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Nobody was waiting outside to tell me which option was correct.

The thought still irritated me, but it also felt different now.

I reached for Janus's old knife, slid it from the wall, and tucked it into the sheath at my thigh before heading for the door.

I might as well see what making my own decisions meant.

Chapter Four: Maybe I Didn't Want to Be Alone

Jade

I made it as far as the front gate before discovering that deciding to go somewhere worked considerably better when a person had somewhere in mind.

The road beyond Nephrite's house curved back toward the central Residential circle in one direction and disappeared between another row of houses in the other. Neither looked useful when I had no reason to pick one over the other. I stood with one hand against the low stone wall and considered my options while people moved around me with the confidence of someone who had solved this problem years ago.

A woman in Battalion black crossed the road carrying a basket under one arm. Two men came from the opposite direction arguing about a cracked shield plate. Neither gave any sign that deciding where to walk required the amount of thought I was currently wasting on it, and somewhere behind the neighboring house someone laughed loud enough to send several birds off the roof.

Nobody stopped to ask where I was going. That was the entire point, and it wasn't helping.

Corian had been clear. I could use the house, walk through Residential, go onto the open Citadel grounds, and generally exist without handing anyone an itinerary first. I'd asked enough versions of the same question that there couldn't possibly be a hidden meaning.

Ashter warmed beneath the skin at my wrist.

"I know. I'm deciding."

The warmth increased. I looked down at my sleeve. "You spent most of the morning asleep. Your opinion isn't required."

That earned me enough heat that I suspected he'd taken offense.

I pushed away from the wall and chose left, mostly because standing there any longer had started to feel embarrassing. For the first few minutes I followed the quieter road toward the central Residential district, passing houses I'd noticed without properly seeing them. The buildings hadn't changed.

I had.

Earlier I'd tracked every stranger, every approaching body, every sudden movement, all while pretending the crowd didn't bother me. Now there were fewer people, and more than that, nobody expected me to keep pace with four men who already knew where they were going.

I could stop if I wanted to.

That discovery came when I noticed a narrow garden beside one of the houses, full of blue flowers I didn't recognize, and slowed down to look at them. My first instinct was to keep moving. Stopping in the middle of a journey for no reason felt wrong, except there wasn't really a journey when I hadn't decided where I was going.

So I stopped, and nobody cared.

The flowers turned out to be disappointing. Ordinary enough that I couldn't find anything interesting about their biology. I stayed a few seconds longer anyway before continuing toward the wider road.

This freedom thing was going to take practice.

By the time I reached the edge of Residential, I'd finally decided where I was going.

Gledhi Forest stretched beyond the northern side of the Citadel grounds, its canopy visible above the lower buildings as a dense sweep of green that darkened the farther it spread from the roads. I'd been watching it between rooftops for several minutes before admitting that every turn I'd taken since leaving the house had been carrying me toward it anyway.

I'd made a decision without noticing.

That seemed inefficient but I was willing to accept the result anyway.

Ashter reacted the moment the first line of trees came into view. Heat rushed along my forearm, then smoke slipped from beneath my sleeve and poured down beside me in a twisting black stream. Red glowed beneath the cracks in his hide, brighter than it had been inside the house, wisps of smoke still curling around his back legs before they thinned into the afternoon air.

"Oh, now you're interested."

Ashter bounded forward.