"Indeed we do," Colsar said.
I folded a nightgown and placed it in the trunk. He looked at it. "I do not know why you bother packing that."
“Because if you upset me I will wear it,” I said.
Colsar laughed again. He had been doing that more lately. There was a warmth to him now that surfaced easily, without effort.
His voice lowered. “Yvara. My brother. Mysin. What are your plans?”
I began folding the children’s travel blankets. “Yvara I have not yet decided. Sevrin we must play nice with for now.”
Colsar groaned. “Asha, I have fantasized for months about all the ways I plan on punishing him for what he did?—”
“Not yet, Colsar. We need him to cooperate on naming Kiss heir, and we need whatever he knows about Morrath.” I looked at him. “Promise me you will cooperate.”
“I can promise you I will not kill him yet,” he said simply.
I paused. “As for Mysin, I am going to kill him, if he is still alive.”
Colsar said nothing at first. Then, “Asharin.”
“Yes?”
“Come to bed.”
“Already?”
“We must rest. Tomorrow will be a long day of travel.” A pause. “Besides, something about you wanting to murder someone has me aroused.”
I laughed before I could stop it. By the time I climbed onto the bed, he was already reaching for me.
“Is this your idea of resting?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
That was the end of the conversation.
The snow followed us out of Shalvar. It never fell hard enough to slow the Avanki or bury the path, but it never stopped either, settling into the mountains until the cold felt worked into everything rather than falling from above. By the time we reached the higher passes of Gyarin it had become part of the world around us. Part of us.
Saurin and Cambra rode within the transport with the children, its warding holding the worst of the cold back. I could see it moving alongside us, steady and unhurried, and I knew without looking that Cambra's attention would be moving constantly over both of them.
I rode beside Colsar.
My horse had found its rhythm with the terrain, adjusting to the snow-packed ground with a patience I was grateful for. The cold pressed in at every opening in my cloak, but I had stopped fighting it somewhere in the first hour. It was simply part of moving now.
The firebirds cut through the sky above us in wide arcs, pushing forward and circling back and ranging out again. He had sent them ahead the moment we left Shalvar and had not called them back. Behind us the column stretched in its order: Veynar soldiers keeping pace through the snow, and at the rear, unhurried and silent, the Shalvar contingent closed the formation like a door no one had yet needed to shut.
I watched him from my horse, the distance between us close enough to speak without raising our voices.
"You have not stopped looking," I said.
"I will not," he answered.
His hand found mine briefly across the space between us before returning to his reins. Certain rather than careful.
"You can," I said. "Nothing has come for us."
"That is not a reason to assume nothing will."
