“Thiece told you to go back to the place where the pull started.” He looked at me with those steady, pale eyes. “I'm not sure she had a timeline in mind.”
“Nevertheless.”
He was quiet for a moment. The light in the valley shifted, the steam holes breathing their pale hue into the freshening air. “You'll need someone with you.”
“I'd rather go alone.”
“I bet you would,” he said with a small smile. “You won't.” He said it the way Nicco did, flat, final, already decided. I was beginning to think that kind of certainty wasn't a Darysian trait. It was just what happened to people who were used to leading. “The things that move between here and Iskaeld move at night. You're not going alone.”
“Then come yourself,” I said, my irritation showing.
He looked at the valley. At the ones who were beginning to stir into their quiet, purposeful morning routines. At the watchers to the north, still and patient. “You know I can’t.”
“Then why are we talking about this?” I tried to stay reasonable. “I’m happy to go alone.”
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he turned and called out in their language — two short words — and a figure detached itself from the edge of the settlement and crossed to us.
The young one. Dark-eyed, careful, the one who'd brought me water after the first night.
“I’m sending someone I trust,” he told me as we watched the other man approach. Vorn said something to him. The young man looked at me steadily, then nodded.
“His name is Seryn,” Vorn said. “He knows the way between here and Iskaeld. He'll take you, wait, then bring you back.”
“And if I don't want to come back?”
Vorn held my gaze. “I'd rather you did.”
I looked at Seryn. He looked back with the same patience as everyone in this valley, neither unkind nor unfriendly, just entirely itself. “Can you fight?” I asked him.
He said something to Vorn.
“He says he can,” Vorn translated. “He also says it's unlikely to matter.”
I thought about that. “Is that reassuring or not?”
“Probably not,” Vorn agreed.
“Can he speak?”
Vorn gave me a flat look. “You just heard him speak.”
“I heard him say something in a language I don’t know. Can he speak to me when I need to understand him?”
“I can.” I looked at Seryn. His voice was steady and low, with a heavy accent.
“Do you want to come?” I asked him. I was all about making your own choices, and from the huff of laughter beside me, I knew Vorn had heard my jab.
“I’m not doing anything else,” Seryn said with a shrug. “Let’s go.”
He walked away then, and I wasn’t sure whether the fact that he “wasn’t doing anything else,” was a reason to trek across the tundra to Iskaeld, but I was hardly in a position to argue. I was amazed Vorn was letting me go at all.
“I want you back in a few days, Amarya.”
I met his steady gaze. “Let’s hope the weather is kind to us.”
He said nothing, but I was left with no doubt that Vorn was still very much in control here.
We left as the valley settled into its morning rhythm.
