“I would try not to think of it that way if I were you,” Vaste said. “You attempted to make the best decision you could at that moment. Sure, it turned out to be monumentally shortsighted on an emotional level,” he grimaced when she looked at him, disbelief at what he had said. “Sorry. But your mother had the right of it, if we were only looking at the long-term ramifications. Everything she told you is true, on a purely logical level.” The troll looked strangely sage as he spoke. “But the problem is that love and logic are the poorest of bedfellows. Not unlike you and Cyrus.”
“How am I supposed to comport myself in this circumstance?” She shuffled two steps to the right and put her back to the wall, between two sconces. The clink of her armor against the stone was enough to remind her that she wore it to protect herself from harm. But there was no protection from Cyrus Davidon, he got under my damned armor as surely as though I weren’t wearing any at all. “How am I to handle the thought of him … over there … with her … while I’m here, trying to keep the only home I have left from being ground under the boot of the greatest tyrant in Arkaria?” She brushed a hand along her smooth face, felt it run up to her eyes and cover them, blotting out the light. “How am I supposed to … Vaste … how do I …?”
She dissolved, then, and he caught her in his massive arms, enfolded her in them, and she sobbed into his white robes, felt the tears trickle down her cheeks in a way that was still foreign to her. She felt safe and warm, wrapped up with him there, and she held onto him for quite some time, just like that, in the middle of the hallway.
Chapter 71
Cyrus
They rode south for more than a month, and the autumn hounded them the whole way as though they were the prey and it was a predator. The steppes near Filsharron were low, and the yellowed grass went green for a time as they rode west to avoid the swamps southeast of Enrant Monge. It was a long, drawn out course, but they saw no sign of scourge as they went, and after a week’s travel, Longwell looked ahead upon the apex of a small hill and pointed; ahead of them was a short wall, and tucked behind it was a stone house.
“Guard house,” Longwell said. “At least a couple men manning it. They should have seen us already; though they may report to a larger watch, which would be …” he held a hand above his eyes to shield them from the sun, “over there.” He pointed to a nearby hill that was taller, covered with trees. Cyrus could see man-made structures breaking up the symmetry of the woods atop it, but it wasn’t easily defined. “We’re at the crossing for Gundrun; they’ll be wanting to know who we are and for what purpose we’re coming to Galbadien there at that house.”
“Might I suggest we not tell them we’re here to overthrow the King?” J’anda said it with a wry smile, but it caused a pallor to settle over them all.
The smell of autumn was in the air; the wind came from the east, the stink of the scourge was gone for at least now, and the leaves were turning all along the road. Reds and golds were full fledged, and the shock of them together was something Cyrus couldn’t quite recall. The air was crisp, like the first bite of an apple, and the briskness spread across his skin, the sweat from riding giving him the chills. The woods had been quiet around them, this intermittent sea of trees and fields that was something much less desolate than the steppes had been.
“Are you ready for this?” Cyrus asked Longwell, as they trod along the road on horseback. It was only the ten of them; Cyrus, Aisling, Longwell, Martaina, J’anda, Nyad, Scuddar, and Calene Raverle, along with a healer whose name Cyrus had yet to catch, a human who said little to nothing. Raverle had made a fairly quick recovery after Green Hill and had made no mention of what had happened, though Cyrus knew there was a stillness about her that hinted at things, things going on in her depths that he preferred to not inquire about.
“Ready to either usurp my father’s throne or claim my birthright, depending on how things go?” Longwell did not look at him, merely kept his gauntletted hands on the reins as they went. “I suppose I’m as ready for that as I’ll ever get.”
“Glad you’re keeping it in perspective,” Cyrus said, and they went on in silence.
The border crossing was a simple thing. The guards said nothing to them, merely nodded assent as they approached the shack. When they had gone a few hundred feet past it along the path into the woods, Cyrus turned back to Longwell. “That was easy.”
“They see ten people, one of them wearing a surcoat of the Galbadien dragoons,” Longwell said without emotion, “they probably assume we’re not going to invade the Kingdom as we are.”
“That makes them all the more foolish, then, doesn’t it?” J’anda asked from behind them.
“Not in the context of Luukessia,” Longwell said. “A man with a spell may do much damage in Arkaria, but very few spellcasters would care to brave the bridge simply to come to Luukessia for the joy of it.”
The weather over the next days was pleasing to Cyrus, who had not missed the hot, listless days of summer, even after the few he had spent waiting at the camp near Filsharron for the battle to come to them. The nights he spent under the bedroll with Aisling, separated slightly from the others. She was the only thing that allowed him to sleep soundly at night; her activity, her vigor. He lay down at night spent not only from the ride but from her, letting himself rest in her.
His dreams were clear, surprisingly so, considering the scourge and all that it meant for Luukessia. They rode on at a fast pace but at one which allowed for proper care of the horses. He watched Martaina at night when she looked after them, picking out their feet, using Nyad’s ability to conjure grains and oats for them when they stayed in the wilderness instead of an inn. Some nights they did stay in towns and ate hot food made in the taverns instead of the hard cheese they carried with them. Occasionally Martaina would bring down an animal on an evening when they took extra rest and would make a stew or something similar. Occasionally it was long into the night before she was done cleaning and preparing the animal, but when Cyrus had the first taste, he knew the wait was worth it, even tempered as it was with the pickled eggs and conjured bread that they had to cut the hunger pangs.
They crossed through canyons and foothills, came down through wide forests choked with game. Those nights were bounteous with their harvests, and the nights spent in roadside inns where the fare was little more than warmer bread and the barest stew were ill enjoyed by comparison. Cyrus began to feel the slightest of his life’s blood come back to him one night sitting by a fire, in a circle with the others, his patera-a cooking pot, cup and bowl all in one-filled to the brim in front of him with something Martaina had created from some animals she had snared and the spices she carried with her.
“This is really quite magnificent,” J’anda said, supping it straight from his patera. “Where did you learn to do all these things-hunting, fishing, cooking, tracking?”
“My father,” Martaina said, stirring the small cauldron that she carried on the back of her horse. “He was one of the last of the breed of elves who lived their lives in the Iliarad’ouran Woods outside Pharesia. That forest is rich with wildlife, and a small band of our people chose to live outside the city gates, off the land rather than within the walls, herding, domesticating animals. It was a simpler life, a subsistence life, rather than one focused on creating excess and serving the monarchy, with their demand for as much of your grain and livestock as they could lay hands on.”