Celeste

  Morning broke gray and damp. The fire burned down to little more than embers and ash. The Rangers moved with practiced ease, stamping out the last of the coals, rolling cloaks, cinching saddles tight. Horses snorted clouds into the chill, as restless as their riders.

  I lingered by the gelding, running a hand through his mane as the others readied themselves. He stood easier now, though a faint tremor still ran through his flank. I whispered to him as I checked the girth, words meant as much for him as for myself.

  The Brotherhood was nothing like Art. He broke camp in silence, efficient but quiet, with every movement meant to disturb as little of the world as possible. The Rangers were louder, unbothered by the sound of their voices echoing through the trees. Lioren barked a laugh at some crude jest. Iven, marked by the scar cutting through his brow, swore when his horse snapped at the bit. Tobar, his long hair knotted in a rough bun, hummed a tune half out of key as he cinched his pack. Even Fira’s sharp reminder to hurry carried the tone of someone long used to wrangling children more than soldiers. Harl said nothing at all, just saddled his horse in steady silence, as if words were something he’d forgotten the use of. Their names had come to me in snatches of talk and laughter through the night.

  It was jarring, this clamor. After so many days spent following only Art’s footsteps and the rhythm of my own breathing, the noise felt almost foreign. And yet, part of me ached for it, the hush of Art’s footsteps, the silence he wore like a skin, and the way the world seemed to bend around his stillness. The Brotherhood’s noise only sharpened the emptiness he’d left beside me.

  Darius swung into his saddle last, his white hair catching the first pale strip of light filtering through the trees. “We ride,” he said simply. The others fell in without question, their line forming as naturally as water finding a channel.

  I nudged the gelding forward, falling into step at the rear. The forest swallowed our trail behind us, mist curling low around the trunks. The road stretched on, and for the first time in days, I wasn’t walking it alone.

  The road took us south, the mist thinning into pale morning light. Hooves thudded steady against the packed earth as leather creaked and voices carried just ahead of me.

  “You ride like a sack of turnips, Jaren,” Elena said, her tone threaded with humor. Her dark hair caught the light as she leaned forward in her saddle, the same beauty I had mistaken for a man until her hood had slipped back the night before. “If the horse throws you, I’m not going to ask Anna to waste her Healing on your broken neck.”

  Jaren groaned, shifting in the saddle. He was the youngest one, the same who’d handed me a waterskin with a quick grin when I entered camp the night before. “Saints, Elena, I’ve been riding since I was old enough to piss standing. You just notice me more because you’ve nothing else to stare at.”

  That drew a round of laughter from the others. Elena smirked, brushing her hair back over one shoulder. “If you think I’m staring, boy, you’re more witless than you ride.”

  “Witless, maybe,” Jaren shot back, his grin widening. “But at least I stayed on my horse. You nearly slid off yours last night.”

  The laughter rolled louder this time, even Darius chuckling under his breath. Elena only shook her head, though her smile lingered as she let her mare press closer to Jaren’s mount.

  Their noise carried over me, rough and alive, and for a moment I almost let it draw me in. But it only reminded me of the banter I once shared with Art on the road – the quick barbs and the wry smiles that softened his face.

  The morning wore on in rhythm of hooves and leather, the Rangers’ chatter thinning as the leagues pressed on. Even Lioren’s tongue slowed to little more than the occasional mutter, and Tobar’s humming faded until it was only the wind and the clop of horses.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  I let the gelding keep to his slow, steady pace, watching his ears twitch at every snap of branch. The ache in my legs settled into dull familiarity, easier to ignore than the ache hollowed deeper in my chest.

  For a time, no one spoke. The hush felt closer to the silence I remembered with Art, though it was not the same. His quiet had steadied me. This one only reminded me he was gone.

  A crow startled from a branch overhead. Iven glanced up, then down at me riding near the rear. His scar caught the light when he squinted, the lines of his face creased with something sharper than curiosity.

