Astryx opened her mouth, but Fern didn’t give her the opportunity to speak, briskly rounding the corner of the wagon and striding into the rustling meadow across the road. Persimmon and Bucket didn’t look up from grazing contentedly.
“Oathmaiden, Oathmaiden, barf in my shoe,” grumbled Breadlee. “What a hack.”
“You don’t wear shoes,” observed Fern tartly.
“Not with barf in them.”
She stomped through the grass for a minute or two.
“I don’t like her,” she said at last. “But I don’t fucking knowwhy. Do I really have a bad feeling about her? Am I not giving her the benefit of the doubt because of Haber’s word? He was clear he couldn’t prove she did anything wrong.”
“I just don’t like music. I thought we were on the same page?”
“You don’t like—? Never mind. No, it’s not that. Gods, am Ijealous? Do I just want Astryx to myself, like some kind of child?”
“Oh, well, wanting her all to yourself is totally natural. At least it better be, because if not, I’d have to rethink every one of my goals for the future. And I absolutely do not want to do that,” chirped Breadlee. “If Nigel just happened to slip off that horse’s butt and disappear into the grass, or plunge to the bottom of a canyon, or, like, a deep river, maybe? I wouldn’t make a peep. Familiar feeling?”
Fern ground her teeth and didn’t reply, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to face the answer.
“Or maybe it’s just because the end of the road is coming,” said Breadlee more soberly, “. . . and you’re mad because you feel like you’re running out of time to do whatever it is you’re doing out here. To be clear, I have no idea what that is.”
Fern didn’t want to face the answer to that, either.
She walked a wide loop and returned to the animals, where she fussed over Bucket until Staysha’s singing voice trailed off.
“Finally,” Fern muttered to the horse, who lipped her paw sympathetically as she scratched his chin.
As she turned to head back to the wagon, she was startled to find Astryx almost beside her already. The Oathmaiden joined her at Bucket’s head, patting his cheek and inspecting his mane as though there were, in fact, something to be done with it.
Now Fern felt awkward about leaving, so she continued to stroke the horse’s chin.
Two people pretending to have important business with a horse,thought Fern, and nearly laughed aloud.
Astryx surprised her by speaking first. “Anything the matter?”
“Of course not,” lied Fern.
“All right,” replied Astryx. There was also apparently something critical to be adjusted on Bucket’s halter.
“Actually, she’s very annoyed,” declared Breadlee.
Fern withdrew the knife from her cloak pocket and hurled him into the grass.
“Hey!” he cried.
She ignored him and addressed Astryx. “All right, fine. I can’t stand it. Why are you . . .indulgingthis?”
The Oathmaiden frowned.“Indulging?”
“Yes! The song! Giving her ‘insight’”—Fern made a face—“when all she wants is to ride your coattails to, I don’t know, glory? Whatever it is bards want. It’s . . . it’sbeneathyou.”
“Only days ago, it wasyouwho told me that I ‘don’t stick around to be appreciated,’ and am always ‘off to the next thing,’” replied Astryx, with unexpected heat. “Now I pause for a moment and pay attention, say a few words to the people we helped, and listen to what they have to say in turn. I make time for someone that wants it, and it’s beneath me?”
“Well, not all of it, butthispart at least,” said Fern.
“Are you just chronically dissatisfied, or is that only when it comes to me?” demanded Astryx, ghostlight eyes blazing with a fierceness Fern had never felt directed toward her.
She nearly quailed beneath it, but the upset she was wrestling with couldn’t be subdued.
