Chapter 13 #2
I wasn’t her friend. Sure, we were friendly, but that was all.
I was never one for friends. Marsik was probably the closest thing I had to one, but I always considered him to be more like a distant relative.
In such an aged community, there were no children to grow up with, and I wasn’t interested in forming relationships—not when this world offered no space for things that distracted one from survival.
With so many dying of disease, starvation, or war, friendships could only bring loss.
“That’s enough sitting. Time to get back to work,” Callen announced, pulling me from my thoughts.
I finished another pull of water and met him in the center of the room. With any luck, I’d die from exertion and be excused from Ellan’s party and the disturbing old witch.
* * *
I stood before the massive black stallion as Harthon adjusted the saddle. I was to share the horse with him, yet again.
“Can I not sit on another horse and tether the reins to yours?” I asked, observing the array of horses being readied in the torch-lit dark.
We were departing before sunrise and traveling with a small troop of nine men, most of them from our previous group.
Stefano was among them, and he’d greeted me with a sincere nod.
One horse would be unmanned to carry supplies, so I couldn’t see how an additional steed would be a bother.
It wasn’t that riding with Harthon was terribly uncomfortable. I just wanted the independence.
“No,” he replied, effectively killing my hopes. “While this route is relatively safe, there’s always the potential for an attack. If that happens, you need to be with me.” He dropped his hands, and I buried my foot in the stirrup, launching toward the pommel and pulling myself up.
I stifled a groan.
Soreness had lodged deep in my muscles from yesterday’s training, and while something had ached nearly every day since I left my village, I still wasn’t used to waking with such tight pain. Something told me I’d probably be getting used to it soon.
Harthon mounted behind me, his heat engulfing me like a blanket. The early morning was colder than any I’d experienced, and while the thick clothes and cloak were a strong barrier against the frigid air, my body had yet to warm the fabric.
“Do you think Koerlyn’s men would attack again?”
Harthon reached around me for the reins, his arms brushing mine, while the men around us mounted.
“They would never make it that far into our Territory. I’ve been helping Ellan handle some looters in Fifth.
He’s useless on his own, so the moment I leave, they quickly come back.
” His annoyance with the Princeps was clear.
North and Callen emerged from the shadows, the former looking his usual amount of disgruntled as the latter said, “Safe travels, Hart.”
It was the second time I’d heard the nickname, and I was certain I’d never adopt it. Hart was far too unassuming for the man behind me.
“And you both try not to kill each other,” he returned. “I doubt Koerlyn will try something again so soon, but if he somehow hears that I’m gone, he may underestimate you two.”
North’s lips kicked up into a bloodthirsty smile. “I would look forward to that.”
I was sure he did.
Callen’s green eyes slid to me. “Take care of Fish Eyes.”
“Always,” Harthon affirmed. For some reason, it sounded like a promise.
The two men nodded and stepped away then, and Harthon signaled to the group.
As we traversed the empty city streets, I grappled with the calm that had washed over me with his vow.
It was an unusual feeling, one I only ever felt when Merelda hugged me or stroked my hair like I was still a little child.
Harthon shouldn’t have conjured such an emotion within me, but some feelings were ruled by parts of the mind that we couldn’t control.
Clearly, this was one of them.
No one spoke as the sun rose and we moved east, approaching one of the big wooded hills that framed the valley around the city.
We began a slow ascent, Harthon’s forearms brushing my thighs as the horse rolled beneath us.
Occasional bird calls filled the air, and crackly brush rustled with small movements.
There were far more animals here than in my trapping grounds.
I shook off the final whispers of sleep. “How are there so many animals?” I wondered softly, watching as my breath condensed into a cloud that quickly drifted behind us.
“We’ve been trying to increase their populations. We limit hunting to only a few certain areas, and every season, those areas rotate. The goal is to allow the animal populations time to recover before they’re hunted again,” Harthon explained.
I was glad he couldn’t see the surprise painted on my face. There were no such practices in Two, though they were desperately needed.
“Has it been working?”
His hips shifted behind mine as we circled around a cluster of boulders and trees. “We’ve seen some progress. If we decide it’s successful, we’ll be doing it across the Territory, but it’s only a temporary solution.”
Because inevitably, as the land continued to die, animal populations would never be able to keep up with human demand.
But the resources beneath the Domus could.
Suddenly uncomfortable, I changed the topic. “Why require education across the Territory?”
A hand on my stomach kept me in place as we traversed a steep divot. It didn’t move once we came up the other side, and I found that I didn’t want it to.
“Education is necessary for any successful society. It gives us the knowledge to solve problems, to innovate. If only the wealthy are educated, we miss out on the ideas that could come from a majority of our people.”
It was a simple logic I never thought I’d hear from the mouth of a Princeps.
“Education also has the power to disrupt the social hierarchy,” I challenged.
“You say it like it should bother me.”
It should bother anyone who’s wealthy, a Lord, or a Princeps.
“What made you care about those things?” I asked, knowing the implication behind the question was clear: You’re not what a Princeps is supposed to be.
“I care about all our people,” was his vague reply.
“Why?”
Harthon paused for a moment. “Because enough wrong has been done to them, and wrongs must be made right.”
His tone hinted at a finality that I didn’t push. I stopped talking, basking in the sounds of animal life as we continued up the hill. Eventually, the ground began to level, and ashen skies peeked through the spiderweb of branches above us.
“Wait here,” Harthon ordered his men, and he pulled us sharply to the right and onto a sharp ridge of earth that made for a steep ramp.
“Where are we going?”
Harthon firmed his hand against my stomach as the horse gracefully stepped over roots.
My shoulders bumped his hard chest as the horse tilted, crawling up the precarious incline.
The path narrowed even further, and precipitous drops sliced down on both sides of us, flatter earth too far below for comfort.
Skies, how I hated heights.
“Harthon?” Panic edged my voice as I gripped his hand.
“Almost there,” he murmured, his body at ease while mine tightened.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I held when the path grew wide and leveled again.
He chuckled. “Afraid of heights?”
Remembering my hand was holding his like a lifeline, I quickly pulled it away, though his grip on me fortunately remained. “They’re not my favorite thing.”
“And yet you still crawled down the wall outside your window,” he noted.
“I did. Doesn’t mean I enjoyed the experience,” I muttered.
My grumbling died away as Harthon maneuvered us to the edge of a small cliff, the trees dropping away to offer an unfettered view of the land. I’d thought the valley surrounding the city center was beautiful, but it was a speck of dirt compared to…to this.
Mountains—real, sharp, white-tipped mountains—rose far in the distance like giants standing guard over the land.
Two wide rivers changed from a dull gray to a rich green as they wove between the patches of yellow grasslands and woods, and smoke billowed into the air from the small communities that peppered the expanse.
Harthon’s lips tickled the crest of my ear. “To your right.”
Like a puppet, I turned my head, and my breath whooshed from my lungs.
It was nothing like I thought it would be.
Those walls reflected the land, but only in blots of brown and yellow and gray, the swirling, shimmery quality distorting the true shapes below us.
It rose high into the sky, maybe level with the mountains in the distance, before sweeping back into its dome shape.
It was like a mountain of its own, swallowing the land with its massive width that ate all of the southern sky.
It was magnificent and breathtaking and wrong, all at once.
“I’ve never seen it,” I breathed, staring at the Domus.
“I figured,” Harthon said into my ear. “This is the best view. It’s further away than it appears.”
With so much vastness, those walls appeared not half a day’s ride away.
“Do you think showing me this will help me find the path?”
“It might,” he mused. “But that’s not why I brought you up here.”
“Why, then?”
“I just thought you’d enjoy the view.”