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Many other voyage-weary travelers had also paused in their journeys and were purchasing food and drink from a handful of vendors posted along the roadside.
My mate loitered among the venders and was back to being old, a female this time, with frail skin and a gaunt frame, and scraggly long white hair that snarled down her back like shriveled, dead snake skins hanging from her scalp.
Keeping a distance away, I hung back, huddled in my dark cloak, and paused at the end of a line of people who were waiting to purchase some ale. She had no idea I was there.
She didn’t sell bread this time but was peddling fish. Her trade seemed popular enough as she’d accumulated her own line of waiting customers, eager to purchase her wares. She’d smile at them like a kindly old lady, wishing them a good day as they left. Hope swelled in my chest. Maybe she wasn’t cantankerous after all.
But she must not have had much to sell because she ran out of stock about the same time I reached the front of the line I was in, where I’d just dropped some coin in a bucket and gotten a hearty swig of ale from the ladle offered to me.
She didn’t linger long after selling her last mackerel. Packing up her traveling case—no trolley this time—she turned away and hobbled down the road on foot, away from the settlement.
Since others were going that way as well, I lingered near them, so she’d think I was part of their group when she glanced over her shoulder to check her trail.
Reaching a curve in the road, I lost sight of her for a few minutes, and once I reached the place where I could see again, she’d disappeared. I frowned and scanned the trees on either side of me, wondering which way she’d gone.
The mark told me to veer left.
After slowing my pace to let the group I’d been clinging near move along and not catch me creeping from the main path like some kind of bandit, I slipped between the trees. My horse nickered softly as a low-hanging branch full of leaves brushed against her pelt.
“Shh,” I cautioned.
Not that my warning made much difference. The horse snuffled out a sound and shook her head, not a fan of all the trees touching her. The crunch of hooves tromping through all the foliage underfoot seemed to echo all around me, sounding more like a stampede of a dozen stallions, not one single mare.
There was no way to be completely inconspicuous on horseback while following someone through a forest. I glanced back toward the roadway. We moved far enough away that I couldn’t see it anymore.
Perfect.
Dismounting, I took the horse’s reins and tied her to a tree, leaving her a pouch full of grain to eat for a while until I returned. Then I started ahead on foot, only to realize the cat wanted to follow me.
“Why don’t you stay back with the horse?” I suggested.
It completely ignored me.
I rolled my eyes. “I know you can understand me. Mittens.”
The cat growled a warning and hurried a few steps ahead of me.
“Fine,” I grumbled, lowering my voice. “You can come along. Just keep quiet.”
Slowing back down so it was walking at my side, the cat didn’t make a sound, contentedly padding along on silent paws.
Together, we followed the sensation in my mark until I caught a whisper of movement up ahead.
“There,” I murmured, pointing. The cat leaped soundlessly onto a tree branch so it could see better.
Up ahead, my mate paused and slowly glanced back. I was near enough to the tree to blend into it without being seen. And the cat stepped in front of me, either blocking me from her or blocking her from me—I wasn’t entirely sure which.
Turning forward again as if satisfied she was alone, the old woman changed her gait from a bumbling uneven shamble to a faster, spry clip full of youth and vigor. This was no aged person in front of me. But she didn’t skip or dash like a child either.
I still had no clue about the gender, but at least I had a rough estimate for the age now. That was a start.
The woods thickened and the sound of running water grew louder. Closer. The woman approached a sudden break in the trees at the edge of a brook, where a horse waited, tied to a limb. She neared the horse, petted its flank in greeting, and plopped her pack down on the ground beside its saddle.
I watched in awe, easing closer as she bent to fish some jerky from her travel bags and then chewed on it while pacing around the small clearing. My lips parted as oxygen hissed from my lungs.
Now was as good a time as any to approach her. But I already knew she’d try to run again, and I wanted this moment to enjoy just being in her presence. My mark seemed to sigh as if appeased by the proximity too. Or maybe it was her emotions coming through that made me feel so much lighter.
She liked being away from everything and alone. At peace. I was kind of loath to ruin that moment for her with my presence.
