“I am not. You need me, so I set the conditions. This time, I will journey comfortably.” She paused. “I am joking about the servants, yes, but I’m not traveling by foot or even by horse, as charming as Merridia is. And I’m absolutely not sleeping on the ground. Those days are long over. I swore to myself that I would never again suffer like that.”
“Think of it as a recreational camping trip, with hiking.”
“You know I hate camping.”
Yes, Kreya knew that—she remembered how much Zera had whined last time about every burnt dinner, every rock under her bedroll, every truncated night of sleep due to bugs or snakes or bears—but . . . “You’re the one who wants to come.”
Zera smiled gaily at her. “And you’re the one who needs me.”
“I only need your talismans. Give them to me, and you don’t have to endure any of this.”
“This isn’t me being spoiled,” Zera said.
Kreya snorted.
“I’m serious. This is me being practical. If we wear ourselves out on the journey, we’ll be diminished when we arrive at the wall. I know myself well enough to know I don’t have the stamina I used to, and I would venture to guess you don’t either. You want us at our best for the difficult part? Then we do it my way.”
That... actually made sense. “So what do you suggest?”
She spread her arms theatrically. “Like I said. We fly.”
“Huh.”
“I have talismans.”
“And will they keep us from being seen as we soar majestically through the air? You know there are towns and villages and farms between here and the forbidden zone. All it would take is for someone to look up.” Only a handful of people in Vos had the kind of wealth to purchase a flight talisman, and combined with the gossip undoubtedly caused by Zera’s absence from Cerre, it wouldn’t take a genius to guess their identities if they were spotted as they flew.
“So we fly at night.”
“You have experience with that? Controlling your trajectory at night? What’s to keep us from crashing into a mountainside we can’t see?”
“Lights?”
“Again, someone could look up, especially if we’re using the lights from the houses to navigate.” It was too risky. There was, however, an alternative to flight that didn’t involve either walking or horseback riding and would allow them to keep a low profile, both literally and figuratively. “Come with me.”
Scooping up a lantern and lighting it, she led Zera downstairs, past the bedroom where Jentt lay, over the broken cleaning construct, and then down farther into the cellar. She hung the lantern on a hook on the wall and surveyed the mess.
Beside her, Zera surveyed it too. “You live alone. You have nothing but time on your hands. And yet you live in squalor.”
Stepping over a broken cart, Kreya tried to remember where she’d stored the old crawler. It shouldn’t be hard to find—the thing was enormous. “I have other priorities.”
Zera picked up a shield and blew dust into the air. “This is the Shield of Lothmenan, worn in battle by the legendary... what’s-her-name. You know, historical legend woman. It’s priceless, and you have it leaning against a barrel of undoubtedly sour wine.” She laid the shield down and waded into the room. Opening a trunk, she peered in. “You let moths and moisture destroy masterpieces—”
“Possessions don’t matter to me as much as they do to some people.” Maybe she should have taken better care of her belongings, but after Jentt’s death, she just hadn’t been able to bring herself to care.Later,she’d always said. Later, when she didn’t have to worry about finding more bones. Later, when Jentt was with her every day and she wasn’t consumed with fear of a permanent goodbye. After she brought him back, then she’d tackle all the tasks she’d postponed.
“You’re trying to insult me to deflect from yourself, but I see you. This is how you express your pain, through a lack of carefor yourself and your belongings.” Zera picked up a rusted scythe. Cobwebs clung to its handle.
“Cleaning just isn’t important to me.”
“Obviously.”
Aha, there it was! Kreya climbed over an on-its-side wardrobe and pulled aside a carpet to reveal her prize: a crawler. Made of metal and wood, the crawler was—like everything else in the cellar—not in the best of shape. The carriage, an orb large enough to hold two passengers, was disconnected from the eight spiderlike metal legs.Seven,she corrected. One leg was missing. She began searching for it. If she could get the contraption operational again, they could take a much more direct route across the cliffs, rather than needing to follow roads. That could cut their travel time in half.
Given the choice, Kreya would take a construct over a talisman any day. Constructs didn’t run out of power anywhere near as fast as a body could burn through a talisman. Just look at her little friend still scrubbing her stairs.
Zera was still complaining. “I detected an odor in the tower, but I assumed it was from Jentt. If it’s you, we’re going to fix that before we travel togeth—whoa, is that a crawler? Neat. You know those are considered old-fashioned now. The bone makers in Cerre have been working with the mechanics’ guild on new cable cars that—”
“It’s fast, it can climb, and it can conceal us—if I get it working again.” Crawlers, especially old ones, were common enough to be unremarkable. Or, at least, untraceable.
