Suri frowned and climbed off the slow-moving wagon. “Right now, I think I’d rather walk.”
She let the wagon roll ahead. This left her at the rear of the long column. Quiet there, less hectic, and she enjoyed the feel of her feet on familiar, albeit sadly trampled, grass. Despite bringing up the tail end of the migration, Suri discovered she wasn’t alone. Raithe trudged along in the soft ruts left by the wagon wheels. He had his leigh mor folded and tied shorter and looser, in the way most men did that time of year. It exposed more of his hairy legs and arms—furry was the thought that came to mind. He glanced her way but didn’t speak, and the two fell into a silent tandem march.
They walked side by side in silence until they came to the intersection of the trail that led to Dahl Rhen. Suri didn’t think she had come at it from this direction since the morning after Grin the Brown was killed. Both she and Raithe slowed. Both looked at the nondescript trail, just a narrow path that wound through tall brown grass. Up that way stood the shattered remains of a wall, a lodge, and a well—the past that marked a turning point.
“Strange how deciding to walk one way rather than another can change your whole life.” Raithe managed to put her own thoughts into words. “I probably shouldn’t have gone down that road.”
Part of Suri wholeheartedly agreed. If she had refrained from going to Dahl Rhen that spring, Minna would still be alive and the two of them would be enjoying another summer together. Of course, if she hadn’t gone, everyone else would likely be dead.
Do bad things happen if I don’t know about them?
Suri sighed and wondered if Raithe had been speaking to her, or just talking to himself. She also wasn’t entirely sure who she spoke to when she said, “The worst part is that I still can’t tell if it was worth it.”
They looked at each other knowingly, then resumed following the wagons at a greater distance, lagging back, letting the world drift away.
“I wish I were going home.” Suri kicked a loose stone into the tall grass.
“I wish I weren’t,” Raithe said. He glanced over. “I’m sure yours is much nicer.” He pointed at the wagon ahead of them. “How’s Arion?”
“Annoying.” Suri expected him to show surprise and ask why. Instead, Raithe simply nodded as if he understood everything. “I wanted her to come home with me to the forest, to the glen where I used to live. I figured we could be happy there, but she insists we have to be part of this war.”
“Sounds remarkably like Persephone.”
“Really?”
Raithe nodded. “Won’t listen to me. Listens to Nyphron, though. She hears him just fine. We’re going to war against the Fhrey, and whose counsel does she take?”
“So, you don’t want to go to this Rhist place, either?”
“I’d rather we were all in your glen.” He wiped sweat from his eyes and peered up at the blazing sun, as if he and it were having a disagreement. “Can you swim there?”
Suri smiled. “In a clear lake with swans.”
“Got food?”
“More than enough.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“It is,” she said and meant it.
“Over there, right?” He pointed at the cleft in the forest.
“Yep,” she replied. “Up that slope, around to the left, and then over into the valley. We could arrive before nightfall, easy. No one would even know we left.”
The two looked at the wagons and the long column of men snaking to the north, which kicked up a cloud of dust. No one was looking back, but if they did, Suri and Raithe would be hidden by the cloud. They could slip away unseen and vanish into obscurity forever. The war would go on, but without them.
Do bad things happen if I don’t know about them?
They both stopped, standing still in the middle of the road, listening to the sounds of the wagons fade.
“What do you think?” Suri asked.
Raithe sighed, then shook his head. “We can’t leave them. And it seems stupid to start being smart now.”
Suri nodded. “Yes. You’re absolutely right. You must be the world’s wisest—” She caught herself, mortified. Everything felt so familiar that the words just came out as they always used to, just as if she were walking with…
Suri began to cry. She felt guilty and hated herself for betraying Minna’s memory so easily.
He stood quietly, waiting beside her without judgment.
Suri embraced him then. There was no thought in it. She needed to hug something and he was there. Suri thought he might pull away, but he didn’t. Instead, she felt his arms wrap around her, settling gently, holding her. Raithe never said a word, and she knew that was exactly how it should be between friends.
CHAPTER TWO
Before the Bronze Gates
Alon Rhist was just one of the seven Fhrey fortresses that dominated our borders, but it was more than the seat of the Instarya tribe and the tomb of a long-dead fane. Alon Rhist was the personification of Fhrey power and the absurdity of challenging it.