier, not a nanny—he had no idea how to care for a child.

Handing the boy in his lap a ration bar, Skar carefully avoided getting distracted by the state of their food supply. Shelter was more important. Highstorms were unpredictable, but the new Everstorm had been coming by every nine days. One had passed yesterday, so they had time to make it as far from Kholinar as they could and find somewhere to weather the storm. And hope no highstorms, irregular and unpredictable, came by in the meantime.

Skar forcibly pushed down the ugly emotions that welled up at the loss of his ability to wield stormlight. Most of bridge four had gained the power before he did, but he'd worked hard and become good enough to be chosen for the Kholinar expedition. Not being able to take in stormlight wasn't because he wasn't worthy; it was because Kaladin wasn't here.

Drehy shooed a shamespren from Skar's hip with a brusque wave and sat down next to him, knocking their shoulders together companionably. "Perimeter's clear," he murmured, voice low. "We can't secure this location, but a single guard roaming around should spot anything in time to wake everyone else up."

Skar grunted in acknowledgement and finished chewing.

"Ishnah," he called. "If we give you a spear, can you take a guard shift tonight?"

She gave an affronted sniff. "First you hand me a child to take care of, as if being a woman meant I would know what to do with it, and now you do the opposite and expect me to handle a weapon? No."

"Who put you in charge, anyway?" Vathah grumbled. "Maybe I don't want to listen to a windrunner. Maybe I got a better idea."

"And what better idea could you possibly have?" Drehy snapped. "Not setting a watch tonight? Waiting for the voidbringers to slaughter us in our sleep? Letting someone walk up and slit the throat of the future king of Alethkar without a fight?"

Gavinor tensed, and Skar shot Drehy a dark look. Gavinor may be king with his father's death, but they hardly needed to remind him of it. The kid was three, for Kelek's sake.

Vathah scowled, but offered no further arguments. Skar was a little disappointed, honestly. He didn't have any ideas beyond "get away from Kholinar," and "rest enough no one pulls a muscle."

"I can take a shift," Red offered, and nudged Vathah. "And this lug will too, he'll just scowl the whole time." Vathah did, indeed, scowl. Skar could work with that. Stormfather knew most of bridge four had scowled through guard duty on more than one occasion.

"Right," Skar said, succeeding at keeping his relief from being audible when he spoke. "With four of us, we'll do two shifts per night of two and a half hours each, alternating who is on duty which night. Red, do you want first or second shift tonight? I'll take the other."

"Second," Red decided. "I'm a morning person anyway, won't be too bad."

There was no way that easygoing enthusiasm could last long, but Skar would take what he could get, for now. He looked to Drehy, who nodded and extended his arms.

"Gav," Drehy asked. "Are you ready for bed? I'd be honored to be your pillow."

He looked terrible, with open cuts across his face he'd clearly been intending to heal with stormlight. Gavinor nodded and accepted being passed from one man's arms to the other; he still hadn't said a single word, but that was something Skar could worry about tomorrow. Standing up, Skar grabbed his spear, set out on patrol, and thought about how to get them all out of this mess.

The next day dawned without much of a plan, but Skar had picked a direction; they were heading towards Alethkar's southern coast, where they could decide whether to turn west to Vedenar or east to the Shattered Plains. Both locations had an unlocked oathgate and therefore passage to Urithiru.

It would be a long journey, either way, and Skar was still worried about their food supply. They were eating as they walked today, and Skar handed Gavinor, perched on his shoulders, a sausage.

"Thank you," Gavinor whispered. Skar froze for a second before forcing himself to keep moving, trying to not make a big deal about hearing Gavinor speak for the first time.

"You're welcome, your highness," he replied, taking a bite of his own sausage and watching Gavinor do the same. They didn't have many, but Shallan's trio had packed their bags with the remains of everyone's rations and the food they'd been passing out in the city; it was enough to keep everyone going, if not enough to keep them from getting cranky from hunger.

Gavinor ate his sausage, stuffing it down with the hurry of a person who expected it to be taken from him. The small boy ate all his meals that way: furtive and speedy. It had taken some members of bridge four months to stop doing that in Dalinar's war camp; the older and more justified a habit was, the harder it was to break.

Not that Skar felt the need to encourage Gavinor to break it yet, out here in Alethkar's backcountry where Odium's forces could attack at any moment.

That was a little dramatic, Skar could admit. They hadn't seen any Fused in days, and the Sunmaker Mountains were within sight. Still, though. Skar's nerves were shot. He was in charge of this little expedition now, and while he had some experience commanding a sub squad of this size, he had no experience leading people who weren't soldiers. Learning as he went was a thankless job, with everyone other than Drehy complaining at any inconvenience the second it happened.

The highstorm shelter had a list of projected dates pinned to the door. Skar sagged in relief as Ishnah read it to them. He could read glyphs now, as Kaladin had forced all of his officers to learn, but it was still hard. Better to let someone else do it and not screw it up.

Nanesach and Nanachan were both Everstorms that had already passed, but Neneves was tomorrow. A clear week until an everstorm, and a highstorm the day after that. Three days till the next, and then another clear week until an everstorm.

None of that was a guarantee, of course. The everstorm predictions were probably right, given that they'd been exactly nine days apart so far—but did he trust it to stay unchanging? Not really, Skar decided, watching the group do their best to commit the dates to memory while Ishnah copied them down on a scrap of paper. But he didn't have any better options.

