They went on into the soft gloaming when it came. The rain started not long after and lent a darkness the gloaming withheld.
A miserable night, withal. By morning, when the rain decreased to a drizzle, they were all soaked and exhausted.
Bradana edged up to him and asked, “Can ye tell, did we lose them?”
Adair shook his head. The whole world dripped with rain. The raindrops hitting the soft ground sounded like footfalls.
Or maybe there had never been anyone on their tail. He might be mad or fevered. Yet instinct—that which alerted him—persisted.
He looked at the woman he loved. She stood drooping, her wet hair hanging down, her wedding finery past saving. The ponies too stood with their heads drooping, and poor Wen panted his distress. They could not go on this way.
“We canna go on this way,” Bradana said just as if she’d heard his thoughts.
“Nay.” He thought hard on it. “Bradana, love, ’tis me he wants. Mican wishes to spill his ire on me for the death o’ his son. If I turn back, they will likely not pursue ye any farther.”
Her eyes widened. “Turn yoursel’ over to them, ye mean? Nay, and nay! This is all my fault and my doing. If either o’ us should pay—”
“He fell by my sword. ’Tis all Mican knows.”
“Ye canna ask me to abandon ye. To let ye gi’ yoursel’ over to his hounds. I might as well put a dagger through my own heart.”
“Love, ye need rest. And food.”
“As do ye!”
“If they stop pursuing ye, ye and Wen can make your way home slowly. He is doing much better. Wi’ the pony—”
“I will no’ hear it!” Her eyes blazed. “I would far sooner starve here wi’ ye than leave ye behind.”
“Alanna, ye are already starved.”
“I do no’ care. I do no’.”
She threw herself into his arms and clutched him as hard as she could. She did not weep now. Her distress went way beyond mere tears.
“I will no’ leave go o’ ye. Adair MacMurtray. If he takes the one o’ us, he takes the both. I did no’ wait the whole o’ my life for ye, just to part from ye again.”
“Bra—”
“We do no’ even know for certain we are being followed.”
Only he did, as if Alba whispered it into his ear.
“Please, Adair. Let us keep moving. We will go slowly to ease the ponies. We will all walk for a time. Here among the trees, we canna be seen.”
He nodded though he was not happy with it. The sun broke through the clouds as they went, showing them that they still traveled roughly north. The cover of the trees, though, did not last long. Even as the sun broke through, they stepped out into a stretch of open hillside where Bradana stopped dead.
She gazed about, letting her eyes absorb what lay before her.
Below them lay a small glen, a narrow river running along it like a thread of living silver through the green. Hills huddled close, including the one upon whose shoulder they stood. Beyond was…
The sea.
They had found it at last.
Adair drew a breath, flavored with salt. The narrow river ran to empty itself into the great, gray, heaving expanse of the ocean. Beyond he could see a scattering of islands looking like sleeping dragons, half submerged in the water. Beyond there—home?
Bradana too caught her breath. “I know this place.”
