Runa stood. Two of the figures stepped forward, heading for her.

  Her back prickled where Bloodburster’s scabbard hung against it. It was ready for this. It was always ready for this.

  “Runa!” The first figure pushed their hood back. “Gods begone, we thought you were dead!”

  She stared.

  “Ninnius?” The second figure hurried up behind him. “Anklopher?” She frowned. “You thought I was dead?”

  “When we returned to the guild House, they told us they’d hold our payment for when you returned,” Anklopher said breathlessly. “And when we went back to hire you again, they said you never came back! What were we supposed to think?”

  Behind her, Severine asked in an undertone, “Did you ever send a message back to tell them you were safe?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well.” Anklopher sniffed. “I call it very bad service.”

  Runa folded her arms. Her heart was still thundering in her chest, and something was suggesting—very quietly—that she could give the wizards something to really complain about. “Do you,” she said flatly.

  Ninnius put a hand on Anklopher’s shoulder. “What my beloved means to say, oh most gracious of guides, is—”

  “You marked the job done,” she said, and he waved an irritated hand.

  “Yes, but that was when we thought you’d been crushed under a mountain of cursed snow!”

  Wow, Runa thought. Her decision to get out of the guiding business was feeling better every day.

  “Don’t harass her, Anky,” Ninnius said soothingly. “We were looking for you, Runa. And—ah, I see she’s here too.” He caught sight of Severine and blinked. “One more thing to check off the list.”

  “Wait, you’re looking for both of us?”

  “Why are you looking for me?” Severine asked in an undertone. She edged behind Runa slightly, and the sound of singing blades hummed at the edges of Runa’s senses.

  “Because you two are the only other ones who were there!”

  “There where?” Runa asked, though she had a sinking suspicion she knew what they were talking about.

  “When the black catacomb rose from the Cauldron!” Ninnius beamed. His excitement would have been infectious, if she didn’t know what it would infect her with.

  Behind her, Severine hissed in a breath.

  Ninnius, true to everything she knew about him, didn’t notice either of their reactions. “We might not have managed to venture inside on our first attempt, and yes, we may have lost all but our lives in our quest for answers, but we’ve brought additional brain slugs this time, and—”

  Anklopher hushed him. “Never mind about that. The important thing is we have another opportunity! Nobody at the guild House would hear us out—”

  That boded well, Runa thought to herself.

  “—but now that we’ve found you, we have a proposition—”

  “It’ll have to wait.” Runa sat down again. She gestured for Ninnius and Anklopher to do the same.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Wait?” Anklopher looked like he couldn’t decide whether he was outraged, or just plain confused. “For what? What are you doing here?”

  Runa leaned back. “Harvest.”

  “Harvest? Harvesting what? You’re a farmer now?”

  “Not quite.” She smiled. “I’m a baker.”

  ***

  The next morning dawned bright and clear. Runa was already up, of course. The oven was hot, Nobody was busy, and so was she.

  Country loaves, this time. Country meaning the same thing she’d eventually gleaned was the truth behind that first recipe she’d ever tried from the book: bread made of whatever grain and flour she’d scraped together from the far corners of the cellar the night before. It was a motley selection, but she knew, or thought she knew, enough about the job now to make it work.

  She could have taken the easy route. She had one last sack of the triple-milled flour, hoarded like gold. But she had other, more difficult plans for that, and as the loaves sat rising gently in their bowls, she put those plans into action.

  Flour. Butter. Salt. Water. And the mother-of-dough, whose secret she knew now was more flour and more water. Knowing the secret didn’t make it feel any less like magic, the same way that learning more about baking hadn’t made the whole deal any less like a spell that might go wrong at any moment.

  There were better things she could do with her time. She was sure of that. The dragon moon rolls were an extravagance. But they were her extravagance. Her little piece of magic she’d figured out how to make, with help from Nobody, and Severine, and everyone else who was part of her life now.

  She left the dragon moon dough in the cellar, where the cold would keep it from growing too quickly. There was no trace of her fight with the skeletal Blood Lord. The cellar was tidy, and cool, and all but empty, ready for the sacks of grain and milled flour that would fill it after the harvest was in and she’d traded and bartered for what she needed. And then…

  And then there would be time for the conversation she’d been putting off having with Severine.

  She shook her head. Preservation spells. That’s what she needed to think about. One by one, the little preservation seals on the previous baker’s stores had winked out—the ones that hadn’t been smashed by the Blood Lord reborn. No, not reborn. Jerked into un-life by the proximity of his magical sword, and currently smashed to pieces on the side of some cursed mountain where he belonged. Anyway, she wasn’t thinking about that.

  She clenched her fists, casting around for what she had been thinking about. The bakery. The cellar. Right. She would have to find a wizard to re-set the old seals or create new seals. There was no sign of Junilla’s mystery man yet, but—well, she had two wizards to choose from now, didn’t she?

  She wondered if they were as good at preservation seals as they were at bickering.

  By the time the call went around the village for everyone to head out to work the fields, a fresh batch of loaves were cooling on the racks, and the volcano sprite was contentedly digesting its piping-hot share. Runa swapped her floury apron for a workaday tunic and rapped on the ceiling.

  “I’m up!” came Severine’s groggy, definitely-not-yet-up reply.

  Runa pulled on her boots.

  Then all that was left was the sword.

  It stood in the corner, not looking at her because she’d covered up those bloody rubies, all the stained and pitted proof of its evil hidden under the grey unprepossessing scabbard.

  She’d dreamed again last night. One of those dreams she wasn’t telling Severine about. Black earth below—not the rich dark soil of the hills here, but the black of burned bone. And a red sky above, and everything in between them dead.

  “You’re a problem,” she told Bloodburster, picking the blade up and strapping it to her back. “And come the end of harvest, I’ll find a way to fix you.”

  The sword stayed silent.

  Maybe it knew, as well as she did, that day was almost here.

  Outside, Runa stared out over the mountainside and the plains far below. The golden fields were shorn short from the work of the past week, the stubble a darker brown, except for the odd strip of golden stalks left behind. One for every field.

  That was part of the festival, apparently. You leave one row of wheat in every field, to harvest on the last day, as part of the festival.

  Runa stretched, listened to the silence from the sword on her back, and headed down the hill. It felt the same as any other day, music and the murmur of conversation and the hint of winter chill in the air.

  Except…

  Runa glanced around, counting. “There are a few faces missing from the crowd,” she said. “I don’t see Errant or Tam, and Junilla—”

  “Is right behind you.” Junilla greeted them with a wide grin. “Morning, girls. Ready for the celebration?”

  “What celebration?”

  Junilla nodded at the near-empty fields. “From the look of things, it’s the last day of harvest,” she said, explaining nothing. “I’m surprised to see you down here, Runa.”

  Runa folded her arms. “Why?”

  “Well, you’ll be wanted up the hill, won’t you?”

  “Will I?”

  “Getting a little confused and frustrated that nobody’s told you what’s coming, are you?” Junilla’s grin sharpened. “Shame.”

  She sauntered off. Runa stared after her.

  “Have I mentioned how much I enjoy small-town life?” Severine remarked sourly.