“Yashaa.” I don’t know what Saoud intended to say, but I interrupted him before he could say it.
“No, you listen,” I said. “You have been my brother for as long as I have known you. You stood beside me while I learned, even if it was a lesson you didn’t share. Your father taught me, and my mother taught you, even if her lessons were hard and cold. And you have sworn your service, by your own choice, to the princess I was born to. That, if nothing else, spins us into the same thread.”
Saoud laughed, or sighed perhaps. It was a quiet sound in the dark, and because I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t read it properly. But I hoped I had given him peace.
“Good night, Yashaa,” he said to me. “Wake me up for a turn at watch, or I’ll make you carry my pack when we set out.”
He slept in truth then, while I waited up with the stars.
SAOUD LET ME SLEEP until one hour past sunrise. He must have gone down to the cave to check in with the others, because when he shook me awake, it was to tell me we would head straight for the glade, and the water skin he handed me was still dripping. He also had flatbread and olives. The bread was stale, but I didn’t care. I had been eating porridge or vetch for days, with the exception of the gnome’s gift from the day before, and even stale bread was a welcome change.
“Come on, then,” I said, when I had spit out the last olive pit and put the stopper back in the skin. “It’s not very far.”
Saoud was a quieter companion than the Little Rose. He was content to follow where I walked, and was not easily diverted to look at interesting trees or unfamiliar flowers. Of course, Saoud had spent enough time abroad in the world that he could walk and admire the view at the same time.
We reached the glade just as the sun was cresting the trees that sheltered it, and so Saoud saw it at its best: sun-drenched and green, with the light breeze stirring the flowers as though to welcome us specifically.
“I see what you mean about this place, Yashaa,” he said. “And what the Little Rose means as well. This is good magic.”
We sat in the sun like children, as though we had no cares or burdens, or reason to flee the pursuit of a prince with a questionable reputation at best. Saoud unrolled the map his father had given him, which had guided our steps through the mountains until we’d strayed off of the known paths to hide. Saoud had added his own markings, and I guessed that they were the villages he and the others had visited when they had gone down without us.
“This village had no bread at all,” he said, pointing to the mark that was closest to where he would have come out of the mountains. “They were eating what game they could catch, but to make bread, they’ll have to go into their seed for next season.”
“Will they have to eat the sheep?” I asked. It was only ever considered as a last resort. Kharuf needed wool more than it needed meat, but if there were no alternatives, then desperate measures had to be taken.
“Not until the winter, at least.” Saoud knew enough about sheep to know that made little difference. The sheep had been shorn only a few weeks ago. They would not yet have enough wool to merit a second shearing. Saoud pointed to another mark. “This village had bread, but little else,” he said, and moved to the next mark. “Here was where we were finally able to trade, but we had to be careful because we were closer to the main trade routes, and rumors travel more quickly than goods these days.”
I nodded. If they had bought obvious desert gear and henna, it would have been more than enough of a clue for the prince tracking us to at least send men after us, if not follow us himself.
“If we stay north, we should be able to avoid all but the most resilient shepherds,” Saoud said, tracing a finger along the route he wanted us to take.
I looked at it. Saoud’s father had not spent much time in Kharuf, so his map was not particularly accurate. However, it was unlikely that any villages up in the northern regions had survived this long, and the terrain itself was only slightly rougher than the heathered slopes to the south. We could not walk entirely due east, but we would be able to accomplish nearly that, unless we ran into a river that hadn’t made it onto the map.
The desert was represented on the map by a single delineation, separating the place where grazing for sheep was easy from the place where grazing them was hard. This was the land the Storyteller Queen had called the scrub desert. It was possible to live there, if you had water, and so that would be our chief concern.
“It is going to be a long walk,” I said. “But if you think it is safer than staying here, then we will do it.”
“The things I heard, Yashaa,” Saoud replied, “they made my blood run cold.”
“The prince is that bad?” I asked. I trusted the Little Rose’s opinion of him, but thought perhaps her gossip might be out of date.
“Not just the prince,” Saoud said. “They say the demon who cursed the Little Rose rides with him, or at the very least directs him.”