383. The Flight North
Wren didn’t know what the town was named; there was no sign, and to be honest hardly much of anything else, either. Only two short piers, jutting out into an ‘S’ shaped lake somewhere between Coral Bay and Corinthia, a dozen small fishing boats, and perhaps twice as many homes, all with the same foundations of piled fieldstones and shingles of aged, graying wood. There were farmhouses scattered throughout the countryside, and she’d considered simply stealing what they needed, but since Liv had become a queen, Wren had never found herself lacking for coins.
She landed far enough away that no one would see her changing shape. Nearly two decades of Red Shields in the Alliance meant that Wren’s people were recognized everywhere in the north, and she’d wager that any major city in Lucania would be the same. But in the small towns? The places that only ever saw a baron when it was time for their men to be pressed into service for some war or another? To them, Wren figured she might as well be some monster out of a bedtime story. Better to not do anything that might frighten these people.
There was no dressmaker’s shop with gowns of Dakruiman silk in the windows, glittering with silver buttons to catch the eye of a passing merchant’s wife, or a knight’s daughter. Instead, one of the two-story homes had a simple wooden sign hanging out front, roughly painted with a needle and thread. Inside, a middle-aged woman perched on a stool, patching a pair of breeches. Stacked on the tables and shelves around her were clothes fit for farmers and fishermen: stout stockings of wool, simple skirts and bodices, linen shirts.
The woman paused in her stitching, and looked up, the lines in her face wrinkling as she squinted, examining Wren. “You’re not from around here,” she remarked bluntly. “We don’t often get strangers. What do you need?”
“My partner and I are hunters,” Wren said, trying to stick as close to the truth as she could. It was always easier to keep the truth straight, compared to lies. “Unfortunately, his clothes got pretty well ruined, and this was the nearest town. I thought it would be better to come in and pick something up for him, rather than walk him through the streets naked and caked in mud.”
For just a moment, the woman’s face remained impassive: then, she let out a snort, and finally an outright laugh. “That depends,” she said. “Is your man a handsome one?”
“I think so, at least,” Wren admitted. “I need breeches for him, a shirt, stockings – do you have shoes or boots?”
“Nothing new,” the dressmaker said. “I’m not a cobbler. But I buy a few used things, when the children grow out of them, or when someone dies. Might be I have something – it’ll be better than tromping through the forest barefoot, at any rate. You’ve got coin?”
Wren lifted her purse, grateful that she’d left it looped on her belt before turning in for the night days ago in Coral Bay. Otherwise, it would still be back in their tent, with her bow and quiver, and most of the rest of her things. “Lucanian and Alliance both.” More of one than the other, but there should be enough either way.
“The king’s silver,” the dressmaker said, decisively, setting aside her work and sliding down off her stool. “We’ll have none of that rebel coin out here.”
☙
A bell later, Wren watched Ghveris give a little jump as he tried to tug the breeches up to his waist without tearing the fabric. They’d made camp on the north shore of the lake, on the bank of a fast-moving stream that emptied into the larger expanse of water. They’d had no tent, and no bedrolls to sleep in, but there was a neat firepit dug four inches down into the soul and bordered with stones from the stream. Hanging from the branch of a nearby tree was the half-dressed carcass of a stag, and the night before they’d feasted on juicy, fresh-killed venison, cooked on skewers over the open fire.
Anyone who examined the carcass closely would find that, rather than being taken by an arrow, it had been set upon by some sort of massive wild cat. The stag’s throat had been ripped out by the cat’s fangs, and then its neck broken with a strong shake.
“Are Lucanians truly so small?” Ghveris grumbled, as he crammed his feet into a pair of old, worn boots. The leather was stained and nicked, and the soles nearly worn away entirely. “I feel like I’m going to break a toe.”
“Now that you aren’t buck-naked, we can try to do better in the next town,” Wren said. She allowed her eyes to travel down his legs, so that she could appreciate how the wool stockings showed off his muscular calves. It amused her to think that, if she brought him to a Lucanian masque, the ladies of the court would be whispering and giggling behind their hands at the sight.
Not that there would be any masques in their near future, Lucanian or otherwise. Wren had no desire to be burned at the stake.
