Chapter 31 The Leader
When we make our way back to the others, I see from a distance that Cherry and Marton have their heads bent together looking at something on the ground.
Closer still, and I see that they've spread out our supplies into a comfortable nest. They sit across from each other amidst our packs and bedrolls.
In the dirt between them, one of the them has sketched a grid of squares, and there are bits of wood and rocks and stray coins arrayed like game pieces.
I think they're playing chess.
Marton's forehead is crumpled with concentration, his chin propped in one hand as he observes the board.
Cherry looks gleeful. It's enough to make me want to smile.
I could have warned Marton to never play this particular princess at chess.
It was one of the only entertainments we had in the tower.
The humans hear us coming when we're almost upon them.
As Vakh flutters down and I bank hard to come in for my heavier landing, Marton leaps to his feet.
Cherry looks up with a smile of greeting as we shift.
Marton sits back down abruptly. He avoids my eye.
I swallow.
Vakh tosses a dress at my chest, and I barely glance at it before pulling it on.
My attention is on the boy who is looking everywhere by me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cherry and Vakh exchange a look, and then the two of them begin talking loudly about the landscape, wandering in the other direction with a distinct lack of subtlety.
As I make my way over to Marton, Vakh seems to be pointing out a distant tree to Cherry.
"A rare woodland...wood tree.
I've never seen anything like it."
"Heavens, it does appear rather spectacular.
I'd love to get a closer look."
"Oh, and there's another one!
"
I tune them out. Marton has his eyes fixed resolutely on the ground, the forgotten game spread out before him.
"Marton. I want to—"
I break off as he looks up at me, his face full of hesitancy.
Like he doesn't know how to speak to me anymore.
"I want—" I try again.
"It's alright, Tarah. I'm fine. You don't have to worry about it." He rises quickly, dusting off his trousers. "We should pack up. We've still got some daylight left—"
"Marton, wait." Impulsively, I step forward and take his hands. They feel like live embers in my grasp. Warm and living. It's almost startling. I think it's been a long while since I've intentionally touched him in my human form.
Marton is shocked into silence.
Now I have to speak. "I've been horrid to you."
"You don't have to—" He tries to pull away.
"No. Hear me, please. Hear this." I take another dry swallow, wishing I had had more water earlier.
"I've been horrid to you. I've been...scared and avoiding you.
Angry and lashing out at you. I've treated you like.
..like you had done something horrible to me, when I'm the one who's been awful.
I've been a coward. And I'm sorry. Forgive me, please. "
His vivid hazel eyes, a thousand shades of forest brown and green, stare into me. "I'm—yeah, of course—you can—" He blinks.
I go on, thinking he's going to shove me away at any moment.
"I promise I'll stop. That I'll be honest with you.
That I'll...talk...when I'm afraid. I'll tell you Marton, I feel bad about something I did and I'm worried you hate me now.
I'll tell you Marton, I'm scared of this plan to face the king and you were right. I'll tell you—"
Marton looks down at our joined hands, brushing his thumbs over the pulse at my wrists. Distracting me. He seems more interested in running his fingers along my skin than in what I've said.
"Marton? Are you... are you listening to me?"
"Uh-huh." He drops one of my hands, taking the other and raising it to his mouth. He presses his lips against the sides of my knuckles, and releases me. "You said sorry. And I forgive you."
"Just like that?" I'm startled. And then I grow a little annoyed by his flippancy. The skin of my hand is tingling where his lips touched it.
"Yep."
"You can't just forgive me as if—"
"Forgiven," he says, turning away to riffle through his pack.
"Marton, you aren't taking this seriously—"
"I don't know what you want from me, Tarah. You asked for forgiveness. I gave it to you. It's yours. You can't give it back."
"Marton."
"Tarah." Marton spins around, a smile threatening to bloom on his face. In his hands is a folded piece of old parchment.
"What is that?" I'm suspicious.
"Ask me nicely, and I'll show."
I scowl at him.
Marton laughs loudly, brightly. A sound that I feel all the way down to the pit of my stomach and the soles of my feet. "I found this at the Trove. Hamish introduced me to the seller. I traded two pairs of shoelaces for it."
Not waiting for my response, Marton unfurls the piece of paper with a flourish. It looks like...a map. It is a map. But it's of...
"Where is that?" The shape of the land, the names of the towns and roads and bodies of water. They're unfamiliar to me.
"I have no idea," Marton says happily.
"What? Why would you buy a map of place when you haven't any idea where it is?"
"Because you like maps."
"I do not," I say automatically. Without my noticing, somehow the map has made its way into my hands.
I study it with interest, pouring over the unfamiliar words and the winding shapes of the roads.
The darker shading that has been used to illustrate thick forests, and the swirling patterns used for swamplands.
I remember from the one time I visited the new palace in Ithyma how it bordered the marshes leading into the Burnished Cove, but this is all different.
Some place entirely new.
"Do you like it?
"
"What?"
"Your present.
Do you like it?"
"This," I glance up to see Marton grinning, "is for me?
"
"Yep."
"But you can't...give it to me.
You traded for it. It's yours." And I do not deserve a gift.
"I already gave it to you.
" He ducks away from me with upraised hands when I try to hand it back to him.
"It's yours now." He seems to be fighting a laugh.
"Marton, this isn't funny.
I don't deserve...presents. I don't want it.
Take it back." I thrust the parchment at him.
"Well, alright." Marton reaches for it.
Without thinking, I jerk it out of his reach. Marton guffaws.
"Stop laughing, you buffoon." I fold the map carefully, willing my hands to stop holding onto the thing so greedily.
Just hand it back to him, Tarah.
Nope.
Mine.
"Where do you think this is?
" I ask Marton, smoothing my hands over the rough parchment.
"It seems old."
"I think so too.
It might be someplace in Rohus, but then you'd think there'd be more coastline.
Could be it's somewhere outside of our realm altogether.
"
"You mean the Five Kingdoms—Ithyma, Philostia, Olio, Umrahs, and Rohus—you think this is somewhere beyond all that?
"
"Could be. The seller seemed happy to be rid of it.
Said it was worthless. Probably it's been making its way around the Trove for decades, and no one remembers what it is or where it came from.
But dragons and wyverns have wings. They travel far.
Someone could have brought this back with them to the Trove years ago.
It could have come from anywhere."
"Anywhere," I repeat under my breath, taken with the idea.
Anywhere. That's what having wings is supposed to mean.
That you can fly fast and far and freely.
The world is yours to see. Somehow, I never had that.
From a small peasant village to a secluded ruin, I spent all my life trapped in small somewheres.
But after this is all over, I could go anywhere.