Chapter Twenty-Six
We’re too heavily laden with saddlebags to run the horses, but we urge them into a brisk walk. They had plenty of rest yesterday
and last night, and while Apple would still prefer to clop along leisurely while sampling all the delicacies Suratian roads
have to offer, Blackwind is beside himself with energy, stepping with high knees and whipping his tail.
Memories and questions roil in my mind, competing for my attention, but I can’t focus on a single one. Too much has happened,
and I haven’t had time to think and absorb it all. If I were at home, I’d busy myself with boiling sheets or feeding chickens,
or sweeping out the stable. How am I supposed to think if my hands aren’t busy?
After more than an hour of silent plodding, Titus finally says, “I thought you were going to pepper me with endless questions.”
“I thought so too,” I mumble.
“What did you say?”
I’m not sure where to start. I’m not even sure I want to share.
My thoughts feel precious and personal and way too important to throw out into the world.
I open my mouth to tell him I’m not ready to talk yet, but different words bubble from my lips unbidden.
“You know, most people go their whole lives without killing a single person!”
“Oh,” he says softly. “Yes, I think that’s true.”
“And yet I’ve killed two people in the space of as many weeks.”
“In your defense, they were going to kill you first.”
“I know! I mean, my mind knows, but . . .”
“But?”
“I can’t stop seeing them. Especially that assassin. He looked at me with such hate. And then he just . . . disappeared. The
thing that made him alive was gone, leaving . . . a sack of meat. I’ve butchered animals. I’m used to death. But I killed
people, not animals. And in the end . . .”
Apple sidesteps, as though sensing my distress. No, it’s because I’m clutching the reins so tightly I’ve dug fleshy furrows
into my palms. I force myself to relax my grip.
“In the end?” Titus prompts.
“I guess we’re all just sacks of meat.”
He’s silent a long moment. Then: “Do you believe we go to Barathrum when we die? To be judged by Cerastes and given an eternal
purpose?”
I shrug. “I just met Cerastes, so I know she’s real. But apparently the gods have been lying to us all along about who they
are, so who’s to say what else is a lie? These last few weeks I’ve been telling myself I’ll get to see Anja and Da again someday.
I hope it’s true.”
“Me too,” he says.
“What do you believe?” I ask.
One of the things I love most about Titus’s face is the way it exists in a perpetual state of thoughtfulness. Now his eyes narrow as he hones in on something specific. He says, “I believe that I’ll know if I ever get there.”
“You’re saying we can’t know how it ends until it does.”
“Existing in a state of not-knowing is one of the bravest things people do.”
I’m not sure I understand what he means, but I nod as though I do.
He looks off into the distance, his face softening. “My heart mother used to say that when she was weary of answering my questions.”
“She would get along well with Ma.”
The breeze is picking up, and fallen leaves swirl on the path ahead of us. The world smells of autumn—loamy and moist and
alive, even as the trees are looking frail and bare. Fall is such a strange time, existing on the precipice of life and death.
Titus says, “I hope you never have to kill anyone ever again. I hope I never have to kill anyone ever again. And I especially hope that if I do, I’m not sending them to oblivion. I want them to stand for judgment and have a second chance. But just because I want it doesn’t make it true.”
Ah, now I get it. “We have to make choices without knowing if our future is eternal or not.”
“Every moment of every day.”
I frown. “Now I feel really bad about killing. So thank you for that.”
“Glad to help!” he says with a tiny but wicked grin.
It doesn’t seem like the type of thing to joke about, but I can’t help giggling. And with that one little laugh, a weight lifts. I don’t have answers, but I have someone to share the questions with.
Titus sobers quickly and adds, “I’m glad it bothers you. People like my father don’t see the value in other people’s humanity.
Instead he views everyone as walking sacks of meat. Pre-dead, I guess. It allows him to kill blithely.”
“He’s killed a lot of people, then?”
“If the rumors are true, I used to have a lot of siblings. Maybe I still do. If so, they’re wisely hiding.”
“That’s terrible! Why would you kill your own children?”
“You’d have to ask him. I suspect he sees us all as threats to his power.”
A carriage approaches from the opposite direction, pulled by two draft horses. The driver waves as it rattles by, and we wave
back.
“We haven’t seen a lot of travelers on the road,” I observe in the wake of the carriage passing.
