Page 102 of Bride of Ash & Dust

I don’t think they ever meant to finish those buildings. Somehow, I don’t think this hole in the ground was ever intended to be a mine. At least not a mine for gold.

I exhale slowly. If there’s someone here, watching and hidden, I want them to find me now, while Lilias is still concealed.

I step into the light.

Time slows. Every muscle in my body pulls tight as the entire world takes on the heartbreaking clarity of a battle or an attack. I can see every rock, every scraggly blade of grass trying to survive up here. The sun climbs over the forest, spilling her light across the ridge. Somewhere, a bird starts singing.

I breathe. In, out. In again.

There’s a soft scraping sound as Lilias joins me. I take her hand again, then walk toward Syvan’s horse, still expecting a shout, the twang of a bowstring, the cold steel of a blade against my skin. But there’s nothing.

It’s only when we reach the horse, who snorts at our approach like he’s glad someone finally showed up to untie him, that I realize Syvan might have dismissed his soldiers intentionally. Perhaps he didn’t want any witnesses seeing him emerge from the mine covered in my blood.

The thought makes me feel sick. I brace one hand against the rough wood of the half-finished cabin as the world spins around me. My body aches, and gods, when was the last time I had anything to eat?

“We should take him,” Lilias whispers, tilting her head toward the horse.

I nod, then close my eyes and try to remember every map I’ve ever seen of the location of the Dragon Mine or the border between Marion and Ethiria. When I open my eyes, Lilias is frowning at me.

“We have to go over that ridge,” I whisper, pointing to the south. “Away from their camp. And away from Ethiria.”

Lilias nods. I run my hand through my hair, remembering the blank space on the maps.

“With any luck, we’ll meet the Marion River,” I say, trying not to think about how long it might take two people and one horse to limp across all that blank space. “There’s nothing else on the southern edge of this mountain range.”

Lilias frowns. She glances toward the southern ridge, then turns to her hands.

“There’s something over there,” she whispers. “By the Marion River. It’s the king’s old hunting camp. I can find it, I think.”

I shrug. I don’t realize I’m smiling until my damn bottom lip cracks open again, leaking blood over my chin.

“Anything would be better than what we have,” I admit.

Our eyes meet, and she turns back to her hands again. I hope she’s not thinking about Syvan. Or wondering if her hands will ever feel clean again.

I wish I could tell her it gets better.

I reach forward, but Lilias flinches and pulls back, dipping her hand into her pocket.

“Oh,” she cries. “I almost forgot.”

She takes something from her pocket. It catches the sunlight, and I freeze, thinking she grabbed one of the silver chains from Fyrris. But no, this is too small. And too familiar.

She holds her hand out to me. The metal cylinder that I’ve worn around my neck for years rests in her open palm.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. When I drag the chain from her fingers, my hand shakes. It takes me two attempts to fasten the clasp around my neck, and even then, I press my fingers against the cold metal like I’m afraid it’s going to vanish again.

It’s all I have left of them. And I thought I’d lost even this, the ashes and dust that I’ve carried for so long.

I swallow hard, expecting Lilias to ask me what in the nine hells that thing is. I’ve got a dozen stories I’ve tossed off over the years; somehow, none of them seem like they would fit right now, in the harsh light of the rising sun, in the middle of the wilderness.

But Lilias doesn’t ask. Instead, she turns away, unties the horse, and whispers to him as she rubs his neck. I remember Syvan’s white stallion as a nervous, high-strung piece of work, but he looks meek as a kitten with Lilias.

Gods above. Marion doesn’t know what they lost when they sent their princess to Vsenrog.

I wipe my eyes, tap my fingers one more time against the metal cylinder containing the ashes of the castle of Dungal, and walk to join my wife. Together, we turn toward the south.

Chapter 56