“Abioye? What have you found?” I asked as I squatted to look.
He was bent over an object half embedded in the churn of the roadway—and it was one that I recognized. A scrap of green that stood out against the grays and browns, twined and knotted. I watched as he teased it out of the ground, and already knew who it even belonged to.
“Tiana’s bracelet,” I said, and my heart fluttered somewhere between hope and fear.
It was one of the knotted grasswork bracelets that I had seen her start to make on our expedition, and it was so familiar because it was a simple pastime that every one of my Souda tribe learned as a toddler. They were trinkets really, with captured seeds or bits or bone or appealingly colored pebbles that any of us picked up on our way. We made them out of fresh and strong Plain’s grasses, and each Daza tribe had their own unique ways of creating them. This one was a classic Souda creation—a small pebble with a finger’s length of crosshatch, followed by another pebble and so on.
She even offered to make me one, I remembered—but I had turned her down at the time—so wrapped up as I was in thinking about the Stone Crown and the expedition.
“Tiana?” Abioye asked, looking up at me with his haggard eyes.
Why doesn’t he know their names? That familiar sting coursed through me, but it faded just as soon as it had arrived. After all, Abioye himself had been caught up with his own concerns over the expedition and his sister and Homsgud’s antics.
“One of my people, from my tribe,” I explained. “She was making them before we went into the Sea of Mists.”
“This is good news!” I saw Abioye’s face lighten. “She must have come this way—she must have found her way out some point last night!” The fact that he hadn’t known her name was offset by the delight that I saw in his face when he realized that someone—anyone—of the people under his charge had survived last night’s horrendous attack.
“Or she was captured by Nol Baggar,” I pointed out, looking around at the roadway now and kicking myself that I hadn’t realized what the churned-up ground had meant. It was clearly the passage of many feet before us. I guess that I had been too exhausted to notice it—but it was clear now that a number of people had passed this way on foot.
“Bare feet.” I pointed out to where some mud at the edge of the roadway had caught the impression of a foot. It was a fairly deep imprint, so that must have meant that the walker was tall or heavyset, and the foot was large, larger than my own anyway—which indicated that it was probably a man’s. That matched several of the Daza slaves that had been forced to come with us as laborers for Inyene’s plans.
“But there are also boots.” I pointed out to several more imprints, rounded heels that were too blocky and exact to be the bare foot of the Daza.
“The guards?” Abioye asked, and I had to shrug.
“Or Red Hounds.” The possibility was there that this wasn’t the survivors fleeing for their lives, but the mercenaries and those that they had captured.
“We should go back to find the mechanical dragon,” Abioye murmured, surprising me. “If I can relight its fires and get it to work again, then we’ll be able to move much quicker and much safer through the Sea of Mists—and defend ourselves when we need to.”
“Abioye,” I said grimly. I couldn’t believe that I had to say this once again. “We have Ymmen.”
“I know, but…” He opened his mouth to argue with me—before he shook his head as if he had come to a decision. “Okay. You’re right,” he said—although I could see how much it cost him. “If we went back, then we might just walk straight into the Red Hounds. And I have no idea how long that it would take us to get it to work—if we can get it to work.”
And we know that Ymmen ‘works’—right? I thought impatiently, waiting for Abioye to catch up.
He did, and I saw him nod. “Let’s go.” He rose from the ground, still with Tiana’s bracelet between his fingers as he looked with a renewed determination to the road ahead. His other gloved hand went to the hilt of his sword. With a small shake of his head, he offered Tiana’s bracelet to me.
“No,” I said. “You keep it. Consider it a gift of the Souda,” I said a little formally. He nodded and slid it on over his hand.
He won’t forget the name of the one who made it now, I thought, as we turned and started to jog down the causeway. The mists were still around us—but at least they were thinning.
We jogged for what must have been a full watch, judging by the hazy glare of the sun track its slow journey across the sky. We followed the churned tracks of those who had passed before us, although the markings they left became harder to read as we got further from the center of the Sea of Mists and there was less and less mud on the road surface.
But there was only one sensible way for anyone to go, right? I thought as we kept up the pace. I should have been more exhausted than I was, but our newfound determination had given us both a new lease of energy, it seemed.
And so, when I heard a low whistle from up ahead, all of my senses felt like they were alive and alert as I stopped.
“Narissea?” Abioye said softly as he slowed his own steps beside me and slowly started to pull his blade from its scabbard.
“I thought I heard something up ahead…” I whispered, but though I strained to listen as acutely as I could, all I could hear were Abioye’s and my own breathing. “Maybe I was wrong,” I said. The fogs did, after all, do strange things to sound. Perhaps it was some marsh bird that I did not know about—as the Plains were a vast place, and not even an Imanu’s daughter could recognize the call of every animal under its skies.
“Maybe you’re not wrong,” Abioye whispered back, and he tightened his jaw and stepped forward, raising his sword.
“Wait,” I insisted. “I’ll go first.” After all, I was the one out of the pair of us who had more experience hunting and tracking. I knew how to be quiet…
But the path ahead was wide and open. There was nowhere for me or Abioye to hide, as I did my best to hunker down and quietly creep forward into the mists. I allowed my mind to clear and my thoughts to die down as I had been taught—letting the landscape speak to me, instead of my own nervousness. In response, it felt as though my senses sharpened exponentially. I could feel the cold drift of the mists against my face, coupled with a very light breeze.
The small sounds of the Sea of Mists rose up to meet me—the distant run of water coming from somewhere further off in the fenland, followed by the rustle of grasses in the breeze.
And cooked meat, I suddenly realized. It was only the slightest scent on the breeze: earthy and slightly bitter—but it was unmistakably there, and it was coming from farther ahead. My stomach rumbled at the scent. I had forgotten how hungry I was—when was the last time that I had eaten?
“Pssst! Narissea?” I heard Abioye’s worried voice as his shadow morphed into his tall and broad-shouldered form behind me.
“I thought I told you to wait!” I whispered back at him, but he was already sniffing the air and licking his lips. We were both hungry.
“It could be Tiana and the others.” I paused. “Or not.”
Abioye nodded that he understood and raised his sword protectively. With a nod, we both stepped forward into the murk of the fogs, with me raising myself on the balls of my feet and treading in slow steps to avoid dislodging the pebbles. I’d barely gotten four steps when I heard a low mutter and a skitter of stones from Abioye, as he completely failed to copy my movements.