I dream. Of bright rooms, white beds, strange tones beeping in my ear. I dream of a sea of huddled faces, features impossible to discern. I dream of a city that seems filled with towers, carriages made of steel, everything familiar yet distant, as if assessing memory through a gyroscope. I dream of a face, pale and lovely, difficult to discern. I dream of a world that is not this world, evoking an enduring sense of loss.

“Wake up,” someone says.

I open my eyes, disoriented, and seconds pass before I recognize Emond’s hut. The old woodsman looms over me. “Someone’s coming,” he says. “Two men, on horseback. Star trackers, most likely. Didn’t expect them so soon. Must have been nearby.”

“What do they want?” I ask.

“You,” he says. “Stay here. Don’t make any noise.”

Before I can reply, he strides out the door. I watch through the window as he walks toward two approaching riders in dark cloaks and leather armor: one bald, skinny, and pocked; the other stocky, with a disheveled brown mop and bent nose. Both wear swords at their hip.

“Hail,” the bald one says. He and his companion halt, horses snorting, pawing the earth.

“Hail,” Emond replies. “How can I be of service to you good men?”

“We need a guide,” the bald one answers. “To take us up the mountainside in search of the star that fell last evening.”

“No one knows these paths as well as I,” Emond says.

“We’ll also need some provisions,” the stocky one chimes in, voice nasal.

“Shut it, Sten,” the bald one says. He turns back to Emond. “You heard him. Provisions. We the first through here?”

“Aye,” Emond says. “Haven’t seen a soul in days.”

“Good. Sten, deal with the horses.” The bald man dismounts, and heads toward the house, while his friend ties off their horses’ reins to Emond’s fence.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Emond says, stopping the bald one. “I’ll fetch all you need.”

“I don’t think he wants us in his house, Corr,” Sten says.

“What else you got in there, old man?” the bald one—Corr—asks. “Got a daughter you’re afraid we’ll take a liking to?”

“I’ve agreed to help you,” Emond says. “Now I’m asking for common decency—”

“Sod off,” Corr says, shoving the old woodsman to the dirt. He kicks open the door, clomps inside. I scrabble beneath the bed, but he spots me. “Oi, Sten,” he calls, “no need to go a-hunting after all!” He bulls across the room faster than I expect, grabs for me, still cowering beneath the bed. I try to fend him off, but he seizes my hair and yanks, slamming my head against the bed frame. Dizzy, I offer little resistance as he drags me outside, and deposits me in the dirt beside Emond.

“Watch them,” he tells Sten.

“Aye.” The fat tracker waddles over, draws his sword, places the tip against my throat. “Not a move,” he says. “Either of you.”

Corr reenters the house, and returns several minutes later with foodstuffs, Emond’s brandy skin, and the star steel spear. “An even bigger surprise,” he says, stooping to look Emond in the eye. “Where’d you come by this, old man? Shoddy craftsmanship. Try to hammer it out yourself, eh? Planning to kill this poor fool, too?” When the woodsman doesn’t answer, Corr rounds on me instead, brandishing the spear. “He tell you what this is? Did he?”

“Star steel,” I answer, suddenly uncertain.

“He tell you what it’s made of?” he chortles. “It’s made out of your heart, skyling.”

Horrified, I turn to Emond. “I was going to tell you,” he pleads. “But I swear I’ve spoken true. Men like these murdered my friend, and I won’t allow it a second time!” He leaps up, wresting the spear from a surprised Corr. The old man swings, whips the spear butt across Sten’s face, and the heavier tracker goes down.

“Run, Luck!” the woodsman shouts. “Take one of their horses and go!”

Corr draws his blade and lunges for Emond as I flee. But I cannot abandon the man; instead I grab a large rock and charge Sten, who’s climbing back to his feet. I swing at his head, but he steps aside and I miss. He smashes his sword hilt into my face, my eyes tearing, and I go down. He raises the blade, edge glinting in the sun. I roll aside and he stabs the dirt. I scrabble away. I can’t die, not again.

Sten circles me. “If you just surrender,” he says, “we’ll make it quick and painless. I promise.”

He swipes at me, but I skirt out of reach. We keep this up for a few minutes. He begins to pant, swinging slow and wild. I sidestep a vertical slash, and kick him hard as I can in the belly. He tumbles onto his back, an upended tortoise. I kick him again in the jaw, then grab his sword.

I dash toward Emond, his arms covered in deep sword cuts, still clashing with the other tracker. I’m nearly there when Corr gleefully shouts, “Looks like Sten took care of your friend!”

