"You lied to me, King Donathan," Arch said, pacing back and forth. 

Arch was in the grand courtroom of the King. The ceilings were high and domed and were decorated with gold leaves. It was the same courtroom in which Arch had provided the witness account that got Daxtor sentenced to death twelve years previously.

"I did not lie, Mr. Reems," Donathan said patiently.

"You withheld information- critical information- about this war, and you let me send off not just my men, but my children into the thick of it without alerting me that it was my daughter that was the main target of our enemy forces!" Arch's chest inflated and deflated with anger.

"I assure you, Mr. Reems, had I known that the legends were indeed true, I never would have kept back, as you put it, such 'critical information'," the King assured him. "I thought that the Skilaens were just spinning some wild story to get the upper hand in this war. But now that it has been brought to my attention that they are not, in fact, stories, I can only say that this complicates things."

"Complicates?" Arch's brow shot up. "My daughter is a complication?!" His voice range and echoed through the courtroom.

"Calm yourself, Mr. Reems, or I will have you restrained," the King warned.

"You'll have to do much more than that," Arch mumbled under his breath. Then, before the King could ask him what he had said, he quickly continued, "You said the group we sent out returned recently?"

Glad to have a change of subject, Donathan nodded. "All men reported here to inform me that their mission was a complete success."

Arch frowned. "Then where are my children?"

The King had feared this question might come. "My decorated Guard, Sir Percival, has informed me that your son and daughter have continued journeying down into the Westfell Pass.

"What?!" Arch wasn't sure if he was glad or disappointed that he didn't have anything to throw at the King's head.

 "My men reported that along their journey they encountered a Skilaen village girl who had been captured by a group of smugglers they encountered in the Pass-"

"Didn't you say no one knew about the Pass?" Arch said accusingly. 

"It was my belief that no one did," he admitted. "But it appears that I have been wrong. Anyway, your children have decided to take the girl to her village near the Pass entrance on the Skilaen side. They are accompanied by one of your men and my Captain of the Royal Guard. I can assure you, Mr. Reems, that with the Captain, your children are perfectly safe."

Arch didn't need to ask which of his men had stayed with Ike and Zia. Heath stuck to their sides as though they were joined at the hip.

The King's chuckle brought Arch out of his thoughts. "Of course, from what the Trodaithe tell me, your girl can handle herself just fine."

"The who?" Arch asked. But his voice was not one of confusion. Instead, it rather seemed like he had not heard the King.

Donathan mentally kicked himself. Stupid slip of the tongue, he thought. He sighed. He had already said the name of the top-secret organization, and Arch was a smart man. Donathan knew that he wouldn't let the King change the subject without an answer.

"The Trodaithe. They are a highly trained band of men, each one capable of fighting twenty men at once. They are a very secret group, I might add, so I hope this conversation can remain between the two of us?" Arch nodded and the King continued. "I was considering sending them instead of your men, but with negotiations falling through with Skilae, I needed them close at hand in case a brutal attack was launched here. Though I suppose that line of thinking was useless, as I sent them eventually."

"Why did you send them?"

"Even I cannot explain it," the King admitted. "Call it intuition. After one rules as long as I have, one learns to follow one's instincts. And it was a good thing I did."

Arch turned on him. "And why is that?"

The King paled. "There turned out to be twice as many men in our enemy's forces as I originally thought. It appears that my intel-gathering unit was ill-informed. But, I assure you, Mr. Reems," he added quickly at Arch's hateful glare, "that your children were not harmed. Sir Percival assures me that they fought splendidly and that they should be due back any day now. Patience is a virtue."

"So is honesty, Your Majesty," Arch countered.

Donathan sighed. "I understand your eagerness, and even your anger, Mr. Reems, but I assure you that your children are well."

Arch was silent for a long time, as if he were trying to convince himself of the very same thing. Finally, he nodded, as if he had finally gotten all of himself to agree with the King. 

"How many were lost?" Arch suddenly asked.

