Lord Remont shuffled forward. The unfiled edges of the shackles cut into his ankles, and his wrists twisted against the ropes. He whimpered at the sight of the gallows.

True to her word, the assassin that captured him delivered untold suffering. That was before she turned him over to Prince Peterby's professional torturers. At the bottom of Manticore Keep, in a cell, which Lord Remont frequently presided over, they hurt him.

No part of his body went unbruised, scraped, or beaten. At first, through pure stubbornness, because he didn't want to lose, he refused to answer their questions. Then they broke his fingers at every joint and smashed his toes. Less than a day enduring the brutality and he explained in-detail whatever they wished to know.

After an extended session of striking his head, the vision in one of his eyes went dark. Something in his head broke.

"Please, by Gaia, stop! I'll tell you everything!"

"You know, as well as I," the torturer said, "Down here is not Gaia's domain."

But they didn't stop. When the torturers, working in shifts around the clock, revealed contraptions of pain Lord Remont lacked imagination for, they stopped asking questions. Each new device competed for the most frightful appearance. He volunteered the information. He kept babbling, then he started over and repeated himself.

The only time they stopped was when he talked. They recorded everything he uttered. If he contradicted himself, then they gagged him, and the pain carried on uninterrupted until they allowed him to rattle on again.

He accepted his impending death like a man at the bottom of the ocean. No amount of swimming would reach the surface. However, he wanted to float in peace and ease his agony.

He gave up everything.

Now, after days, they forced him to walk out on ruined feet. It seemed Prince Peterby made his betrayal of the enlightened races, and his abuse of mind control magic, a public matter. The citizen's hatred for monsters shifted to him. Everyone struck him with rocks. He laughed because that level of pain was bearable compared to before.

And now, the noose tightened around his neck.

It's over. The pain is finally--

When he looked down, a raven-haired healer, moving incognito through the crowd, caught his eye and winked.

Hate boiled up. "Fuck you, you bitch! You'll get yours! Do you hear me? Fuck you! This is all your fault! Fuck--"

The platform underneath Lord Remont's feet opened.

"So, it was him."

Walter and Elin watched Remont's execution.

"Come." Elin tugged Walter's arm and forced him to follow. The crowd's jeers diminished.

Walter refused to say much, or even smile, the following week.

Elin watched his slumber. With the business over the dragon's bounty concluded, he reflected on his actions. His meditations stretched on throughout the day. He flitted apprehensively.

When Sister Lora accused her of taking advantage of the situation and chasing the hero's fantasy of a mismatched couple, Elin reexamined her relationship with Walter. If someone pointed out her beauty did not match his average looks, that she could string him along, then she had no counter-argument. And, should she be accused of satisfaction at snaring a summoned hero as a fiance, she couldn't deny it.

When she first pulled him through the 'Dimensional Portal,' her infatuation clouded her mind. She blushed at how childish it must have appeared. Then, she hated him, because Priestess Evelyn ordered her into the wilderness, trapped by a carnal curse. Years of denying suitors to become a paladin-select meant nothing. Against her will, outsiders decided she would be his unwilling mistress. Who was he to do that to her? He wasn't even a real hero!

But Walter, thankfully, was stupid in an overthinking kind of way. He remained steadfast and declined.

Over time, she relinquished the hope of reentering paladinhood, so her initial relief grew into a discontent simmer. Protecting her virtue changed into, 'Why doesn't he want it?' Her face yet burned at the next level of her immaturity. On that rainy day, when Walter's resistance finally crumbled, she felt a perverse victory. By Gaia, what took you so long? That's what she wanted to demand. The trepidation she harbored, which Walter still misinterpreted, resulted not from him trying, but from him taking it too slow.

Both points of view were wrong.

Now she could understand her focus was on herself. Walter, on the other hand, never spared a thought for himself, no matter how lonely he got. He came from a better place and proved better thoughts could persist. To him, credit served no purpose, nor wanted to trample others. Kindness served as his honor. Elin's self-regard dragged him down, and not the other way around. She might be beautiful, but his soul was handsome.

Part of the reason she dumped the responsibility of money on him wasn't to avoid it. She didn't want his acquired confidence to atrophied.

So, she feared. Eovamund, unlike his original home, did not tolerate the weak. Honor demanded combat here. If he couldn't, then she would sink into helplessness with him. Better that, than her previous path. He rejected weakness, though, seized his power, and marched forward.

She didn't have to ask if he lost count. Impersonal fighting is something every warrior eventually faces. Some men grow drunk on it, like Ragnar. Others, like Sir Eugene, never let the killing grow impersonal, to begin with.

We should have avoided the execution.

Walter grunted and twisted in his sleep. He turned, hugged her waist, and worked his cheek into her shoulder.

"Time to get up?" he mumbled.

"It's still dark."

"This is a nice dream. Elin here, in my arms."

"Walter," Elin whispered, "You're awake. Go back to sleep."

"Oh. Alright."

"Walter?"

Elin stretched and felt the empty bed. She sat up. Tiptoeing, she descended the stairs from the solar.

A faint sizzle, and a strong odor, came from the kitchen. Walter's awkward motions over the pan looked less like cooking and more like alchemy. He snorted a curse and dumped another batch of burnt meat.

"Rare for you to be up before me."

Walter reeled at Elin's voice and fumbled the cookware.

She covered her mouth. When she stopped laughing, she said, "Perhaps you should stick to wizardry, no?"

"If I can master the primordial forces of nature, then I can handle not burning bacon."

"Is that before or after we starve?"

"Bite me."

"Let me help. We'll do it together. Don't put the pan over a flame, rake out some coals."

She chopped, and he fried. As soon as they finished the morsels they cooked, they fed them to each other and stood, hip to hip, at the counter to eat.

"I'm going to make a new type of spell."

Elin's knife froze a moment before she resumed. An earth-shattering statement floated from Walter's mouth. Well, he already managed the impossible several times over. What's one more time?

"I have never heard of such a thing."

"Well, I admit, it's ambitious, but," he shrugged, "I think it's doable if the principles about magic and programming hold out."

"And what did you have in mind? You defeated a dragon with what you call a 'beginner's spell.' What more could you want?"

"Not a combat spell, a utility spell. Something useful and easy enough for everyone." He lifted the pan and squinted at a strip of bacon. "Does this look burnt?"

Elin shook her head.

This idiot made me worry over nothing.