I stared at him, startled by his honesty.
He shrugged. “You didn’t forgive me for three days. But by the end of the week, you were sneaking into the stables to feed them duskberries and braid their mane-spikes.”
I looked back at the nicta, who was now watching me with a kind of bored patience. The idea that I’d ever touched one—let alone befriended one—felt impossible. But under the layers of fear and uncertainty, something stirred. Some deeper knowing.
“I taught you how to ride them,” Mallack added softly. “And you taught them how to fall in love with a human.”
Without another word, he helped me up gently, as if he still didn’t trust himself to touch me too long. Before I had enough time to be scared, he swung himself up behind me. His arms reached around me, creating a tremble that ran under my skin where he brushed. He took the reins and waved one hand into the air, "Me voll!—we ride." At his words, the nicta began its laborious walk, followed by a countless number of dragoons and servants.
I adjusted my new scarf over my head and watched the city fall away behind us, the towers of Ackaron shrinking into haze. We rode east, toward a past I didn’t remember, and a future neither of us could name. But for now, it was enough to let the wind carry me forward, and to know he would not let me fall.
It had been late afternoon when we arrived at Ackaron. Now the sky hung heavy with low clouds, thick with the kind of light that promised rain or silence, but never both. The harbor gates hissed closed behind us, and for a moment, I considered turning around and finding a place to rest. Just for tonight. The rooms were adequate here, the city was more or less safe, and Daphne… had just… what? Woken from the dead? It would’ve made sense.
But I couldn’t do it.
That same current that had dragged me to Ackaron and then Hoerst a few days ago was stirring again. Low and steady in my gut. It wasn't quite panic; it was more instinct or some kind of pressure. Like something was waiting for us in Bantahar, and every moment I delayed tightened the coil.
I looked at her. She was watching a merchant roll up a tapestry, eyes wide with a curiosity she didn’t even realize she had. Herscarf had slipped back slightly, letting the late sun brush her temple. She caught me staring and raised a brow.
“You’re doing it again,” she said. “That silent, brooding thing.”
“I’m always brooding,” I replied.
“You weren’t when you bought me this scarf.”
She smirked. I wanted to kiss her. But instead, I turned toward the waiting nictas and dragoons. “Me voll.”
“Now?” she asked.
I nodded. “We’ll go as far as we can before dark.”
Truth was, we wouldn’t reach the normal camp by then. Not without pushing the nictas hard. Not without pushingher,and she’d been through enough. Her body wasn’t conditioned yet, even if her spirit fought to pretend it was.
I didn’t like the idea of making camp in the middle of nowhere. The lands between Ackaron and the Pyme foothills weren’t known for their hospitability. We had no outposts between here and the main pass. No support. No structure. It was wide open land, ready for an ambush from Renegades or Eulachs, which was one of the reasons Myccael was working so hard to build the magrail. And now I was setting out to stop him, without even knowing why. But I had neglected to listen to Daphne once before; I wouldn't do it again.
I turned my attention back to the nicta and gave the command, "Me voll."
“You alright?” I asked after we left the last vestiges of Ackaron behind.
She nodded. “For now, but I'll probably be sore tomorrow.”
I smiled. “You used to say that every time we traveled.”
“We used to do this a lot?”
“More times than I can count.”
She looked forward again, as if the horizon pulled at her the same way it was pulling at me. The nictas picked up speed, and the wind shifted after a while.
The Pyme River curved to our right, wide and silver in the dying light. Its current moved fast, swollen from recent storms in the mountains. We rode close to it, where the dirt was firmer and the brush thinner. The nictas liked the scent of water, and it gave us one less flank to guard.
Ahead, the mountains were rising, no longer distant silhouettes but dark, jagged teeth biting into the lavender sky. Shadows stretched long over the plains, swallowing the road behind us inch by inch.
Daphne shifted in the saddle again. I could tell by the set of her shoulders, the way she braced one hand against the saddle horn, that she was beginning to ache. She hadn’t complained once, but I knew that body. I knew what it could endure. And what it couldn’t.
The sun dipped low, bleeding out behind a wall of clouds. We wouldn’t make it to the camp near the ridge, but I had already known that when we set off.
“Here,” I said, pulling my nicta to a halt near a cluster of broad-rooted karnel trees. “We’ll stop here.”
