I found that I respected her enormously for it.
Baxley fell into step beside her and muttered something low I didn't catch. She didn't respond, but her shoulders dropped slightly — a fraction, almost nothing — and that was apparently enough because he nodded and said nothing more.
I watched them move ahead and thought about what it looked like when two people had been through enough together that they didn't need words for it anymore. The way her shoulder dropped carried the weight of a conversation, and he understood it without it being said out loud.
I thought about what it would be like to have that with someone.
“You coming?” Nicco asked from somewhere to my left.
I looked at him. He was already moving, not waiting, just checking. The way he checked everything, briefly and without seeming to care about the answer.
“I’m coming.”
I fell into step behind them all. The trail opened south, and the cold pressed in from every direction with its usual indifference. I was a trailfinder again, heading somewhere with people I'd somehow ended up trusting, which was both the most ordinary and the most alarming thing about the last several weeks.
We caught the soldiers before the light failed.
Marson saw us coming and said nothing. He just gave a single nod that encompassed everything he wasn't going to askabout, then turned back to his men. That nod held everything unsaid. I appreciated every question he didn’t ask.
The camp that night was louder than it had been in weeks. There were two fires, and the night held the noise of a group reassembling after separation. I sat at the edge of the firelight, watching it, and thought that this was probably one of the last nights we'd all be in the same place.
I was ready to move on, and by the sounds of it, so were the soldiers.
Edran appeared at my elbow with a portion of food. He held it out without preamble.
“How’s your hand?” I asked him.
He flexed the fingers of his right hand in answer. Smooth, full movement, no hesitation.
I took the food from him. “That’s good.”
We ate in silence for a while. Around us, the camp did what camps do. They talked, argued mildly, and settled into the rhythm of people who were nearly done with something hard. All of them were unanimous in their eagerness for a bed.
“Thank you,” he said eventually. “For the fingers. And… the other things.”
I looked at him sideways. “For finding the trail?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, his gaze furtive. “The second storm,” he said quietly. “We were colder than we’d ever been, I didn’t think we’d make it, and then we weren't.” He kept his eyes on the fire. “I don't know what you did, but I know you did something.”
I was very still.
“I'm not going to say anything,” he added hurriedly. “I just wanted you to know that… it mattered.”
I looked at the fire for a long moment, uncomfortable but also unsure of what to say.
“You're welcome,” I said eventually.
He stood and went back to the others, and I sat with the weight of that — his knowing, his choosing, what he'd decided to do with it — and it felt like the most quietly significant thing since the column.
Which was saying something.
Chapter 33
A week later,we approached Collharrow from the north on a different trail than the one we’d left it all those weeks ago.
The soldiers had their last night sleeping on snow, and before sunrise, Nicco and Baxley had gone to town to secure the horses, a wagon, and the things the soldiers had left behind. Their armor, mostly.
Later that morning, Marson found me before anyone had properly started moving.
