Chapter 5 Sage #2
Reluctantly, Sage nods in agreement. “The Client wants this kept as quiet as possible, so we’ll go across the countryside instead of traveling by the Queens’ Road until we get to Briarwall, where we’ll make an excuse for crossing into the Northlands.”
“That’ll be my job,” Remy says.
“And once we’re in, getting us to the Swallow will be my job.
Remy pieced together our rough map from landmarks mentioned in the scrolls and records, and even in the lyrics, as well as the position of constellations we might use to chart a course.
But it won’t be easy. It’ll grow colder and colder the farther north we go, and the woods will be even less of a picnic.
I can’t imagine you’d prefer it to wedding preparations, but… ”
“But?”
Sage may well regret offering a spot in her first party—her first real break—to this complete wild card.
But…
If she’s convinced Sage (who is no stranger to a pretty…
well, everything) to give her a shot, then the folks they’ll encounter along the road won’t stand a chance against Araphi Clauneck.
Or rather, Phi Runesong. Besides, bringing on another party member will annoy Remy—enticing enough by itself—and remind him who’s in charge of this party, as a bonus.
Sage flips the map over and scribbles a quick list of items on the back, then holds it up in front of her.
“If you mean it, the party meets back here in three days. Take those days to gather the supplies you’ll need, and to ponder whether you’re really prepared to leave your life behind, at least for a time. ”
Araphi half drapes herself across the table as she reaches for the list, and with Sage’s preternaturally sharp skills, she can unbraid Araphi’s scent in an instant.
Textured and luxurious, no doubt bottled in one of Ashaway’s most expensive perfumeries: saffron and incense and vanilla, something subtle and smoky and spicy—a dash of tobacco, that’s it—as well as… lemons?
When Araphi’s fingers brush across hers, Sage bolts out of her chair, dropping the list so that Araphi has to fumble to catch it.
“Three days,” she says again, then nods to Remy and Araphi and turns on her heel, stiff after hours of sitting.
She can feel their eyes burning into her from behind and so refuses to look back.
Why start now, when she never has before?
And why the hell does Araphi Clauneck smell like lemons?
By the time Sage reaches the waterfront, her muscles have loosened except for her right knee.
It’s been troubling her less these past few days of relative stillness, so she’s confident that by the time they depart, whatever may have been torn will have knit itself back together.
Though she might have asked Bramble as a test of their skills, she’s loath to start their adventure by admitting to weakness, when the knee must be all but mended.
She could still make for the healing house; she has just enough coin left over from restocking her own supplies to afford it.
But Sage has another destination in mind.
It’s a clearer night than most this time of year, with a cold wind off the water that scrapes across her bones.
Sage still pauses to stare out at the Jade Ocean unscrolling from the shoreline beyond the docks, velvet black and diamond-studded in the starlight.
She’s not spent much time on the water, unless you count the Willowthorn where it divides the Rookery from the rest of Ashaway.
How many days had Sage walked from her parents’ little thatch-roofed house to the banks of the river instead of to school, sneaking off to watch the ferry cross with working folk packed between its rails?
She was a small and snake-quick child; she could easily have slipped into the crowd and crossed with them.
But even then, she knew that happiness couldn’t be found as near as the far shore, just as she knew her own unhappiness was no fault of her parents, who were fine people, nor even of the Rookery.
At least, it wasn’t the fault of the folks who lived therein. No, Sage had been born hungry.
Now that she’s grown, her theory of happiness is more fully formed.
She knows it can’t be found in any particular place but moves constantly, like some mythical beast. You could spend a lifetime chasing it, as one infamous ranger devoted his life to finding the last suspected dire babirusa in the Swamplands.
Find it he did, and put an arrow through its heart to prove it, and then there were no dire babirusas left to find anywhere.
Better to enjoy happiness when you cross its path instead of trying to catch and keep it, then go on your way and hope for another glimpse of it between the trees sometime in the future. This is a lesson Sage has learned well.
“You lost, girl?” a sailor whose breath she can practically taste from here shouts down the near-deserted docks.
Sage’s hand flexes of its own accord, anxious for the daggers strapped to her hip beneath her coat. But she’s not looking for a fight, or to draw the attention of the city guard, so she barks back, “I’m really not. Go about your business and leave me to mine.”
The sailor holds his hands up, stumbling backward, and Sage strides off toward the Bear’s Embrace.
The stilts on which the cathouse perches are almost invisible in the dark, so that it seems to hover above the water.
Aglow with enchanted lanterns hanging in each window where business takes place, the Bear’s Embrace looks like a floating lantern itself.
In Rosaria’s familiar window, a pale-green flame curls around the silk without consuming it, sending up sparks that take the shape of shimmering-green moths, which fly away into the city and out to sea.
As one alights in front of Sage, the fluttering of its spectral wings forms a whisper: Hurry, I’m waiting for you…
Though the message was meant for anybody in whom the magic sensed an interest, she obliges.
Her coin is better spent here than in the healing house.
And though Sage never forgets a scent once she’s caught it, godsdamn it, she will not lie in her cramped, rented bed tonight, awake and alone, thinking of lemons.