“I think that I’m going to split the seat of these pants the moment I sit down,” Ghveris grumbled. “But thank you, Wren. The lack of clothes didn’t matter so long as I was in any of my animal forms, but I was getting a bit tired of hurting my feet. I’ve got no callouses, at all.”
“All your skin’s soft as a newborn’s,” Wren agreed. “And it’s going to be ages before your hair’s long enough to properly braid.” She stretched up on her tiptoes and ran a hand over the dark fuzz that coated his scalp. “Love the feel of it, though.”
Ghveris closed his eyes, and a smile curved his lips at her touch. “You still intend to make straight for Courland?’ he asked, practically purring as she stroked his head.
Wren nodded, withdrew her hand, and sank back down from her toes. “Yes. I know that city – not as well as Whitehill, Calder’s Landing, or Bald Peak, but better than Corinthia. Courland I’ve been through three times – four, if you count Tephania’s wedding.” Though it would have been nice to see the city where Jurian grew up, just once.
“That still means travelling nearly the entire length of Lucania,” Ghveris pointed out. He turned toward her, and wrapped his arms around Wren’s waist. The feeling of actually touching him for real, with warm skin instead of in dreams, was still so new and wonderful that it made Wren shiver.
“Maybe we can stop for a tent,” Wren allowed. “And a bedroll.”
“A new pair of boots,” Ghveris said, and then leaned in to kiss her.
☙
It took weeks, even flying directly north, rather than moving overland.
Wren and Ghveris might have pushed themselves harder, if there was some impending battle that would put their friends and companions at risk – but whatever had happened up in the sky, it was already over. The world hadn’t ended in a cataclysm of fire or the fall of the ring, which gave them some level of confidence that Liv had won. Whoever had lived, and whoever had died, it wouldn’t change a thing if the two Red Shields got back to Bald Peak a day earlier or a day later.
The not knowing let everyone live in Wren’s head a little longer; if she didn’t know that someone had been crippled or killed, she couldn’t grieve them, yet. It was freeing, in an odd way – she’d spent so long protecting Liv, ever since Julianne and Henry had given her the duty when she’d been at their mercy in Whitehill. Two decades on, Liv wasn’t that young girl anymore. She hadn’t been for a long time, and Wren trusted her to keep herself alive.
On top of that, it was just so wonderful to actually be together that Wren couldn’t help wanting it to last a little longer. Every day, she and Ghveris flew, he in the form of a condor, she on the wings of an owl. When the sun began to dip low on the western horizon, they would swoop down to hunt, shuffling through forms until they found whatever was best suited to take their prey. It might be a few rabbits, a quail, a doe or even a wild boar. Whatever they took would be roasting over a campfire come nightfall.
They bathed beneath waterfalls, and yes, after one more trip into a town with the odd name of Swindon – apparently because the town’s chief business was keeping and butchering pigs – they acquired a bar of soap, an oversized bedroll, two down pillows and a tent, along with a pack to put everything in. That trip enriched their meals, as well: a wheel of cheese, bottle of wine, loaf of fresh bread, and half a dozen apples went well with the meat they hunted. It was too late in the year to find much in the way of wild berries, but they made do.
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And every night, Wren went to sleep with the arms of the man she loved wrapped around her. She’d been dreaming of it for so long, sometimes she couldn’t even believe that what was happening was real. She didn’t know why Ractia, a selfish, grasping goddess, had actually decided to keep her promise for once, but Wren couldn’t find it in herself to care.
By the time they made it to Courland, the autumn storms had begun to blow in off the coast, bringing rain and wind that was pure misery to fly through. They switched to running as wolves, and taking shelter beneath trees. Wren couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed that someone – almost certainly Tephania – had done a very good job of plugging up all the old gaps in the masonry through which she’d once entered the castle, or satisfied that they’d taken steps to shore up their defenses and make spying more difficult. Still, even Tephania hadn't found everything, and it was rather difficult to keep something as small as a bat out.
Wren and Ghveris found her in the great hall, in front of a roaring hearth while rain streaked the panes of the windows. Two guards, wearing jack-of-plate in the green, purple and gold of the Falkenrath family, kept watch just outside the door to the hall, and a nearby table had been loaded down with platters of dried fruit, cheese, fresh bread and a carafe of wine.
Tephania herself sat with her daughter, a young woman who still had the slim, coltish look that came of not having quite grown into her legs. Each of them had a linen shirt in their lap, on the sleeves of which they were embroidering blackwork.
