Almost.
Exploring Erriadin called to her a little louder.
She swerved toward the beach, passing the sleeping ships, and evading the busy fisherman as they ran around the docks. Past the docks was a thin, rickety ladder that led to the sands, then to a path she could walk in her sleep. Sol made to step onto the sand, eager to feel its familiar warmth.
But she halted.
Her mother’s grave was far enough from the water that the waves never reached it but close enough to the sea, on the small grassland bordering the beach, to always feel the salty breeze. There had been no point in securing a burial plot at the town pantheon since so little of her mother’s body had remained after the murder. So she and Lora had burned the remains and buried the ashes at the beach, the place her mother loved the most.
No one except Sol, Lora, and Leo visited. So it was startling to see a figure looming.
The block of stone on the ground served as a memorial and was completely covered by a cloaked individual. Sol saw their handsshifting through the patches of lavender and moss she had planted around it.
A small part of her, the logical side, told her perhaps she should turn back and visit another day. But that pesky, defiant side pulled her forward, hands gripping her books harder in case she had to use them as weapons.
Salty seawater sprayed at her face, blurring her vision so that her steps turned sloppy—and noisy—as she descended the walkway.
The stranger peered over their shoulder. "Who's there?" The voice was firm and foreign, with a slight, deep Southern accent that piqued Sol's interest.
Still, she stopped a healthy distance from them. "I'm afraid that's the question I should ask you." Her voice shook, betraying the nonchalant facade she attempted to play.
A smile pulled at the man's full lips as he stood to face her.
Yavenharrow was filled with people from all edges of Erriadin since it was a town for travelers. However, most long-term citizens kept to brown eyes, black hair, and carefully sun-kissed skin, all the total opposite of Sol. It wasn't often she saw features like her own, so when the man removed his hood, she couldn't help but stare.
Pale ringlets fell around his forehead, stopping just above a set of pine-green eyes. Unlike Sol's, his had specs of silver so intense, she could see them from where she stood a few steps away.
He motioned to the tombstone, a small carved stone with her mother's initials. "I'm sorry. I guess this belongs to you?" Sol nodded and clutched her books against her chest.
"I was walking to the docks and saw this lovely bed of lavender, you see." The man held up a stem of lavender, plump and violet, and deliciously fragrant. "Then, after I plucked it, realized it was a grave and—" He ran his fingers through his hair in an obvious nervous tell, making Sol relax.
She cleared her throat and said, "You may take more if you'd like. The animals around here love to steal when they're fresh blooms anyway, so there are always chunks missing."
He knelt beside the bed of lavender and thyme, the impossible agricultural feat finally successful after she had begged Lora tobring back soil from the Driodell forest. The myths surrounding its ability to grow anything proved true. The herbs had been her mother’s favorite and offered a sort of comfort Sol hadn’t been able to match with anything else.
"I have a journey North and heard lavender helps with seasickness," he remarked, plucking another stem, and easing it into his pocket. "If this doesn't work I'm afraid I'll perish before I reach the Western Stones.”
Cautiously, Sol knelt on the opposite side. "You're better off trying ginger for that. Or Belladonna. Can't throw up if you're asleep."
A roar from the docks interrupted the man's laughter. Fishermen waved and rang their bells, signaling the departure of a ship.
The man sighed. "That's me, I'm afraid." He surveyed her, and Sol instantly regretted dropping her guard.
Yavenharrow men weren't the kind of people to have conversations without planning to take it further, she had learned that the hard way. But the man made no move forward or change of expression. Instead, he stood, brushing the sand off his leather breeches.
"Well, it was nice to meet you." He angled his head. “What’s your name?”
Sol’s breath hitched.
That had been Irene’s only rule. “You never tell anyone your full name, Sunshine. The only ones who can know are people you wholeheartedly trust. Even then, think twice about it.” She didn’t remember the first time her mom told her this but recalled it constantly throughout her life, and had yet to break it. Sol could only use her first name, the shortened version of it that most people knew her by anyway.
Still, she tried her best to avoid even giving that.
“Stella,” she lied, giving him the name of her favorite of Leo’s goats.
The man nodded. “Stella,” he repeated the name slowly. “Star.” Sol shrugged. “My mother liked the sky.”
Another booming horn vibrated on the beach, prompting the