It took the King a moment to gather his thoughts before answering. "Three. I believe their names were Hawkings, Pendro, and Walsh."

Arch's face fell. "I knew them. They were good men."

Donathan shared Arch's sadness. Arch may have been the leader of a notorious band of robbers and thieves, but he was a kind soul, and an honest man. Donathan knew how it felt to lose loyal and faithful men.

"I must apologize for my rash behavior, Your Highness," Arch said suddenly, dipping into a bow. "But you must understand my anger."

"Of course," King Donathan said, waving his apology aside. "All is forgiven. I myself would have acted much in the same way if I had found out my daughter was the mythical 'Golden-Eyed One'."

"Golden-Eyed One?"

Arch and the King jumped at the voice of a woman. They turned to find a beautiful woman in a pale blue gown in the entrance. 

"Forgive me, sire," the woman said. "I did not mean to intrude."

"Fraya, my dear," Donathan said. "You startled me. Come in."

The Queen drew herself fully into the room. She was a lovely sight, even in her middle age. Her light brown hair had taken on streaks of gray with her years, along with some wrinkles in the outer corners of her eyes that showed that the woman had a pleasant smile. Her eyes were blue and green all at once and seemed to change from one color to the other with every passing moment. 

"Who is this Golden-Eyed One you were discussing?" Fraya asked. Was it Arch's imagination, or did the Queen's voice catch at the end of her question?

"Oh, nothing you need concern yourself with, dear," Donathan told her and she approached him, and planted a gentle kiss on his head before taking her seat in the throne next to him.

Arch bowed to the Queen and she nodded back, her eyes taking in every inch of him. "I recognize you," she said. "You were a witness in the trial against that barbaric man who beat his daughter, weren't you?"

Arch blinked. "Y-yes, My Lady, that is correct."

The Queen smiled. "I thought so. I have a perfect memory, you see. I met the young girl before the trial. She was very lovely."

"Zia," he told her. "Yes, she is a lovely person."

"She lives with you now, I take it?"

Arch nodded.

Lady Fraya smiled. "Good. I am pleased to know she was taken care of. Now, who was it you were discussing before I so rudely interrupted?"

"Just an old myth," the King said, waving her question aside.

But the Queen persisted. "Oh, I do love old myths. Which myth were we discussing?"

"The Golden-Eyed One," Donathan grumbled, knowing his wife would not let the matter drop until she got the truth.

To Arch's surprise, the Queen let out a squeak worthy of a mouse and paled to the whitest white either of them had ever seen. 

"Is something wrong, My Lady?" Arch asked in concern.

"No." But Fraya looked about as convincing of that as a shark pretending to be a guppy fish. "Everything is fine."

"You lie like a rug, my dear," the King told her. 

If possible, the Queen blanched further. "The Golden-Eyed One is no myth."

Before Arch could say something about him being the only one who wasn't aware of myth and its genuinity he said, "How do you know that?"

"Because..." The Queen looked like she was waging an inner war. "Because my sister is the Golden-Eyed One."

"I still can't believe you just let him go," Zia told Ike as he gathered up her supplies.

Jay, Ike, and Heath had restricted Zia's movement and insisted she rest, even though she had assured them countless times that she was fine, her leg was just a little sore. Though, if she was honest with herself, she was secretly glad. Her leg was definitely more than a little sore, and she knew she'd have to save her strength for the journey ahead.

"I can't either," Ike admitted. After he had knocked out the boy with the crossbow, he had taken his supplies (which, fortunately for them, included fresh bandages for Zia's leg) and had broken his crossbow. Ike had then tied the young boy's wrist to a tree with a simple slip knot that would be easy to untie. "But he was so young. I thought he deserved another chance. Besides, without his crossbow and supplies and all his comrades dead, he'll have to find some other means of providing for himself. Come on, up you get. We should start today as soon as possible." He bent down and wrapped Zia's arm around his shoulders and helped lift her to her feet. Zia hopped around on her right leg, holding her left above the ground.

