Followed by Fros(32)

I had little time to worry, for as soon as we departed from Ir for our southbound trek to Shi’wanara, Lo had me instructing him again on my handtalk, which was how we spent the majority of the journey. He learned quickly, and only occasionally tweaked signs to motions he found more efficient. I knew his changes would have bothered me in Euwan, yet I found myself agreeing with him more often than not. Eyan, and then Qisam, eavesdropped on our mobile lessons, and soon my entire escort began learning the unspoken language. I noticed that the random bouts of laughter increased as soldiers fingered jokes one to another. To my surprise, Lo let them laugh.

Closer to Shi’wanara, Lo rode ahead to scout for bandits, and I surprised myself by actually missing his company, not that I expected much more of it. Once Lo mastered my simple handtalk, I doubted he would care to speak to me again.

And he didn’t, not even after our arrival in Shi’wanara. The city offered us a polite reception, much to my relief, though their reactions to me were more mixed. Fortunately, even the most suspicious of my guard had warmed to me after weeks of travel.

Many of them stayed up late with me that first night in Shi’wanara, though we sat around the fire of the inn where we were staying so the others could ward off my wintry aura.

“I heard,” Qisam said in Hraric, his voice so low and accented I strained to understand him, “that in the Northlands, the earth waters itself every morning.”

“How can the earth water itself?” asked Bakr, the youngest soldier in our group, three years my junior.

“I think he means dew,” I said, using the Northlander word, which was easy to pronounce with the Zareedian accent. “Every morning its small droplets cling to the grass, only to vanish when the sun grows too strong.”

Lo had not joined us for our fireside chat, but I spotted him at the far end of the room, handing coin to the innkeeper. He leaned against the wall with his arms folded against his chest, the firelight glinting off the gold rings and chains in his left ear. He would have looked a shadow if not for that jewelry. He was certainly as silent as one.

“I heard once,” I said to Qisam, “that dew is fallen rain that yearns to return to heaven. Every night it struggles up from the earth that has claimed it, climbing the grass on its journey to the sky. But every day the sun, keeper of the heavens, forbids it from completing its journey and casts it back into the soil.”

“A sad story,” said Bakr.

I shook my head. “Were it not so, nothing would grow.”

“And then we’d all go to the heavens!” Eyan shouted. I laughed with the others, though the thought of Death made me shiver. I had not seen Sadriel since catching a glimpse of him many days before, but I often felt as if I were being watched.

The night grew late, and the soldiers—my friends—retired to their beds, many of which were shared by two or three men. As my snow flurries swirled outside, I, too, took to my bed on the first floor of the inn. But the insomnia that often came with the cold dragged at me hard that night, and I soon returned to the hearth, this time alone. I stared into the depths of the flames and thought of my small campfires in the mountains. I did not miss my mountains—my safe haven—despite spending three long years there. Imad had saved me by bringing me back to the Southlands; he had reminded me what it was to be human.

I rolled up my mustard-colored sleeves, removed my gloves, and picked up one of the red coals and turned it over in my hands, careful not to let it crumble. Often, in my loneliness, I played with embers like these, imagining that I was not cursed but blessed—a woman who could touch fire and remain unscathed. I blew onto the coal softly, my cold breath dimming its red life.

“It does not hurt you?”

I nearly dropped the coal at the voice. Instead, I quickly tossed it into the fire and turned around, my braid falling off my shoulder. Lo stood behind me, still wearing his many layers of warmth, the indigo on the outside.

Instead of waiting for my reply, he said, “We move tomorrow. You need to sleep.”

I turned and smiled at the flames. “I will in a moment, thank you.”

“You cannot?”

I glanced back to him. He took a seat in one of the canvas chairs set around a sage-and-lavender-woven rug. Not wishing to burden him with my woes, I answered simply, “I am a little cold tonight.”

“And the fire does not help.”

He looked at my hands.

“When we were children,” he said, watching the flames, “my mother would help warm us up by filling a goat bladder with hot water and pressing it to the backs of our necks. It always helped, even if it stunk.”

I smiled. “I do not know what a goat bladder smells like.”

“You do not want to.”

“You have siblings?” I asked.

“I have nine, two in the past-lands.”

“You are the eldest?”

“The youngest.”

I considered him for a moment. “That surprises me.”

He raised a black eyebrow.

“You seem like an older brother.”

A smile threatened his lips. “Perhaps because Imad has given me the task of overseeing seventeen little boys.”

I chuckled to myself, pulled down my sleeves, and replaced my gloves. “Are you from Mac’Hliah?”

“Djmal,” he said. “It is closer to Kittat than anywhere we have been, in the canyons.”