* * *
My feet lead me out of the riverbed and back to the road. I don’t know what to think anymore. Everything that’s ever been important to me is gone. Not just my family and Fiona and Mads, but my beliefs: that if I kept my head down and followed along, everything would turn out okay. The Bards would bless us. That the world was not safe or easy, but … right.
I walk aimlessly at first, but once I catch a glimpse of the path leading into the mountains, I chart my course more decisively. Thoughts of death and darkness fade, and I focus on putting one foot in front of the other.
I reach the edge of the landslide I saw from the constable’s tower. With a deep breath, I climb atop the rubble and keep going. The walk is more arduous here, and I nearly fall several times—each stumble, picturing my mother cascading to her death. But that never happened.
A cold breeze blows through the mountain pass and I shiver. My hands dive into my pockets, and I feel a jolt of surprise when my fingers connect with a familiar item. Happy tears sting my eyes as I pull my embroidery hoop free. The small handkerchief I couldn’t bring myself to start.
I set down my rucksack and sit on the ground, turning to the comfort of my needlework. My fingers move of their own accord, threading my needle, and pulling the colors through the fabric. I work slowly, with purpose, my body relaxing into the movement. Small red flowers bloom like beads of blood, one after another.
If no one in Aster will answer my questions, I’ll find someone somewhere else who will. The thought scares me. Everything I’ve ever known is in this town. I may disagree with them, but I have people I love here.
Even if those people have turned on me. Whatever course I take now, I must accept that I’ll be taking it alone.
I think back to what I learned at the constable’s tower.
The Bards come here clandestinely every few months to collect contraband from Dunne. Ma was killed with a dagger inscribed with writing—a forbidden item—and a contraband Gondalese ox figurine was stolen from our home. The murder, and the constable’s memory of it, was replaced with this landslide—covered up, the same way the mud and rubble have covered the tiny shoots that had begun to peek up from the small garden at the base of the hill.
Only one place exists that possesses the kind of powers that have been at work here.
High House.
The Bards will know who killed my mother.
A thought, far more sinister, follows closely, like a snake in water: What if it was one of them?
When I finally look up from my embroidery, the pass has been filled with red flowers springing from the dead, brown earth. I watch the blossoms tilting in the breeze beneath the warm glow of dying sunlight, identical to the image in my embroidery hoop.
How fitting that it all circles back to my curse.
I never found the answers I need about that either. And I sought them from the same people.
That settles it, I suppose.
If High House is the only place that has answers for me, then that’s where I have to go.
10
I’ve never set foot outside of Aster. Few ever do, except to hunt or engage in trade with neighboring towns. We know to stay in place. And the back-breaking demands of our work mean we can hardly imagine leaving anyway. One day of lost labor could cost us our livelihood, or even our lives.
But I have nothing to lose.
I glance around town as I make my way through, wondering if it’s the last time I’ll ever see it. The late afternoon is waning into sunset as I pass the mill and then the general store where Fiona lives. Mads is probably finishing up his work. Fiona is sitting down for dinner with her family. I feel a stinging pain deep in my chest. I’m going to miss them.
I hope they miss me too.
I double my speed, making my way to the watchtower for the second time today. The sun casts the tower’s long shadow over the street. The large wooden gates leading out of Aster loom intimidatingly before me. My whole life I imagined those gates keeping the rest of the world out—now it feels like they are trapping me in.
I dig my nails into my palms to keep my hands from shaking. The guards eye me sternly as I draw close to the gates. I force myself to look the nearest one in the eye.
“What do you want?” the guard asks. He clearly recognizes me in some capacity, which will make this easier.
I take a deep breath. “It’s your lucky day,” I say, surprised by how even my voice is. “I’m leaving.”
The guards share a look of confusion. “What do you mean ‘leaving’?”
“Are you crazy, or do you just have a death wish? There’s wolves and bandits out on the roads,” the second guard admonishes.
I plant my feet and refuse to let my glare falter. “If you recognize my face, then surely you know I’m cursed by the Blot. I have decided to sacrifice myself for the betterment of Aster.” It’s not exactly untrue. Aster probably will be better off without me. And if my hunch is correct, the town will be better when the truth is exposed.
If I am able to expose it.
The second guard glances at his companion. “She’s that shepherd girl, the one whose brother got the Blot.”
“I know who she is!” the first guard hisses. “And never mention the damn thing by name, you idiot.”
I never imagined leveraging the villagers’ fear of me against them, and it gives me a small rush of satisfaction. I watch them shift nervously.
“You know…” I smile. “I bet as soon as I leave, there will be a downpour. Rain for weeks. You two will be heroes.”
The second guard concedes first. “This one’s probably the reason we’ve been suffering.”
“It’s your own fool head that’s made you suffer,” the first chimes in. “But,” he sighs, “not like anyone’s going to miss her.”
“Right. Thanks, I guess.” I grimace, watching as they step to either side of the gate and in tandem begin turning the wheels that open it. The gates groan apart, revealing a long stretch of road that disappears into the darkening horizon.
The guards cast me a look of pity as I give a small shudder and step across the boundary of town.
So this is what it feels like, I think. To be free.
* * *
I did not account for the night becoming dark so quickly. It’s as if a great breath of wind snuffed out the sun as soon as I lost sight of Aster. The gray-black blur of land, air, and sky opens like a hungry mouth around me. The faint canopy of stars looks so distant. It reminds me of the stories of Gondal—a land where the stars each have a name. People follow the shapes they form in the darkness and never get lost. Maybe, in some other form—a breeze or a sprinkle of rain or starlight—my family found their way into that other realm. A place without danger or fear.
The stars overhead have no story and do little to illuminate the path. I have barely enough light to see a few feet ahead of me. It’s as if I’m constantly on the brink of walking straight off the edge of the world. From what I’ve heard, the nearest village is far enough that you wouldn’t see it from the narrow mountain road anyway, even in daylight. In between are open fields—littered with rocks and low trees, skeletal in the darkness.
High House is impossibly far. Days, even a week on foot. I move forward only because there is no going back. The only option is justice. I’ll have the truth even if I die trying.