"We'll stay here through the highstorm," Skar declared. "Take a rest day and get through as much of these mountains next week as we can."

"Through the mountains?" Vathah grimaced. "Less people live up there, less shelter from the storms. Less food."

"Less people to sell us out to the voidbringers," Skar said, hoisting Gavinor higher up his hip.

Nobody seemed to like that idea, and Skar couldn't blame them. He didn't like it much either, but he had to convince them. How many times had Kaladin proposed some crazy plan that never should have worked, but managed to get everyone to go along with anyway? Surely Skar could follow that example at least once.

"Look," he said. "We get through the mountains, shake any tails looking for Gav, and make a cover story to use when we find some other people to travel with. Act as mercenary guards while we get where we're going."

"And where are we going?"

A muscle jumped in Skar's jaw. If he got through this without killing Vathah... well, he didn't know what kind of celebration he wanted, but it would be a big one. A party, maybe. With enough wine to drown in, and fresh bread. His stomach growled. Amazing how quickly he'd gotten used to having good and reliable food again. But there were more important things to worry about.

"I'm working on it."

Skar eyed the wreckage of Han's wagon with dismay. "You have supplies to fix this, right?" he asked.

"Fix a broken axle? No," Han spat. "Spare wheels, I have. Spare wood for the sides of the storm wagon, I have. But the axle is the one part I can't replace. Your men should have been guarding it better during the fighting. Nothing else could have been more important."

"Your apprentices who still have their lives would disagree."

Skar cut a significant glance across the remains of the battlefield, such as it was. The awakened Parshmen hadn't counted on armed resistance, and the first few to attack the caravan had died on Skar and Drehy's spears. Still, a few others had ransacked Han's wagon before fleeing, and damaged it in the process.

The other merchant wagons were peeling away, continuing on to Dumdari. Without them, they were more vulnerable during future attacks and more likely to be targeted; their chances of returning to Urithiru diminished. Skar's gaze slid back over his companions. Gavinor, face pressed into Drehy's side; Vathah, Red, and Ishnah scouting to make sure all the Parshmen had fled; Han and his four apprentices, pale with fear and sitting or slumped over in various states of collapse. I will protect those who cannot protect themselves, Skar reminded himself. No one said it would be easy, or even that you would want to, but you have to.

One apprentice fell to her knees and vomited. Drehy stood, tucking Gavinor over his hip, and went to help move her upwind of the corpses.

"I—yes, that is true." Han had seen the same things Skar had, but whether he prized his apprentice's lives—or understood the simple reality that his fellow merchants had abandoned him to the mercy of the only armed men for miles, Skar didn't know.

Skar grunted. He was being more than a little uncharitable to Han, but he was in a truly foul mood. Fighting the awakened Parshmen was like slaughtering children, even as tired and sore and worn-out as he was. But it didn't feel right, that servants of evil could be so innocent. Better to move on and not think about it, and let Han sort out his business while Skar checked on his own people.

Moving over to Ishnah, Skar eyed the spear in her grasp, the orange blood flecked on the tip.

"Would you like some lessons on how to use that?" he asked. Having a greenvine in combat would be a new thing to worry over, but it wasn't as if he didn't care for her safety when Ishnah was a civilian; adding one more spear to their company would be a net positive in the end.

Ishnah sighed, spun her weapon tip down clumsily, planted it in the dirt, and leaned tiredly on the handle.

"Yes," she said. "I give in. I'll take a guard shift at night too; might as well go all in on learning how to be a soldier for the next time I find myself pretending I am one."

"That's the spirit. First lesson," Skar kicked at her spear tip, unbalancing her. "Don't do that, you'll damage the edge of your weapon."

Flailing, Ishnah glared at him. Skar continued on, unbothered. "You'll get lessons two and three tonight, on my guard shift. There's a lot to learn, so we're being efficient."

Speaking of efficiency, they needed to set up camp before the sun went down. Skar walked over to the first corpse and grabbed it under the arms. Rlain wouldn't want them to move the bodies, but they were stuck here and corpses in the middle of camp were unsanitary. He settled for moving it—him, he had a beard, so the parshman was a him—behind a bush. The bush fled as Skar dragged the body near it, but extended its fronds again as Skar walked away, concealing the corpse.

Did Parshmen go to the Halls when they died, or Damnation? He'd have to ask Rlain when they got back to Urithiru. For now, though, they went behind the bush where Gavinor couldn't see them; the boy was still crying into Drehy's side, inaudible but with heaving shoulders. They were doing their best to bring Gav out of his traumatized shell, but events were not working in their favor.

Skar was taking a wonderful mid-day nap, Gavinor a soft warm weight attached to his side, when Drehy shook him awake.

"We got news, spanreed finally went through." Joyspren burst into existence at Drehy's feet, blue leaves swirling madly in an imaginary wind. "Kal's back, and he's coming to get us."

Skar lurched upwards, waking Gavinor. "Storms, you beautiful man, that's the best thing I've heard all month." The grin currently cracking his face in half felt even crazier than Drehy's, and he abruptly realized how they looked. Two men in the world's worst runaway slave coverup of ash-covered foreheads; dirty, torn, and unpatched uniforms; and a toddler dressed in an abandoned storm shelter's stray rags.

"Who's Kal?" Gav asked sleepily.

"He's the one who went in with your dad to get you," Skar said. "Tall, taller than Drehy, with long hair."

"He's the best," Drehy added. "I knew he made it out of there alive."

