“No. They kept the old ways. Living with the land instead of off of it. Following the game where it went, taking from plants where they grow. It caused conflict with Nithyria that Korakaended up paying for more than most on account of their size. But still, they welcomed me back when I returned.”
“They gave you your tattoo.”
“They did.” Taran rubs the dark design on his neck. “But it didn’t feel like home. I’m a stranger there among my people.”
“I know how you feel.” I’d spent most of my life being kept out of the way, most of my life being secluded and hidden from even our own people. As much as I long to be under the canopy of the forest again, I feel strange about returning to Nithyria. Especially now that I’ve made my own people my enemy.
“Well, I better get back to packing.” Taran shrugs his shoulder sheepishly and turns away to allow me to bathe.
“Wait, one more thing.” He nods, waiting. “Is there anything I can do for him? Anything I can do to help him? What did you do to help him before?”
“I don’t know if I ever really helped him. I just gave him space. Maybe I should have done more; I don’t know.” He watches Ronan, some old regret coming to the surface, but he keeps it to himself, and I don’t pry. “Be patient with him. He’ll come back to you.”
I wish I could be as sure as he is.
The others return a short while later carrying half a dozen animal skins and leather pouches.
“I take it the raid went well?” I ask.
“There was no raid,” says Larus, annoyed with my tone. “Not from us. There were no others in their camp. But we weren’t their first targets by any means.” He empties one of the leatherpouches on the ground, and out comes coin, jewelry, and even a few teeth.
“They were cannibals, Sylvie,” says Quinn. She stays on Bitey’s back while Octavia distributes some of what he was carrying to Kira.
“We can’t know that for sure,” says Larus. “But there were more…remains than you might expect.”
“You mean meat. They had human legs on hooks. It washorrible.”
I shudder. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. There isn’t much to eat around here.
It does somewhat ease my conscience knowing what they planned to do to us, although Ronan doesn’t comment on it. He doesn’t say much of anything as we cross the last of the Wastes, but everyone else breathes much easier once we spot the tiny flowers and grasses growing in the foothills of the Palador Mountains.
Our route takes us along a wide riverbed where only a small stream now flows. It makes for easy travel and little climbing, forcing us onto the nearby trail only when we reach a waterfall. The skins prove useful when we stop for camp, allowing us to use the blankets Taran brought as makeshift tents.
I share with Ronan, but I don’t push him to talk. Instead, I hold him to me, gently stroking his back. Just as I’m falling asleep, he stirs.
“Are you awake?” he whispers.
“Yes,” I say, my chest tightening. I’ve been waiting for Ronan to speak to me for the past two days, but now that he wants to, I’m afraid of what he’s going to say.
“What if we get on a boat in Pyka and just keep going?”
We haven’t talked about what we’ll do when we arrive yet. The plan before we left was to try to organize what’s left of the Selaran forces from Pyka or to take a ship abroad and findsupport from one of Selara’s allies. But that was before we saw the city fall, and no one has been willing to ask Ronan what he’s thinking given his mood lately.
“What do you mean ‘keep going’?”
“I mean we get on a boat and say fuck it to all of it. Let Adria have her chance. Maybe she’ll be better at it than I was.” His voice is strangely detached, like he’s been thinking of this for a long time.
“You want to leave Selara to Adria? Ronan, she just sent hundreds of her own people, maybe thousands, to their deaths to secure it. How can you think she’ll be better than you?”
“She saw her chance, and she took it. She’s decisive. She takes action. I’ve spent the last six years trying to make everyone happy and making no one happy. I let Nithyria pay the price for my father’s mistake. I stopped the one thing that might be able to help them. And then I ran like a coward instead of defending my city to the last. What kind of king is that? What kind of man?”
I tilt Ronan’s chin up to look at me. His eyes dart away, ashamed, but I stroke his jaw until he looks at me again.
“The kind Selara needs. The kind who considers the cost before letting people die for his petty need for revenge.” His eyes flash with fury. I know there’s a part of him that despises Adria for what she’s done. “I know how you feel. There’s a part of me that wants to run too. A part that wants to free myself of the responsibility for the lives of an entire kingdom, that wants to take the trip we planned and leave them to their fate. But that isn’t me. I didn’t know it until I met you, but I’m not the kind of person who can walk away when I can make a difference.”
I’ve spent weeks thinking about my role in everything that has happened. Maybe I don’t bear responsibility for all of it, but my actions and inaction led us to where we are at least in part. And if there’s anything I can do to make it right, I must do it.
And I know Ronan feels the same way, even if he’s having a hard time remembering it right now.
