She was about to reply when she heard Samir’s footsteps again. He entered the hut carrying a basket that held food, as well as a fresh pitcher of water for them.
“I hope you’ll enjoy this,” Samir said to them. “My wife is a wonderful cook!”
In truth, Chandra had never enjoyed anything she’d eaten at Samir’s home, always finding the food bland and overcooked. But given how revolting the food on Diraden had been, this meal today tasted like one of the finest feasts of her life. Gideon evidently felt the same way. They both ate voraciously and spoke very little.
After the meal, Samir gave Gideon a threadbare tunic to wear, saying, “It’s old and much-mended, but it will hold together until you reach Zinara.”
“Thank you.” Gideon pulled it over his head. “For all your hospitality.”
“A guest brings good luck,” Samir said with a smile.
“Not necessarily,” Chandra said gloomily.
Samir asked Gideon, “Are you returning to the Temple?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not coming with you,” Chandra warned him.
“No.” He assured Samir, “Walbert will never know anything about today.”
Samir glanced at Chandra, then smiled at Gideon. “I don’t understand you, but I do believe you.”
“I hope we meet again,” Gideon said politely to him.
Samir glanced between them. “You two probably have a few things to say before you part. I’ll wait outside, Gideon. When you’re ready, I’ll guide you to a path that leads east out of the forest. You can find the road to Zinara easily from there. And with so many of the Order’s soldiers patrolling here now, you may encounter, er, colleagues on horseback soon after you leave here. Perhaps they’ll help you get back to the Temple.”
“Thank you, Samir.” When he was alone again with Chandra, Gideon said to her, “You have to leave Regatha immediately.”
“I just got back,” she pointed out.
“No one is safe while you’re here.”
“Given how certain Walbert is that I’ll come back, I don’t think anyone will be safe after I leave, either,” she said. “He’ll just keep looking for me.”
“This will only end if you go and never come back.”
“I won’t run away,” she said. “Not while the Keralians have to deal with Walbert’s obsession with capturing me.”
“I’m letting you go free now,” Gideon said, “but-” “Letting me?” she repeated. “Do you imagine you could possibly-”
“-this is as far as I’ll go for you,” he said. “You’ve committed wrongs, Chandra.”
“So has Walbert!”
“You’ll only make it worse if you stay,” Gideon said. “If you leave Regatha now, I’ll lie to Walbert. I’ll say you never came back here, that you died on another plane. But I won’t do more than that for you.”
“You don’t even have to do that much.”
“If you stay, I won’t help you,” he warned.
“I don’t want your help!”
“I won’t betray the Order.” He took her by the shoulders, “Do you understand me?”
“Take your hands off me,” she said through gritted teeth.
His grip on her tightened. “I won’t turn away from my duty.”
“What duty?” She frowned. “What does any of this have to do with you? You’re not from here. You’ve been here even less time that I have!”
“The Order of Heliud isn’t limited to just one plane, Chandra,” he said. “Walbert’s Order is… a local unit, you might say, of something much bigger. Something that extends across other planes of the Multiverse.”
She drew in a long breath, her head spinning as she realized what he was saying. “So that’s how Walbert knows about planeswalkers? He would have to know, wouldn’t he, if he’s part of something that exists on multiple planes?”
“Yes. Walbert knows. So does his designated successor. No one else, though.”
“And if you’re part of this thing, too, then that must be how you knew about the Purifying Fire before you ever came here. Because…” She gave him a quizzical look. “How did you put it? Gossip travels faster than galloping horses. Even across planes, it seems.”
“And to places only a planeswalker can travel.”
And as a planeswalker, she realized, Gideon would be highly important in a movement that existed on more than one plane. She asked, “So what is your duty?”
“I serve the Order. My duty is whatever is needed of me.”
“And what purpose does the Order have?” she said. “Pestering people in every dimension until they behave the way you want them to?”
“Its purpose is to bring harmony, protection, and law to the Multiverse.”
That statement awoke old ghosts. She smothered them and said nastily, “Oh, then it’s a good thing you ate a hardy meal to keep your strength up.”
He let go of her. “Well, it’s not easy to keep up with a fire mage who thinks nothing of murder, pillage, and destruction.”
“How dare-”
“I have to return to Zinara,” he said. “Will you leave Regatha now?”
“No.”
He looked momentarily sad. “Then I can’t help you.”
“I told you, I don’t want your help.”
“I won’t let your choice become my weakness,” he said firmly.
Chandra folded her arms and glared at him. “As long as you keep your word not to implicate Samir in anything, then what you do when you leave here is no concern of mine.”
He looked at her for a long moment, saying nothing. Then he raised his hand to touch her cheek.
She intended to pull away and tell him again not to touch her… but as their eyes met, she found that she couldn’t.
“Chandra…”
He didn’t say more. What was there to left to say, after all?
She remembered wanting to kill him back on Kephalai when she was imprisoned in the Prelate’s dungeon. She longed to feel that kind of rage toward him again. Chandra missed the clarity of that hot, simple hatred. She missed the familiarity and sharp-edged certainty of those old feelings so much, she almost wanted to weep for their loss.
And now, instead of killing Gideon, or fighting him, or telling him not to touch her… she listened in sorrowful silence to her erratic breathing and felt her aching heart beat too fast while they stood close together, their gazes locked, his fingers brushing her cheek so lightly that his touch almost tickled.
Then Gideon let out his breath and turned away. In the doorway of the hut, with his back to her and his hand resting on the coiled sural that hung from his belt, he said quietly over his shoulder, “You saved my life on Diraden.”
Feeling a weight on her chest, she admitted, “I may only be alive now because you were there with me.”
“Goodbye, Chandra.” He left.
With a cloak covering her red hair and with Samir as her guide, Chandra escaped the green wood that night by the silvery light of the waxing moon.
The branches of trees and bushes clawed at her as she walked, she could scarcely see where she was going, and she knew that all manner of mundane and mystical creatures roamed the forest after dark; Chandra nonetheless found the Great Western Wood by night so much more pleasant and healthy a place than Diraden had been. There was life here, in all its robust and changing variety. And even in the current situation, at least not everything in the forest wanted to kill her, eat her, torment her, or betray her. So after recently surviving Diraden, sneaking out of the forest on Regatha by night just didn’t provoke that much anxiety in her breast.
Samir, on the other hand, was extremely anxious. While Chandra was in his lands, he felt responsible for her