“They’re not going to care what my needlework is like when I go to college, mother,” the adolescent complained, as the two bats fluttered down through the great old beams above the hall. “Especially not at Bald Peak.”
“I suppose they won’t,” Tephania admitted. She’d aged, Wren saw, just like everyone else – everyone who wasn’t one of the Eld, or a Red Shield, at least. There were lines in her face, and she wasn’t as slim as she’d been before having children. “But I’ve been doing this for your father and your brother for as long as I’ve been married. I don’t leave it to the dressmaker, or to our maids. There’s something satisfying in that – it’s a way of giving to them. You might feel the same one day.”
The daughter, Wren saw, rolled her eyes at that. Rather than spy on them, she dropped the west of the way down to the floor, shifted into her human form, and shook the rain out of her hair. “Evening, Teph. I wondered if we might bother you for a waystone trip.” Ghveris dropped down next to her, now wearing boots slightly better than the first pair she’d bought for him.
The girl gave a cry of surprise and pricked herself with her own needle, but Tephania Falkenrath simply set her sewing down, looked at Wren once, and then peered past her to Ghveris.
“Wren Wind Dancer. It’s been a few years since we’ve seen each other,” Tephania remarked. “I hope you’ve come for something more pleasant than a war, this time.”
“I came with Liv to your wedding!” Wren exclaimed. She took three steps over to the table, sliced herself a hunk of cheese, and wrapped it in bread. “It wasn’t that long ago.”
“Mother,” Teph’s daughter said, in between sucking blood off her finger, “who is this?” The guards had, by this time, come rushing into the room, only to be waved off by the lady of the castle.
“An old friend from my time at Coral Bay,” Teph said. “Wren, this is my daughter, Masselie. You’ll note, by the fact she’s nearly sixteen, that it actually has been quite some time since my wedding. I presume this is one of your Red Shield hunters?”
Wren laughed, and looked over to Ghveris. When their eyes met, neither could help but smile. “Actually, you’ve met him, as well – though he looked a bit different, at the time.”
“Nor did I dance at your wedding,” Ghveris admitted. “I was more concerned with making certain that nothing would threaten Liv.”
Teph narrowed her eyes, as if she were examining a particularly old, faded, and timeworn manuscript. “You don’t look familiar,” she muttered. “And all of her guards were either human, or Elden, save for – Ghveris?”
Wren watched him give a slightly awkward bow. She sliced off another piece of cheese, wrapped it in bread, and passed it over to him. “We’ve been out of touch for a few weeks,” she said. “And we need to get back up to Bald Peak. I’d be grateful if you could send us on through your waystone.”
“Oh, I most assuredly will,” Teph promised. “You haven’t heard, then?”
Wren exchanged a glance with Ghveris. She felt her stomach tighten, as the moment she’d been avoiding arrived. Even with the best possible outcome, it was almost certain they’d lost someone. “Heard what?” she forced herself to ask.
“Liv killed Ractia,” Teph said. “And apparently, met a whole slew of gods, and talked to Bælris. It’s all anyone can talk about – and the Temple of the Trinity has called all of the priests to a council, to figure out what to do next.”
☙
It wasn’t until the next morning that they actually arrived on the waystone beneath Bald Peak, because Tephania had insisted that Wren and Ghveris remain for the evening, and join her family at the high table. They’d met her son, Tristram, a boy of thirteen years who was just getting a bit of peach fuzz on his upper lip, and Teph’s husband Thurston had filled them in as much as he could.
They were lucky that word from Coral Bay had been slow to filter out, due to the closed waystone, and confused. Everyone seemed to know that Liv had taken something like every culling mage she could to Bald Peak, and that they’d fought alongside the Alliance soldiers against Ractia’s cultists, but the mess at the waystone had been overshadowed by reports of the death of a goddess. Even news of Elder Aira’s death in battle, and her funeral at Al’Fenthia, was more interesting, it seemed, than a short-lived riot on the beach.
Wren and Ghveris took wing as soon as they’d arrived, finding updrafts to lift them over the mountain slopes to the summit, and from there over the curtain walls. As soon as they were recognized, one of the guards went running, presumably to tell Liv of their arrival.
