“I can see that.”
The sun was beginning to pierce the mantle of fog above us. Edan loaded the books onto his horse’s back, then threw a glance over his shoulder.
“We should go,” he said. “The guards are half asleep now, and I’d rather not have to waste more magic or face their questioning when they’re alert.”
So he hadn’t told His Majesty he was coming with me.
He helped me onto my saddle and handed me a pair of leather straps. “Pull back to stop, left or right to turn. Don’t let go.”
I gripped the reins. “How do you know I’ve never ridden a horse before?”
He pointed at how stiffly I sat on my saddle, and at how my feet were digging into my poor horse’s body. “Relax, and give a good kick with your heels when you need to go. Don’t fall asleep or you’ll fall off.”
I nodded and timidly patted my horse’s mane. His coat was deep amber, like the sands of the desert we would be passing through. “What’s his name?”
“Pumpkin.”
“And yours?”
Edan flashed a grin at his horse, which was significantly larger than mine and had a beautiful black coat with a silvery mane. “Valiant Grace.”
“Naturally,” I muttered as he leapt onto his saddle with one elegant motion and was off.
I gave Pumpkin a kick, but he neighed and tried to unseat me before setting off with a lurch. I clung to him, bouncing awkwardly as he trotted on. At least he knew to follow Edan.
• • •
It felt like forever before Edan called for a break. “We won’t take as many after today,” he warned me.
“I’m not…tired,” I said between breaths. “We can…keep…going.”
Edan cast me a knowing look. “Five minutes. Sit up straight and catch your breath.”
I rolled my neck back and stretched my legs, already sore from only an hour of riding. To my dismay, we were barely out of Niyan! I could still see the faint outline of the Summer Palace in the distance, tiny as a butterfly, its sloping golden roofs and scarlet gates bright specks before the expansive city. I gulped. “How many days until the Samarand Passage?”
“Three,” Edan replied. “But at the pace we’re going now, maybe seven.”
I winced.
“We’ll trade the horses for camels once we get there. The Halakmarat Desert begins on the cusp of A’landi’s borders; we’ll have to go some way into the desert if we hope to find a golden wheel spider.” He fished in a pocket for his map. “Deeper still to reach the Temple of the Sun.”
I stared at the map in disbelief. “Two months won’t be enough time to make this journey.”
“Trust me,” Edan said, rolling up the map. “It will be a little tight, but I’ve allowed for one or two…shortcuts.” He noted my skepticism. “Magical ones. You’ll see.”
I inhaled, basking in the cool breeze from the Jingan River. “I hope so.”
The Great Spice Road began wide. The farther we traveled, the narrower it became, but Edan was constantly ten paces ahead of me, so riding side by side was never an issue. We’d left early enough that traffic consisted of only a few local merchants pushing wheelbarrows, and it would only get lighter, since we were taking the southern fork of the Road through the Halakmarat Desert, which was less traveled and less patrolled.
Once I stopped worrying if I’d fall off Pumpkin every other minute, I ambitiously took out my needlework to work on a pattern for Lady Sarnai’s first dress. A futile endeavor. It was impossible to keep a steady hand while on horseback.
Frustrated, I gave up on sewing and watched the land around me change.
As we traveled deeper inland, the sun burned my back, gnats bit my fingers so many times they itched like mad, and the cool breeze from the river disappeared. I should have been miserable, but the landscape left me breathless. Rocks as red as the setting sun, lizards that dashed through the soft peaked dunes, their eyes bulging whenever they stopped to stare at me, and trees that grew shorter and shorter, until their roots lay supine over the coarse earth.
We stopped to make camp before sunset, and I was so exhausted I fell asleep soon after pitching my tent.
When I woke, night was fading, the first glimmers of the sun peeking over the horizon and shining through the folds of my tent. I rolled to my side and reached into my satchel for my brush and a piece of parchment.
