Wyllam died the way he lived: in Lauraline’s way.


    Which wasn’t to say that it was her fault, but Lauraline had wondered while watching the red spread across the incorrigible bard’s unarmored torso. Subconsciously, maybe? She hadn’t shoved him in the way of danger, quite the opposite, but that was always the thing of it. Wyllam knew better; she knew he knew better, and one of these days she was going to make sure the consequences of his actions finally caught up with him. And stuck. Just once.


    Now, it seemed. Or never.


    Lauraline crumpled with him, not near enough to catch him as he fell, but enough to try and soften the impact. That would be the last time she ever did that, followed through with convictions or not.


    “Do you ever watch where you’re going?”


    “Yeah, Laur. I just thought— Wyllam cut himself off with a ragged, wet gasp for air. The barb embedded in his chest had run right through his lung. “I thought—”


    “Stop it.” Her attempt to look annoyed with him, as always, became pained. Maybe Wyllam was an insufferable ass, but she didn’t want him to die. “We both know you don’t think.”


    “Oh. Wyl…” Selene clucked as she knelt on the other side of him. That was all the confirmation Lauraline needed. If Selene had known what to do for him, she would have said it; she would have done it.


    Now or never.


    Lauraline removed her hand from supporting Wyllam’s head, replaced by Selene. She shifted position back to her feet but remained crouched beside Wyllam for now. If there wasn’t anything for Selene to do, then there most definitely wasn’t anything for Lauraline. Except…


    “Wyllam, I’m—”


    “No. Don’t. I’m not— Wyllam wheezed and clawed at his chest. Despite Selene’s attempt to stop him, he clutched the barb still lodged in his chest and pulled. Idiot.


    The blood spurted up nearly to Lauraline’s cheek. Her throat tightened, and a chill rolled over her. She’d never been squeamish before; she didn’t think it being Wyllam, bleeding out and dying right in front of her would have ever made a lick of difference, but the nausea didn’t care. It only bid her to scramble away from the desperate scene, words left unsaid.


    Selene stayed knelt beside the dying man to give him his last rites. Lauraline heard the sorceress begin even over her own retching. Lauraline had watched her do it plenty of times before, although never for anyone they actually knew; it was a privilege to die with Selene sweeping her gentle hands over your brow.


    When Lauraline shambled back, still ill but empty, she stood with Uravas—their de facto leader. He watched on, stoic as ever, great axe in one hand, the head of their latest trophy still gripped in the other while it rested beside him. He had never been fond of Wyllam, but Lauraline knew that if there was something to be done that could be done, Uravas would have done it. If Selene could have healed Wyllam, she would have. But Lauraline couldn’t bring herself to say anything.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    When Wyllam finally passed, Selene wrapped his body in his own woolen blanket, and Uravas secured it to the now riderless horse. Selene fought not to be sick again. Not a word was exchanged between the three of them. They returned down the mountainside in morose silence.


    They buried Wyllam in the next town they came to. The town they had come from in the first place contracted to deal with the beast in the foothills. No one knew quite where Wyllam had come from. They had picked him up a few dozen towns ago—or, as Lauraline recalled, he had followed them out of one such place, desperate to use their muscle and magic as a deterrent to some comeuppance or another—and Wyllam had fallen in line and underfoot.


    It was easy in the wake of their triumphant return to ask for a plot in the local cemetery; Wyllam could charm even in death, it turned out. It was the sort of thing Lauraline would have mimed gagging about to Uravas if Wyllam were still alive and she hadn’t actually been sick that morning. He would have laughed. But not even Uravas had the lack of heart to temper the talk of courageous sacrifice.


    The silence stretched on through the dusk as they laid Wyllam to rest and settled his scant few affairs. It was one of the spaces Wyllam would have filled himself if he were still alive. Not even Selene dared try, even though she had been the one to do it in their lives before Wyllam.


    Only once the three of them had hunkered themselves down in the corner booth of the local tavern did Uravas say anything of substance.


    “To Wyllam Barler,” he lifted a shot glass, and Selene reached for one of the other two while he finished his toast. “At least he kept things interesting.”


    They both looked to Lauraline, conveniently sat between them.


    “I shouldn’t.” She had hoped to just leave it at that. Maybe she could have, but the looks it garnered from her companions prompted an answer. She could say it now; the three of them had gotten so good at picking up Wyllam’s slack together. It would be alright. “I’m pregnant.”


    “Oh, Lauraline…” Selene reached out for Lauraline’s forearm. Maybe it was just the lack of time, but to Lauraline it sounded an awful lot like the way she had spoken to Wyllam that morning. Maybe it wouldn’t be alright. “And its…?”


    Lauraline couldn’t so much nod as she hung her head in shame. “I fell for it.” She could at least admit it now. Wyllam wasn’t alive to hear it and let it go to his head. “When you had his attention, he made you feel like the center of the universe. And I fell for it.”


    “You should have said something.” Uravas stated plainly.


    “I should have.” Lauraline agreed through a heavy sigh.


    “I’m so sorry, Lauraline.” Selene had been on the verge of tears all day. Lauraline had dreaded it, knowing that if the sorceress began to cry, then she would too.


    Lauraline shrugged. “It’s just like him, isn’t it? He would knock me up and die just to get out of it.” And here she’d been, worrying about all the ways he would try and weasel himself out of it. Uravas would never have let him, of course, but it would have been so tiresome to watch it happen. And then to deal with Selene’s well-meant but altogether too meddlesome relational counsel.


    “Saved me some trouble…” Uravas grumbled as he reached for Lauraline’s untouched shot.


    Lauraline snorted a humorless ‘ha.’ Somehow, even if he had to die to do it, it still felt that she had saved Wyllam one last trouble too.