CHAPTER 44
Sakura
“Churippu.”
“Chirpa,” Keenan tried, leaning back against the side of the wagon.
Sakura smothered a smile as Cherry dropped her head below her feet and huffed in exasperation. The dragon had spent the entire previous day trying to teach him an Old Ryunic word, and he’d butchered it just as badly.
“Say it slower,” Kasumi suggested from her position next to Sakura. “Chuh-rih-puh.”
He copied her passably well. On the other side of the wagon, Mori rode Oliver’s horse, the lone guard next to the “prisoners.” The boy was actually focused on their surroundings instead of buried in a puzzle. Probably because the men who had joined them would have frowned on such distraction.
“Much better.” Cherry curled her neck around to look Keenan in the face. “Try again at a normal speed.”
“Chirpa.”
While Cherry groaned, Sakura reached down to pat Aya’s neck.
Protesting her father’s order by rattling around in the back of a wagon would have raised too many eyebrows, so she had switched to horseback at the farmhouse.
The guards were already far too curious about the foreign weapon-smith and guard with whom she’d been alone for the better part of three days.
It was still hard to believe that two nights had passed while they were underground. She couldn’t properly account for the passage of time, but Kagemori and Kasumi both assured her that it was so.
“It is not so difficult!” their little dragon moaned. “You can say it in syllables; why can’t you get it right when you put it all together?”
“I don’t speak Old Ryunic!” Keenan replied, an edge of frustration to his tone. “I’m from Daraigh, and our names don’t sound like that.”
“I don’t speak it either,” Kasumi interjected with a smug grin. “And yet: Churippu.”
“Why did Mamoru think you should learn her name?” Sakura asked. “Calling her Cherry has worked in the past.”
He exchanged a look with the little dragon. “She’s traveling without any family. It would be nice for her to hear her name from time to time instead of a nickname.”
“And the word she was teaching you yesterday?” Sakura asked with a raised eyebrow. “What was the point of that?”
“Mother wanted him to know it,” Cherry chirped.
Sakura waited, but Keenan didn’t expound.
“How much farther is it to Kurowan?” he asked instead, shifting from cross-legged to resting his tied arms across his raised knees. “I can’t speak for Oliver, but I am ready to be back on my feet.”
“Sitting is too challenging for you?”
He grinned. “You better believe it, Princess. I’ve never sat a full day in my life.”
“That, I believe,” she said. Her eyes skimmed over his arms, fully visible without his leather armor, but she was careful not to let them linger.
“I believe it is about four days’ ride from here,” she said, finally answering his earlier question.
“It is three days’ ride to Kurowan from the winter castle, so Mother should be there when we arrive.
If Father recalled me, I am certain that he sent a letter instructing her to return home as well. ”
Keenan rolled his shoulders. “You expect to see the queen that soon?”
“Is that a problem?”
His eyes flicked toward his pack at the front of the wagon. “No, of course not.”
She suspected the tinderbox was stored there. But why would turning it over sooner make him uneasy? Wasn’t the whole point to learn his friend’s location?
Then again, given the way Mother had strong-armed him into the quest, perhaps she understood why he wouldn’t trust the queen with something so obviously valuable. Knowing that Mother had lied to her made Sakura nervous as well.
An uncomfortable thought made Sakura shift her grip on the reins. She believed Keenan had forgiven her, but was she any better for the time in which she had acquiesced to her mother’s wishes?