Skar rolled his eyes and picked Gavinor up, preparing to do a lap around camp to talk to everyone. "'Course he did, it's Kal. You send him a map?"

"Ishnah drew one, yeah. The scribe said to make some signal he'd recognize at our camp."

Easy enough. Skar grabbed an ember from the fire and a spare scrap of cloth and scrawled bridge four's glyph on it. Tying it to the broken and discarded wagon axle made it a flag. Planting it in the stone was hard, but Skar found a big enough crack to wedge the thing in, and it fluttered in the breeze. He gave it a fond pat, settled Gavinor more solidly on his hip, and went off to tell everyone else the good news.

Skar had the right idea, Drehy thought, feeling drool hit his neck from the other man's sleeping mouth. Gavinor was still unwilling to leave his lap, but bridge four was pouring on the charm. The backup was appreciated, as even the boost of stormlight and adrenaline from earlier wasn't enough to keep his energy up. But he couldn't crash until he was sure Gavinor felt safe.

"So whatcha think, naco?" Lopen said. "Sounds like a fun game, no? You wanna play?"

Gavinor thought, and Drehy motioned to Lopen to shut up for a second; giving him space was the only way to get Gav to talk. It was a concept Lopen struggled with even at the best of times, but he seemed willing to control himself for once. He start wiggling his eyebrows strangely, though, and Drehy wasn't sure that was any better; it was kind of disturbing looking.

"Okay," Gav whispered, and accepted Lopen's hand to go play. Drehy relaxed, leaned back in his chair and prepared to join Skar in a good nap—Gavinor turned back to him. "Drehy?" he asked quietly. "Will you play too?"

"Sure, Gav," Drehy said, smiling. He was so screwed. This kid had him in the palm of his hand, and he didn't even know it. "But I'm not going easy on you! I'm the reigning champion of Crabik."

"Lies! Don't listen to him, Gav, I'm the current champion." Hobber shook Drehy by the shoulders.

"No, no, no, I, the Lopen, as the best Herdazian you have ever met, am the best at Herdazian games. Ask any of my cousins and they'll tell you the same."

Gavinor was looking at him nervously, so Drehy summoned his best laugh. It didn't fool any of the adults in the room, Hobber giving him another strengthening shoulder squeeze, but it settled Gav. A few men drifted over to join the game, letting Drehy focus on staying awake enough to provide reassurances when Gav needed them, and little else. So he was caught by surprise when Kaladin strode through the door hours later with Adolin in tow.

"Gav!" Adolin said. Smoke clung to his uncharacteristically messy jacket, and he looked a little pinched around the eyes; butt his smile was real. Adolin crouched down on the other side of the room from an unmoving Gavinor.

"I don't know if you saw me in Kholinar, but I'm your uncle Adolin and I came with a bunch of these guys to rescue you." He knocked Kaladin's knee with his knuckles, but the other man didn't join him on the floor; silence held after his statement, and Adolin waited patiently.

Gavinor looked at Drehy.

"He was there," Drehy confirmed. "And he really is your uncle. He's your dad's cousin."

Gavinor worried his hand in the bottom hem of his jacket. That torn and stained thing would get tossed if Adolin had anything to say about it, but it brought Gavinor comfort for now.

"My dad? Not mommy?" The question was quiet, but Drehy heard it well enough. Adolin was able to hold his face happy and open for Gav, but Kaladin failed at holding his own expression, his face screwing up into a wince.

"Yeah, your dad." Drehy walked forward to take Gavinor's hand and bring him closer to Adolin. "And," he whispered theatrically, "he's got blond hair, too, like me."

Adolin shook his—blond—hair over his eyes for Gavinor to see, and then threw it back up with a perfect twist of his neck, the show off. "Yup, blond hair, that's me. My brother Renarin has some blond hair too, though not as much. He can't wait to meet you—I think you guys will get along well." Drehy agreed. Quiet, unobtrusive, and deceptively smart, Renarin and Gavinor would be two haspers in a flock in an instant.

Gavinor didn't believe it, though, sticking close to Drehy's leg. "You should join our game of Crabik, Adolin," Drehy said, acting on impulse—it was where his best plans came from. "You can be on Gav and I's team, we're about to take down Hobber and Lopen."

"Sounds perfect," Adolin agreed, and stood up. "What are the rules?"

While Lopen explained the rules again, going too quickly to be useful, Drehy marked Kaladin slipping around the room and touching Skar on the shoulder, waking him up and getting his attention. Duty waited for no man; Drehy was glad that resolving whatever mess Adolin had been required to abandon to come settle Gavinor was not his problem.

Gavinor's face lit up as Skar came to claim him from Ishnah's arms. They all took turns carrying him, but the prince had favorites; he and Drehy had put in the work, and were totally winning. "So, good news," Skar said, "One of the merchants is looking for additional guards."

Drehy looked up from his stretching routine and stopped the conversation he was having with Red mid-sentence.

"Vathah sweet-talked him, a guy named Han, into taking us on his trip. The caravan is going to Vedenar—their oathgate is open, so that will be our target. Our new employer is planning on stopping in Dumdari first, but we have options for pushing on with or without him once we're there."

"Turns out Ithilir is dead, though." Vathah chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. "Ishnah's information was out of date, so I pretended Kholinar's spanreeds went dark earlier than they did. Han is letting us borrow his spanreed to Tashikk, said we should be able to get through to Ithilir's household from there.