  “You keep looking ahead like you’ll see him around the next bend. You’re chasing more than a road, you know? What you’re after is a man the world’s already taken.”

  The words pulled the others’ attention, one by one. Jaren twisted in his saddle, reins loose in his hands. Elena eased her mare closer, her dark hair slipping across her shoulder. Even Fira, who had ridden near the front, slowed until her gaze found me.

  “Saint’s damn it, Iven,” Tobar cut in, cursing in a way that meant to make it sting less. “Let the girl ride in peace. You’ve a way of souring the air before midday.”

  Iven only shifted his reins in his hands, unbothered by the jab. “Not trying to be cruel,” he said. “Someone should tell you plain – you’re no ordinary woman. You’re an Aberration and you burn like hell. Still, the army has Casters, and the crown’s reach is long. You go at them and they’ll either kill you both, or worse, you’ll end up in chains yourself. Then his sacrifice is wasted.”

  Elena’s jaw tightened; the mare stamped once. “And what would you have her do?” she snapped, voice clear enough to cut the morning. “Sit in the dirt and wait for the conscriptors to knock at her door? She’s got a right to try.” Her tone softened. “Saints know I would.”

  Lioren sucked his teeth. “For fuck’s sake lads, less sermon, more ridin’,” he muttered, though there was a gentleness around the edges. He gave his horse a nudge and rode a hair’s breadth closer, his face set like he was trying to steer the mood away from the cliff. “We can argue till the west wind dies, or we can hear what she says.”

  Jaren spoke up then. “She’s not helpless. You’ve seen what she can do. If she’s going after him, then let her. Saints help the soldiers fool enough to stand in her way.” There was bravado in it, the kind that came quick in the young and frightened. Elena’s laugh at that was short but not unkind.

  Fira cut a look at Iven, her voice edged. “You think you’re saving her with all that doom? You’re not. You’re just grinding her down before she’s even had her chance. There’s truth, and then there’s cruelty.”

  Iven’s mouth pulled tight, but his tone stayed level. “Call it what you like. Cruel would be letting her think she can tear through soldiers and walk away. Cruel is watching her fail because none of us had the spine to say what it would cost. Better she hate me for speaking it than bleed because no one did.”

  Darius reined his horse in just enough to draw their eyes, his voice cutting like a knife. “That’s enough. She knows the cost. It’s her road to walk. Whether she pays it or not isn’t for you, or me, or any of us to decide. No man or woman here will steer it for her.”

  The air had gone still, almost brittle, when Lioren sighed loud enough to turn heads. “Her road, my arse. Roads don’t walk themselves. So long as there’s a tavern waitin’ at the end, I’ll follow it anywhere.”

  A burst of laughter rolled through the line, sharp and sudden, cutting the tightness that had bound us all. Even I felt it tug at me, a laugh slipping free before I could hold it back.

  The mirth carried for a few breaths before it ebbed. The silence that followed wasn’t brittle this time. It settled heavier, like the weight of my own thoughts pressing closer now that their voices had quieted.

  What was my plan? I had been chasing Art as if sheer will could bridge the distance between us. But he had been the stronger of the two of us. If soldiers had taken him, how could I hope to take him back?

  He’d trusted me to go to Rodin. Trusted me to make it there when he couldn’t. What if that had been his way of buying time, of slipping the noose in his own way? And here I was, dragging myself straight toward him, threatening to shatter whatever chance he might have carved for escape.

  The gelding’s ears flicked, catching my unease. I smoothed his mane, forcing my hand steady, but the doubts pressed harder than the ache in my legs. For the first time since I’d started chasing after him, the thought struck quick and clear. Perhaps I wasn’t saving him at all. Perhaps I was undoing everything he’d meant me to do.

  I caught Fira’s eyes lingering on me through the way of her braid. She didn’t speak, only watched a moment longer than the others, as if she’d glimpsed the crack in me I’d tried to hide. Then she looked away, letting the silence cover us both.