Chapter 68: The Faster Road Back (Part 1 of 2)

  Light and Fast

  They left Selvarn without ceremony.

  No carriage waited this time. The yard was cleared, gates opened, and the escort moved out on foot—lighter, faster by design. Packs were tightened. Formation thinned. The road was meant to be eaten, not admired.

  The first hours proved the point. Without wheels to pace them, the guards lengthened their stride naturally. Not a sprint. Not a march. Just a steady increase that shaved minutes without demanding them. The students adjusted easily. Even Joran found the rhythm, jaw set, breathing controlled.

  Laurent felt it immediately—the shift from vigilance to endurance. His legs welcomed the pace. His chest did not. Breath came a fraction too shallow, then evened out as he forced it down, counting steps until the numbers dissolved into motion.

  The forest thinned, then closed again. Sunlight broke through in irregular patches, warming stone and bark alike. Birds returned in cautious bursts, sound rising and falling with the canopy.

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  They rested less. When they did, it was brief. A sip of water. A strap tightened. A glance exchanged to confirm no one was lagging. The guards treated momentum as something fragile—easy to lose, costly to regain.

  Laurent noticed how often Corin checked the line without turning his head. How Havel adjusted pace by sound alone. How Marin and Taris drifted outward on open stretches, then eased back in where sightlines narrowed.

  It wasn’t speed. It was compression.

  By midmorning, the road began to take its toll. Not on strength, but on focus. Footing mattered more. Angles tightened. A loose stone demanded attention that flat ground never had. Laurent felt the familiar tension return—not panic, not fear. The sense that mistakes lived closer together when you moved like this.

  He stayed quiet.

  The second rest came near noon, shorter than the first. No one sat fully. Knees bent. Weight shifted. Eyes stayed up.

  As they moved again, Laurent caught himself wishing—briefly, irrationally—that he could widen his awareness the way the guards seemed to, let it stretch without effort instead of pressing it into place through habit and control. The thought embarrassed him. He buried it and kept pace.

  By early afternoon, the road steepened. Stone replaced packed earth in uneven stretches, forcing the formation to flex. The escort tightened without instruction, pace easing just enough to keep footing clean.

  Corin raised a hand once. They slowed, then resumed—no explanation given. Laurent understood anyway. Speed wasn’t the goal. Arrival intact was.

  They made camp earlier than planned, ground chosen for visibility rather than comfort. The faster pace had bought them distance, but not margin. Fire stayed low. Watches doubled.

  Laurent sat with his back against a tree, stretching his fingers slowly, feeling the tremor under the surface that hadn’t been there on the outward journey. The road back was shorter. It didn’t feel easier.