It had been incredible to watch someone so surly transform into a charmer when talking to the merchant. It would be nice if he brought that attitude to their group as well as outsiders, but they were all stretched thin from lack of proper sleep and meals. At least it had been easy to negotiate taking part of their pay as guards as food.

The wagon would be an uncomfortable and cramped place to weather the Storms in, but it was a secure and guaranteed refuge. The abandoned half-shelter half-cave thing they'd found a few days past for the back-to-back Storms had been barely adequate. It kept the wind out, but became very wet very quickly; everyone's socks had yet to recover. Even though the ragged cloaks they'd scavenged from it to hide their uniforms were useful, they too were damp and moldy. Hopefully Han would be willing to part with some soap, if only to avoid having to smell them all.

Ishnah cleared her throat loudly, breaking Skar out of his train of thought.

"Yes?" he asked.

"We need to plan how to get a message to Urithiru instead of Ithilir's household," she said. "Tashikk has connections to all the princedoms in Urithiru, but reaching them will be expensive and difficult if we have to fabricate a story about both who we are and who we're talking to."

Skar scrubbed at his face, wincing at the bristles of a beard coming in and wishing he could wash the exhaustion from his brain. Being in command brought nothing but problems. Beneath his hand, he felt Gavinor's stomach rumble.

"Dinner first, then plan." Skar decided. The only thing he felt certain of at this point, was that when they made it back to Urithiru, he was going to force Kaladin to accept more help running the windrunners. If he was this exhausted managing three people, Kal had to have run himself ragged months ago.

And that scene at the palace—Skar felt hopelessly angry at how useless he'd been. Even Elhokar's death shouldn't have hit Kaladin so hard as to leave him that empty and tired; he was sure of it. There was something else he'd been missing, and he thought—hoped—he'd found a piece that would help in fixing it.

Watching Moash—his friend, his brother—kill Elhokar hadn't felt real. What was Moash even doing in Kholinar? He'd disappeared months ago, after something Kaladin refused to talk about. Kaladin, another brother, who had been losing his mind screaming in the middle of a fight and was now silent and frozen.

Drehy lost sight of them both in the heaving sway of bodies. His own body moved reflexively, falling into the motions he had drilled during endless nights in the chasms, a wealth of experience the Parshendi he fought clearly lacked. Quick and precise stabs downed his opponents, and Drehy took the moment to breathe and reassess his position. Skar was nearby, still on his feet, but Shallan's three were floundering.

Cursing, Drehy dipped back into the throng to make his way to them. Why anyone would choose to hang out with Gaz was beyond him, but they weren't so bad, in the end—not that he would abandon people who needed him for something that petty, even if they were as bad as Gaz.

Elhokar's body wiggled. What in Damnation? A small face appeared, pale and shocked, as Gavinor shook his father's arm again. He mouthed something Drehy couldn't hear over the clamor of battle.

"Skar!" Drehy yelled. "Skar!"

"What?"

"Go get Shallan's people, I'm getting Gavinor!"

"What?" Skar was farther from Gavinor than he was, Drehy realized, and couldn't see what he could. But he trusted Drehy anyway, charging away from their position guarding the Sunwalk to bring the others to safety.

Breaking through to Gavinor's position was easier than expected, combatants from both sides ignoring the child and his father's corpse. The boy was in a little uniform—the blue deepened to purple with the bloodstains covering it. He screamed when Drehy got an arm under both of his and lifted, not wanting to stop clinging to Elhokar's body. Drehy yanked him—he didn't want to hurt a kid, but they had to be on the Oathgate platform when Shallan activated it, or they were going to die here.

Drehy got Gavinor into his arms in time to join Skar in pushing back to the platform, several civilians taking advantage of the space they had created to join them. They were just in time, and the inner building began to leak Stormlight.

Nothing further happened, though; Urithiru's tranquil mountains didn't replace Kholinar's roiling melee of confused bodies. The control building went dull, Stormlight no longer leaking from its seams.

"What in Damnation?" Skar muttered. But he was looking at his own hand, rather than the building. The stormlight dancing along his skin—and Drehy's too—was disappearing. It was exactly what happened when Kaladin was out of range and no longer able to empower his squires.

Panic skittered down Drehy's spine. The original plan had involved coming back to Kholinar with military reinforcements, but he was pretty sure that had been discarded after realizing the extent of the occupation. And the newest plan had definitely involved explicit orders regarding corralling civilians onto the oathgate platform. So this was wrong, and Drehy had no idea what to do to fix it.

Skar met his eyes with a twin look of horror before his face firmed. "Red, with me. Vathah, Drehy, you'll take the rear. Ishnah, if you're not fighting, take the kid and get in the middle."

Orders, okay, Drehy could follow orders. He handed Gavinor off to Ishnah, the boy a limp weight that neither cooperated nor fought against what was happening to him. That didn't seem normal, but Drehy didn't know much about kids. Ishnah didn't look like she knew what to do with him either, but that wasn't Drehy's problem right now.

Gavinor accepted the move from Red's shoulders to Skar's. All the adults took turns carrying him, but he liked being carried by Skar or Drehy best. They didn't force him to talk, but they knew he didn't like it when everything was silent, either. If it was too quiet, then no one around except him and the spren, which was scary. If someone was talking, that meant he wasn't alone.

"So, Gav," Skar said. "Do you have a favorite color? I know your family is always wearing blue, but do you like something else better?"

