“Exactly,” Baxley agreed with a frown.
“I know,” I told them quietly. “He knows these trails better than most. He'll wait until I'm alone somewhere, and he'll try again.” I looked at my boots. “I don't really want to spend the next season watching my back on every trail I walk.”
Nobody said anything. They didn't need to. I refused to look at any of them.
“I'm not committing to anything,” I said, not looking anywhere near Nicco.
“Nobody asked you to,” Larana said, and when I glanced at her, a smile played on her lips.
“I'm saying I'll travel south with you.” I looked down at my boots. “For a while. See what's there.” I looked back up. “That's all I'm saying.”
Baxley smiled, a small, genuine one. Larana turned back to the horizon. Nicco said nothing, which was its own kind of answer.
“Right.” I pulled my lodestone from my pocket and let it find south. “Are you okay with that?”
Nicco’s gaze flicked to me once. “Let’s move.”
Which I took as his way of saying yes.
The road south from Collharrow was easier than anything we'd traveled in weeks.
It wasn't easy. It was still Crystallese, still the depths of winter, with that unique cold that required constant negotiation. However, it felt easier. The terrain was familiar, the kind I'd been reading about long before I could articulate what I was experiencing.
And then they got horses, which was a first for me.
It happened in the evening of the second day. Baxley had demanded a roof over his head, and when I judged our location and told them there was a small village just east of us with an inn, we’d diverted off course. Larana had not been overly thrilled with my interpretation of an inn, which confused me.
“You rent a bed for the night, what more do you want?” I asked her.
“I want a bath. And a hot meal.” She tossed her braid over her shoulder. “I want meat in myhotfood and not rat meat.”
I bit the bottom corner of my lip. “I think it’s pigeon meat.”
She gave me a look that spoke a thousand words, and all of them were curse words.
“It’s a roof over our heads,” Baxley told her. “We’ll get you a better inn at the next town we stop at.”
She still wasn’t happy, but she stomped inside anyway. When we found out there was only one room left with only two beds, I was sure she was going to skin me alive.
Larana and I took one bed, sleeping head to toe. Baxley took the other bed, and Nicco sat with his back to the wall, legs crossed. Within minutes, he was asleep.
“He’s always able to sleep anywhere,” Larana grumbled.
“Will he be comfortable?” I whispered as I peered at his sleeping form.
“He’ll get rest,” Baxley mumbled from across the small room. He dropped a blanket over his companion. “He’s not slept for more than a few hours for weeks.”
“Would like to change that now,” Nicco rumbled as he moved farther onto the floor, dragging the blanket from Baxley over his shoulders.
He looked up at me when the edge of my pillow tickled the side of his face.
“It’s too soft for me,” I lied. “Might make the hard floor easier for you.”
He took it without a word.
I fell asleep smiling.
In the morning at breakfast, I was glad it was honeyed porridge we were served, as it seemed it had been rat meat the night before, and I was sure Larana was now cataloging her grievances against me.
