WHEN LYAH saw Kinnock’s Rise before them, free of any haunting mist tendrils—her arm still throbbed, unhealed—she wanted to sob with relief. Neither Carin nor Ryd had spoken in two days, and the sight of the familiar landmark meant they were only a short distance from Haveranth.

She pressed ahead of the others when the cajit orchards came into view, her legs burning but her body continuing to stumble forward. The nearly full Toil Moon shone overhead, plump and burning orange in the twilight even as the lamplights of Haveranth appeared in the distance. High Lights was two days hence, if the moon was indication, and Lyah saw the fires of home as darkness fell. Soon she did not hear the footsteps of Carin and Ryd behind her, only felt drawn by the crackling hearths of her village and the knowledge that home was close.

Lyah broke into a run when she passed Jenin’s family’s farm, the emptiness of grief pushing back against the relief of being almost past the trials of the Journeying. She did not see Tarwyn or Silan or Dyava there, no one. Lyah ran faster than she thought she could, her legs numb but churning against the packed earth of the road. Pounding footsteps beside her made her turn to see Carin there, keeping pace, her face knowing and grim. Once she looked over, toward the roundhome where Jenin and Dyava had grown up. For the first time since stumbling out of the cave in the Hidden Vale, Lyah felt the old connection to her friend, and tears stung her eyes in gratitude.

Old Wend was packing up his stall for the evening, a leather skin of iceberry wine held to his lips when Lyah crossed the invisible line into Haveranth’s hearth-home. A gaggle of folk clustered under the shelter around the fire, and they all gave Lyah and the others only a passing glance before returning to their conversations.

Lyah wanted to scream at them, to fall to her knees, to grab a cup of icemint tea and drink until she was sated. Instead, she slowed to a walk. Her legs felt like the jelly that remained on the bottom of a roasting pan after the meat had sat overnight in a dugout cellar. She felt Carin’s hand creep into hers and give it a squeeze, and Lyah swallowed around the dryness in her throat.

They would be okay. They were home. They were almost there.

Hand in hand, the three walked Haver’s Road, past Rina’s smithy and her own family’s home. After the three moons they had spent walking, this final distance felt like being asked to walk to the sea.

Outside Merin’s home, dual torches burned to light the way with a deep emerald glow. Whether magic or the fuel Merin kept for only this occasion, Lyah didn’t know. Her whole life, Lyah had seen those torches lit on the first day of Toil, and they would burn thus until High Lights when the entire village would be lit by torches. At noon on High Lights, the green of the flames would turn bright white, and thus they would remain until daybreak on the following morning.

Now, with Ryd and Carin at her sides, Lyah pushed herself to climb the shallow grade up the small hill to Merin’s door. The evening’s dark had dissipated some of the day’s heat, but between the green torches, Lyah’s skin dripped sweat. Her hands were clammy where they held tight to Ryd’s and Carin’s, and she dropped their hands to knock.

Merin pulled open the door, relief palpable in the air between them like a cool breeze.

Her hearth was cold behind her, but lamps burned bright on the rounded walls of her central room, filling her home with dancing shadows.

“Merin.” Lyah said with a gasp, and she fell into the old woman’s arms.

Merin pulled her close, her muscles tight and strong. The many harvests of Merin’s life had made her hardy, but her work as Namekeeper and soothsayer had made her kind. Lyah couldn’t tell if it was sweat or tears running down her cheeks, and she didn’t heed either.

When Merin pulled back after a long moment, she looked over the other two, then out onto the path behind them. Her lips moved as she murmured something Lyah couldn’t hear, and she beckoned at the three of them to come into the house.

Three cups of conu juice sat on the trestle table, and three plates of roasted goat with fragrant amaranth and braised plums and apples to the side.

“Sit, children; sit and eat.”

They fell upon the food, and Lyah ate with her fingers, her fork to the side of her earthenware trencher plate, forgotten. Plums burst in her mouth, flooding it with sweetness and a hint of curry and brown sugar. The goat was tender and full of fat, and Lyah paid no attention to the dribbles of grease that escaped her lips, caring only for the growing sensation of fullness in her belly, which stretched taut and round as she plied it with hearty food for the first time in moons. The conu juice had a tinge of cinnamon and clove, and Lyah finished her cup before her plate was half empty.

The amaranth she pulled from the glazed dish with sticky fingers, licking them clean and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. There was nothing but the meal in front of her. When Merin brought a vessel of cool well water to the table and filled their cups anew, Lyah cared not for the melding of water with the dregs of conu sediment, only took deep pulls from the water. It tasted not of minerals and stone, like drinking from the falls in Haver’s Glen. It tasted not of leather from her waterskin. Only the sweet, cold delight of home. She nearly laughed, but then Merin brought a plate of sweet summer berries, of preserved iceberries and red drop berries, tiny round beadberries that stained her fingers and tongue deep purple.

She ate until her stomach protruded, full and round and sated. Lyah had never had such a meal in her life.

Still she wanted more, but Merin shook her head. “You may not keep even that down,” the soothsayer said, but she did bring more water, filling their cups to the brim.

The room was naught but a golden haze of aromas and flickering lamplight, and Lyah leaned forward on her elbows on the trestle table, blinking eyelids that threatened to stay closed each time.

She didn’t realize she had drifted off until Merin’s hand on her shoulder gave her a shake.

“Come, child.”

Lyah looked up to see that Carin and Ryd were gone, and that two of the doors to rooms off the central hearth-chamber had been closed.

The muscles in Lyah’s legs shrieked as she stood, her joints cracking like dry autumn boughs. She followed Merin to a third room, a room she had slept in before after a long night of lessons, and there the feather mattress greeted her and welcomed her to the darkness of sleep.