“No,” I said.
I couldn’t leave. We were barely surviving here with the work spread between all available hands. If we left, if I took Tariq and Arwa and we left, then there would be no one but strangers who barely tolerated us to watch over my mother. I shook my head.
“What about Saoud?” I asked, my words slow as my thoughts raced.
“He will stay at the crossroads,” my mother said. She had never loved Saoud, so I didn’t understand why she would keep him behind, especially since his father was gone. Maybe she wanted to be sure of his father’s loyalty, though neither he nor Saoud had ever given us cause to doubt them, as far as I could tell. “He will be old enough to hire on as a guard, soon.”
“What about you?” I asked then. “I could stay too, and be a better guard than Saoud. We could all stay here.”
“No, Yashaa.” She started to cough. I waited. It seemed now that when she coughed, she coughed for hours. Finally her throat cleared. “You will go. Take the others. If you do well, you will be able to make a real home.”
“I have no home,” I told her, anger flooding into my voice. I didn’t look at her face when I said it, because I knew I would hurt her. “The Little Rose saw to that.”
“Yashaa,” she said. “It is a terrible net, that magic. The Little Rose suffers as much as any.”
I did not care about the suffering of the Little Rose, beyond an ugly gladness that she did. I only wanted the conversation to end.
“Arwa needs to pack her spindle, if you are driving her out,” I said, my voice as cold as I could make it.
“I will put it in the basket with the other spinning tools,” she said. Her breathing faltered.
I made myself meet her gaze. Her eyes were full of tears, as though she was sad to see us go, as though she hadn’t so casually dismissed the boy I held in my heart like a brother. Anger filled my chest, crushing my lungs the way the Little Rose’s curse crushed my mother’s.
I did not understand. I didn’t understand how a woman so weak could have such an iron will. I didn’t understand why she had so much power over Saoud’s father, over the crossroads camp. Over me. I did not understand my mother at all. But I loved her, and so I went to gather my things.
WE WERE A STRANGE PARTY on the road, Tariq and Arwa and I. My mother had struggled to stay standing as we left her at the opening of her tent. It was the farthest she had walked in some time. I tried not to think about the chance that she might die before we made our way back. Saoud did not see us off, having been sent out hunting in the early hours while we were taking our leave of my mother. I was furious, and I could see that Tariq and Arwa were likewise upset. At least he had been with us while we packed, and while we strung together what little plans we could. I tried not to think about losing him, either.
We didn’t take a wagon with us. Even if we had an ox to pull it, we didn’t have the means to feed the creature that would do the work. There was grazing aplenty on the plains of Qamih, but there were great forests there too, and clay flats that stretched as far as the eye could see. So we went on foot, carried what we could, and prayed for good weather on the road. Tariq did most of the praying. Arwa was happy enough to say the words, and earnest enough to believe that someone heard them, but my faith in such things had long since waned. Tariq, though, believed with the conviction of one who had seen the world, and chosen faith to spite it.
In the foothills of the Iron Mountains, we had an easy time. The way was mostly downhill, and there was plenty of game for Tariq to catch in his quick-made snares. Saoud’s father had shown us all the trick of making them before he’d taught us staff fighting. “You must be able to feed yourselves before you can defend yourselves,” he’d said. At the time, I remember thinking it was ridiculous—what good was it to eat in the wild if you were prey to anyone who might stumble across your path?—but now I was glad that Tariq, at the least, remembered his lessons.