Chapter 29 The Story
As we fly southeast, away from the Trove and back towards the lands of my birth, I can't help but think how different the travel feels.
When the four of us journeyed together before, there were clear lines between us.
Cherry and I were an inseparable unit, Marton an accepted new addition, a guide.
Vakhrin was nearly a stranger to us, the rogue manticore we had picked up along the way.
A tenuous friendship had blossomed between us as we went along, searching our na?ve search for dragons.
But there was contrition between Vakh and Cherry.
Annoyance between Cherry and Marton. And a little mistrust, I think, between myself and everyone.
Now we are something else.
Cherry has once again opted to ride with the manticore, and the two of them laugh and play together as if Vakh is a housecat.
I cannot even find it in myself to feel jealous at the sight, not when I remember to feel relieved that they are both alive.
That mine and Marton's half-cocked rescue mission was a success.
Between Marton and I there is a simmering tension.
Much changed between us when we travelled together from the Werewood Forest to the Academy, from the Academy to the Trove.
And now things have changed between us again.
We do not speak much along the way. When our group lands for breaks, Marton and I move carefully around one another as Vakhrin and Cherry talk excitedly.
They are full of big plans for Ithyma, dreams of the future.
Visions of victory and peace.
I am full of bitterness and dread.
There is no future I see that finds me happy and satisfied with my lot.
Success or failure, I think that the future is dark.
I think I will be all alone in it.
I keep waiting for Marton to bring up his plans to leave us.
To try and say his goodbyes. Every time he seems on the verge of speaking to me, I brace myself to hear it, and it fills me with so much impotent anger that I think I could burn down every rocky ridge and copse of trees we fly over.
A day and night pass, and the new morning finds the first of the autumn snows beginning to flurry down and whiten the mountain tops.
Cherry and Marton shiver and huddle by the fire, and Vakhrin seems only slightly better off.
It is a dull morning, the sun never managing to break through the dense cover of clouds.
"H-how l-long until we're out of the mountains?
" Cherry asks, teeth chattering as she pulls a fleece blanket tight around her shoulders.
Vakhrin bends to place a steaming tin cup in her shaking hands, and she smiles up at him as she accepts it.
Marton and I turn to scan the terrain at the same time.
We are encamped a few hundred feet above ground level, nestled deep in the mountains, with tall pines rising high on every side.
From this vantage point, the mountain range seems endless, but I know from the journey here that it isn't.
"Another day or two should do it," I finally say, when it doesn't seem like Marton plans to offer his opinion.
He half opens his mouth like he's going to add something, and then he closes it again.
My chest pinches.
Get used to it, Tarah.
The next two days of flying are miserable for the humans.
Cherry shakes so hard she has to be looped into the rope harness on Vakhrin's back to keep from falling off.
I find that I'm glad she's riding with him, though.
This way I can monitor her as we travel—and swoop in to catch her if she starts to slip.
Marton rides with his cloak pulled up entirely over his head to keep the wind off, huddled close to the heat of my scales—Cherry has always remarked that they stay surprisingly warm, heated by my internal fire.
Each night when we land, there is a layer of snow and ice upon all of us.
Dripping cloaks are hung around the fire to dry while the dry ones are taken from our packs and worn.
Throughout the night, we take shifts waking to add more and more wood to the fire, but the flame is barely enough to keep the temperature bearable for my friends.
We all pile close together to sleep, and at any given moment, I have someone's cold hands or feet or nose pressed against me.
I'm glad that I have at least one surefire comfort to offer them.
I am warm, and it is something I have yet to fail at.
On the final night before we leave the mountains, my three half-frozen companions and I sit somewhat grimly around the fire.
Food has been eaten, and Vakhrin's eyes keep drifting shut with exhaustion.
He claims to be back to full strength, but I think he is feeling the effects of our travel.
Cherry's shivers finally abate as she sits tucked close beside me, her cold hands looped around my forearm under the sleeve of my tunic, her feet stretched toward the fire.
Across the fire, Marton pokes at the coals with a stick, his cheeks and nose flushed ruddy from the elements.
He seems contemplative.
"Does anyone know a story?
" asks Cherry, as she frequently has in the past. It almost makes me smile, the familiar question, and Vakhrin does smile, peeling his eyelids open to give my princess a sardonic look.
I'm about to tell Cherry that no one is in the mood for a story, that we need to rest up for tomorrow, when Marton speaks.
"I have one."
My gaze darts to him, but his attention is still fixed on the fire.
As I watch, he raises his eyes to look at me, green eyes flashing in the fire light, before he turns to Cherry.
"I have a story," he repeats.
"Tell it!
"
The corner of Marton's mouth ticks up into a half smile.
He clears his throat, staring into the night.
"Once upon a time," he says quietly, and it seems to me as if the entire night, the forest, the mountains, they all fall silent and lean in closer, listening.
"Once upon a time, there was a knight in service to a great king.
The knight had fought and won many battles, and he was revered by all as a champion of men—a hero—who defended the weak and lived in good service to the kingdom.
And this knight had a lady love, whom he had married.
"
"Oh!" Cherry is delighted.
The romance is always her favorite part of a story.
Marton gives Cherry—and me?
—a wry look as he continues. "Well, one evening while the knight was sleeping in his keep, he heard his wife's voice speak outside their chamber door.