Did he? Gavinor looked around. The sky was blue, and the sky was pretty. The trees were brown and green, and they were more pretty. The flower blossom Ishnah had given him from the tree branch was pink, but now that it was dead it was all brown and goopy, and Gavinor didn't like it so much anymore.

"Green, like trees," Gavinor decided.

Skar hummed. "Good choice. You know, your dad had green eyes." He squeezed Gavinor's feet as he talked, making sure Gavinor didn't fall off. It was something he might be in danger of, because suddenly his stomach felt funny and he couldn't see very well.

"He loved you so much. I know you didn't get to see him for very long, but he spent every second we had here planning a way to take you home with him."

Skar waited, as if he expected Gavinor to say something, but he couldn't. His stomach hurt, and his head hurt, and it was too hard to talk. "I'm sorry you had to see him die." Gavinor was lifted from his shoulders and given a hug while they walked, Skar comforting him while he cried. No one had done that for him for months—mommy always let him cry alone.

"I only knew your dad for a few months, but I have some stories about him if you ever want to hear them. He liked wine and clothes, and he paid way more attention to the ladies of the court holding poetry competitions than anyone else did. Men don't usually like poetry, but he did anyway."

"There were these big feasts that he held every night, where everyone dressed up in fancy outfits and ate fancy foods and tried to get your dad's attention."

Gavinor hiccupped, and Skar rubbed his back.

"I think his favorite color was yellow—like your eyes. A lot of his suits were that color, and his shardplate that he wore all the time was painted gold. If he hadn't been so worried about danger, I think he would have wanted you to come live with him in the war camps. We live in a place called Urithiru now, and as soon as it was safe there, he came to get you."

"Safe from the spren?" Gavinor asked, voice wobbly. The evil spren in the palace with mommy had hurt him; they would punch and kick him and pull at his skin. They would say mean things and tell him if he cried he didn't get to eat, but he always cried because they were evil and they wouldn't go away like normal spren—the same ones kept coming back and being mean again.

"It's safe from the spren there, yeah, Gav," Skar said. "There used to be a big evil spren living there, but we chased it away."

"Evil spren come back. They don't go away," Gavinor insisted. He didn't want to go somewhere else the evil spren lived. Maybe they could all keep walking through Alethkar until Gavinor was big enough to use a sword, and then he could fight the spren and make them go away and never come back.

"This one did. We made sure Gav; Drehy and I were there, and your uncles were there—you saw Adolin, the blond one with the shardblade—but Renarin didn't come to Kholinar with us. You'll see him when we get to Urithiru, and you'll like them both. They love you."

Gavinor didn't believe that. Mommy told him she loved him sometimes, but she left him alone with the spren all the time, and she never cared when he said he was hungry or cold. There had been a blonde man talking to Daddy when he came to get him out of the palace, so maybe that was Adolin. Maybe he would mean it if he said he loved him, if he had come to rescue him.

"What if they don't let me eat, like mommy did?"

Skar sucked in a breath, and his grip on Gavinor became uncomfortably tight. Gav squirmed, and Skar let go—but only a little. He still kept hugging him.

"They won't, Gav. You'll get anything you want to eat, all the time. You only have to ask, and they'll give you the fanciest, most outrageous foods you can dream of. And, hey," Skar scrubbed his hand through Gavinor's hair. "If they won't, you come right back to Drehy and me. We'll give you everything you could possibly want."

"I want a sword."

Skar grunted, but it sounded like there was a smile in it somewhere. "Shoulda guessed that, I suppose. I don't have one in your size, but when we get to Urithiru, I bet we can find you a sword."

Gavinor hadn't actually expected Skar to get him a sword, so being told he could have one made his heart warm. "Thank you," he whispered through his still-flowing tears.

"I told you anything, kid. I meant it."

A spren appeared next to Skar's head, directly before Gavinor's eyes. He screamed, flailing away from the wispy blue fronds. They were reaching for him, like the evil spren always reached for him when they wanted to pinch and poke and hit and—

"No, no, don't hurt me!"

Skar said a series of words Gavinor had never heard before, swatting the spren away from him. It dissolved as soon as Skar's hand went through it, instead of running away to come back later.

"Gav, it's alright, it's gone."

But—"What if it comes back?" Gavinor blubbered.

"Then I'll show you it's not scary," Skar said. "It's a sincerityspren. They show up when people really really mean what they say, and then they fade away. They don't hurt people."

"Everything okay over here?"

Gavinor shrunk into Skar's neck. Vathah never hurt him, but he wasn't very nice, either. He said mean things about the other adults all the time.

The hand on his back pressed him closer to Skar's body.

"We're good," Skar said. "Just startled by a spren."

"Startled by a spren." Vathah sounded annoyed, like he thought Skar was lying to him.

"Leave the kid alone, Vathah. You know how weird the spren were in Kholinar—and he's three. He's gonna scream sometimes."

Gavinor was four, actually, but nobody had celebrated his birthday yet so maybe he was just three again this year.

"'scuse me for worrying you were being brutally murdered," Vathah grumbled. He returned to his spot at the front, a single-file line of people walking in a storm river's dried-out bed.

"Ignore him, Gav, Kelek knows I do. You just worry about how pretty the trees are, and I'll take care of the rest," Skar said, his voice low.

"Okay."

Gav was tired, but it didn't look like they would stop walking to let him take a nap. When Skar shifted him back onto his shoulders, Gavinor stuck his thumb in his mouth and sucked on it a little. Mommy had said thumb sucking was for babies, not princes, but mommy wasn't here, and Skar said he could have anything he wanted, right?

