Mountain peaks, black against the stormy dusk, dwarfed the figures of Kyen and Adeya running through the foothills. They jogged to a crest on the slope and stopped. Breathing hard, Kyen looked back while Adeya put her hands on her knees and hunched over.
The boulder-studded mountainside sank into the flatlands where a miniature collection of red roofs and chimneys lifted smoky threads. A dwindling forest patched the slope in young pines, many hardly taller than Kyen. Above him loomed the mountains, their valleys veined black in shadow, their tips bathed in orange where the light touched. The Arc—a blazing line of light that arched across the sky—burned yellow in a gap between the mountains for a moment before sinking out of sight.
As Kyen’s eyes searched the slope, Adeya opened the pack on his shoulder. He stood unmoving as she dug around inside and pulled out a small shaded lantern.
“Is he chasing us?” She knelt to light it with flint and tinder.
He pulled his gaze from the flatlands and turned to walk away as if he hadn’t heard.
“Wait! Wait for me!” She hurried to crack flint and blow on the tinder.
Kyen glanced back. “We should keep moving.”
After hurrying to put the lantern to flame, she stamped out the tinder, pulled the shade down, and swung it aloft as she trotted after him. With its pool of light at their feet, Kyen set a swift pace. Night was setting in. They jogged and ran by stretches over uneven ground that climbed steadily upwards. Neither looked back as the town disappeared into the failing dusk.
Deep night had blackened their surroundings to pitch when Kyen slowed. Leading them to a stand of pines larger and denser than the others, he pushed apart the wet branches for Adeya. She ducked inside. He squeezed his way through after her. Hunched together, they clambered over and under the prickly limbs. The bed of pine needles on the ground felt dry despite the occasional drip from above.
Kyen dropped down against a tree trunk, propping his arms up on his knees. Adeya, sitting down next to him, held up the lantern to shed its light over him: blood smeared the cuts on his forearms from breaking the window; one eye had swelled shut; more blood encrusted a split lip. Her face pinched in concern to see his wounds.
Setting the lantern down, Adeya opened the healer’s pouch at her hip. She took out a length of bandage, ripped off a square and then, drawing a bottle of tincture out, dampened it. She handed it to him.
“Clean up with that.”
Kyen took the cloth to wipe at his arms.
Taking out a little tin, Adeya unscrewed the top and dipped her finger into the salve inside. She dabbed at his lip. “I didn’t realize how serious you were when you said Ennyen wanted to kill you.”
“Death feuds are a part of life where I come from. It’s nothing new.” He peered down his forearm then wiped a smear he had missed.
“Did he—his sword. That wasn’t a…?”
“A black weapon,” he said. “No mistaking it.”
“First Galveston. Now Ennyen. I thought the Great Alliance locked all the black weapons away. Here, hold this to your eye.” She handed him a bandage wad soaked in pink tincture.
“They are. Or they should be,” he said. “Arc help him…” Kyen’s gray eyes looked tired as he watched the lantern flicker. Adeya, stealing a glance at him, began daubing the salve on his arms. When she’d finished, he roused himself. “We should be safe here for the night. I want to make an early start for Bargston in the morning.”
“So much for sleeping out of the damp.” Adeya huffed as she replaced her bandages, bottles, and salves.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” She smiled, a look that brightened her face like dawn in the night sky. “It really isn’t.”
Kyen quickly looked away, but she missed it, busy tying the healer’s pouch back to her waist. Wrapping her cloak around herself, she nestled into the bed of pine needles and pillowed her head on an arm before looking back at him.
“Does Ennyen hate you enough to come after you, do you think?”
“I hope not.” He pulled his cloak about himself, settling back against the trunk. “If we can make Bargston, we can hire a boat down the River Bounding and lose ourselves in Eope.”
“At least the fiends after you haven’t shown up yet.” She favored him with a reassuring smile. He returned it half-heartedly, his face still averted.
“Hopefully, that’s the last encounter I ever have with Ennyen,” he said. “He should get on with his life and forget about me.”
Adeya’s smile faded as she watched him staring at the lantern. A despondence hung in his expression, in his shoulders, in the hang of his head. The light in his gray eyes seemed dimmed.
