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“Are you trying to be cryptic? Or blatantly obvious?”

Even after all their time together, Revni couldn’t match his pace without panting. “We need to know where we are. We don’t have time for Blue Men or deserters, or for me to learn another language while you nap.”

Eavus stopped.

“Aleteria will know the territories, won’t they?”

Eavus adjusted his kit pole, and Revni took the break to catch her breath. Her heart was pounding. If the gods were testing her, there was always only one right answer.

“They have locals they use as messengers,” he admitted. “Maps. A whole network.”

“So if we stick to the routes they know, the people they trade with— They could find us. If they were looking.”

Eavus eyed her warily. It was stupid. Reckless. But that terror that weighed her down.

An Isfolj didn’t shy away from danger. She needed to become Isfolj again, before they reached her people. She needed to prove her worth to the gods.

“You had hoped to turn east, follow the Bragi.”

Eavus nodded.

“This is not the way of the goose.”

“The goose?”

“Flies straight. The shortest distance.”

Eavus shook his head, the wary expression on his face making Revni’s face heat.

Bees’ mind. He already knew without her having to say it.

“So we go straight. Straight north. Through the Sculpae.”

THIRTY-TWO

They moved like the drothr were at their heels, devourers of souls. The fields and thick forests of the south and east dissolved into rock as the earth tilted upwards, and that was how Revni felt, like the gods had put them on a board that they slanted up and down at their pleasure. There was no cover except the valleys between hills—valleys that appeared out of nowhere, pools of fog obscuring them—and no purchase for the downhill slopes. More than once, Revni lost her footing and slid, Eavus sometimes catching her by the upper arm and practically yanking it out of her socket to stop her descent. He, too, slid down the occasional crack, despite his hobnailed boots, and after that they tied themselves together at the waist. The terrain was steeper and slicker than Isfjold, but the altitude was similar enough to those icy mountains that Revni recognized dandelion and burnet and sorrel fighting for survival amid the rocks. The greens were bitter and not at all enough, but they’d serve to stem a gnawing stomach. Eavus had rations for when they made camp, but there was no wood for fires, and they wouldn’t have called such attention to themselves anyway. At night, by unspoken agreement, they curled together for warmth, sharing Eavus’ cape as a blanket. It was as if there had been a Before, and once the canyon had been crossed, they were now here in the After, where shivering alone in the dark simply made no sense.

By Eavus’ estimation, they had crossed into Sculpae lands this morning, and two days more would see them through it. He didn’t know the direct route to Norbucum—if there even was one—but he had a map of the coast in his mind. He briefly sketched it for her in the dirt.

“The coast is jagged. It juts out here—close to where I met you—” he added, with a tone in his voice that made Revni’s cheeks inexplicably heat.

“The Muzzle.”

He looked up, surprised.

“That’s what we call it. The monastery is beneath it, the Snake above.” She pointed.

“Right. Well, this river—the Snake—” Revni grinned to hear an Isfolj word out of his mouth. “—cuts across south of Norbucum. So once we get to it, we just cross it, and then head east. If we hit the ocean, we’ve missed the town, but we just follow the coast north from there and we’ll find it.”

Revni squeezed her eyes shut, thinking. “The Snake, it turns. They said that we would follow it, and then to another, and another, to keep going west. My people settled north, but far away from the coast. The Isfolj that settled the old city were a different clan than mine.”

Eavus eyed his rough map. “Well, that’s ok, then. As long as those rivers keep cutting across the country, as long as we cross over, east from there should do it.”

Revni held her own fear in her heart. Eaborik and Norbucum—she hadn’t realized until his map that they were the same city. She could not go to Eaborik. The jurlssons that ruled the coastal city were the horror stories of her childhood: traitors and heathens, who would as soon gut a Gondyttr descendant as offer her a cup of aul. But the thought of splitting up gave her an odd feeling in her chest. Hollow and wild.

Eavus swiped his hand across the scratchings in the dirt, clearing it, then stood, slapping his palm across his leather skirt before opening the waterskin and taking a drink. She’d grown accustomed to those strong hands hauling her up, the small hairs below his knuckles, that rough callus below his second finger. It was odd, how different he seemed to her now than when they’d first met. She had been terrified of him then, but also so superior. Convinced that she could beat him if she got the chance.

She stood when he offered her the skin. The leather pouch was supple from his body heat, and the water within had gone tepid. She eyed him while she drank. Now it was the opposite. In a proper fight, face to face? She was honest enough to admit he could snap her in two. But the rest of the time he seemed almost like a lost child. Not in a way that frustrated, or lacked intelligence. It was the way he secretly got so excited whenever she showed him some new skill, pointed out a plant or a bird she knew the name of. He’d furrow his brow and grunt indifference, but then she’d catch him out of the corner of her eye, subtly moving his wrist as they walked, practicing the technique, or his lips parted, his tongue testing new words. He was doing it now, and she almost choked on her drink, trying not to laugh. He was squinting into the distance as the sun broke through, revealing new mountains, but his mouth was moving.