When the men were well past them, the two travelers resumed their journey, angling slightly to the east again. Obviously they still needed to use caution while in the wood-there would be no fire again this night-but the fact that the men were headed southward, back toward Solkara, gave Grinsa some cause to believe that the worst of their troubles were over. It had been half a turn since they escaped the royal city. No doubt the Solkaran soldiers were beginning to lose interest in the hunt.
They stopped for the night just as darkness enveloped the wood, spreading their sleeping rolls on the forest floor before eating. Enough of the peddler’s food remained to provide them with an ample meal, but tomorrow they would be forced to eat roots and berries again, unless they managed to find another trader or chanced a cooking fire.
Tavis had said little since their conversation earlier that day, but finally, after their meal, he cleared his throat awkwardly. His question, though, when it came, surprised the gleaner.
“Why did you save me from Kentigern’s prison?”
Grinsa hesitated. “I’ve told you before. I saw in your gleaning that you had been imprisoned unjustly. I had to do something.”
“I remember you saying that, and I believed you at the time. But that was before I knew how much you risked coming for me. If you hadn’t done that, you’d still be a gleaner in the Revel. No one would know that you were anything more, and your sister wouldn’t be in any danger.”
“If I had done nothing, Mertesse would hold Kentigern Castle, and Aindreas and your father would be at war.”
“So you saw that in my gleaning as well?”
Grinsa started to answer, then stopped himself. Along with the nature of his magic, Tavis’s Fating had been one of the topics of conversation he had managed to avoid during their time together. Even now, he wasn’t certain that the young lord was ready for the truth. More to the point, though, it seemed to the gleaner that Tavis had earned the right to make that choice himself. Grinsa had realized some time ago, several turns before Bohdan’s Revel reached Curgh this past year, that his fate and Tavis’s were tied to each other. Now the two of them were bound by circumstance and need as well; only the gods could say how long they would remain together. But surely the time for secrets had passed.
“I had a vision of your fate long before your gleaning, Tavis. I saw the two of us journeying together throughout the land, and fighting side by side against the conspiracy.” He paused, straining to see the boy’s face in the shadows. The moons were not yet up, and he could only guess at Tavis’s reaction. After a moment, he went on. “What I showed you in the stone was your future, but not your fate.”
“You said the same thing to me once before, in the dungeon.”
“I remember.”
“You wouldn’t explain what you meant then, though I asked. Are you ready to now?”
“It’s very simple really-it should be clear. You weren’t fated to die in that prison, or even to spend very long there, though I’m certain it felt like an eternity at the time. It was your future, but you were destined to win your freedom, to join the fight against the conspiracy and search the land for Brienne’s killer.”
“None of that would have happened had you not freed me from the dungeon. Isn’t it just as possible that what you showed me in the stone was my true fate, and you altered it by coming to Kentigern?”
Grinsa smiled. Here lay the burden of the stone, not only for the gleaner, but also for the child who peered into its depths, hoping to glimpse a promise of glory or joy. He had tried to explain this to Tavis as well, just after the young lord first saw himself in that wretched prison, but Tavis had been beyond reason then, already falling into the black despair that would lead him to raise his blade against Xaver MarCullet.
“Our fate changes all the time, Tavis. Every choice we make, every path we choose to follow, turns us toward a different future. The stone, for all the wisdom we ascribe to it, can only show us our fate at a single moment. More than anything, it serves as a signpost, a marker indicating the direction our lives might take. If we find hope or pleasure in the vision it offers, we make choices that will take us in that direction. If not, then perhaps it can warn us away from decisions that lead to darkness. That’s what I hoped would happen when I showed you what I did. I intended your Fating as a warning, and I hoped that it would save you from the misery we both saw in that image. At the time, I had no idea how you would end up in that prison. I knew only that you were innocent, though you would doubt that yourself. Had I known that you were powerless to prevent what happened, I would never have done what I did. Certainly I never intended to cause you or Xaver such pain.”
He had long expected that when he and Tavis finally had this conversation, the boy would respond to his revelations with outrage. But once more, Tavis surprised him.
“You altered my Fating to guard your secret,” he said, his voice low. “If I had seen us fighting the conspiracy together, I would have known that you were more than a gleaner.”
“Yes.”
“And then you risked everything to save me.”
“After what I’d done, I felt that I had to.”
“A lesser man wouldn’t have.”
“A braver man would have shown you the Fating the stone intended.”
Even in the darkness, Grinsa could see the boy shrug. “Maybe. I don’t know that much about bravery. But I’m grateful to you just the same.”
For several moments neither of them spoke. Tavis lay down on his sleeping roll, wrapping himself in a blanket.
“How soon until you can… go to your sister?”
Grinsa looked to the east. White Panya was just appearing above the trees, her pale glow seeping through the wood like a sorcerer’s mist. Judging from how late she was rising and how far into her waning she appeared, he guessed that they had to be at least three nights past the Night of Two Moons. Perhaps four. Once again, he cursed himself for his carelessness.
“It will be a while yet, at least until Ilias is up.”
Tavis nodded, yawned.
“Sleep, Tavis,” Grinsa said, lying down also. “I intend to. I’ll wake later and reach for her then.”
Again the boy nodded. “Goodnight, gleaner.”
In truth, Grinsa didn’t expect to sleep at all, but it seemed the day’s journey had wearied him. He awoke some time later to the call of a nearby owl. He hadn’t slept long-Panya shone directly overhead and red Ilias hung low in the eastern sky-but he felt dazed from his slumber, as if he had drunk too much wine.
Sitting up and taking a drink of water from the skin that lay nearby, he rubbed a hand over his face and blinked his eyes, trying to wake himself up. Tavis stirred and turned over, but he didn’t wake.
Grinsa sat for several moments, listening to the owl, and to a second bird that hooted in reply from farther away. At last, he closed his eyes and, drawing upon his magic, sent his mind north and east, across the Moors of Durril and the edge of the steppe, which was covered with fresh snow, to Eibithar’s City of Kings. It took him only a few seconds to find her and touch her mind with his power.
He knew instantly that something was wrong. The plain looked as it always did when he went to her, the way it had when they were children living in Eardley. Except that the sky to the west was black, as if from a great storm, and a brilliant light shone at the center of the gloom. Grinsa thought he saw someone standing at the edge of the darkness, or more precisely, on the seam between the light he had brought to her dream and the storm he had found there. Keziah. It had to be. He started walking toward her.
The distance to her turned out to be greater than he had thought at first, but soon he could see her white hair twisting in the wind, and he recognized the sleeping gown she was wearing. Grinsa called to her several times, but she didn’t answer. She didn’t even turn to face him. His apprehension mounting by the moment, the gleaner hurried on until he was running toward her.