"Boo!" Skar yelled, hands cupped around his mouth as he swooped down at the horse again. Drehy cackled, both at the comical expression and the horse's panicked dance, doing its best to keep Skar in sight. The poor thing had no idea what to do with windrunners. Which was, of course, the reason they were doing this in the first place. Adolin called it "desensitization," and it was an important part of training a warhorse. Supposedly.

"Skar!"

Speak of the storm, and in it blustered. Adolin walked up to the pen the horse and Skar were in, hand-in-hand with Gavinor. Drehy grinned and flew over, throwing in an extra loop-de-loop for the little prince who appreciated such things. Gavinor's face lit up, and he dropped Adolin's hand to extend both of his upwards for Drehy to grab.

"What am I, chopped chull liver?" Adolin complained as Drehy dropped his speed to a more reasonable level.

"More like chull droppings!" Skar yelled, speeding over to ruffle Gavinor's hair.

Adolin sputtered in exaggerated offense. "Well! At least Dawn still likes me." Dawn, the horse, was skittish, keeping a wide eye on the windrunners. She let Adolin approach, deciding that one maybe-crazy man on the ground was better than two definitely-crazy men in the air. A wise decision.

"Hey Gav," Skar stage-whispered. "If you can drop my coat over Dawn's head without her seeing you, I'll give you extra sugared simberry cream after dinner tonight." Drehy gave Gavinor a comforting squeeze while the boy hesitated. Sugared simberry cream was his favorite dessert, and Rock had Leyten pull a few strings to procure some for this stunt. Not that he knew, but Gavinor would get it no matter what he did, as a reward for facing the horses at all. He was still nervous around them.

Beneath their feet, Adolin was talking quietly and brushing down Dawn's neck with his hands to reassure her. The anticipationspren by his feet betrayed him though; he was prepared for what was coming. The horse was not.

Gav nodded determinedly and clutched Skar's jacket close. "Perfect," Drehy said. "Go make a distraction." He nudged Skar's shoulder with his own, sending him drifting gently.

Skar clicked his tongue. "Bossy." He winked and grinned at Gavinor, spoiling the illusion of his anger but winning a small giggle.

"What angle should we come from, do you think? From the sides, or the back?" Drehy asked.

"The back. Skar said she shouldn't see me, and her eyes are really big."

"That they are, kid. Good thinking."

Skar's distraction allowed Drehy to drift them past Dawn's nervous glances. He'd decided to "stand" upside down next to Adolin and hold a conversation involving profuse hand gestures at Dawn's nose. That poor creature.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

Drehy laid them out horizontally, both giving Gav a slight upward lashing and holding him tight to his chest. He was such a sweet kid it was easy to forget, but Gavinor was the heir to the kingdom of Alethkar. Drehy would be in deep crem if he dropped him.

The plan worked perfectly. Gavinor dropped the jacket, and Dawn reared only slightly in surprise—she was learning to expect the unexpected from the sky.

"I did it!" Gavinor cheered. "Uncle Adolin, did you see?"

"Sure did," Adolin said, reaching to ruffle Gavinor's hair as Drehy deposited him on the ground, a wide grin splitting his face in half.

Dawn leaned forward when Skar removed his jacket from her eyes, investigating Gavinor's hair with her mouth. Gav froze, eyes wide.

"She's just saying hello," Adolin said, projecting calm and leaning down to Gavinor's level, taking a knee in the sparse grass. "Feel how soft her lips are? She won't hurt you." Adolin stuck his fingers in the horse's mouth in demonstration. Drehy traded twin looks of disgust with Skar. Horses may be expensive and high status beasts, but slobber was slobber; Dawn could keep her spit to herself, thanks.

But Dawn did in fact not hurt either prince, accepting Adolin's gentle redirection and allowing Gavinor's escape to Skar's side. The shorter man allowed Gavinor to tuck himself in close while he put his jacket back on.

"Grampa said warhorses are mean, and would hurt me," Gavinor said in confusion, looking up at Skar for an explanation.

Skar made a face, looking to Adolin to save him. While bridge four had received some riding lessons while serving as the cobalt guard, that had ended when they learned how to fly. That instruction had never included details on how training horses worked, either.

"Fully trained warhorses will attack people they don't trust, true. It's how they keep themselves safe in battle; but Dawn hasn't been trained for that yet. Skar and Drehy were helping get her used to weird things first, so she doesn't panic when someone rides her into a noisy battlefield." Adolin patted Dawn on the nose and gestured a stable boy over, instructing him to turn her out in the pasture.

"But for now, I think I heard someone was promised simberry cream!"

Gavinor's grin returned, taking Adolin and Skar's hands as they walked back into Urithiru where dinner with bridge four awaited them.

"No!" Gavinor screamed, flailing dramatically as Skar attempted to hand him to brightness Navani. Everyone paused, and Skar hauled the boy back into his chest, bewildered but not wanting to drop him. "No!"

It was the most animated Gavinor had been since being pulled off his father's cooling corpse. Skar shared a bewildered look with Drehy. "Gav," Skar tried. "It's your grandmother, don't you want to see her?"

Brightness Navani had frozen in place, and her smile was dropping quickly. Why would Gavinor not like his grandmother? Did he not remember her? Skar had no idea how good the memory of a child that young was, but Navani had left Gavinor in Kholinar a year ago, which might have been too long.