“Goodnight,” she said.
Kyen started out of his thoughts.
She smiled again, tentatively, but he turned his face away, leaning forward to blow out the lantern.
“Goodnight.”
* * *
With drawn cloaks and fogging breath, Kyen and Adeya walked in the pre-dawn light. She hugged her arms to herself, her teeth chattering, while Kyen—silent, withdrawn, untouched by the chill—picked their path between the frosted rocks.
The mountains loomed to their left. The foremost range marched under a green verdure broken by gray rocks and jutting precipices. The range behind, rising taller, peered with snow-capped heads over their shoulders. Furthest back and off to the north, the highest peaks of all hid their heights in halos of cloud and mist. The rising Arc, though still below the horizon opposite the mountains, touched the halos and turned them gold with its first beams. Slowly, the light began to touch the mountainsides and crept down in a pale dawn. When the Arc broke over the horizon as a white blaze, it spread morning over the two travelers and warmed them.
Kyen and Adeya, finding a large boulder half-buried in the ground, climbed it to sit in the warmth and breakfast. Taking a map from his pocket, he spread it out on his lap as he ate the journey bread and dried apricots.
The map lay folded to show the rounded top of Ellunon. Little triangle mountains filled the west around the label: “Denmont.” Beside it ran a line—“The Great Highway”—which disappeared into Norgard, the peninsula above Denmont. The line cut across a thicker squiggle which flowed south towards Veleda and east towards Eope, a circular kingdom perched on the lip of the continent. None of this caught Kyen’s eye as it waited on his lap.
His gaze lingered on the distant sky. After a while, his food lay forgotten next to him as he stared unseeing at the rising Arc.
Adeya leaned over his shoulder to survey the map. She glanced at him.
He didn’t show any signs of noticing.
She edged closer, nibbling an apricot.
The Arc’s fiery arch lifted free of the horizon, beginning its long ascent to the midday zenith.
Adeya slipped the map away from him and held it up. “Are you sure going to Eope is a good idea?”
Kyen took a deep breath, yawned, and stretched. He looked at her mildly. “What’s that? Did you say something?”
“Galveston was from Eope, and he tried to kill us,” she said. “Papa said that kingdom is full of wizards and sky-gazers who never give a plain answer.”
Kyen frowned at the map in her hands. He looked at his empty lap, then back to the map, and pawed after his journey cake.
“Well?” She looked at him.
“Well, what?” Kyen, taking a huge bite, leaned in towards the map.
“Are you even listening?” She flicked her hair out of her face.
“’Issening ‘oo wha?” He said with his mouth full.
“Exactly!”
Kyen chewed, looking confounded.
“You’re never paying attention.”
He swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, never mind.” She huffed. “You said something about Eope, yesterday.”
“Yeah, I’m hoping we can make the River Bounding within the week and hire a boat to Eope at Bargston.” He pointed at the squiggly line.
“And that’s the Great Highway, right?” Adeya lowered the map to point at the roadway weaving through flatlands below them.
He nodded.
“If I’m going to search Ellunon for the arcangels, I need to learn its geography. Too bad I never paid attention to my tutor when he tried to teach me…” She shook the map out and folded it up as Kyen sat back, gnawing the last chunk of his bread. She rubbed the parchment between her fingers, before looking up at him. “Can I keep this?”
“Sure. You’d probably make more use of it than me.” Hopping off the boulder, he dusted crumbs from his tunic.
With a smile, Adeya put the map in her pocket. She rose to follow him as he set off.
“What about morning training?” She laid a hand on her hilt. “You said you’d show me how to disarm last time.”
“Maybe tonight,” he said. “I want to put Ennyen as far behind us as possible today.”
“Wouldn’t we make better time on the road?”
“If he’s looking for me, that’s where he’ll be,” said Kyen. “We’ll circle down once Bargston is in sight.”
Together, they climbed across the mountain’s foothills as they followed the road from a distance, two tiny figures half-hidden between the boulders and the trees. Neither of them noticed the dark shape wheeling in the sky overhead.