She moved against him. “I have?”
Astegur hummed in agreeance, scanning the last of the marsh that was between them and the mountains. “I’m still alive.”
He carried her and all the bags draped upon them through the final stretch of the marshes between Prayer and his home. Calavia had gone quiet after they left the outskirts of Prayer, like he knew she would. All he could do now was protect her delicate form for this final journey and be her hooves—her feet. If there was something Calavia could not do, he would do it for her, and he knew, in his hearts, she would do the same for him.
“Have you seen the mountains before?” he asked, when the very mountains he spoke of appeared like a towering wall before him. Much like the labyrinth wall did between his cursed world and Savadon. But unlike that wall, the mountains were climbable, with paths eroded over them from thousands of years of use. Once by men and now by beasts.
“Not in...not in a long time. Only through my wax.” Her voice hitched and he frowned. There was no more wax left, except for the small handful he had salvaged in one of his bags.
He had searched Prayer for half a day with her as she looked for her affinity. Only ruined clumps had remained. He vowed to find her more in the seasons to come. For her and his brothers, because having a witch among them again may give them the edge they needed to take these lands.
Astegur turned to the side. “Look.”
She went still against him, lifting her head from his shoulder to look up. He watched her as she gazed at the tall, shadowy peaks for the first time.
“They are fearsome,” she whispered. “Like you. I’m eager to see more.”
“And you will,” he said, turning toward back toward the mountains to continue on.
Sometime later, up a gradual climb through the crags between the mountains and swamp, the path he was looking for appeared. The marker he and his brothers had set out to warn off travelers stood tall and unbroken. He approached it and set Calavia down, noticing the new addition tied to it.
A lock of brown hair. He brushed it with his fingers.
Calavia came up beside him and touched it too. “Aldora’s hair.”
“Vedikus’s human?”
“If this warning is created by you,” she indicated the broken harpy skulls strewn upon the ground beside it, “she has hair like this.”
He turned to face her. “Would you like to add your own?”
Her brow furrowed in thought as he waited for her answer, but then she stepped up to it and chanted something softly, breathing over the tall wood piece with her mouth. A small glimmer appeared at the base of the marker, a green glow, not unlike the lights that once surrounded Prayer. Calavia stepped back, and he knelt where she’d just stood, placing his good hand into the light.
A heavy, warm, wet feeling engulfed his hand. A smile touched his lips. He never thought magic would bring him comfort, but after all that had happened in the past weeks, he had never been so grateful to touch something so familiar. It was the essence of Calavia, and it was his.
The trek up the mountains took longer than he expected. After the first marker, Calavia insisted they stop at each one, and stop at every enchantment and shallow cave between them and their destination, to bless each one with a green light. They wouldn’t keep out monsters, but they would light the way for those who looked for them during times of darkness.
They also had to stop to readjust her poor foot protection and check his wounds. The fact that they were healing was enough for him, but she insisted. And then there were the views, the needle-trees, and shady mountain glens. Calavia had to experience them all, and since nothing chased them and they were in no danger, he let her enjoy what she could. Their return to the living could be put off a little longer.
He could wait.
Because soon, they would be back with his brothers, and plans were to be made…
* * *
Calavia sat downnext to the small fire Astegur made her. She unbound the knots of her foot coverings and released her feet to slide them closer to the fire, moaning internally as the heat from it chased away the chill.
Each hour they climbed, more of the humidity of the swamps left her, and was replaced by freezing gusts of wind, cool temperatures, and dry air. She had grown accustomed to the cold of the wetlands, but this was a cold she was not used to. It had helped keep her mother and concerns of what would become of her in the immediate future out of her thoughts, but now that their ascent was nearly done, her worries returned.
She pulled some roots out of her bag and chewed on them as Astegur scouted the periphery of their camp. Several minutes later he settled at her side with a dead tark bird in his hand that he began to prepare for their meal.
“We need to talk,” she said after a short time.
“Hmm?”
“I did not end on the best of terms with your brother and his human…” she admitted to him. It had been something that had weighed on her for days. “I no longer—”
He growled, stopping her words. “I do not care about your blood, Calavia. It means nothing to me anymore.”
