Chapter 33
A week later, we approached Collharrow from the north on a different trail than the one we’d left it all those weeks ago.
The soldiers had their last night sleeping on snow, and before sunrise, Nicco and Baxley had gone to town to secure the horses, a wagon, and the things the soldiers had left behind. Their armor, mostly.
Later that morning, Marson found me before anyone had properly started moving.
He produced a small purse and held it out, the other half of my fee. It was heavier than I expected.
“Your fee,” he said. “And something additional. For the circumstances.”
“Captain.” I looked at him steadily. “Edran's hand—”
“Will be watched.” He paused. “He's a good soldier.”
I nodded. He nodded.
It felt awkward.
He turned to leave, then stopped, but he didn't turn back to face me. “The mercenary came north for you,” he said quietly. “I thought you should know. He didn't… think about it much. He just went.”
I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say.
Marson walked away.
I stood in the cold, holding a purse and thinking about what he had just said and what it meant, from a man who had spent weeks watching Nicco think carefully about everything, the same way as I had.
I tucked the purse away without bothering to count. I knew from the weight that it was generous.
The soldiers left midmorning. There was no ceremony, just the practical business of a group parting. Directions were confirmed, hands shaken, Marson's final nod carrying everything he'd decided not to say. Edran gave me a small smile before he walked south to the town, and he never looked back.
I watched them leave, sure that they would make it the last league without me.
Then there were four of us on the trail, with snow stretching out all around us. The wind picked up from the northwest, and I pulled my lodestone from my pack and let it find south. I didn’t want to go into Collharrow, and I wasn’t heading north anytime soon.
But I was a trailfinder. It was what I did, but with the purse in my cloak, for the first time, I wasn’t desperate for work.
Nobody moved immediately.
That was the thing about four people. With the soldiers, there was always noise, motion, and someone doing something, filling the space. With four, there was only the trail, the wind, and the specific weight of a question nobody had asked yet.
Larana was the one who asked it. “So.” She looked at Nicco. “What now?”
He looked south. Then at me. Then back at the horizon, which was his way of thinking without appearing to think. “I’m ready to head south. Get away from snow and ice and see the sun.”
“And after that?” Baxley asked.
“Find work in Florlunia, or Darysia,” Nicco said. “There's always work.”
It was directed at the group, but I felt it was aimed at me.
“What kind of work?” I asked, trying to appear casual and not too curious.
“The kind that pays,” Larana said flatly, and there was something in it that wasn't quite an invitation and wasn't quite… not.
I looked at them. Baxley was watching me with that steady, warm patience. Larana, with her arms crossed and her eyes doing their constant sweep of the terrain, still kept her attention on me. Nicco looked south, offering me something without actually offering it.
“I just got paid,” I said carefully. “I don't need to work immediately.”
“Nobody said immediately,” Baxley said.
The wind came from the northwest. My lodestone was in my pocket. The trail south was familiar for another two days, then new after that, and new was something I was apparently less afraid of than I used to be.
I thought about blue skies.
“Vorn isn't going to stop,” Nicco said suddenly, still not looking at me. “He wants you for more than finding the trail to Iskaeld.”
“Exactly,” Baxley agreed with a frown.
“I know,” I told them quietly. “He knows these trails better than most. He'll wait until I'm alone somewhere, and he'll try again.” I looked at my boots. “I don't really want to spend the next season watching my back on every trail I walk.”
Nobody said anything. They didn't need to. I refused to look at any of them.
“I'm not committing to anything,” I said, not looking anywhere near Nicco.
“Nobody asked you to,” Larana said, and when I glanced at her, a smile played on her lips.
“I'm saying I'll travel south with you.” I looked down at my boots. “For a while. See what's there.” I looked back up. “That's all I'm saying.”
Baxley smiled, a small, genuine one. Larana turned back to the horizon. Nicco said nothing, which was its own kind of answer.
“Right.” I pulled my lodestone from my pocket and let it find south. “Are you okay with that?”
Nicco’s gaze flicked to me once. “Let’s move.”
Which I took as his way of saying yes.
The road south from Collharrow was easier than anything we'd traveled in weeks.
It wasn't easy. It was still Crystallese, still the depths of winter, with that unique cold that required constant negotiation. However, it felt easier. The terrain was familiar, the kind I'd been reading about long before I could articulate what I was experiencing.
And then they got horses, which was a first for me.