They found her in the solar, just setting aside a stack of letters and placing a cork in her ink bottle. Wren and Liv had been friends for long enough, now, that she knew exactly what each of those letters meant, and where it was bound: to the surviving family of a man or woman who’d died fighting in Liv’s service. She also knew how much it tore her friend up inside.
“Wren.” Liv stood up, and her eyes slid over to Ghveris. She came out from behind her desk, crossed the carpet, and looked up into his eyes. “Is it you? Did Ractia actually do what she promised?”
Ghveris extended a hand, and Liv clasped it between both of hers. “Yes,” he said, without any rumbling, grinding of gears, or hissing of steam. “This is – this is what I looked like, before they rebuilt me.”
“I’m glad,” Liv said, and wrapped her arms around Ghveris. The top of her head didn’t even reach his chin.
He embraced her in turn, and for a moment, Wren simply watched, and dared to hope that the choice she’d made hadn’t ruined everything. When Liv and Ghveris stepped away from each other, she moved forward, in turn, to give her friend a hug. “I missed you,” Wren murmured. Liv smelled of soap and perfume and fresh, clean cloth, and it only made Wren more conscious of how filthy she must be.
“He’s got slightly shorter hair than he used to have,” Wren observed, once she and Liv had let each other go. No one else laughed, and once again she felt a stab of fear through her belly. “Don’t blame him,” she begged Liv. “Blame me. If that means you’re angry with me, that’s fine, I deserve it. But he doesn’t.”
Liv sighed, and looked up into Wren’s eyes. “I’m not mad at you,” she said. “I was a bit annoyed that you didn’t even tell me first – we could have set you up somewhere safe, rather than right in the middle of the beach at Coral Bay. But I’m not angry. If there’s anything to forgive, Wren, I forgive you. I just hope the two of you are happy – you’ve been my friends for so long, protected me for so many years, I want that for you.”
She took a deep breath, and then it was the queen talking, rather than Liv. “But it can’t be here. I’ve had an entire army fighting Ractia’s cultists, and the Temple’s been burning them for years. As much as I want you both here, with me, it simply can’t be after you’ve done. The priests would be calling for your death, and I’d be a hypocrite. You both need to go back to Varuna.”
“You’re sending us away?” Wren said. She felt like she was tumbling down through the air, wings unable to catch the updrafts that would save her from a fall.
“I’m sending you home,” Liv said. “To your family. You’ve done nothing but support me for twenty years, both of you. If anyone deserves a chance to find out what it’s like to actually live in peace, it’s the two of you.”
“But you need us,” Ghveris said. “I know I am not like before, but I can still fight.”
Liv was already shaking her head. “I can’t have you standing behind me anymore,” she said. “It’ll be thrown in my face constantly. We only just put down a plot by the guilds against me, and I can’t afford to make the Temple my enemy now.”
“We’ve become inconvenient,” Wren explained, to Ghveris. “It wouldn’t look good to keep us around.” The words were sour in her mouth. “All that about wanting us to have a chance to see home is just to soften the blow.”
Liv frowned. “Both can be true, you know. The two of you have waited for this for so long, that your friend wants you to have a chance to find out what it’s like to just… be. Together. Without having to always be fighting my battles and protecting me. And yes, the queen can’t have you here. Not right now, and not for a long time to come. I need you to go back to Varuna and stay there.”
Whatever Wren had been hoping for upon coming back to Bald Peak, this wasn’t it. Perhaps she’d been naive to expect anything different; the little girl she’d first met had spent an entire lifetime growing into a monarch. Wren knew that better than anyone: she’d been at Liv’s side nearly every step of the way.
“We’ll head right out,” she said. “I’m sure there’s students at the waystone to send us along.”
“Stay the night,” Liv said. “Get cleaned up. Say hello to Keri and everyone else – they’ve been waiting to see you. And I’d like a chance to eat dinner with you for once,” she told Ghveris, turning to give him a smile. “Instead of you just watching the rest of us eat all the time. Leaving in the morning will be soon enough.”
“My father?” Wren asked. “Have you tried waking him up, yet?”
“I spoke with him in his dreams,” Liv said. “So far as Sidonie and I can tell, Ractia’s hold on him is broken. But you can’t take him with you, yet. I promised that he’d stand judgement for what he’s done, and he will.”