Dowyr shifted uncomfortably in his chair at Garec’s table, wondering why the Captain had asked him to be present while he spoke to Elethe. He hadn’t asked him to read her mind or talk to her or anything like that—obviously she would know if he tried—but simply to be in the room. Elethe looked none too pleased at his presence either, though she said nothing. After telling Garec where the Tyrdens were—a Kircan city to the south-east called Florissant—they just silently stood in the middle of the room, staring at each other, not even bothering to glance in his direction.

  “You’ve made up your mind,” Garec said matter-of-factly.

  Elethe nodded, then nodded again as if to herself. “Yes.”

  Garec cleared his throat and reached into his coat pocket. He took out the letter he had received back at Fort Calhoun and held it to Elethe.

  “What’s this?” she asked, cautiously taking the letter.

  “It’s from Eala. Read it.”

  “Out loud?”

  “No, just read it.”

  Her eyes scanned the letter and slowly began to glisten.

  “I want you to take the letter back to her,” Garec said.

  “Take it back? Why would…” Elethe shook her head, then again more vigorously. “No. No!” She flung the letter back at Garec. “You’re taking it back yourself, you stupid uncle!”

  Dowyr looked around in any direction he could think of to avoid watching the two of them. Why on earth had Garec told him to sit here and listen to this?

  “I can’t,” Garec said, more calmly than Dowyr believed he felt.

  “Why?” Elethe screamed. “You’re going back, we’re all going back.”

  “You don’t understand. I walked away.”

  “But you two were perfect together.”

  Garec took a deep breath. “Not anymore. Not after I knew what I had to do, what it would take. She wouldn’t want me back.”

  “I don’t believe that. Why else would she send a letter? Light! Is this what you’ve been anxious about this whole time? Is this what you regret? You learn you’re going to be a father, and all you have to say is that you walked away?”

  Dowyr gaped at Elethe, then at Garec, who stood unnervingly still and indifferent. He was what? What kind of man did that? Not that the idea of a parent abandoning their child was alien to Dowyr, but he wanted to know. There had to be an understandable reason.

  “It’s better that way,” Garec said.

  Elethe clenched her fist. “Better for who? Eala? Knowing her I’ll bet if I came back with this letter in hand she’d try to chase you down all the way to the capital of Kircany, and I wouldn’t even try to stop her!”

  Garec seemed to relax, surprisingly. He even smiled briefly. “She would. But her brothers have better sense than to let her. It’s better for everyone. Her, me, the baby.”

  Elethe’s arms sagged at her sides. “You don’t mean that,” she sobbed. “You can’t… stupid… why does everyone think things are better without them?”

  Dowyr cringed inside when he realized that was meant for him as well. While he believed it was true, he shouldn’t have told her. And now he wondered if his own parents had thought he was better off without them. They couldn’t have known he was a mute and thus destined to be ignored all his life. Or maybe they thought they would be better off without him. Maybe they were right.

  Elethe wiped at her tears and drew herself up. “I won’t let you go like that. I won’t if I have to drag you back to Eala myself! I don’t care that you’re using this to manipulate me to stay, or that you’re using him!” She flung an arm in Dowyr’s direction.

  His eyes bulged and he nearly knocked his chair backwards. “You’re what!?” he tried to say out loud, though it came out as a garbled croak.

  Elethe glared at him. “What, like you didn’t know?”

  “KNOW WHAT?” Dowyr channeled to them both. “I don’t know why I’m here, I just want to go back to sleep! For a hundred years! No more screaming, no more killing, no more strangers signing at me through the window in the middle of the night.”

  Garec turned his full attention to him. “You saw someone signing to you last night?”

  Elethe gave Dowyr a curious look. “Someone signed at me too.”

  Garec’s head whipped back to her. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I forgot about it until now.”

  “It was a woman, right?” Dowyr channeled.

  Elethe looked between him and Garec. “No, it was a man. He looked right at me through the window and signed ‘safe’.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Garec again turned to Dowyr. “You saw a woman?”

  “It looked like a woman. She also signed ‘safe’, looking right at me. She disappeared around a corner right after. I almost thought it was a dream.”

  Elethe nodded. “Me too.”

  Garec’s eyes narrowed and he strode out of the room and across the hall to Dowyr and Weynon’s room. They followed him in as he approached Weynon, who sat on his bed reading The Five Sentinels. His eyes darted between the three of them.

  “Were you awake at any point during the night?” Garec asked.

  Weynon paused for a moment then shook his head. “No, I slept through it all. Did I miss something?”

  Garec frowned. “No, nothing. Never mind. Get dressed and something to eat, we’ll be leaving soon.”

  He strode back to his room, and Weynon gave Dowyr a questioning look, to which he shrugged and followed after Garec. Elethe seemed to hesitate before following.

  Once the door closed behind them, Elethe spoke with an unusually nervous tone. “So, um… he… I’m pretty sure he was lying.”

  The air felt a little colder at the words. Garec froze in place, and a chill went down Dowyr’s back. Weynon didn’t lie about something like that so casually. Hell, besides jokes, he never lied about anything. It just wasn’t who he was.

  “How do you know?” Garec asked.

  “I could feel him become agitated the moment you asked your question. Or scared, something like that, but whatever it was, there was something he remembered when you asked and it triggered an emotional response. He even immediately channeled to calm himself down to keep it from showing.”

