The Empty Ones (Fantasy Romance)

43. What shapes you

We have been travelling on the west road for two days now.

Hara is very resourceful. Common people seem to be like this. Mairi was like this too.

I didn't see much of the city this time around either, and it brings with it a certain degree of regret because I know I will never get to actually know the city of the hundred lakes, the city where I was born.

The tunnel brought us quite far to the outskirts, and after that, we took the west road right away.

The first night we slept in a widow's home. Hara started talking to her at the market in the first village we arrived in. My feet already had blisters, and I was hungry while Hara was quite unaffected. I didn't even know that it was possible to get blisters from walking. We gave the widow a few copper pennies, and she let us sleep on her floor.

Now I am grateful for my time at the priory because it was a damn hard floor. But I was so tired on top of it all that I actually slept.

Last night we spent in a barn on a farm on the outskirts of another village. It was the first time I slept in hay, and it was more comfortable than I thought, after you get over the fact that the hay straws are pricking your skin.

And right now the first sun rais creep in the barn and I know we need to keep going. By now, he must know I am gone but it's a very big country and he doesn't know me at all.

Where would an orphan without friends go? Could be anywhere... And a widow with a daughter are a dime a dozen.

Maybe he isn't even searching. I hope.

"Hara, can we take a detour?"

"Detour? I don't know the meaning of this word, little mistress, but I don't think I like it."

"It's that, there was a girl in the priory. And her husband is, I think, Sahib Aldam."

She looks at me with a mixture of fear and incredulity.

"But little mistress, Sahib Aldam is a general. How do you want us to steal away the wife of a general?"

"Concubine. And exactly how we stole away the wife of the Emperor. She will want to be stolen away."

"That is not safe. Let us make it to Tajir. After the border, his soldiers cannot just cross. After all this dies down, we can return for her."

"And the ship?"

"Little Mistress, only one in five ships makes it back from there. I am not saving you no,w so you die at sea. I would rather go into the land of the Tahnee."

"Why are you calling it that?"

"How?"

"Everybody is calling it only the land of the mountain clans. This is a name you only see in books, in very old ones written in the language of the quizm."

"Well, your mother used to call it that. It got stuck in my head. And that's the name of it, is it not?"

"Hmm, yes and no. In their language, it's different, but I never knew how to read that."

"Doesn't matter. First, we need to get out of the country."

She is right, but I can't help thinking that I am abandoning Chioma to a fate worse than mine.

We keep walking along the road. Sometimes we meet other travellers. I do what Hara is doing; when she greets them and chats with them, I am friendly but avoid talking, when she passes without looking at them, I do quite so.

"Little Mistress, we need to make haste to reach the next village till sundown."

I nod and try to hurry. When I was in the priory, I was more used to exercise, but the life of a Mahrani meant a lot of staying put to not upset anybody, yet everyone was upset anyway.