"No! No! No!" Gavinor was crying now, fat tears dripping onto Skar's neck. He cradled the boy tighter, conflicted. He didn't want to make Gav do something he so clearly didn't want to, but he couldn't refuse a brightlady of such status either.

"What's wrong, Gav?" Drehy asked quietly, holding his hands. The flailing subsided, and Skar was grateful that he was no longer sustaining a small beating.

"I don't want to go back to the castle with mommy," Gavinor sobbed. "You said I don't have to go back, that I'm safe now."

The adults in the room went silent. Navani didn't look much like what little Skar had seen of the queen, but his memories were heavily influenced by the grotesque fusion of human flesh and an Unmade's influence she had become.

Curse that woman to the eternal pits of Damnation. Skar bit his tongue to prevent introducing more of a soldier's vocabulary to impressionable ears than he already had.

"Brightness..." Kaladin began, but trailed off.

"Captain," Navani replied evenly. "Why is my grandson terrified of his mother?"

A beat passed, Gavinor's sobs echoing in the silence.

"Please do not hold back. It is not a habit you are accustomed to, there is no need to develop it now."

"Let's find a private room," Kaladin said. "Skar, Drehy, take him somewhere he'll feel safe. I'll find you later."

"Yes, sir," Drehy saluted for both of them, Skar's arms still being full. Weeks in the wilderness being responsible for a group who only grudgingly worked together had fried his brain; Skar let his feet decide where they were going, rather than tax it further.

He wasn't surprised to find himself walking through bridge four's common room to the kitchen, where Rock stood over a cauldron of something that smelled heavenly.

"Please tell me that's ready," Skar begged.

Rock visibly decided not to question the the strange tableau they three made, covered in several weeks grime and nearly a month late returning from a mission. "Lunch is ready," he said. "I will find small bowl for our guest."

Skar held Gav on his hip, grabbing three flatbreads and bringing them to a table. Drehy followed with bowls for the two of them, and Rock sat down with the small third he had promised.

"So," he said. "Who is our newest recruit?"

Drehy tensed, hearing the crunch of footsteps on gravel. No one had found their little cove yet, but that didn't mean they wouldn't have to fight for it eventually. Long stride, but a single person, unconcerned with the noise they were making. No clink of metal weaponry.

He looked up and nearly fell over in relief, even though he was sitting. Kaladin. Stormlit, freshly shaven, and looking—well, not unharmed, exactly—but like he'd walked out of Damnation, instead of being stuck there. He smiled at the bridge four symbol they'd drawn on the tarp marking their camp, gladly returning Skar and Drehy's salutes.

"Drehy!" Syl cried, swooping towards them.

"Syl!" he made a place for her to stand on his hands, delighted. She was usually only visible to Kaladin, so he was happy to pay attention to her when she broke her pattern.

But Skar caught his attention again, motioning to Gav. He needed both hands to pick up the boy, so Syl flew off to greet Skar.

"There's something we didn't mention by spanreed," Skar said. Drehy saw the moment Kaladin registered who, exactly, Drehy was holding.

"We protect those," Drehy said, "who cannot protect themselves."

The light that ripped into him was shocking in its power. Cold, colder than stormlight usually was, and more tempestuous. He was overfull of it, letting it leak beyond him as if he were the highstorm himself. It felt good, after several weeks without. The cuts on his face closed, their nagging pain disappearing. His aching calves decided they were done aching after all.

Skar whooped loudly, throwing himself into Drehy's side. He almost fell over, but Kaladin was there at his other side holding him up with a smile. Poor Gavinor was getting a little squished, but he was staring up at Drehy in awe, appreciating the blue-white smoke rising from his skin.

"You've got perfect timing," Kaladin said, gripping the base of Drehy's neck and giving him a small shake. "I wasn't sure how many people you had with you, and I'm low on light. We can all make it back to Kharbranth now, with your help."

On the flight back, Skar got to carry Gavinor. Kaladin had given him enough light to Lash himself, and Drehy had enough for himself and a few others, but Kaladin kept the rest of the light he had brought to take control of the rest of the group.

Skar wasn't bitter. He wasn't. He was happy for his friend, and happy to get to keep hold of Gavinor for a little longer. Who, exactly, would take charge of him when they returned was something he didn't know, but even if the terrifying Kholin ladies didn't do it personally, the future king of Alethkar wouldn't be allowed to be babysat by two former bridgemen forever.

Gavinor kept his face tucked into Skar's neck, his arms clamped tightly.

"I've got you," Skar murmured into the boy's ear. "I won't let go, I promise. I won't drop you."

Sniffling, Gavinor whispered "Scary," so quietly Skar wasn't sure how he had even heard it.

Skar ran a hand up and down his back gently, offering what comfort he could. "You're safe," he continued. "The sky is so pretty, don't you want to see it?" The little prince had quite an eye for beauty. Interesting scenery had been the best way to draw him out of his shell.

"It's too fast, I'm cold."

Rearranging his arms as much as he could to shield Gavinor from the wind didn't help as much as Skar wanted it to. Holding stormlight kept you warm, but Gav couldn't do that. He looked out at the still distant coast of Kharbranth and took a deep breath.

Skar stood still in the air, a half-mile above the Shattered Plains. The wind blew gently against bridge four, sending those not paying attention swaying until they Lashed themselves back into formation. Two squads faced each other; one uniformed, and one stripped to the waist. Kaladin finished his speech and turned back to Gavinor, held in Skar's arms.

