“Will you sing for us?” Mina signed. She grabbed a piece of spiced bread her sister passed to her and popped it into her cheek.
“No, no, no, no.” The words came spilling out of my mouth. It would’ve been embarrassing before, but now that Grae and the others were here . . . my face heated, the icy sting of the evening air gone. Hector shook beside me with restrained laughter and I elbowed him.
“Will you both stop elbowing me!”
“Not anytime soon,” Sadie muttered.
“That is four nos.” Ora laughed, looking at me.
“When we have the instruments out,” Malou insisted, “you can sing along then, and if it’s bad we’ll just drown you out so no one will know.”
I snorted, adding a mocking, “Thanks.”
We all stared into the fire, watching the flames dance between us.
“Any good stories from wherever you’ve come from?” Ora asked. “I think we’ve heard twenty different versions of every tale in the land.”
“It sounds like you’ve traveled to every corner of Aotreas,” Hector said. “Your accents are hard to pick.”
“You’d never guess it.” Malou chuckled, nodding to her companions. “None of us look like the kingdoms we were born in. Take Navin.” She hooked her thumb at him. “He looks like he’d be home in Valta, hey?” Navin leaned forward and steepled his fingers against his lips, hiding a grin. “But say something in Valtan.”
“Inge asha astanne carrasrostrom.” He barely got the words out before he burst into laughter.
It took me a second to realize he was even speaking the native tongue of Valta, the words were so jumbled. I thought he’d meant to say: hello, how are you? But it was nearly impossible to decipher. Everyone cackled with laughter.
“Eight years traveling with us and it hasn’t gotten any better,” Ora wheezed, wiping tears of laughter from their eyes.
“You must be from Damrienn, with the way you roll your Rs,” Sadie said.
“Wrong.”
“Taigos?” Hector guessed.
Navin shook his head again.
“We’re running out of kingdoms.” Sadie chuckled, picking at the seed heads on the flowers beside her. “If you’re not from Damrienn, Taigos, or Valta . . .”
“Olmdere,” I said, as Navin’s golden-brown eyes found mine.
His cheeks dimpled and he nodded.
“I’ve never met someone from Olmdere before,” I whispered. Besides Briar and myself, I’d never met a single Olmderian. Other than the Rooks, of course.
“Not many people have,” Navin said, his eyes hardening.
“Will you tell us about Olmdere?” Sadie asked. “What’s it like there?”
“You’ll see for yourself soon enough,” Navin said, though his expression morphed to one of sorrow. “I was young when the Gold Wolf throne fell to Sawyn. I don’t really remember a time before her Rooks patrolled the streets, before our grain was her grain, before our lives were her lives.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. This was the side of the story I’d never heard before. I’d heard about the night I was born, but never about the aftermath. And definitely not about the humans. Vellia always told us that Sawyn closed the borders to the kingdom and sent her Rooks out to scour the continent for Briar, but . . . I’d never heard the tale of what had happened to all the people who survived within Olmdere.
“It wasn’t easy,” Navin murmured. “We were cut off from all trade within the continent and could only survive off what each village could grow itself. When the blight came twelve years ago, I escaped. There are a few secret ways out of Olmdere, through the abandoned mines.”
He sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. I didn’t even know about the blight, nor any of the troubles my kingdom faced while I grew up safe in that cabin in Allesdale. Beyond the Stormcrest Mountains, our people had been starving to death and I had no idea. I picked at my fingernails, trying to distract myself from my hitching breath. Those were my people, my parents’ people. And they’d been left to starve.
Grae’s knee pressed into mine, and I wondered if he could see the pain seeping out of me like the bending air above the fire’s flames. Did he know it hit me the same way I felt the blow of a fist or kick of a boot? But this was a pain deeper than all others, too—loss, hopelessness, shame.
“I still can’t believe you made it out the other side,” Malou huffed, shoving more food into her mouth.
“Most didn’t,” Navin whispered. “It was an act of desperation. People who crossed the border like that had no other choice. A slow death awaited us if we stayed . . . unless we pledged ourselves to Sawyn. It’s why my brother became a Rook.”
We all froze, exchanging nervous looks between each other.
“That’s why you pulled down their masks,” Sadie murmured. “You were searching for him?”
“I don’t know what happened to the rest of my family who remained,” Navin murmured, neither confirming nor denying Sadie’s suspicion. “My father attempted to cross with me . . .”
Bile rose up my throat. This was my family’s failure, and I felt every ounce of that shame. Grae’s warm hand reached over and took my trembling fingers. He didn’t look at me as his calloused palm squeezed my clammy hand.
“I’m sorry,” Sadie said softly.
“I think you’ll find most of us have sad stories to tell,” Ora said, looking up to the milky constellation of stars. “When we get to Taigoska, we’ll play them for you.”
“Play?” Hector asked.
“Our stories.” Ora added another log to the fire, embers spraying up from the ashes below. “We could tell you what happened, but a song will make you feel it. It’s been the only thing I’ve found healing.”
“That sounds beautiful,” I whispered.
“One day.” Ora looked at me. “We’ll write your song.”
Grae’s hand clenched around mine and I dropped it.
“That would be nice,” I said, standing up and feigning a yawn. “It’s been a long day. I think I’ll retire now.”
“Good night,” the group called. “Sleep well.”
I was halfway to the tent when I heard Sadie say, “What about Valta? Any stories from there?”
Ora replied something I couldn’t quite hear and they all erupted into laughter. It hurt hearing that laughter, and I wasn’t sure why. They were all able to enjoy the bittersweetness of life while I only felt overwhelmed by it.
I couldn’t let it be. The world wouldn’t change if I accepted those stories of Navin’s family as just another part of the rhythms of existence. That anxious thought filled me, not knowing what action I needed to take, but knowing I must act. I couldn’t let Navin’s life be just another story. What they said about Wolves not caring about humans anymore . . . if I did nothing, it would prove them all right.