"I won't be able to lean on you all day, Ike," she told him. "You don't have that kind of energy, and I don't have that kind of height." 

"That is why," Heath said, appearing from the trees, nearly giving Zia a heart attack, "I made you this." Heath held up a long, sturdy branch that had been cut and roughly fashioned into a crutch. Heath had wrapped a blanket around one end of the crutch to keep her arm from becoming sore.

Heath passed over the crutch and Zia hopped around on her one leg as she adjusted it under her arm. She tried taking a few hobbles with the crutch and decided it would do. "Thank you, Heath."

Heath nodded, though he did not smile. Zia didn't have time to wonder what was wrong before Jay, who had been filling water skins with water from a small nearby stream before they began to travel, emerged from the trees and announced that they needed to get going.

Walking was harder than Zia had thought. After three hours of hobbling and hopping, her arm hurt from supporting her and her ankle hurt from the dozens of times she had rolled it on the uncertain terrain. By the time Jay called for a meal break as the sun reached it's low peak in the sky, Zia was panting like a dog.

"Zia."

She looked up just in time to catch the water skin that Heath tossed her. 

"Nice catch," he told her, though he didn't smile. He helped her sit down on a rock and stretch out her leg in front of her. "Let's take a look at that," he said, gesturing to the leg. He rolled up her pant leg to just below her knee and unwrapped the bandage. He gently lifted her leg so he could get a better view of the wound in her calf.

"It looks better than yesterday," he told her. "The bleeding has stopped and the swelling has gone down, but you still won't be able to walk on it for a while."

"How long is 'a while'?"

"About three more days, I'd say. Then you'll be up and causing trouble again in no time." Again, Heath did not smile.

"What's the matter?" Zia asked him.

Heath waved her concern aside. "It's nothing." He began to rewrap her leg with a strip of clean bandage.

"What is it, Heath?" Zia pressed. "I'm not letting this drop, so either you tell me what it is that's bothering you this moment or I will not let you sleep until you tell me."

Heath smirked, his first glimpse of a smile of the day. "Not that I get much sleep with your snoring."

Zia gasped in horror. "I do not snore!"

Heath cracked a tiny smile. "You do, actually. I woke up last night and nearly wet myself for fear that a hungry bear had made its way into the camp."

Zia smacked him on the arm. "I do not snore, Heath Elizabeth Rockhower!"

Heath drew back. "Elizabeth? My middle name is not Elizabeth."

"That's right, it's Rose, isn't it? I always forget."

This made Heath smile a crack. For years, Heath and Zia had tried to trick each other into telling the other their middle names. Zia had even tried to trick Ike into telling it to her, but Ike had told her he wanted no part in their silly shenanigans- mostly because they interfered with his own.

Zia accepted the small piece of dried beef that Jay handed her with a nod of thanks. She tore off a piece and sucked on it, letting the flavor explode in her mouth. 

"But anyway, you most definitely do snore, Zia Wilhelmina... I'm never sure what to use for your family name. I know you most definitely do not want Myrna."

"Most definitely not," Zia agreed.

"So what do I call you then? Reems? No-Name?"

Zia hadn't ever really thought about her last name. She would never consider herself a Myrna. Did she want to be Zia Reems? As much as she loved Arch and Ike, she didn't know how she felt about taking on their family name.

"No-Name will do for now," Zia decided.

"For now?"

Zia nodded. "Borton might change that. He promised he would find me after the war's ended. Maybe he'll know my old family."

Heath nodded thoughtfully. "I hadn't thought of that... Zia Wilhelmina No-Name the Third," he said with a sly grin.

"The third? Why am I the third?"

Heath shrugged. "I didn't name you."

"You kind of just did," Zia told him. When he looked confused, she continued, "You gave me the names Wilhelmina and No-Name."

"So your middle name is not Wilhelmina?"

"No," she said passionately. 

"Is it more or less embarrassing?"

Zia considered the question for a moment before answering, "Less."

Heath sighed. "Does Ike know your second name?"

