Her ghostlight gaze was fierce. “I still believe that when morning comes, the road will be under my feet. So, I keep walking straight.”
Fern winced at a feeling of painful familiarity and refrained from saying things like,Well, maybe you should just stop for the night,orI’ve never seen a road that straight in my life, what are you talking about?Because it felt like bad form to abuse somebody else’s metaphor.
Astryx continued. “But this ismyroad. It doesn’t have to be yours. You said before that you couldn’t go back—but back is only one direction. You can choose a path to anywhere in the Territory. Step off this one at any time.” Then she asked the same question Fern had asked of Zyll just days ago. “Why areyoustill here?”
Her mind’s first defensive response was to muster a tart reply, but Fern strangled that impulse. Instead, she took a slow breath. She watched the dust motes dance in the light slanting through the high window of the stable while she considered the question, determined to give an honest answer. “At the start, I think this was just something to cling to when I was drowning, and as we traveled, it was easy to convince myself that dry land was getting farther and farther away. Even when I could’ve paddled for shore, a convenient storm made it simple to justify hanging on longer. The Four Fingers. Turnbuckle. Good excuses to pretend I had no choice. But now . . . Honestly?” She laughed bitterly at a realization that felt like an echo resounding through her entire life. “I worry you’d think less of me if I left. I know what I’m going to see in Viv’s face when I go back, and I couldn’t stand to see it in yours, too. Not that youneedme or anything.”
Astryx’s hand fell on her shoulder. “Have you already forgotten the worthy things you’ve done? Bucket won’t forget, and neither will I. You belong if you want to. But, if your reason for being here is only because of what I might think?” She squeezed, gently. “You should find a better one.”
“Oathmaiden?”
Staysha’s breathless exclamation brought them both up short as they emerged from the stable. The dwarf had stopped mid-stride, clearly on her way to her wagon with a bundle under one arm and black hair riffling under cold licks of wind. She shot Fern an accusing glance. “And you didn’t tell me?”
Astryx answered before Fern could marshal an awkward explanation, laying a hand on her shoulder and making a show of leaning on the rattkin for support. “I’ve been recovering from a battle. You’ll have to forgive her—my squire is very protective of my rest. That must be your wagon? Which would make you the bard. The Silver Sparrow, if I remember right?”
The shadow immediately cleared from Staysha’s face, replaced with a gratified smile. “Oh, you’ve heard of me? Er, I mean—gosh, you were wounded? You’d never know it to look at you!” Her eyes were keen. “Can I convince you to tell me all about it?”
Pulling her cloak tight around her shoulders, Fern tried to look apologetic. “I’ve really got to get her in from the cold. She’s already overexerted herself today, and Burdock will have my head if I keep her away too long.”
The dwarf fought to hide her disappointment. “Maybe later, though?”
“I’m sure that would be just fine,” allowed Astryx, with subtle pressure on Fern’s shoulder to get them both moving.
“An epic ballad about the Blademistress won’t write itself!” the dwarf hollered after them.
As they made their way back into the heat and shadow of the abbey, leaving a disappointed Staysha behind, Fern asked in a loud whisper, “Wouldthat be just fine?”
Astryx snorted. “Gods, no.”
Over the following days, Astryx recovered with increasing speed, moving out of the cramped infirmary to a guest room with larger furniture for taller visitors. She took meals in the refectory and walked with increasing frequency and duration in Fern’s company, making a sort of game of surprising Zyll wherever she was wandering. The goblin did not appear off-put. If anything, she seemed to delight in finding more obscure places to be, from wine cellar to widow’s walk. Very often, there was something unexpected and possibly recently alive in her mouth.
Staysha, on the other hand, made herself too easy to find, doing her damnedest to corner the elf and tease out tales of adventure and battle. Astryx seemed to experience bouts of crippling and unspecific weariness whenever this happened.
She endured Burdock’s daily ministrations with patience, though, even after her stitching was snipped and removed. Fern entered the infirmary after one such session just as the black-furred physician was leaving, grumbling loudly about Callis oil.
The Oathmaiden’s skin was flushed red, sweat slicking her face, but at Fern’s concerned look, she gritted her teeth and hissed, “Fine. I’m fine.”
“Overanxious to be on her way, apparently,” observed Abbess Bluebriar, waiting nearby with arms crossed. The woman regarded Astryx shrewdly. “Although I’d just as soon you not expire anywhere nearby. We don’t do much to polish our reputation, but I’d also rather we not be remembered as the last place you were seen alive.”
“I’ll do my best to stagger a little farther down the mountain before dying,” gasped the elf, one hand clamped to her side.
“May Tarim spare all who deserve it,” said the abbess, with a long-suffering sigh, “and you, too.”
Dear Viv,
I’m sorry, but, of course, you are keenly aware of that already unless you have somehow missed all the other letters I’ve written.
I look at the piles of pages I’ve scribbled to you, stained or smeared or wrinkled, and they look like the ravings of a crazy person.
Which is accurate, I guess.
As I think I wrote once before, this has clearly ceased to be a bunch of failed attempts at writing a single letter to you and has become an unending monologue. After handing you this thick stack of messy pages, I think at this point I’ll have to come back a week later to see if you’ve made it to the last one, and how the end of it all added up for you.
I don’t even know the end. How strange. I can’t picture one now, and don’t know if that’s a terror or a relief.
We’ve been at this Tarimite monastery for weeks, and writing to you has almost become an obsession. I can’t bring myself to read anything from the library. Isn’t that odd? Words can only go out of me. None can come in. They pass through my mind without a trace when I try to read a page. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that in my life, not once. Pretty terrible liability for a bookseller. Fortunately, they have plenty of paper and were willing to part with some while we continue to abuse the hospitality of this pack of cultists in the mountains. So, writing it is.
I told you about the abbess and the conversation I had with her. Of course, there’s not a chance in all eight hells I’d ever consider becoming a penitent (ha!), but I figure I will be less obnoxious to Tarimites in the future. It’s hard to maintain one’s cold aloofness when someone keeps feeding you hot meals every day and tending your wounded friend.