"Luck!" Fooled, the woodsman looks back. He sees me running toward him.

“No!” I yell.

The bald tracker runs him through the heart. The sword tip exits beneath his left collarbone. Emond’s mouth falls open—surprise, pain, a thousand other indiscernible things. He slides off the tracker’s blade, thuds to the ground, limbs sprawled, blood pooling in the dirt.

Corr cackles. He wipes his steel in Emond’s hair. “Sten,” he calls. “Sten, get off your fat arse and get over here! Let’s finish up!”

I charge him, bellowing, overtaken by rage. Corr adopts a ready stance. I hurl my blade, and he leaps aside, guarding his head. I tackle him around the middle, driving him to the ground. His sword spins free. I aim punches at his ribs and face, but he grapples me, rolls me onto my back. He hits me again and again, his gloves sewn with rivets. I try to defend but the blows slip past. My vision darkens, crimson in my eyes. I can’t let this happen. I’ve been given a second chance. I have to live!

Corr turns away. “Sten, hurry your fat arse!” he calls. He looks back to me, grabbing a dagger sheathed at his side. He’s laughing, laughing.

Fury roars up, a burst of clarity. I reach for the dagger too, even as he plunges it toward me. I catch its edge against my palm, bite back a scream. He pushes harder, and I twist aside, relaxing my grip, throwing him off balance. He stumbles and I leap onto his back, circle my arms around his neck, squeezing. Gasping for breath, he slashes my forearms, but I cling to him. The world tilts as we crash into the grass. The dagger spills from his fingers. He gropes for it, but I hold tight until his body slackens. Then, I crawl out from under him and snatch the weapon. Though he is barely conscious, I swear I can hear him laughing in my head.

“Stop,” he says.

I bring the blade down, piercing the thin leather breastplate. I stab him again, and again. At first his hands weakly grab for the dagger, but the blood is slippery, and soon he falls slack, eyes staring, urine darkening his pant leg. I hardly notice; my entire world is that moment of resistance giving way, armor and bone punctured, steel sinking into flesh, tissue, warmth and blood. Each wound returns a sliver of safety, and control, until finally I stop.

I look down at my red-soaked hands and clothing. Only then do I comprehend the tracker’s corpse: red-flecked lips and butchered torso. I drop the dagger and retch into the grass.

“What did you do?” I hear Sten cry behind me.

“No more,” I whimper, "please . . ." Then, I pick up the dagger.

I sprint toward the fat tracker, screaming out my fear, my anger, my confusion, and horror. The tracker hesitates, backs away a step, hands up. “W-wait,” he cries, “don’t come any closer!”

I keep running. He turns toward the horses and grabs a crossbow fastened alongside his saddlebags. He takes a few steps forward, fires. I brace, but the shot goes wide. His mouth falls open. He throws down the weapon and falls to his knees. “Please,” he begs. “Y-y-you don’t understand!”

“Don’t understand?” I tower over him.

“We’re deserters,” he says. “M-my name’s Esten, used to live not five miles from here. I-I just wanted to do right by my mother, is all! My friend, he thought if we brought the Crusade some star steel, they’d take us back. I just wanted to do right by my mum, honest,” he pleads.

I assess him, lowering the dagger.

His eyes drift, linger on it, then return to mine. He lunges for the weapon.

I snarl, knock him to the ground, shove the blade down towards his throat. He grunts, tries to hold me back, but he’s weak. “No, no,” he says, as the steel descends. “I’m sorry, please, didn’t mean it, no, no, no, no—” His groveling only spurs me and I plunge the dagger into his fleshy neck.

“Nnuh,” he burbles. “Nnn . . . nugh . . . glluh muh . . .” Blood fills his mouth. He grips my red-soaked shirt with pleading eyes, a child’s eyes, wanting sympathy. I recoil, watching as his life empties—his mouth moving silently, stubby fingers vainly reaching toward nothing.

He can’t be more than eighteen-years-old.

I collapse into the dirt, a whine in my throat—an animal sound of despair. I stare at the sky, the cotton wisps of clouds. I cannot make sense of what’s occurred. Could this be Hell, after all? I’ve just killed two men. But they were going to kill me. Why?

For my heart? Why am I here? Where is here?

I want to go home.

At that thought, I feel as palpable a sense of loss as I’m sure I have ever felt. I curl into a ball and scream, and scream. I don’t know where home is. I don’t want to be here, don’t know this place.

