“But what if I can’t fix it? What if I’m truly not what Selara needs?” His voice is small. He curls onto my chest, and all I want to do is take this burden from him. I want to spare him from it, to fight for him, to save him from a lifetime of sacrifice.
But I can’t. This is his burden to bear, and it’s mine now too.
“If you truly want to give up, you can. If you truly think they’re better off without you, you can go. But I’m not going. I’m staying here, and I’m finishing what I started. If I leave, it’s only to come back with an army. I will not let Adria win. I will not watch Selara die. I can’t. And I know you can’t either. I told you I believed in you. I told you I would fight for you. You said you wanted me at your side as your equal.” I tuck a lock of his golden brown hair behind his ear, and he trembles at my touch. “Here I am, Ronan. I’m here with you, at your side. Now and always.”
He looks at me for a long moment, considering what I’ve said. Then he frowns, his brows furrowing as he sinks back into himself. “I just…I don’t know.”
I sigh. He does know, but he isn’t ready to face it yet.
And that’s alright. I know Taran is right. He’s going to come around, and I’ll fight for him until he does.
We finally reach the forest on the next day. I know these woods. I remember them well from my childhood, the looming trees with moss-covered trunks, the soft blanket of ferns and mulch on the forest floor. The creaking of branches and the shivering of the leaves in the wind, their colors fading now from green to yellow and orange.
We’re getting ready to set camp for one final night before we reach Pyka when I hear something in the distance.
“War drums?” asks Quinn. Bitey stalks low, carrying her to investigate.
“No,” says Taran, listening. “Music. It’s one of the tribes, probably out on a hunt.”
Ronan looks up from where he’s building the fire, his interest piqued. He loves music. Maybe it would do him some good to have a night to relax.
“Would they welcome us?” I ask.
Taran hesitates. “Not Seth or Larus. But the rest of us, probably. They might recognize you as a Verran, Sylvie.”
“Unlikely,” says Seth. “She favors our mother. House Sergia.”
“That’s not a distinction they’ll care much about.”
I reach for Ronan’s lute and hand it to him. He looks at it skeptically. “You can speak for me, Taran. Explain who I am and why we’re here. I’ve never fought with your people, not personally.”
Taran looks at me, and I beg him with my eyes to say yes. “That’s true. Alright, we’ll go. But follow my lead.”
“Larus, I think we’ve been uninvited from the party,” says Seth.
Larus grunts. I know he’s having a hard time dealing with the fact that we’re coming to the Orsa at all, and I understand how he feels. He spent years fighting with them alongside my father, and from what they told me, it was horrible. There were terrible losses, losses that I know haunt him to this day.
Truthfully, there’s a part of me that’s afraid too. It’s hard to shake the lessons you grew up with even once you realize that they’re false. But I know from my time with Taran that the Orsa aren’t inherently bad. I don’t know what these Orsa will be like, but I trust that Taran would tell me if we were going to be in any danger.
Ronan is holding the lute, his fingers ghosting over the strings. I feel his grief even more strongly than before, and I wonder if I’ve made a mistake in suggesting this. The lutebelonged to someone who died for him in the war. And then we lost her daughter Stella, too, to Adria in the throne room.
I give him a moment while I get my flute. My heart flutters nervously when I pick it up, and I’m not sure which thing scares me more: that I’ve somehow made things worse for Ronan, that I’m about to perform in front of people who don’t know, or that those very same people might try to kill me if they realize who I am.
But then Ronan strums a chord. The lute is out of tune, but I see a tiny glimmer of himself come through when he plays. A little quirk at the corner of his mouth, a little flash of excitement in his feelings.
He tunes the lute one string at a time, strumming quietly until the chord sounds clean, each note in harmony.
Then he rises and nods to me, and I follow him into the woods.
The Orsan tribe has gathered around a bonfire in a small clearing. There are twenty or so of them, all sitting on logs felled in a circle around the fire.
Taran whistles to announce our approach.
The music—a cheery tune played with drums, a low flute, and a lyre—ends abruptly. Then a young woman shouts something in Orsan.
Taran replies. There’s a moment of tense silence, and then the woman shouts something back.
“We’re welcome to share their fire,” says Taran. “But they don’t have food for us.”
