“Keep riding, Norvan,” I replied. Then, quietly in my head, I said to Malator, Just sleep now. We’ll talk soon.
He slipped away like a drowsy child. The sun disappeared behind incoming clouds. I peered at the darkening horizon, surprised to see another group traveling toward us.
“Look,” said Cricket. “People!”
Next to me, Marilius stiffened. His gaze narrowed as they came into view.
“Soldiers?” I ventured.
“No,” said Marilius. He dropped his guard with a sigh. “Refugees.”
Next to me, Cricket went white. A single ox-drawn wagon shambled toward us, piled high with furniture, bundles of clothing, dilapidated crates-all manner of belongings. A dozen people trudged alongside it, thick with the dust of the road. Atop the wagon, teetering at the pinnacle of their possessions, sat a single, lonely child.
“Where are they from?” asked Cricket. She looked at Marilius. “Do you know?”
Marilius shrugged. “Could be anywhere. Maybe Drin. Or Kasse.”
“Maybe Akyre?”
“Sure, maybe.”
“No sense in wondering,” I said and rode forward.
The refugees stopped as we approached, bringing their pair of oxen to a halt. Three men gathered to greet me, shielding the others. I counted thirteen in all, at least four of them women. The boy-I could tell now he was a boy-was the only child among them. His blank eyes studied me behind a mask of grime. I raised a hand in greeting.
“Heading west?”
The group looked me over. A single man in a torn brown hat stepped forward, his grizzled face flaked with sunburn. He had farmer’s hands, hammy with great big knuckles.
“You coming from that way?” he asked.
“That’s right,” I replied. No matter where they come from, refugees only want to know one thing. “No troubles on the road. Should be safe for you.”
His forehead crinkled. “You from Norvor? You sound like a Norvan.”
“I’ve spent some time there,” I answered. “We’re bound for Zura. You?”
The man wilted at the question. “Anywhere safe that’ll take us. It’s good you’re heading east. Stay clear of the north. Diriel’s soldiers crossed the border. Took over both our farms, took our livestock ’cept for these two.” The man’s face twitched, on the verge of tears. “Torched the house.”
Now I could see these were two different families. Neighbors, probably, who’d taken everything they could with them.
“Are you from Akyre?” asked Cricket. She didn’t address the men, though. Instead she spoke directly to the boy. The man with the hat answered for him.
“We’re from Kasse.”
“Southeast of Akyre,” Marilius explained. “On the border. They’ve been warring with King Diriel for a year.”
“No more,” said the man. “Diriel’s taken Kasse. Calls himself ‘Emperor’ now. Almost all the old provinces have fallen. Not Drin, though.”
I didn’t know much about Akyre or its history, just whatever bits Cricket could remember. “How’s that possible?” I asked. “It’s always been a stalemate down here. How’d Diriel get so powerful?”
The man looked at his cohorts, but none of them answered. A woman in the background whispered a warning to him. The man scratched his sunburned cheek.
“Can’t say,” he said.
“Can’t?” I worked to hide my annoyance. “A friend of mine told me about Diriel. Told me about his army. Told me they were dead men. Is that what’s got you scared?”
Marilius shifted in his saddle. “Lukien, don’t.”
The man took off his hat to fan his face. “We gotta move on.”
“No,” Cricket insisted. “Just wait. We need to know what you saw. Please!”
They all fell silent.
“They won’t tell you,” said Marilius. “Just let ’em go.”
“What about you?” asked Cricket, looking up at the boy. “Will you tell me what you saw?”
The boy-maybe seven years old-nodded. “The legion of the lost.”
“Tomas!” shrieked one of the woman.
I looked at the man with the brown hat. “You can be a big help if you’d tell us. Anything about Diriel, Akyre. .”
“Can’t!” barked the man. “I warned you off the north. That’s all. Have the sense to turn around. Go back to Norvor. Or stay in Zura when you get there. Just keep clear of Akyre. All of it.”
He yanked the oxen forward and the wagon waddled past us. Cricket called after them, begging them to wait. Marilius looked at me, his expression cross.
“Will you take some advice?” he asked. “Nobody here’s going to tell you about Diriel, Lukien. Nobody. So just stop asking.”
* * *
Finally that night, I saw Malator again.
We rode until the sun went down, finding a campsite far enough from the road so no one would see us while we slept. I helped Cricket clear the brush and make a fire, and Marilius took care of the animals. None of us spoke as we worked. Cricket was in a particularly foul mood. Spooked by the refugee boy, she kicked away the branches with clenched teeth. When we sat around the fire to eat, Marilius helped himself to our food, while Cricket picked at her own. My appetite had flown as well. All I wanted was rest.
But when I tried to sleep I couldn’t. Images flashed through my mind-of Cassandra, Cricket, even Wrestler’s ugly face. I looked up at the stars, counting them to quiet my mind, but the constellations taunted me, forming monstrous patterns in the sky. I listened to Cricket’s breathing next to me, using the cape I’d made her for a blanket, her peaceful face turned toward me.
She was safe, for now, but where was I taking her? I sat up, anxious to get away, needing a place to scream. In the shadows of the dying fire I tiptoed away, the Sword of Angels still-forever-belted to my waist. The darkness trapped me like a cage. I took a moment to let my vision adjust, then prowled through the trees like a restless tiger until at last I reached the road.
Silence.
I walked out into the center of the road, awash with moonlight. I looked east toward Zura and thought of Sariyah. I looked west toward home and thought of Gilwyn. When my sight cocked north, I heard Cassandra in my head. I closed my eye to hear her voice, imagining it precisely. Just a year before I had heard that voice for real, in the Story Garden. I had summoned her from the world of the dead just to see her one more time. She alone had convinced me to live, when all I wanted was to join her.
“You can always go back there, you know,” said a voice. “The Story Garden remains.”
I looked down and saw Malator sitting cross-legged in the middle of the road. He smiled up at me, his impish face weary. He seemed substantial this time, as if the moonlight had made flesh of him. But he was a spirit, and I wondered if I had conjured him the way I’d conjured Cass’s voice.
“I’m all alone, Malator,” I whispered. The desolation and empty road felt unbearable. “Why am I here? Why’d I come? I miss her so much. I should be with her. Really with her.”
“She doesn’t want that, Lukien. She told you that. She wants you to live and find your destiny.”
Malator didn’t understand. He’d spent his whole life fighting, back when he was alive. He’d never been in love. Not really. I sat down beside him in the dusty road, laying the sword across my lap. “Shouldn’t you be in here resting?” I asked, tapping the blade.
“I’m all right now,” he said in a reedy voice. “Your loneliness woke me. I’m very angry with you.”
“Angry? Why?”
“For making me save you-again. You shouldn’t even be here talking to me. You should be floating around somewhere like a ghost. You know where you’d be if I let you die? In Arad. That would be your death place.”
Like Cassandra in the apple orchard, a death place is where a soul resides when the body finally expires. But Cassandra’s orchard was a far better place to spend eternity than Arad.
“That’s not what’s bothering you,” I said. “You’re angry because you think I tried to kill myself.”
“Didn’t you? I thought I had you figured out, Lukien. I thought you wanted to die just to be with Cassandra again. Now I can’t tell if you’re trying to die or just trying to prove yourself.”