Page 94 of The Flame and the Forsaken

He held up the book, his thumb marked about a third of the way in. “I’ll let you know.”

Mariel sighed and settled back in. He readjusted his arm to pull her closer. “Another world, eh? Sounds like the legends about the Hinterlands and the Medvedev lands.”

“Legends are all they are.” Erran chuckled. “If we could travel to other worlds, we’d know.”

“Would we? Men are so secretive when they find something of value.”

He took a moment with that. “True.”

Mariel drew circles on his shirt with her finger. Once she said what she was about to say, it would be out there, and taking it back would be worse than having said it at all. But she’d been working the problem in the back of her thoughts for days, ever since their rescue. She had never halfway committed to anything, and her marriage could be no exception. She either wanted to be Erran’s wife or she didn’t. “When we get back, I’m going to tell my friends about us. And then, if they’re willing, I’d like them to meet you.”

Erran set the book down, marking his place with a scrap of leather. “I know it’s no small thing for you to suggest it. And I’d love to meet the people you love. But you don’t have to prove anything. If you say you care about me, that’s enough.”

“I do care about you, and this is why I want this. I can’t be two people anymore.”

“That I can understand. It’s your choice, and I will respect whatever you decide.” He paused. “I’ve been thinking a bit myself.”

“While reading?”

“I sometimes do this thing...” He got quiet. “It’s as though I can split my mind. Focusing on one thing lets me focus on another, and next thing I know, I’ve done both. I suppose it makes no sense to you.”

“Nay, but it’s interesting.” She grinned up at him.

He grinned back. “If I asked you to show me your work, would you?”

“Show you... what?” Mariel sat up on the bench.

He scooted so he was facing her sideways. “You told me about decimated villages... the families. I’d like to see this with my own eyes. Not because I don’t believe you, I do.”

“And what will you do with this experience?” she asked warily. His heart was rooted by good intentions, but the people wouldn’t appreciate being treated like curiosities.

Erran linked her hands in his. “It will give me time to wrap my own thoughts around the problem. I want to come to Father with a solution in my own words, with my own experience, in a way he’ll listen.”

Mariel almost didn’t know what to say. The only thing better than robbing the stewards blind would be to influence a better world, a better way. But that had always been only a dream, an unpassable valley. “Will he?”

“I don’t know,” he said, quieter. “But he’ll either listen or lose a son for his stubbornness. That should hurt more than any financial loss, but if I’m wrong, better to know, aye?”

Chapter20

Border Towns

As a boy, Erran would join his father on progress around their territory. Rylahn had instilled in him the importance of being seen by their people. The visits had stopped when he was still young, and until he’d asked Mariel to take him to the places she was trying to help, he hadn’t equated the particulars of the timing.

Their visits had ended around the time Mariel’s life—and the lives of the people she loved—had been taken from under her.

Whitecliffe was responsible for the lake district and the border towns of the Northeast. He recalled his father explaining that many of the villages were near enough to the Easterlands that they’d adopted their more gentile way of life. Their accents were near nonexistent, which was also true of many in Whitecliffe, they never uttered words like “salt and sand,” and they preferred their seafood from ports north of the border, like Briarhaven, or from their freshwater lakes. But import costs were high, and they relied heavily on food from the land, land that, until roughly a decade ago, they’d owned and farmed.

Mariel had explained they’d only have time for two villages: Everspring and Mistgrave. Erran at first had questioned whether Mistgrave was the best use of their time, since they’d recently visited Loch Ethereal, but the dark look she gave him, paired with the wordsyou saw what you were supposed to see,reminded him he was there to listen.

She had little to say on their ride northeast, and he left the silence for her to command.

Everspring was beautiful on the approach. It had the same lush forests as at Loch Ethereal, which reminded him of his boyhood visits, when he’d pretend they’d stepped out of the Southerlands altogether, into a whole new world. He never told his father about it. Rylahn had never outwardly discouraged Erran’s imaginative side, but he hadn’t seen value in cultivating it either.

They rode under a trellis of broken metal. “E ring,” it read, the letters spaced so far apart, it made no sense. It took him embarrassingly longer than it should have to realize it had once been the town’s name, the entrance to what should be as picturesque as the past half tick of riding, but he already knew would not be.

He swallowed his dread and followed Mariel underneath.

The road more closely resembled a path, used enough to be rutted but not enough to be clear and clean. Weeds grew over the sides, some in the middle. Cratered holes were full with the remnants of a recent rain. There were so many, they had to navigate around them.

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