Paragon - Book I

Cutting Class

When they get back to the tiny room at The Open Arms they crash onto their cots, thudding onto the blankets and pillows and tumbling into sleep.

Allayria's limbs feel like rock when she finally awakens and her face is buried into the corner of her blanket, which she must have rolled up into a pillow. Her actual pillow is by her feet.

Even Ben looks bleary-eyed when he joins her in the corner for tea. She passes a steaming cup to him and he grumbles something, dragging the heel of his hand across one eye. She notices the cut on his face has turned a darker purple; the scabbing starting to set in.

"You think it will leave a scar?" she asks him, nodding to his face.

He shrugs.

"Maybe." His mouth quirks. "Do you think it will make me look dashing?"

"Very."

"Ish dat teh?" Iaves mumbles, rolling over on his cot and flopping an arm over the side, hand extended toward them.

"Yes. Want a cup?"

He nods, face pressed into his pillow.

"Should I ask Meg if she wants one too?"

"Crikes, no, don't wake her up. She'll take your head off," Ben interjects, pulling his legs into a crisscross position on the floor.

Iaves slumps out of his cot as Allayria hands him his cup. He lies on the floor a minute, a foot still strung up, tangled in bedsheets.

"I feel like I could sleep for a century," he grumbles. "What a trip."

"Everything went well with the prison break then?" she asks.

"Yeah, about as well as it could have," he answers, turning his angular face toward her but keeping his eyes shut. "There was a spot of trouble, but we took care of it."

"We had a scare with a guard before we could free the cell block, but Iaves took him out," Ben explains. "We managed to spring one more block and I think the prisoners took care of the other three. As I'm sure you heard, we gave them some explosives to work with."

"That explains a lot."

"Everyone's happier when you give them explosives," Iaves inputs.

"And what about you?" Ben prompts, returning her stare with his bright, curious one. "I know things went sideways halfway in, but aside from that? Keno said your night was miserable."

"The wind was too much to sleep in the trees," she explains. "We ended up dropping out of the trees and huddling together on the ground. It was bitterly cold."

"Still, we got through it. And he didn't complain too much," she adds. "He's alright, you know."

"Yeah," Ben agrees, and he seems to search her face. "He's a decent man."

She pauses, lingering on his scrunched eyebrows and thinning lips.

"For a thief, anyway," she appends rather abruptly. "He had my back, like you said he would, but it wasn't like having you two or Meg around."

"We missed you too," Ben admits. "It seemed a little lonely, just the four of us... and we're not quite as good of fire starters as you."

"Can confirm," Iaves volunteers, nursing the cup as he rearranges himself in a more vertical position. From the bed, Rex's blue eyes open and she fixes him with a long stare.

With the key in hand and the countryside swarming with Jarles, it is mutually agreed that they will lie low in Solveigard for a few weeks. While Iaves works on attaining supplies from the Brothers and Meg on intel from Keno, Ben and Allayria make it a habit to break into the Solveigard library.