She willed their minds to accept, but after several moments of silence she couldn’t take it any longer, “Oh come on!”
She stood in suspense as she watched both brother and sister look at each other in the all too familiar ‘Jahrra-is-up-to-something-again’ way.
“We’ll ask,” Scede finally said. “But I can’t guarantee anything. It would be nice to go camping for a few days.”
“Where will we go, to the lakes?”
Gieaun’s question caught Jahrra off guard. She had been too busy reveling in the fact that she only had one more barrier to breech, Kaihmen’s and Nuhra’s permission, before they were cleared to go.
“Where will we go?” Jahrra repeated blankly. “Uh, I was thinking about that the other night actually. We’ve never been past Lensterans or the Longuinn wetlands, and I hear that there are many good places to hike and camp in the hills east of there. We always seem to be traveling west to the lakes, it would be nice to travel east for once, don’t you think?”
She grinned at the two siblings nervously, hoping that they couldn’t detect the deceit hidden in her eyes. Gieaun seemed to swallow her response, but Scede paused and looked harder at Jahrra with scrutiny.
“East, huh?” he said. “The royal Resai clan doesn’t plan to travel east next week by any chance?”
Jahrra blinked. For once in her life, she hadn’t even thought about Eydeth and Ellysian. She swallowed and said, “I don’t think so. I hope not.”
“Because,” continued Scede in a stern voice, “if you are planning retaliation on Eydeth and Ellysian because their fear of the lake monster is wearing off, then you had better seriously reconsider. You’ve had your revenge and I’ve about had it with all of this fighting back and forth among us. I think we should just let them talk all they want. It’s too much trouble and energy to always be battling those twins. Besides, our ultimate goal to get them away from the lake worked, so I say we just stay away from them whenever we can and be grateful they aren’t as bad as they used to be.”
Jahrra was surprised at Scede’s sudden tirade and she decided he must have been holding this all in for months.
“Oh,” she said, feeling a little abashed, “I wasn’t even thinking about them, to tell you the absolute truth.”
And she hadn’t been, either. Scede wasn’t convinced, however. He looked hard at Jahrra and added, “I’ll say it one more time: If you are leading us on another wild goose chase in order to ruin Eydeth’s and Ellysian’s’ lives, then you had better count me out.”
Jahrra didn’t know what to stay, so she just leaned weakly against Phrym and turned her eyes to the ground. After some time, she lifted her head and looked Scede directly in the face and said, with complete honesty, “I swear we’re not going on a three day camping trip just to get back at the twins.”
We’re going for some other secret reason that I can’t tell you, she reminded herself, knowing Scede would be just as angry if he knew it was for Denaeh, and you’ll probably both hate me when this is all over.
Scede let out a struggled sigh and looked at his sister. Gieaun simply smiled and shrugged, saying, “I’d like to go if you would.”
“Alright,” her brother said harshly, “I guess we’d better ask mother and father.”
To Jahrra’s great relief, Kaihmen and Nuhra agreed to let them go, but only if they finished all of their chores around the ranch before they left. Jahrra, not wanting to jeopardize her great luck, showed up every morning at Wood’s End Ranch, insisting on helping Gieaun and Scede with their work. With Jahrra’s help, they finished everything on their list in record time, and it wasn’t long before they were planning out their upcoming adventure.
The morning before the day of their journey, Jahrra packed Phrym’s saddlebags with everything she would need for their excursion: her bow and arrows, her old dagger and plenty of rope, a few of the maps she had copied from Hroombra’s collection, a guide book on the wild flora and fauna of southern Oescienne, her bed roll, her small spyglass, a few spare water skins and some dried meat, bread and cheese. She double checked her supply list, nodded as she found everything where it should be, and bid farewell to her guardian and mentor.
“Please be careful Jahrra,” Hroombra told her with a sad softness to his voice. “The wilders of Oescienne can be just as full of dangerous mystery and fearful beasts as Felldreim, even if it doesn’t hold the same degree of magic.”
Jahrra nodded soberly. He didn’t often act so serious, and his somber mood struck her in a slightly disconcerting way.
“I won’t let anything get me,” she said with a mischievous smile that she hoped blinded him from her own trepidation. “I’ve had lessons from Yaraa and Viornen, remember?”
Hroombra returned his own grin, flavored with good humor. This was just enough to cheer Jahrra up and send her off with a light heart. Jahrra rode to Wood’s End Ranch where she, Gieaun and Scede spent the better part of the evening planning out their route through the southland.
“We’ll take the road down the southern edge of the Sloping Hill, and then turn east instead of going straight into Lensterans. We’ll have to camp out at the crossroads here,” Jahrra said, pointing to a place on her map where the roads met, “and then we’ll continue across the river in the morning.”
“Where will we go from there?” asked Scede, not seeing anything of interest on the map.
“Master Hroombra once told me about some isolated canyons in these hills,” Jahrra pointed again at the map, but this time further south from where the roads met. “I think we should see what’s there. There might be some birds or animals we’ve never seen before living there.”
The next morning Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede packed up everything they needed onto Phrym, Aimhe and Bhun, taking along only a few extra provisions. They planned to hunt and gather most of what they would eat in the wilderness. The fruits and berries were plentiful this time of year, and so was the game, so they didn’t worry about going hungry.
“Do you think we packed enough Phrym?” Jahrra asked as she tightened the girth of his saddle and double checked that the saddlebags wouldn’t shake loose.
Phrym gave a small, breathy whicker. He knew they were off to somewhere important; he’d never been packed down like this before.
“I’m ready, are you two?” Jahrra called to her friends.
“Not quite, you go ahead down the drive and we’ll meet you soon,” Scede said, finishing up with Bhun.
Jahrra nodded and turned Phrym down the long dirt road, looking like a grey-blue ribbon in the young hours of the day. The only things stirring were some small foraging birds, frightened further into the brush as the semequin and his rider marched by. As the morning advanced, the treetops became gilded with the cool yellow of dawn, the sun’s brilliant rays spreading across the vast fields like golden pathways connecting the earth with the sky.
Normally Jahrra would’ve waited for her friends, but she was in the mood for some fresh air. Once she and Phrym reached the large gate at the ranch’s entrance, Jahrra felt a lot better. She swung off Phrym and leaned against the edge of the fence.
“They’ll be here any minute now. Scede just had to put the halter on Bhun and Gieaun was right behind him.” She rubbed Phrym’s neck and looked out over the vast fields.
As the minutes ticked by, Jahrra began to wonder what was taking her friends so long. I hope they haven’t had second thoughts! she thought dejectedly. Half an hour passed before Gieaun and Scede finally rode up on Bhun and Aimhe.