“It’s odd,” Titus says. “This road should be full of traders heading north with the late-summer crops.”
“The barkeep at the Bawdy Bard told me there’s a flour shortage. No wheat to be found anywhere. She said all of Khefrita’s
bread ovens will be cold soon.”
“I haven’t heard anything about a blight.”
“Me neither.”
“When I ran errands, I inquired about caravans to Cathira,” Titus tells me. “One departed Khefrita a day ahead of us. I think
we can catch up.”
“It would be nice to have company,” I say.
“Besides me, you mean,” he says with a grin.
“No, I mean in addition to you. I’m an innkeeper’s daughter. I’m used to having people around. Even in winter, we had tutors or craftsmen stay with
us. Winters are for book learning and building, Da always said.”
“I’m uncomfortable around so many people,” Titus says.
“You spent way too much time alone in that dragon-bone cottage.”
I meant it as a joke, but he nods. “My mothers agree with you. When I was fourteen, they fostered me out to the high potentat
of Cathira to socialize me in preparation for ruling.”
“Did it work?”
“I’m a great conversationalist.”
My own mother wouldn’t have fostered me out to anyone for any reason. “Your mothers sent you away? After revealing your existence
to your father?”
“Cathira is the safest city in the world. Nearly impossible to lay siege to.”
“Is that where you met your betrothed?”
He gives me a sharp look.
“I realize I’m taking a risk here,” I say archly. “You told me you’d kill me if I brought her up again.”
He sighs. “That was before I knew you.” After a moment, he adds, “She’s been through a lot. I guess I’m protective.”
“You must care for her a great deal.” I keep my face bland as a sack of flour. It’s just a conversation. About normal, everyday
things.
“Sylabet is my foster sister. A good friend. We are both the only children of very powerful mothers, pawns in a game neither
of us understood or cared about. We . . . became close.”
“You fell in love?”
“No.”
My heart swells with light and life. Which makes no sense. He’s not for me. He’s not for anyone.
Titus continues, “I mean, I love her, and if I must marry someone, I’m glad it’s Syla instead of some stranger. When I insisted
on meeting my father and coming out to the world as heir to two kingdoms, I became quite . . . eligible.” His face actually
flushes.
“But now that you’ve been chosen to become a god . . .”
“Well, I’ve been chosen to try. We’ll see how this godsmoot thing turns out. If I can make it there on time.”
“You’ll win. Whatever the contest is, you’ll win it.”
He shrugs.
“Which means Sylabet will be without a fiancé, right?”
“I suppose. Or maybe I will. She’s one of the chosen candidates.”
I gasp.
“Can you believe it?” he says. “She was chosen by Jeridan, god of hunting and war. She’s such a little thing, but fierce.
I don’t know how Jeridan knew to pick Syla, but it was a good choice.” Admiration warms his voice.
“You’re going to compete against your own betrothed? That seems cruel.”
“I’m starting to think the gods are inherently cruel.”
I’m not sure it’s appropriate to ask the next question that pops into my head, but of course I do. “Is Syla highly Gifted?
Like you?”
Pride and affection are writ across his face when he says, “She manifested a royal Gift last year. When you meet her, she might tell you what it is. I think you two will be friends.”
I barely keep my sigh in check. “I think so too,” I say truthfully.
In spite of the low traffic out of Khefrita, it’s still prime travel season in the lowlands, and we encounter more and more
people as we near the ford and the Iolan border. We splash through countless creeks and rivulets—all roughed up and muddied
by cartwheels and hooves. Each tiny tributary makes the river a little wider, and by the time we reach the Iolan village of
Windara’s Ferry, I can’t imagine how we’re going to get across with our horses and gear intact.
“How is this going to work?” I ask, shading my eyes with my hand as I look eastward over the river. It’s how I imagine an
ocean must look, frothing with the wind, dotted with sails. Nearer the shore, fishing dinghies bob past, dragging nets. Frogmen
stand thigh-deep in the reeds, their spears held ready. “I’ve never seen so much water. I can’t even see the other side!”
Titus leads Blackwind toward the ferry house, and Apple follows without me having to direct him. “The ferrymen here are very
experienced,” Titus says. “They’ll get us across. Be glad it’s not spring. Spring runoff makes this ford a nightmare.”
