‘What story?’
I told him briefly about Vereski and Cook’s intervention. I left out the worst of it, but I’m sure he guessed because he glanced again at the blood on my face and placed a warm palm over mine in a gesture of comfort.
‘I’m coming, Lil. If you say no, I’ll do it anyway. There are mules in the paddock, and they’re strong, if not fast. I have a favourite. I’ve called her Dorsi.’ We exchanged a sad smile at his tribute to the slain bear before Fen’s face grew serious again. ‘I have to come. You would do the same.’
I can’t deny it. For Kizzy, we would both do anything.
‘All right,’ I said, grateful to my bones. ‘What will you tell the others?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It is best they don’t know. It will make it easier for them to lie.’
We broke apart, and I returned to Mira while he went to fetch the mule. She had drawn the mare alongside a mounting post but didn’t help as I hoisted myself up. Her face was oddly icy, and she stiffened as I slid my arms around her again.
‘Who’s that?’
‘Fen,’ I said. ‘He’s coming with me.’
She grunted, but held the mare steady until Fen clopped up on a stout mule, at least two hands too small for him, forcing his legs out at a ridiculous angle. Mira snorted and dug in her heels, taking off at a canter.
‘Slow down,’ I called into her ear, but she flinched away from my voice, leaning forward and only slowing when we reached the welcome cover of the trees.
‘Stop,’ I said, reaching for the reins, but she pulled her hands angrily away, wriggling free of my arms and sliding off the horse. She walked fast away into the trees, and in the shadows I could see her white fists clenching and unclenching.
‘Mira?’
My voice pulled her up short, but she did not turn around. I frowned after her, dismounting and keeping tight hold of the horse’s reins as I waited for Fen.
I heard his labouring mule huffing before I saw him coming through the gloom. He stepped angrily off, glaring after Mira, who had her back to us and was looking into the gathered dark of the trees.
‘What was that about?’
I shrugged. ‘We should go further in, at least to the first fork, in case anyone follows.’
He nodded, and we walked the horses along the road to give Dorsi time to regain her breathing, Mira walking some distance behind. I kept turning to her, but her eyes were fixed resolutely on the ground, her shaved head shining in the slices of moonlight.
I was used to Kizzy’s sulks, but usually I could fathom the reason for them. I couldn’t understand what had caused Mira to react to Fen this way, but there was no time to discover it now. I wanted to get deeper into the forest before slowing.
We remounted as soon as Dorsi stopped snorting and began to cover ground faster. Every step calmed my pounding heart a little more. The forest here was sparse and sickly, fungus knotted about the trunks and between the fingers of the branches, but still: there were leaves above me for the first time in weeks, and roots rucking the ground beneath my feet. It was like a blessing by Old Charani’s hand, soothing and familiar.
The trees thickened as we walked on, and at last we reached a fork in the road. One plunged sharply right, and the other continued straight.
North.
At Fen’s suggestion we dismounted and led Orsha and Dorsi off the track and some way into the trees, pausing in a clearing wide enough to draw the horses alongside each other, and Mira caught up.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked her, reaching out.
She nodded, staying beyond my reach. I pulled my hand back and gestured between them.
‘Fen, this is Mira. We worked together in the kitchens. Mira, Fen is part of my Traveller family.’
‘Brother?’ she croaked. Fen frowned. Though her speech was clear to me, he was unused to her whispered words.
‘She asked if you were my brother.’
‘Of a sort,’ he said. ‘We grew up together.’
‘He hopes to be.’ I grinned at him in the shadows. I felt his embarrassment, though he surely knew his love for Kizzy was clear as a summer’s day.
‘Kizzy?’ She patted her chest, over her heart.
‘Yes,’ said Fen, understanding. ‘Kizzy.’
Mira’s expression lightened. ‘Good.’
I didn’t look at her, but warmth flooded my cheeks. My heart was heavy at the thought of saying goodbye. ‘We have to go north, Mira. Fen and I, we have to help Kizzy.’
‘I know,’ said Mira, almost casually. I felt a stab of hurt that she didn’t seem more upset at our parting.
‘So,’ I said, swallowing. ‘Do you mind if we take the horse? It is better able to bear two of us.’
She fixed me in her stormy gaze. ‘We can ride the horse.’
I blinked stupidly. ‘We?’
‘Yes.’
‘You and me?’ I could not let myself hope just yet. ‘You’re coming?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Yes.’ She smiled at Fen. ‘Slow, isn’t she?’
Fen grinned. ‘I’ll take the mule. I don’t mind.’
‘You should go to the sea,’ I said, unable to pull my gaze from Mira. ‘It will be dangerous.’
‘I can’t swim,’ said Mira, stepping close.
‘Or to the mountains.’
‘My parents are dead,’ she said it briskly, in a way that did not invite pity. ‘And you’ll need all the help you can get.’
‘You don’t have to—’
‘I know,’ she said, lifting her chin. In the dark, her throat shone white as the inside of a shell, and though she winced with the effort of her words, she spoke her next sentence clearly. ‘I swear this, Lillai. I will never do anything I do not want to, ever again.’
We plunged deeper into the dark. With every step, the horror of the night sloughed off me, replaced with the giddy joy of being back in the forest, with friends beside me and a journey before us. The fear of what lay ahead could wait: this first night I would revel in my freedom, and not allow myself to think on what I had left behind in the stables.
It would be a long ride to Ardeal, but not a hard one. It was always a source of fear and discomfort to Old Charani that the Voievod’s lands melted so seamlessly into the free country, that we could cross into his borders without knowing it.
‘It feels wrong, it feels devious,’ she’d say. ‘There should be mountains lining his world like teeth, warning us before we enter the mouth of the beast.’
But he had not been the beast who had snatched her life with its ravenous jaws. That man was dead by my hand, and his master was dying of disease. That was some slender comfort. But I had noticed – and I knew that Fen had too – that our route would take us past the place we had last seen our families alive, past the place of the burnings.
Looking back, Old Charani could not have known Boyar Valcar was taking a leaf out of the Dragon’s book, stealing Travellers to work his lands. These forests had always been safe, owned by none but the birds and boars and bears who stalked into hilly climes. But the world had changed, was changing, even in her lifetime. In the months before our enslavement, I’d noticed fewer Travellers on the roads, more settling in villages, working as labourers or maids. To a Traveller, perhaps the whole world was a beast waiting to strike anything different from itself, anything that roamed outside the pack. Perhaps eventually we would be squeezed out, forced to live as the Settlers do.