It happened in the evening of the second day.
Baxley had demanded a roof over his head, and when I judged our location and told them there was a small village just east of us with an inn, we’d diverted off course.
Larana had not been overly thrilled with my interpretation of an inn, which confused me.
“You rent a bed for the night, what more do you want?” I asked her.
“I want a bath. And a hot meal.” She tossed her braid over her shoulder. “I want meat in my hot food and not rat meat.”
I bit the bottom corner of my lip. “I think it’s pigeon meat.”
She gave me a look that spoke a thousand words, and all of them were curse words.
“It’s a roof over our heads,” Baxley told her. “We’ll get you a better inn at the next town we stop at.”
She still wasn’t happy, but she stomped inside anyway. When we found out there was only one room left with only two beds, I was sure she was going to skin me alive.
Larana and I took one bed, sleeping head to toe. Baxley took the other bed, and Nicco sat with his back to the wall, legs crossed. Within minutes, he was asleep.
“He’s always able to sleep anywhere,” Larana grumbled.
“Will he be comfortable?” I whispered as I peered at his sleeping form.
“He’ll get rest,” Baxley mumbled from across the small room. He dropped a blanket over his companion. “He’s not slept for more than a few hours for weeks.”
“Would like to change that now,” Nicco rumbled as he moved farther onto the floor, dragging the blanket from Baxley over his shoulders.
He looked up at me when the edge of my pillow tickled the side of his face.
“It’s too soft for me,” I lied. “Might make the hard floor easier for you.”
He took it without a word.
I fell asleep smiling.
In the morning at breakfast, I was glad it was honeyed porridge we were served, as it seemed it had been rat meat the night before, and I was sure Larana was now cataloging her grievances against me.
Larana and Baxley were gone, and Nicco told me they’d gone to look around. We were to meet them on the outskirts.
Baxley appeared from the direction of a small village, leading two horses and looking pleased with himself. Larana was behind him with a third horse and an expression that suggested the town had not been her favorite place she'd ever visited.
“The locals were friendly?” I asked, by way of observation.
“Small places,” Larana said flatly. “Suspicious of strangers.”
“Think that’s just Crystallese,” I told her.
She looked at me sideways. “You're all like this?”
“Maybe? We're all alive,” I said as I thought about it. “There's a connection maybe?”
Something moved in her expression that might have been the beginning of a smile if she'd decided to let it go that far.
She didn't. Larana sure knew how to hold a grudge.
I was glad they hadn’t got me a horse. I didn’t know how to ride one, and now I didn’t need to tell them that.
“They only had three to spare,” Baxley told me. “Didn’t think I’d get the third one, but Rana used her charm.”
I was sure he was joking, but when she glared at me, I realized he hadn’t been. I barely bit back my laugh. Another strike to my tally.
“I’m good with my boots,” I told Baxley.
“You ride with me.”
I turned to look at Nicco. “What?”
He looked at me briefly as he passed to check his horse over, and then at the trail south.
“You ride with me. You may be good at walking, but horses move faster. You’re with us for now, so you ride with me.”
“Can I go with Baxley?”
Brown eyes settled on me. “No.”
That was it — conversation over. Baxley was already mounted, and Larana was putting her pack on her horse.
“Trailfinder. Up.”
I hesitated. He saw it. I looked away.
I heard his sigh. “Do you know how to ride?”
I refused to look at him. “No.”
There was a collective silence. No one seemed to have considered the fact that I wouldn’t know how to ride.
“Do you know how to mount?” Baxley asked me gently.
“No.” I glanced his way and saw his sympathetic smile. Nicco got on his horse as Baxley dismounted. “What’s happening?” I asked as Baxley approached me.
“Pack,” Nicco said from behind.
I half turned. “What?”
He looked exasperated. “Give me your staff and your pack, bunny. I don’t want it digging into me.”
I turned back to Baxley, who was now in front of me. Wordlessly, I handed him my pack, and he handed it to Nicco, who quickly secured it on the horse's saddle.
“I’m keeping my staff,” I told the air and ignored the grunt I got from above.
“With your permission?” Baxley asked, and then I was picked up before I could answer and handed to Nicco.
I yelped as my ass hit the hard leather of the saddle. Warm hands guided my legs over to straddle the animal beneath me. My staff was somehow taken from me, and then Nicco’s arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer to his body.
“Hold the pommel.”
Thankfully, I knew what that was.