They both turned to look at Ike, who quickly pretended to be asleep on a boulder. 

Heath stared at him for a while before his eyes lit up with an evil gleam. His hands flew to the bandage on Zia's leg, untucking the end of the strip.

"What are you doing?" Zia asked him, only to be quickly shushed. He tore and picked at the roughly cut end of it until he had collected a sizable ball of bandage fuzz. Then, sneaking quietly, he silently made his way over to Ike's side and wiggled the fuzzball around just on the inside of Ike's nose.

Ike leapt to his feet, his arms flailing. "Gah!" He rubbed at his nose, which was scrunched up, and his eyebrows furrowed. 

Heath toppled over laughing, and Zia couldn't help but join them. Even Jay joined in.

"Why on earth would you do that?" Ike said angrily as he continued to rub and scratch his nose.

Heath laughed. "You deserved it."

"How?" Ike demanded.

Heath gave him a look that meant, Seriously? You are joking, right? "Do you recall the bird nest you placed in my sleeping cot?"

"Or sneaking up on me in the woods?" Zia added.

"You already got revenge for that, remember?" Ike protested. "What, do you think I like being tackled to the ground by small streaks of furious blonde?"

"I'm not that small," Zia argued. 

Jay, who had been mostly quiet, coughed into his fist.

"I'm not small," she repeated. "I'm just..." She couldn't think of a word.

"Small?" Ike said helpfully.

"Alright, so I'm a little on the short side," Zia conceded. "It helps in making people underestimate me. But even if I am a little small, I'm still faster than you," she reminded Ike.

"You are not," Ike said immediately. 

"Yes I am. Remember the last time we raced?" she reminded him.

"You barely won that race. And you had a head start."

Zia shrugged. "I still won."

Before Ike could give her a snarky reply, Jay stood and announced that they needed to move out. Zia accepted Heath's offered hand and pulled herself up onto her good leg.

"On the trail once more," she said to herself. She situated the crutch underneath her arm and continued her hobbled journey.

"How much farther do you think we have to go?" Ike asked Jay for what seemed to him to be the millionth time.

Jay sighed, trying to keep his frustration locked inside. "I do not know for certain. If I had to guess, I'd say another few hours. But, without a map, I cannot know for sure. We should be coming near a small village soon, and hopefully we'll be able to find out where we are and how much further we need to go."

Ike groaned. "This is taking too long. Plus, nature has been calling me for the past hour."

"Well, walk into the woods and go, then," Jay nearly shouted.

Ike cracked up laughing. He placed a hand on Jay's shoulder. "I'm just yanking your chain, Captain. Try to lighten up a little bit."

"Easy for you to say. You don't have to worry about navigation," he grumbled. 

"You worry too much, Jay," Ike said, falling into a steady stride beside the Captain.

"It's my job to worry."

The wind picked up about half an hour later and the temperature dropped. The dark clouds were low and everything turned white as a snow storm began to rage.

"We need to keep moving!" Jay shouted over the bellowing wind. 

"We need to seek shelter!" Heath countered. He reached down to help Zia back to her feet for the twelfth time. "Zia can't keep going in this snow!"

"Yes I can!" she insisted. She tried to take another step, but the crutch slipped out from under her and Zia fell into the snow once more. 

"We can take turns carrying you, then," Jay offered.

"I'm fine," she insisted. She tried to walk again, but only made it a few steps before falling in the snow. 

Jay could have burst into tears from frustration. They had vital information that could save hundreds of lives, and they had been set back enough with their time of rest at his mother's and the attack of the bandits. And though she tried hard to keep up, Zia's wounded leg slowed their pace significantly. They should have already been there by now. And now with the snow, they were going to be delayed even further. 

But then Jay turned to look at his team- no, friends. After all they had been through, he could hold them as nothing less. He took in their weary, shivering frames. They were all hardened warriors, but even the best warriors had their limitations. They were tired, hungry, and one of them was injured. 

