‘Are you sure you want to hear all this?’I sighed but didn’t move.I liked the way his knees pressed against mine.
‘Yes.If it helps to take away a little of the sadness I see lurking behind your pretty eyes.’He gave me a crooked smile.
Was my sadness apparent to everyone, or was Cillian more observant than most?I knew Cillian would be a good listener, and the longer I looked into his warm, open gaze, the more I wanted to unburden myself to him.
CHAPTER 3
Ididn’t begin with the death of my father because that memory was far too dangerous.I told Cillian of the day my mother and I left our village when I was eleven, and from there, I could not stop.
We had stayed at Edda’s since Father died, and now my mother was packing what little we had with us.
‘What are you doing?’
She grabbed my father’s hunting knife and tucked it into her belt.
‘We are going to find your family.Your people.’
The family who didn’t want me.I was left with strangers in the most desolate part of the kingdom.
‘I don’t want to find them.’
My mother stopped and looked out the window at the cloudy morning sky.‘I had a dream last night.It was like no dream I’ve had before.Olaf was alive and well, and he was pleading for us to go.’Her eyes shone with unshed tears.‘Your father told me that it was time for you to embark on your journey and seek out your people.They are waiting for you.’
‘Do you want to give me back?’
‘No!Never.’My mother took my hand and squeezed it.‘We will ask them for help, that’s all.’
‘But how will we know where to go?You and Father said you didn’t know who my parents were or if they were even alive.’
She dug deep into her pack and withdrew a torn piece of faded red fabric.Embroidered on it – with what looked to be gold thread – was a hand holding a sword.Above the sword were three symbols that formed a triangle.At the top was a half-risen sun, to the bottom left was a lightning bolt and to the right, a tree.
‘What is it?’I traced the patterns with my finger, feeling the fragility of the gold stitching.
‘In my dream, your father showed it to me and said, “Tell Caris to follow the symbols.”This was part of the cloak you were wrapped in the day the stranger brought you to us.’
‘Why have you never shown this to me?’
‘I had forgotten about it,’ she admitted, folding the cloth and placing it back in the sack.
She picked up a piece of charcoal and tapped the map she had drawn.‘We will have to walk a long way to reach another village.We might even have to cross the Red River.’
I reached for the map and charcoal, and Mother passed them to me with a tired shrug of her shoulders.The sparse map showed she knew little of what was outside the village she had lived in her entire life.She had marked villages and hamlets on the southern bank, including ours, but left the rest of Pedion unmarked.
Using the charcoal, I added Murus and Capita above, where Father had told me the king and queen lived.
‘After we find these people, we will stay together?’I asked, handing the map back to her.
‘We stay together,’ she said with a firm voice.
Over the coming days, we walked a long way.We stopped at every hamlet and village and showed the embroidered cloth to many people, but no-one could tell us what the emblem represented.
We arrived late one afternoon at a shoreside shack with a sign by the entrance showing three wavy lines.An ancient-looking ferryman came out and, after Mother handed him the last of our coins, we followed him to the river.
The ride across Red River was uneventful.The ferry was solid.Large logs interlocked, creating a stable platform for us to stand on.The ferryman used a long pole to push us along the riverbed and sometimes tugged on the large rope tied to the other side to help pull us across.
After disembarking, we sheltered beneath a tree with low-hanging branches.It protected us from the wind but still gave us a view of the river in both directions.A mist formed over the crimson water, and I retreated under my blanket as it came to rest over us.
‘The mist is a good omen, Caris,’ Mother said.‘It will keep us hidden from anybody passing by during the night.’
