Footsteps pounded behind him, quick and uneven.
“You’re really letting her go?” Conrad’s voice was sharp with disbelief, his breath ragged from the sprint. “After everything, you’re just letting hersail away?”
Alexander didn’t turn. For a long moment, he didn’t speak. The question was a stone thrown into the void inside him.
“This is the only way it can be,” he said, his voice flat with the effort of control.
“No, it isn’t! That’s a load of cow’s dung, if you ask me?—”
Alexander turned. The raw grief on Conrad’s young face was a mirror he couldn’t bear to look into for long. He clapped a handon the boy’s shoulder, a gesture meant to steady them both. “Come, pup. We have work to do. No time to waste.”
Conrad blinked, his frustration warring with a dawning, wild hope. “I knew it! You have a plan, don’t you? You’re going after her!”
Alexander didn’t answer. He simply began walking, his long strides eating up the planking, a physical manifestation of a decision already made.
At the end of the pier, Darion gave a dry, knowing scoff. “Didn’t you hear what he said, lad? Keep up. The truth will show itself soon enough.”
But Conrad scrambled after him, hissing only softly at his healing injuries. “No—don’t do that thing where you say something cryptic and then ride off. Just tell me. Are we getting her back?”
Alexander stopped and turned. For a moment, looking at Conrad’s earnest, worried face, a warmth cut through the cold numbness in his chest. This boy had seen the truth when Alexander himself had been blind.
“I didn’t believe you when you first questioned Tedric,” he told the boy. “And it nearly cost us everything. You saw something I refused to. You were brave enough to act.” He gripped Conrad’s shoulder. “I won’t fail you like that again. From now on, you’ll be given the responsibilities, and the trust, you’ve earned.”
Conrad’s mouth parted, speechless, his anger washed away by the tide of those words.
Alexander’s smile was slight, but it reached his chest for the first time that day. “Now, move. There’s much to prepare.”
“Prepare for what?” Conrad called after him, struggling to match his pace.
Alexander didn’t slow.
“My lord! Are you going to tell me?!”
Beside him, Darion chuckled. “He’s not going to tell you.”
“Pleasetell me!”
The breeze off the water stirred the hem of Alexander’s cloak, carrying the salt-tang of her absence. He didn’t look back at the empty horizon. Instead, he lifted his gaze to the road ahead.
There were matters to resolve. An estate to run. Limyerite mines to restore. Loose ends to tie, and only so much time to do it in.
Before he could embark on the only journey that mattered.
CHAPTER 63
JINGYI
The piers of Changzihua looked different this time.
The air still carried the river’s scent: mud and damp wood, the familiar smoke of morning braziers, but the acrid bite of rot had lessened. The cries of dockworkers rose in harmony rather than desperation—voices clearer, sharper, no longer drowned by the groan of overburdened piers.
JingYi stood near the gunwale as the ship entered the port. There were fewer beggars now clinging to their posts. The old fishmongers’ stalls had been replaced with neat wooden booths, and while the river still ran brown with silt, there was a freshness to the activity along the banks. The carts that rumbled past were better loaded. The guards standing at attention wore simpler uniforms, but their faces no longer looked starved.
She recognized the change. A new beginning. A breath after drowning.
“It’s different than before, isn’t it,” Haorán murmured beside her, observing as she did.
She nodded. “Cleaner. Calmer.” Then, more softly, “Full of hope.”
