“Take me to the boat,” Aerity whispered. Harrison obliged.
The sounds of celebration—Ascomannian chants and Lochlan praises—were so out of place in Aerity’s sluggish mind. She could not bring herself to cheer for the death of this beast, when it felt as if her troubles were merely beginning. But the kingdom was safe, and that’s all that mattered.
A cold wind blew across Aerity’s face as Harrison settled her into a seat, her hair whipping against her skin, and all traces of warmth from earlier that day disappeared.
Chapter
40
South.
Paxton headed south along the coast of Lochlanach.
He regretted that he couldn’t return to royal lands to retrieve his few belongings, especially his bow. A shirt and boots at the very least. But that was the only regret he would allow himself to contemplate. He kept thoughts of Aerity, Lief, and Tiern at bay. If he did not acknowledge such things, they would eventually fade from his heart. Surely that was how it worked.
These feelings. They were all different for him. He was accustomed to a low burn of anger in his life, always anger. But these other things, he didn’t know how to deal with them. They threatened to stop his breath. To make him behave foolishly. So it was best not to contemplate them. Those people, they were now his past. He could not linger. He would build a new life. One in which he kept to himself and let nobody in, as he should have done all along.
In the childhood summer he’d spent with his grandmother, he’d asked her if there was anywhere in all of Eurona where people like them did not have to hide. His question had seemed to surprise her.
“My dear boy,” she’d said, “people in all the lands fear the Lashed after the uprising of Rocato. But it’s said there are tribes of Lashed hidden in the jungles of Kalor where they still revere our kind—where Lashed can gather and work their magic in peace.”
“Where in Kalor?” he’d asked, fascinated.
His grandmother had chuckled. “Oh, Pax. It could be folklore for all I know. It was just something I heard a neighbor woman say to my mother in passing when she thought I was too young to understand, but she said it like it was a frightening place. Something about Rainiard Lake in the hotlands. If it were true, it could be overtaken by now.”
Paxton had always held tight to those words. Keeping them in his pocket as a plan he thought he’d never have to use.
Now, he was Rainiard Lake bound. And from what he’d learned about the area, it was remote. He would have to travel through thick jungle rumored to be inhabited by wild people and fierce animals. Even Rainiard Lake itself was said to be riddled with giant biting fish and bugs that could kill with a single sting.
He’d also contemplated finding the Zandalee tribe down in southern Zorfina, but that would mean traveling through deserts, a thought that troubled him more than stinging bugs.
Both were places of possible freedom, and neither would be easy to get to. He wasn’t holding his breath about any of it. He would travel south and take this journey day-by-day. Certain death awaited Paxton around any corner, even in his seemingly safe homeland of Lashed fearers. He wasn’t afraid anymore. It was only a matter of time before death took him. Paxton mused about which one of the many forms would be the one to steal his last breath.
He became accustomed to the solitude as he hiked. His first night he slept in the mossy space of a fallen tree, blanketed by leaves. He woke dirty and itching the next morning, still bare of chest and feet. He muddied himself in patches, careful to press mud into the cuticles and base of his fingernails. His second night he found an abandoned barn with bug-ridden hay.
His third day he wandered onto the outskirts of a small fishing village with two men tending their oyster beds. They looked him up and down, suspicious.
“My apologies, sirs,” Paxton began. “My boat was overturned during the night and I had to swim ashore.” He looked down at himself, feeling guilty for the lie. “I’m a bit worse for wear after sleeping in the woods. I’ll work for a pair of boots and shirt, if you require a hand.”
The younger man looked down at Paxton’s feet, as if to gauge the size, and nodded.
The older man frowned. “Ye sound northern, ye do.”
“Aye,” Paxton said. “Indeed, I am.”
“Should ’ave been fishing yer own waters, then.”
Paxton nodded, and the younger man gave a roll of his eyes. “Sure then, don’t mind him,” he said, hitching a finger at the older man, who grumbled and poked a bag of oysters with his long stick. “Ever farmed an oyster bed?”
Only his whole childhood. “Aye, sir. I’ll do anything seas related that you need.”
The man pointed out at the cove. “This here is all our land. You’ll have to work from now until sundown to earn a pair of boots, though.”
Paxton nodded. “I can do that. I give you both many thanks.”