  “Maybe he saw someone too, but doesn’t want to worry anyone,” Dowyr channeled, thinking it could be the only reasonable explanation.

  “Maybe,” Garec agreed, though he glared at a random corner of the room as though lost in thought. “We need to leave. Now. I don’t care what these strangers signed to you, this city isn’t safe anymore. The Kircans have probably lost sleep trying to figure out what happened last night. Elethe, get Sirona and Clarine ready to move. Dowyr, you get ready yourself.”

  Elethe took a deep breath and seemed to steel herself. “I hope you know that this conversation isn’t over. I meant what I said, I won’t let you abandon Eala or your child.”

  Garec gave her a solemn look. “We all do what we must.”

  Dowyr scampered back to his room to put on warmer clothes. Weynon was already dressed and had grabbed them some buttered cornbread from the kitchen to scarf down. The Parastenians made far better bread than Elyssanar, and cornbread was their specialty. Dowyr swore to learn how they made it if he ever returned.

  He still wasn’t sure what to think about the matter with Garec. It was cruel of him to leave his family behind, but he genuinely seemed to believe it was for the better. If he had been Dowyr’s father, it easily would’ve been preferrable for him to stay. But then, it wasn’t for him to judge, sharing such feelings of self-loathing.

  Wanting to forget the whole ordeal, Dowyr returned to Garec’s room with Weynon and waited. Within a few short minutes, everyone else had gathered their things and entered. The women looked haggard but prepared to face Hell himself if he came thundering down on the city. The men looked ready to spit in his face.

  “We have to leave our horses behind,” Garec said. “The Kircans will likely be suspicious of anyone going out, so until we can manage to get replacements—if we can anyway—we’ll be having Boughton and Clarine help us fly out of here fast enough to avoid notice. I’ve spoken with the innkeeper about the horses, and he’ll make sure they’re returned to Leife. I’ve left a coded letter with my horse so the rest of the Company will know what’s happening.”

  “What’s our next stop?” Henric asked.

  “Florissant is our target. It’s the main staging area of Kircany’s armies and where they’re keeping prisoners of war.” Garec gave Clarine a significant look. Gwyn looked somewhat confused by the exchange, so Dowyr channeled and explained they were also rescuing Clarine’s children. Best that he bought into the lie now.

  “We’ll go east until we reach the Missionary,” Garec continued. “There’s a large trade post on the river called Ravenport. Henric, I’ll need you to get us passage on a boat with either a Puffer or a Sogger. That way it should only be a week at most to reach Florissant.”

  Henric nodded. “Easy enough.”

  “Why are we taking a riverboat when we could fly there really fast?” Weynon asked.

  “Ye really want te be flying at that speed in this cold?” Donnan asked.

  Weynon frowned. “I guess not.”

  “It’s less about the cold and more about the risk,” Garec said. “We might be a small group now, but the closer we get to Kircany, the tighter their reign gets over the skies. Just because we have Clarine doesn’t mean they won’t have their own Sprinter and Scout teams. Not to mention it will be better to enter Florissant through its heart on the river. The prisons are likely to be located near there.”

  “How do you plan to rescue my children?” Clarine asked.

  “It’ll be rather simple,” Donnan said. “With the help of Gwyn, Henric, ye, and I will infiltrate it. They’re likely te have voidstones inside, but Gwyn can Boost ye from outside te let the four of us search for them quickly.”

  As they discussed the infiltration plan, Garec discreetly signed to Dowyr, link.

  He did so and asked, what is it?

  She still thinks you’re a Booster, right? Garec asked.

  I assume so. Dowyr frowned. It hadn’t been too difficult to maintain his distance from Clarine. He’d managed to spend hardly any time within her line of sight up until now, which had almost made him forget to channel to her and make her see his mouth move whenever he said something.

  Good. While Donnan’s group is chasing the shadow of Hell, the rest of us will be going after the Tyrdens under the guise that it’s another possible location for where Clarine’s children will be. We’ll need you to figure out exactly where they are.

  Okay. Dowyr stopped the link from letting any more of his thoughts through. He hoped figuring out their location within the city wouldn’t go like it had with the Colonel. They hadn’t meant to kill him. Yes, he was a disgusting man, but there would be no prevention of suffering from his death. If anything, the Parastenians would be blamed and severely punished. The prospect of them being to blame alone would be appalling enough.

  Don’t worry, Garec sent. We’re going to end this, then we’ll all go home. You can end the link now.

  Dowyr did so and quietly took a deep breath. Home. What was that? A place of fantasy. He wasn’t old enough to own property. What would it mean to be a war hero with no home to return to? Was he to simply return to the orphanage? Would Garec let him choose to go somewhere else? He had no doubt there would be someone among the Parastenians who would take him in. That could be a happy life. He could help them rebuild from Kircany’s invasion. There was nobility in that, and it would relieve some of the pain for what he had done on this bloody journey. Or perhaps he could make it down to Arkonia as he intended and start an orphanage of his own.

  Fantasies. Until he lived through this, it was all fantasies. He could die, and why not? Why not just die? There was nothing wrong with that. It would be a sufficient punishment for the things he’d done; the lies, the death, the suffering. To stop existing, for the suffering to be over, that was an acceptable fantasy. But only once the Tyrdens were dead.

  Yes. Once the Tyrdens were dead.