I’m not sure how long I lie there. The noon sun towers, burning my eyes. I can’t stay forever, much as I want to—I’d sink into earth, be turned to dirt, if I could. But there’s something I must do.

I meander into the house, and find an iron shovel. Back outside, I start digging Emond’s grave.

It’s easy at first. But after an hour I begin to tire. The goat bleats at me from his pen. I refill his water trough, feed him some bundled hay I find nearby, and feed and water the trackers’ horses as well. Then I resume work, the pit growing deeper, the afternoon sun a furnace. It occurs to me to shed my blood-crusted shirt. When I grow thirsty, I draw water from the well. Hunger, I ignore. After the grave is deep enough, I toss the shovel aside, and walk to Emond’s body. He still lies where he fell, the earth sodden red. I try to lift him but fail, exhausted. I should have dug closer. I pace for several minutes, knowing what I must do. Finally, I grab his arm, roll him onto his chest.

I don’t expect his eyes, his mouth, to be open. I flinch, steel myself, then reach for him again, not looking, going by touch, rolling, rolling the old woodsman toward his resting place. At last I push him into the grave, limbs flopping. One of his legs breaks on impact, and I stifle a cry. I retrieve the shovel, and glance down. Emond’s mouth is still open. I imagine filling his throat with dirt.

I discard the shovel, clamber into the fresh earth with him. I kneel, try to shut his jaw, but his head and neck have gone stiff. One hand on his bearded chin, the other on his blood-matted head, I squeeze and squeeze until his mouth snaps shut, teeth clicking. I fall back, unable to stop looking now, at the dead old man who rescued me, twice. He gazes sightlessly at gathering clouds. I shut his eyes; that part is easier.

It takes three tries to climb out, the dirt soft, giving way beneath my hands. I don’t immediately grab the shovel, but instead retrieve his daughter’s doll from the house, Lady Celestine. I drop it in the grave with him. After some consideration, I add the spear, too. I know it might prove useful, valuable, but I cannot take it. I don’t know any prayers of this world, so I mutter, “Heavens watch over him.” It sounds right enough. I can only hope it reaches wherever he’s gone.

I raise a shovelful of earth. It’s nearly a minute before I let it drop, but that spurs me. I pile on more and more, shutting him away. Above, the sky cracks. Rain patters on my skin, a drizzle at first, and then a storm. Yelling, I heave to shift the rain-packed soil. My feet slide in the mud. The downpour soon makes progress impossible.

I shelter beneath the house’s eaves with Emond’s goat, who bleats plaintively. Crying for his master, perhaps. A sound so helpless and pathetic that I cannot help but weep as well.

Finally, the torrent dies down. I take up the shovel again, but find the grave turned to a sodden mess. All I can do is carve away at the pit’s edge. Eventually the damp mass of dug-out earth beside it dips and then slides into place, leaving only a muddy depression in the ground. I shovel a bit more, smoothing it over. Then I hack down a piece of Emond’s fence and shove the wooden post at the head of his grave. The two star trackers still lie unburied.

I go to where Corr dropped the basketful of supplies. I sit in the dirt with the brandy, and drink, searing my stomach. I gnaw on some jerky and hard biscuits. I drink more. The world grows fuzzy, and I allow myself to forget, to be mud-caked and grinning, as the cloud cover breaks before the sun. Then in my periphery I notice the mound that is Sten’s corpse.

I don’t want to dig again. I want to leave those two to the elements, and wolves. But my conscience forbids me. I should stay, finish this dark work. Then I’ll ride for the horizon.

Suddenly, I hear hooves.

I look up, spy an approaching uncovered wagon, hitched to an old chestnut nag plodding down the muddy road. An older woman in a rustic wool dress holds the reins, a young boy with a sandy mess of hair sitting beside her. In his lap rests a metal dish with a lid.

I go and wait by the trackers’ horses—they shift and whicker, their coats still rain-damp. As the cart nears, the woman leans forward. “Who are you?” she asks. “Where’s Emond?”

Wordlessly, I point to the post in the yard behind me.

“Did you . . . Did you kill him?” she asks. When I shake my head, she says, “Who did?”

“Star trackers,” I say hoarsely.

“You’re the one who fell yesterday,” she says. Soothingly, she pats the boy’s head. He just gawks, his amber eyes huge in his pale cherubic face. The woman shakes the reins and turns the cart, facing away. “Alon,” she says to the boy, “you keep looking this way. Understand? Just look straight ahead. Such a good child.” She steps off the wagon, hobbles the horse, and walks to me. “The trackers. Where are they?” she asks.

