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Arsene flushes, which elicits a tangle of emotions he doesn’t care for. “Alright.”
But the angel doesn’t leave. Instead he hovers nearby while Nur breaks down his tent poles. Nur wills him not to say anything about the night before; he feels so brittle.
“Let me take that to the wagon,” Arsene says when he’s finished, holding his arms out. “I have to speak to Myra anyway.”
“Fine.” Nur loads the tent into his arms and turns his back on Arsene rudely, willing him to go. Only when Arsene’s presence retreats from the sphere of his senses does he relax.
The Deadlands come upon them suddenly. Stony formations rise out of the land like ghosts, wavering in the milky sunlight. They herald an end to the plains, a gate into the desert to end all deserts. After his exile Nur remembers staggering through the Deadlands in a haze, kept awake only by the agony of the wound around his neck. He can’t say how long he wandered across thesand—days, weeks, or months. It was pure luck he made it out and all the way to the salt plains.
Luck that he stumbled across Arsene and his company.
He’s still not convinced it wasn’t fate’s idea of a joke.
The mood of the caravan shifts—not fearful, but subdued. The humans don’t fear the Deadlands like any sane mortal would, but rather they revere the place. Even the children quieten as they come nearer and nearer to the rocky gate.
The caravan pauses at midday at the base of the hoodoos. The adults hand out food to the children, who cluster near Nur, watching him furtively as if he’ll suddenly procure a story for them. At their feet the dogs beg for scraps. Nur feels for the dogs. He’ll have to wait for tonight for his own meal.
Rhys comes by while the children are eating, his arms loaded with bundles of sticks and dried flowers. It’s part of a ceremony Nur has never gotten around to asking about. Human customs are strange, and he tries not to remind them he’s an outsider. Rhys hands the bundles out to the children and they run off to all corners of the midday camp, and Nur becomes aware of Arsene lingering nearby, watching.
“Do you need something?”
The angel has the grace to look embarrassed. “No.”
He has to feel the same pull Nur does since the valley, the itch to be closer. Always closer. It’s the bond playing tricks on them. Nur’s constant feeding must be strengthening it.
“Here, take this,” Rhys says, handing the angel a bundle. The seed pods rattle. Arsene takes it with a frown.
“What’s this for?” he asks Nur.
Nur shrugs, sullenness overtaking him. He’s never been invited to participate in the ritual.
“Just do what the kids are doing,” Rhys says, pointing to a handful of stragglers. They’re stomping on the ground nearbyand shaking the branches and flowers, turning in circles, kicking up rocks and dust while they laugh.
Arsene’s frown deepens.
“I don’t?—”
“Go on,” Nur tells him, suddenly realizing what’s about to happen.
Arsene throws him an uncertain look. Nur bares his teeth, not even pretending it’s a smile.
“I’ll just, uh.” Arsene trails off. He gives Nur a final look and takes his bundle over to the circle of children. Nur suppresses a shiver.
Rhys smirks at Nur. “Enjoy.”
The pups eagerly show Arsene how to dance. They’re not very good at explaining, employing a complicated pantomime. But the angel follows along obediently, lifting his hands high above his head, stomping one foot, then the other. He shakes the branch in a circle and sprinkles flowers behind him. He’s comically big next to them, taller than even the tallest humans, his wings flickering broadly in the aether, but at the same time he’s graceful in a way that makes Nur’s throat ache. It’s unfair.
“Whatisit for?” he asks Rhys to distract himself.
“It’s seeding the path,” Rhys says. “Leaving markers of where we’ve been so the next generation can follow our trail.”
The idea of future humans returning here in fifty years to find the same flowers growing inexplicably makes Nur shiver. “Does it work?”
“Sure. We have old stories about it.” Rhys flashes him a rueful smile. “From before the cataclysm, you know? Long, long before.”
Nur doesn’t know. In fact, he’s never thought of humans as particularly oriented in time. But what is time to him, anyway? He’s just a filament of spider-silk, drifting until he forgets where he’s anchored and the breeze carries him away.
Arsene kicks up a clod of dirt with his boot and shakes the branch above his head. He’s taking it seriously even though the children are laughing. Nur’s heart twinges.