He was half awake, or maybe half dreaming, but it sounded to him as if he heard his wife say she was no true wife to him at all.
That she had been unfaithful."
"The knight was devastated, heartbroken.
..but mostly, he was full of rage. He was a man of battle, you see, a man of violence, so anger was the way he understood pain.
And in his great, great pain, because he thought the one he loved above all others did not love him the same, the knight had to fight his urge to lash out at his wife in violence.
"
"No!" Cherry gasps, and I resist the urge to pinch her.
I'm trying to listen.
"So when the knight and his wife set out on their travels to a neighboring court the next day, the knight bade his wife walk before him and do not speak.
The knight rode his noble steed, but his wife walked all day in the dust, and everyone who saw them felt sorry for her, and said how poorly her husband treated her.
And all day as the pair travelled, the woman walked before her husband in silence, never complaining and never speaking on any other subject.
"Well it came about that on their travels, because the woman walked ahead on foot, she heard a band of outlaws hiding in the underbrush, and they were plotting how they would overtake and rob the richly attired knight when he passed.
The wife, then, loving her husband very much, was full of urgency and ran back to tell her husband of what she had heard.
Her husband was very angry and shouted at her 'Did I not tell you not to speak?
And yet you disobey me.'"
"What a prick," mutters Vakhrin, and Cherry voices her agreement.
Marton goes on, "Because of his wife's warning, when the knight came to the spot where the outlaws were waiting, he had his sword drawn, and he was ready for them.
He fought them off and killed them, and he and his wife journeyed onward.
Once again, he bade her not to speak, not for any reason, and to walk ahead of him.
Now also, he had her lead the horses of the men he had slain, carrying all their goods.
"The pair traveled for many more miles that day, and everyone who saw the woman struggling along on foot, leading three horses laden with supplies, felt sorry for her.
Once more, as the woman walked ahead of her husband, she chanced to overhear a group of men, rival knights this time, lying in wait and planning to kill the knight when he passed by.
Of course the woman was greatly distressed, and full of love for her husband, she once more told him of what she had heard.
The knight was angry again, and shouted at her, but he rode ahead and fought and killed their enemies.
The knight bade his wife walk ahead of him, lead the horses, and do not speak for any reason.
"All day, the woman walked in the dusty road, leading six horses, never speaking up.
Everyone who saw her felt sorry for her and said how poorly her husband treated her, and now even the knight began to feel sorry for his wife and guilty for his own behavior.
But he remembered what he had overheard that morning, how she had betrayed him, and he did not relent.
Well, as the pair went along, they came to the territory of a dark and evil duke.
Passing through this territory, the woman once again chanced to overheard a group of enemy knights, lying in wait for her husband.
"It pained her in her heart that she must make her husband angry at her once more, but the wife could not stay silent.
She told her husband what she had overheard, and he rode ahead and fought and killed their enemies.
The knight was angry at his wife for her disloyalty, and he did not tell her that he had been injured in the battle.
As they journeyed on, the knight bled from his injuries until, without warning, he fell from his horse and lay still in the road.
The woman was devastated, and wept uncontrollably over her husband's wounded body.
But no one who rode past would help them, and the woman feared her husband would soon die.
"As she sat there in the road, weeping beside her husband, the wicked duke, whose territory this was, happened to ride past. Seeing the woman and that she was very beautiful, the duke offered to take her to his keep.
But the woman would not stop crying, and begged the duke to help her husband.
The duke was irritated. He told her that her tears marred her pretty face, and that no matter how much she cried, it would not bring her husband back to life.
Even so, the duke had his men load up the knight's body and take he and his wife to the duke's keep.
"Well that night the duke hosted a debauched party, of the kind that frequently took place in his halls.
And all his men and their women were drinking and jesting cruelly, and the duke approached the knight's wife.
He offered to take her and make her one of his concubines, but the woman was convinced that her husband still lived, and she refused.
She stayed by her husband's body all night, tending to him and crying.
"The duke was outraged by her behavior, and he tried again and again to convince her, but still she refused him.
And all this time, unbeknownst to the woman or the duke, the knight had become conscious, but he pretended to be dead so that he could listen to the conversation taking place—and test his wife's loyalty once and for all.
Again and again, the knight heard his wife refuse the duke, no matter what he offered her, money or jewels or authority—the duke becoming more and more angry all the while.
Finally, the duke was so incensed that he slapped the woman across her face, mocking her stupidity for remaining loyal to a dead man.
"Now the knight was convinced, and he sprung up from the floor, brandishing his sword, and slew the wicked duke where he stood.
All the duke's men were drunk and stupid, so they fled from the keep, fearful that the knight would slay them too.
And when finally the knight and his wife were alone, she wept and clung to him, full of joy that he was alive.
"But the knight, oh, the knight was full of sorrow and regret.
He apologized profusely to his wife and explained what he thought he had overheard that morning.
But the woman had never been unfaithful to her husband, whom she loved more than her own life, and now the knight could see it.
Realizing that he must have misconstrued the words he heard her say through the door, he said to her, 'I do believe yourself against yourself, and will henceforward rather die than doubt.
' Because he saw that belief was better than unbelief, and that his own fears and doubts had made him cruel and foolish. "