The Boon of Alon

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

Finally, after all the bullshit I've been through lately, Chama isn't telling me to hide. She's letting me be a rider, for real, or at least she'll show me how. And for once I'm more excited than terrified.

But there are hours more flying to get through first. I do get the chance to snack and stretch while Chama and Tack confer briefly on what to tell Suthi and how, and when to regroup if necessary, and then I have to mount up and set off again. This time, at least, Arnet's red form is a beacon through the fog ahead.

"Are you good for another long flight?" I ask Iamon and he silently chuffs back.

"Are you?"

"Not really." All the practice has definitely helped, but it's also left me with a collection of lingering aches that this journey is only worsening.

"If you need a break, we will take one. Until then, let me worry about getting us there."

I can do that. I've got enough to think about with what the hell we'll be doing when we get there. Wherever "there" is. "Do you know where the prince is?"

"There are possibilities. Where do you think he may be?"

"Is this another situation where you're just trying to make me think through something?" I ask grumpily.

"Not this time," he says, remorseless. "I do not have the same information as you, but together, we may find an answer."

Well, okay then. Considering all we've got to go on is "somewhere north"... "He'd be somewhere there's a problem he has to supervise, maybe? We talked about a few issues in Pangessa, and I don't know how thoroughly any of them were resolved—I mean, mine isn't yet." But hopefully soon—at least I have that to look forward to. "There's the displacement in the Messay Lake area—that was recent—and the territory dispute in the Brookvalt that Corren never came back from. Which I guess means it could still be an issue." Or he didn't come back for some other reason—I don't know. We never really followed up on things that were ongoing. That doesn't necessarily mean they were never resolved, though.

"That is a wide range to search."

"Yeah. I hope Chama has a better idea." She has to have heard things that never made it back to our archive sessions. "North, and not near a sending crystal...if I knew more about sending crystals, that might be more useful."

"They are rare and expensive," says Iamon.

Makes sense—I didn't even know they were real until today. "Then they'd only be in...important places. Like, regional centers, major cities. Easy to access but easy to guard."

"That is reasonable."

"The border around the Brookvalt is pretty densely populated. And it's more west than north." Below us, forest peters out into rolling grasslands. "Messay Lake...there's probably a crystal somewhere along the south of the lake. But the north..." Near Northstrand—where Suthi once lived. Where whole villages have now been displaced.

"It is a likely spot," says Iamon, "but there are other troubled areas along the way."

"And I assume we'll stop to check them."

"Indeed. It would be less efficient to double back after."

This is going to be a long day.

We land several times as the day goes on. Chama insists I stay astride Iamon while she asks around—at the kinds of places we stop, small villages and fringes of soldier's camps, it doesn't take long. I bet most of these people don't even know the king is dead yet, and Chama doesn't tell them. I ask her why when she comes up to Iamon's shoulder to tell me we're moving on again.