Set an even harder task, Soren supposed the only thing to do was as she said. Tell her everything.
There were many storms, he said, storms along the southern coast that ripped rocks from the cliffs and swallowed whole beaches. It was no wonder the Droplets, a set of islands where many of the dragons lived, were so pitted and stark. They had traveled along the coast for about a year, fishing sometimes. There was one place, a windy cliff that overlooked the sea, where the afternoon wind was so strong, it could lift even a human man without wings. They helped Kiri learn to fly there.
Another year they spent wandering the great southern lands, full of tribes of humans, mantii, harpies, sirens, and even a few outposts of dragons. The Irynian Delta, with its lush grasslands and towering obelisks, had been particularly impressive. But,everywhere they went, the presence of Pyrrossi soldiers kept them moving. As large and diverse as the southlands were, many tribes had been conquered and claimed by the Pyrros’s vast army. Now called the Conquered Confederation, the southland tribes had been too disparate to ultimately resist.
Ultimately, Balar decided to leave the Pyrrossi pall, and they followed the rivers upstream. To the north, in the mountains that bisected the Pyrrossi heartland, they’d seen the great volcano Lupatian spitting fire. Pyrrossi legend said that Lupatian had created their continent, and as his first people and chosen followers, the Pyrrossi were inheritors of his lands. The whole area was a black, barren landscape that rumbled underfoot and smelled of sulfur and ash.
Along the borders of orcish territory, they’d seen canyons deeper than a mountain was tall, so deep, fog collected along its floor far, far below. The orcs along these borderlands were secretive, sometimes hostile, and so they never tarried long. They eventually found a mighty river they now knew was the Southern Shanago River, and followed it, journeying through the Griegen Mountains, the Gray Knolls, and finally into Eirea.
“Your land is rich in lakes,” said Soren. “We thought for a time that we must have found the Intersea, if not the great ocean they say lies in the north.”
It was in a larger town, a place called Briggan, where they heard of somewhere welcome to otherly folk looking to settle. By then, Kiri was no longer so small, and all of them had grown weary of travel.
“It was time to plant our spears and make a new home.” That’s what Balar had said.
A sweet smile touched Maeve’s lips as his words came to a close. He’d been talking for a long while now, far longer than he was used to, and he worried he’d bored her.
It was a relief, then, when her smile widened and she said,“That sounds like an adventure.”
He didn’t know what else to do but shrug. “We knew no other way but forward.”
She seemed to like that, nodding enthusiastically. “I want to see amazing things, too. Not spend my whole life in one place.” Wistfulness touched her expression. “You’re lucky to have seen all that.”
Was this why she planned to leave? To seek her fortune? He supposed it wasn’t so strange; many harbored a wanderlust that could only be satisfied by adventure and newness. Soren thought there was nothing better than a stable home, but then, he’d had his adventure already. He couldn’t begrudge someone else theirs, certainly not Maeve.
She was still so young, so vibrant. There was a world of things to see, people to meet. And all of them would be the lucky ones to have met her.
The thought was bittersweet, and so Soren kept it to himself. Instead, he said, “It is the way for mantii men sometimes, to have to leave their pride.Barzi, we call it.”
Her smile slowly fell, and Soren held his breath as he watched her attention focus on the wicked scars across his face. He knew before she said anything what she would ask next.
“Why did you have to leave?”
Soren gritted his back teeth, casting his troubled gaze into the fire.Kud, he didn’t want to tell her. He couldn’t be sure what all Kiri might’ve told her, nor what she may have heard from someone else, but he doubted she knew the whole truth. Soren didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want to see the disappointment in her eyes.
Perhaps this will end whatever we have. He didn’t want that, but it was likely better to get it over with, right?
“I was exiled,” he admitted through stiff lips.
“Exiled?” she murmured.
Soren nodded once, unable to bear looking at her and seeing her disgust.
Her touch, then, was a surprise. Gentle fingertips came to rest on his face, just at the inception of his scars. Those cool, slender fingers traced the white scars that stood starkly against his tawny fur. He couldn’t help shuddering at her touch, and before she could finish running her fingers down the lines that hiserezhad made, Soren clutched her hand to his cheek.
“How could that be?” she asked, sounding…outraged?
Soren dared to glance up. Indeed, he found her frowning, but her anger didn’t seem to be at him. Rather…dare he hope…for him?
“There was a fire. I was blamed for it.”
“What? But was it even your fault?”
“No.” He wouldn’t say more. It no longer truly mattered whose fault it was, and Kiri didn’t deserve the burden of it.
“Then how could they do that to you? Was there a trial?”
Her genuine indignation made him happy and ache at the same time. He didn’t deserve her outrage, but he was glad to have it nevertheless.