Though it went against all training he had received, Jay relented and told his friends to look for some place of shelter. The only thing that allowed him to in good conscience let them stop, was that with all the large weapons and numbers of the Skilaen army, their enemy would be forced to stop as well.

They searched for over half an hour, but there was nothing suitable. Any place they found was either too exposed or too covered in snow to make a good shelter.

It turned out that Zia was the one to find the perfect shelter. She had risen to her foot from the boulder Heath had insisted she sit on and began to hobble around in an effort to warm her cold body. After only a few steps, Zia slipped and fell. And fell. And fell.

Down, down, down, she went. She tried to call out, but before she did, she realized that she wasn't falling at all. She was sliding.

Zia barely had enough time to wonder why she would be sliding when she finally came to a stop. She struggled to her feet and gathered her bearings. She was in a large, dark room of sorts. The walls, ceiling, and the floor were all hardened dirt that seemed to hold itself up, with a few heavy planks set in here and there to keep underground cave from collapsing in on itself. Pushed to one corner of the "room" was a large stack of sacks and barrels. At least, that's what Zia assumed it was; it was too dark to be certain. There were hooks set into the walls for torches, and Zia couldn't be sure, but she thought she saw other tunnels leading off in different directions throughout the room.

 She could not believe her eyes. There was so much down in this place- whatever this place was.

"Zia!" Heath's voice echoed down to her from where she had fallen.

"I'm alright!" she shouted back. "I'm down here!"

Zia tried to climb back up to the surface, but the hill she slid down was too steep to climb with one leg and a crutch. But she did manage to crawl up enough to see the hole she had fallen through. She could see the snowflakes flaying around at high speed, and the white sky. She could hear the wind whistle through the unseen trees above. 

"Down? Down where?" Ike's voice said.

"Over by that rock I was sitting on," she called up. "I fell into this strange... underground room."

"Underground room?" That was Jay's voice. "Where?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Ike said. "Underground."

Zia rolled her eyes, but she couldn't help smiling. It was nice to have the old Ike back. 

"Over by that big rock!" she repeated. 

Heath's face was the first to appear in the hole, then Jay's, and lastly Ike's.

"We're coming down to get you, Zia," Jay told her. "Move out of the way."

Obediently, Zia scrambled back down the tunnel slide and out of the way. After no small amount of shouts and cries of uncertainty, Ike came tumbling down the tunnel, quickly followed by Jay, and finally, Heath. 

The men stood and gazed at the room around them. "What is this place?" Ike asked in a whisper, as though afraid if he spoke too loudly the whole place would bury them alive.

"It's a Fox Den," Jay said breathlessly.

"I don't know if you know this, living in the palace and all, but fox holes are not this big. And they certainly don't have enough food and supplies to last them a good long month," Ike said, pointing towards the pile that Zia had seen earlier."

Jay shook his head. "Fox Dens were used during the time of the great war with Skilae. Otarian soldiers dug small underground bunkers such as this to keep themselves safe, warm, and fed during the cold winter months when Skilaen armies snuck into our lands and stole sheep and killed any travelers that had been stopped by the winter storms. There are hundreds of these scattered across the kingdom. They all have long tunnels connecting each other into one large, underground trail." Then, smiling for the first time in a long time, Jay turned to Zia and said, "Zia, I believe you've just inadvertently found us the perfect way back home." 

"Why didn't we use these before?" Heath asked, touching a dirt wall gingerly. 

"They are so well camouflaged that they are nearly impossible to find. I've never even seen one until now."

Zia tried to feel proud of her accidental discovery, but her arm ached from holding the crutch, and her healthy leg hurt from holding all of her weight and being twisted so many times. She had probably moved her wounded leg the wrong way on one of the countless occasions when she had become acquainted with the snowy forest floor, and the dull ache in her calf proved it.

Tiredly, she hopped over to the stack of crates and sacks and barrels, lowered herself to the ground, and, using a soft, burlap sack as a pillow, rested her head back and closed her eyes. Not even caring if she snored, Zia drifted off into a blissful sleep.