Followed by Fros(73)

The ride back to Euwan is longer than I remember it being; perhaps because Lo and I do not ride at an army’s pace, or because I fear too much time in a saddle may harm the small life growing inside me. Maybe we move slowly because I tend to linger at the places I recognize, remembering the time I spent there and telling Lo stories of my first three years in the cold. Tales that, for some reason, I look upon with a strange sense of fondness.

I can’t believe how nervous I am when Heaven’s Tear Lake finally surfaces on the horizon. Soon I can make out Euwan in the distance, the village of my childhood. A place I have not seen for four and a half years. My hands sweat where they hold my dun mare’s reins.

“Are you ready?” Lo asks me, slowing his black gelding.

I nod and tuck a stray piece of hair behind my ear, fallen out from its short tail at the nape of my neck. “I’m ready. Are you?”

Lo doesn’t answer, and I laugh at him. “The children’s stories of Southlander mercenaries are not too severe; the worst anyone will do is hide from you.”

He smirks at me and whips his reins, trotting his horse over the rocky road. I guide my mare after him, and it’s all I can do to restrain myself from galloping.

We reach the west edge of Euwan, where Cuper Tode’s mercantile lies. Lo dismounts and helps me do the same, his hands on my waist. Together we walk our horses down the packed dirt road.

“It’s all the same,” I say, scanning the town. “But it looks so much smaller.”

Maddie Jesron steps out of the mercantile and stares at Lo with wide eyes, looking ready to faint. I do not think she recognizes me, but I wave regardless.

Jacks Wineer—Ashlen’s father—comes up the road on a new horse, looking very much the same save for a mustache and a few gray hairs around his temples. He stops at the sight of Lo, then squints at me. He nearly falls off his horse when I smile at him.

“Hello, Mr. Wineer,” I say, grinning.

He doesn’t respond for a moment, but after we’ve passed I hear him say, “S-Smitha! Smitha . . . Maddie, is that Smitha Ronson?”

Lo chuckles under his breath.

“Is this funny?” I ask, smiling. We pass Coltin Drayes—how big he’s gotten!—on his front porch, and he stares at us long and hard.

“They are very forward with their emotions, Northlanders,” Lo says. “You are a ghost to them.”

“Smitha?”

I slow and turn to face the person who called out to me. Ashlen stands there, at the fork in the road, a little rounder in face and very much pregnant, her long hair pulled back into a bun. She looks like she’s seen a specter, and I nearly cry at the sight of her.

“Ashlen!” I shout, dropping my horse’s reins and running to her. She hesitates at first, but then she waddles to meet me, her arms open wide. We embrace, and she squeezes me so hard I cough.

“It is you!” she exclaims, tears in her eyes. “Smitha, look at you! You’re not . . . You’re . . .”

“It’s broken, Ashlen,” I say, holding her shoulders. “Oh, Ashlen, I’ve thought so much of you. I’m so sorry for everything. Your brother, is he well?”

“Sorry for what?” she laughs, hugging me once more. “I never thought I’d see you again! Oh, Smitha, Smitha! He’s fine. We’re all fine.”

A couple passing by—the Magalies—pause nearby and stare. Mrs. Magalie leaps a foot into the air and runs back up the road, shouting something I cannot hear. I laugh and pull away from Ashlen.

“You’re pregnant!” I say. “Ashlen, look at you!”

“Alvin Modder!” she says. “And it’s our second one!”

“When did you get married?”

“Two years ago last week,” she says, grabbing my hands and squeezing them. Glancing past my shoulder, she sobers.

I turn and spy Lo, who is now holding my horse’s reins along with his.

Gripping Ashlen’s hands, I pull her down the road to him. “Ashlen, this is my husband, Lo. Lo, this is Ashlen, my best friend growing up.”

“The one with the handtalk,” Lo says, nodding.

Ashlen’s eyes bug. Leaning toward me, she whispers, “He speaks Northlander?”

I laugh. “Better than most Northlanders,” I say, twining my fingers through Lo’s. “I best hurry, or word of my arrival will reach my home before I do. Do they . . . Does my family still live there?”

Ashlen nods, eyes sparkling.

I squeeze her hand once more before releasing it. “We’ll talk soon. I have so many stories to tell you.” And so little time to share them before we return to the Southlands.

“I know you do,” she says, regarding Lo with wide eyes. “Get on, then! Not much farther!”

She hugs me one more time before I take the reins from Lo and lead him down the road and around the hill I so often climbed as a shortcut to the Wineers’. It’s early evening, about dinnertime, so most people are inside their homes. I’m grateful for it—I don’t think either Lo or I could handle a mob of questioning people, no matter how badly I want to see them.

I spy my barn, and my old home tucked behind it, the willow-wacks tucked off to the side. “There it is,” I say, pointing. “My old home.”

“Misa.”