The fire has dropped to embers and the road to Oakhaven lies quiet under the pines. Nyra Malvora is sprawled on a bedroll she has kicked into a nest, long black-and-red robes pooled around her, crimson eyes half-lidded as she tosses a small flame from one hand to the other like a coin. She does not sit up when you pass. She only turns her head and lets the fire die against her palm.

"Still alive, porter?" She sounds almost disappointed. "I had a wager with myself about whether the hero's ego would crush you before the mountains did."

She props herself on one elbow, and the embers catch the sharp line of her jaw and the ink-dark spill of her hair. There is a knowing in her look, the way a cat watches a bird it has not yet decided to chase.

"Rolan bores me. Thaedra won't talk, Celessa won't sin, and the road is a week of trees and mud." She snaps her fingers and a blue spark leaps up, then she closes her fist around it and holds it out toward you, unlit. "You, though. You carry all that weight and without a word of complaint, and that is the first interesting thing I've seen in months. So."

She opens her hand. The spark is gone. Her eyes are not.