“Killed them,” is all I can manage to say, gesturing to the unburied corpses.

She glances at the boy. “Are you going to kill me?” she asks me quietly.

“Don’t want to," I say. “But . . . I’ll protect myself.”

She laughs, once—loud and bright like a bell. “I’m flattered you think me capable of harming you, or anyone. But you’ve no need to worry.” She wanders over, examines the bodies. When she returns, she says, “The bald fellow I don’t recognize. But the heavy one might be Ennie’s son. Ran off to join the fight, oh, six months back. Will you load them on the cart?”

Numbly, I nod. I carry Corr over first, and then Sten, buckling slightly under his heavier weight. I’m not sure how I can lift them at all. It’s as if my body’s now adapted to the day’s labors, my wounds already half-healed, the cut on my palm scabbed over. The woman brings a bucket of water, holds it to my lips to drink, after which I wash off my hands. Meanwhile, the boy, Alon, stares resolutely ahead.

“What now?” I ask the woman.

“Now you go to Hillcrest, to the magistrate, for justice.”

“You don’t believe me?” I say.

“I do,” she replies. “But there’s a proper way of things. With luck, he’ll believe you, too.”

“With luck," I mutter. "And, if I refuse?”

“I’ll tell them you decided to flee. They’ll probably put a price on your head,” she says.

“Not much of a choice,” I say.

“But a choice, nonetheless,” she replies.

I glance back at Emond’s grave. “What about him?”

“You buried him right, so naught to do but leave him,” she says. “He loved his corner here. If there’s anything you’d like to take along . . .”

In the end, I retrieve a few sets of rough clothing, deposited in a leather bag, as well as a set of old cracked boots I find under the bed, which I put on. Emond’s blanket I drape over the bodies. The basilisk trophy, left beside the front door, is soaked, beginning to smell. I toss it in back anyway. The old woman coaxes along the goat, a short length of rope fastened around its neck, which the little boy grips fastidiously once we get the creature on the wagon. The woman also has rope for me. She helps me onto Sten’s mount first, then ties my wrists.

“I don’t even know how to ride,” I say, gripping the saddle pommel.

“If the animal’s well trained, it’ll follow,” she says. “Just give it a nudge in the ribs with your heels. You won’t gallop off, will you?”

“I would’ve done that before you tied me,” I say.

“True enough,” she replies. “Oh, before we leave . . .” She goes to the boy. “I was bringing this apple cake.” She reaches for the dish, but the boy leaps up, grabs it. “Alon!”

Agile as a sprite, the child hops off the wagon and runs over. Cake dish tucked under one arm, he scrambles into the saddle with me, and plants the dish between us. He removes the lid, revealing a brown loaf-like cake with caramelized apple slices atop it. Without hesitation, he scoops up a handful and thrusts it towards me.

“You want me to eat?” I ask.

He nods. I lean in, and he shoves the cake in my mouth. I cough, chew, and swallow. Tart apple, sugared spongey cake, and something that tastes like . . . maple syrup. These flavors ache with familiarity. But where? Where have I tasted such things? Why can’t I remember my life before this?

“Crying?” the boy says, puzzled. “Why?” He touches my face with sticky fingers, as my shoulders shake with grief. “More?” he asks. He extends another piece. I eat. “More?” he repeats. I eat again, and again, devouring the cake bit by crumbling bit from his tiny hands, until nothing is left.

The boy pats me on the wrist. Then he slides down from the horse, empty cake dish in hand, and clambers back onto the wagon seat.

“He likes you,” the woman says. “Normally Alon doesn’t speak to anyone but me.”

“Is he your grandson?” I ask, wiping my face on my sleeve.

“Yes,” she says, after a slight hesitation. Then, as if closing the topic, she shakes the reins. Her horse begins to walk, the goat bleating from the wagon bed, Corr’s horse following. I give my own steed a nudge and he ambles along as well.

"What should I call you?" I ask her, as we proceed down the damp dusty road.

"Merine," she replies, with a smile, "for that is my name. And you?"

I cast a look back at Emond’s house. It’s as if I’ve had a childhood here, of one day, one night. Now I am an orphan, and this world is as harsh as any I’ve ever known.

What am I? What will become of me? What is it that beats in my chest? A part of me despises it for its sheer cruel irony, but I cannot bring myself to cast away the name that Emond gave me. I have to believe that things like kindness still have meaning. "Call me Luck," I finally say.

"Luck," she repeats, saying nothing more.

We ride on in silence, as another sunset falls.

o