Nettle hugged me and I allowed it. Then I demanded better of myself and hugged her back. ‘I am going to try much harder,’ I told her.
‘I know you will. Now go, before you are left behind.’
Per stepped forward, but it was my sister who boosted me onto my horse. ‘Behave!’ she admonished me sternly.
‘I will try,’ I replied.
‘Watch over her,’ she told Per and turned away from us. She was not crying. I don’t think any of us had any tears left. She walked toward her coterie. ‘We’re leaving,’ she told them.
And so we parted.
I rode side by side with Per. I had the smallest horse. He was brown with a black mane and tail, and a star on his brow. We had already discovered that he liked to bite. Per said he could teach him better. Per rode a gelding the colour of creek mud. The fox pin glittered on his breast.
I was thinking about things like that: biting horses and fox pins. Thieving crows. How soon we could send for our own horses to be brought to the Mountains. What Spark and Lant felt for each other and what they might do about it. Hap was trying out lines and rhymes. ‘Nothing rhymes with wolf!’ we heard him exclaim in annoyance.
‘There must be something,’ Integrity insisted, and began to suggest nonsense words.
As we left the quarry behind, I was astonished to find that we were on a smooth road, with little encroachment from the forest. The Skill-road. I lowered my walls slightly and heard whispers of the many travellers who had once come this way. It was annoying. I closed my walls again.
‘Did you hear something?’ Per asked us suddenly.
That startled me. He had no magic. Of that we were now certain.
‘The crow isn’t worried,’ Hap observed and then ‘Ow!’ as she made her first try for the earring.
Per was serious. ‘Stay close beside me,’ he warned me and urged his horse to a faster walk. He looked all about us as we moved through the dappling shade of the forest. When we were closer to Kettricken, he said worriedly, ‘There’s something stalking us. Off to the side of the road, moving through the forest.’
Kettricken smiled.