"Remember, if you get scared you can stop at any time—just tell Syl and I'll come get you."

Gavinor nodded. "I remember," he said, and took the small metal token Kaladin handed him—Syl, transformed into a Shard... Ball? Shard-something, to let her talk with Kaladin mentally at a distance. No doubt Kaladin would ask her to relay information on the performance of the men Kaladin couldn't see, as well as Gavinor's safety. Kaladin inhaled Stormlight and applied a half-Lashing to Gavinor, ensuring his weightlessness wouldn't be disturbed by someone accidentally dropping all of their Lashings while responsible for his safety.

"Right. Voidbringers, you get ten seconds, starting—NOW!"

Skar shot straight up, aiming for maximum distance during his head start.

"Why are you on the voidbringer team?" Gavinor asked, more casually than a toddler hurtling through the air at that speed should be able to manage. He'd gotten used to this after spending so much time with bridge four.

"It's a game," Skar replied. It was hard to keep up his Lashings and shape the air at the same time so he and Gavinor could speak, but he managed. "We're pretending to be voidbringers kidnapping you, so if it ever happens for real we know how to get you back."

It was mostly a way to make practicing Lashings interesting, but everyone was also happy to spend time with Gav. Everyone needed practice; they all looked like flopping, drunken axehounds, usually, which did not fit the picture of military discipline they were trying to present. Except Kaladin, whose natural grace made the harsh jerks of his Lashings beneath them while playing safety spotter look dangerous.

The Voidbringer team's ten second head start was up, the uniformed windrunners speeding towards them in a V formation with the point directed at Skar.

"Ready?" Skar asked.

Gavinor nodded, the straps on his glass goggles bobbing adorably.

Skar moved Gavinor to his back and Lashed him towards Hobber—just one to start. Of course he wanted to win, which would probably involve more Lashings and faster movement, but they had to test the simple stuff before getting fancy with it.

The windrunner team hadn't noticed the deception yet, Drehy at the point coming for him as if Skar's arms behind his back still held Gavinor.

"There!" Teft called. Teft had command of the windrunner team, while Skar had command of the Voidbringer team. While Skar had been late to learning Lashings, he had put real time into it, and it was paying off. Someone left Teft's formation at his call, and chaos descended.

Skar grappled Drehy, trying to prevent him from advancing. The idea of using practice weapons had been tossed around, but even with Renarin on the ground to heal any injuries Gavinor might accidentally take, everyone had decided it was too risky.

So, fists in faces it was. Drehy slammed his palm over Skar's eyes and shoved with his freakishly long arm. It earned him enough distance to get through, but he made the mistake of turning his back on Skar to see where he was going. Skar tackled him again, attempting to Lash them both towards the ground.

It half worked, Skar's downward Lashing functioning only a half-second before Drehy met it with an upward one, and then they were hovering still in the air. Skar added another Lashing. Drehy did too. Skar added a third and felt his Stormlight drain at an alarming rate. Drehy matched him again.

Skar reversed his Lashings, keeping a firm grip on Drehy's coat collar. Wind cut at his skin like ice, and Skar's vision began tunneling inwards, the force of a combined six Lashings melting his mind. Both men dropped their Lashings, Drehy's queasy face indicating he'd felt the same thing. Even without further Stormlight usage, they continued to fall upwards before Roshar's gravity reclaimed them in her hold, momentum carrying both men up over the mock battlefield.

Beneath them, the windrunners and "voidbringers" had paired off, as they did in battles with actual Fused. It would take some disruption to get Gav back, though, and Skar gave Drehy a kick in the stomach before he flew off to see if he could manage it.

As it turned out, he could. Skar grinned like a man possessed, Gavinor tucked into his arms and giggling forcefully. Since he didn't have to worry about attacking anyone, Skar could fall back on the strategy of making unpredictable movements and letting everyone trying to approach him screw themselves up and foul their own Lashings. Lyn slammed into Teft, and Skar was away cleanly, streaking to the plateau designated as "home" for the voidbringers, where Rock was waiting.

"Ah, little prince, I see you have been captured by the scary and evil voidbringers," Rock said with a twinkle in his eye. "Such a shame, I will miss my best assistant."

"Rock!" Gav said with delight, popping his head out from Skar's neck. "Can I have some stew?"

"Of course."

No one else got stew before it was ready, but everyone had a soft spot a mile wide for Gavinor.

The rest of bridge four landed on the plateau—the windrunner team grumbling and the voidbringer team coming over to slap Skar's sweaty back.

"Good job, everyone," Kaladin said, landing last with Rlain and Renarin in tow, fetched from the windrunner team's home plateau. "Check your sphere pouches and grab more light if you're low. You have ten minutes to talk strategy and then we go again with the same teams."

"Thanks for the assist, Lyn," Skar said. "Teft's sometimes a harder opponent than you think, but you got him good."

Lyn smiled widely. "I did, didn't I? Hey, what do you think about working in pairs next time?"

Skar let himself fall into the flow of strategizing, but kept one eye on Gavinor the whole time. He was eating a small bowl of stew happily, kicking his feet while he sat on the table and listened to Rock talk about his home on the peaks. Hopefully, the stew would stay in his stomach while he got flung through the air again, but bridge four had been covered in worse than toddler vomit before—they'd live. Renarin had a hand on his nephew's head, too, checking him over. He'd be all right. They would all be all right, bridge four; they had each other.