The boathouse is the largest, nicest building in town, with a stone-block foundation, two stories of wood-panel walls, and
a tightly shingled roof. Scented woodsmoke rises into the sky from three separate chimneys—lavender and sage, if I don’t miss
my guess—which partly covers the smell of manure.
And there is a lot of manure, because the staging area outside the boathouse is jammed with wagons and carriages, horses and mules, a few families traveling on foot, and even a small flock of sheep that is well managed by a shepherdess and her two very focused sheepdogs.
“Wait here,” Titus says, dismounting and handing me Blackwind’s reins. “I’ll see about getting us ferry passage and ask about
the wait times.” He pushes through the crowd toward the boathouse and disappears behind a team of four stout carriage horses.
I’ve never been nervous around people, but while looking around, a pit of tension hardens in my belly. Horses shift in place
and toss their manes, children hold tight to their parents, the sheepdogs growl at anyone who gets too close to their flock.
In a milling, anxious crowd like this, it only takes one spooked animal to cause a devastating tragedy.
A gangly boy of about eight or nine years old stares at me from behind his mother’s muddy skirts. He has wild brown hair and
rosy cheeks set against milk-white skin, along with delicate features and frightened blue eyes. Definitely Iolan.
I give him a little smile. The red of his cheeks deepens, and he quickly looks away. I pretend not to notice or care, but
when I look again, he has resumed staring.
“Hello,” I say. “I’m Bria. From Grimsvold.”
He freezes like a startled doe, but then he says, so quietly I have to strain to hear above the crowd, “I’m Gherulan. From
Iola.”
“Nice to meet you, Gherulan. Have you been on a ferry before?”
He nods.
“Well, I haven’t. I confess I’m a little bit scared.”
“Not me!” Gherulan says.
His mother gives me a grateful smile. She’s thick waisted and stoop shouldered, with lines of exhaustion around her own frightened
blue eyes. Her hair is deep iris-purple, but a knuckle’s worth of blond shows at the roots. She’s not someone who can afford
a permanent color change from one of Cassalandra al Mare’s famously Gifted colorists.
“Is that . . . ,” Gherulan begins, but falters. His mother gives him a little nod of encouragement, and he tries again. “Is
that a Thordin stallion?”
“It is. His name is Blackwind.”
Gherulan’s eyes are as huge as teacups. “Does he fight bad people?”
“I’ve never seen him fight anyone,” I say. “But he’s really good at running and eating carrots.”
“Oh,” Gherulan says, seemingly a little disappointed.
I’m very careful not to laugh. “Would you like to pet him? He likes being scritched right here behind his ears.” I pull off
a riding glove and plunge my fingers into Blackwind’s thick mane to demonstrate.
His mother gasps.
“Can I?” Gherulan asks his mother.
“I don’t . . . I . . . ,” she stammers, staring at my hand. Then she collects herself enough to execute an awkward curtsy,
saying, “My lady.”
I’ve already adapted so completely to wearing the rings Titus gave me that I had forgotten them.
“Please just call me Bria.”
In the ensuing silence, I add, “Blackwind is a very good boy. He can be persnickety around horses he doesn’t know, but he likes little boys very much.”
Gherulan steps forward.
I reach into my saddlebag and grab a carrot. “Take this. Offer it to Blackwind, and you’ll be best friends forever.”
He does, and Blackwind lips it out of his hand. Then the giant stallion pushes his giant head right into Gherulan’s chest,
looking for more, and I’ve never seen a boy look so delighted. “He likes me! Ma, he likes me!”
Apple noses in, trying to snag a carrot of his own.
“They both like me!”
In the next few minutes, I learn that Gherulan and his mother, Lili, are returning home from visiting her sister in Khefrita,
that they walked the whole way there and back, and that Gherulan is absolutely, positively, undeniably going to have his own
horse someday. Most likely a handsome dark stallion he intends to name Blackwind.
Titus returns, a troubled look on his face. I set that observation aside for a moment to introduce him to my new friends.
“Blackwind really likes Gherulan,” I add, and the boy beams.
“Nice to meet you,” Titus says, the sun lighting his eyes to their most brilliant copper.
Lili suddenly seems like a spooked rabbit, wide-eyed and ready to spring away. She grabs Gherulan with both hands and imprisons
him against her skirts, as though to protect him.
A shadow passes over Titus’s face, but he shakes it off.
Then he steps closer to Apple and me and quietly says, “Something is wrong here at the ferry.”