UNMARKED

31: Falling

The group topped a rise and Blayre peered between Dove's gray ears at the lush mountain scene before them. The light wind picked up the mare's mane in wisps of white. The grass before them blew in waves of soft green speckled with magenta wildflowers.

"There's no smell like a mountain smell." Fletcher said, voice filled with content as he breathed deeply. "Well, except for the ocean maybe." He amended.

"If you like fish and algae." Ainslee said, scrunching her nose.

"Yes, the mountains are a bit - fresher than the ocean." Caval offered, reining in his piebald.

Blayre had always loved the mountains, it was the people she associated them with that soured them in her mind. Well, that and the winter. But it had been years since she had been forced to spend an entire winter at Blumore. Not since she had begun training in the capital.

"Where to?" She asked Caval, who squinted at the valley below them and the lilac mountains surrounding them, the growing shadows of afternoon blanketing part of the valley in darkness.

He had one of the maps, she knew, in his pack, but up to this point he had led them all by memory.

The journey would take three more days at least. Fletcher and Ainslee had obtained an additional map from Lord Darach. A bit more detailed than Caval's old book - at least to get them to the villages, with a halfway house stationed in between where they would leave behind their horses and continue across more difficult mountain terrain on foot. Darach didn't know about the additional plans they had for traveling to the caverns, and she doubted from her childhood experiences, that he thought them as more than an old legend meant for inspiring dreams - or fear - into children.

The briefest thought of her father inundated Blayre with conflicting emotion. She had too many of those lately. She felt that she couldn't break that promise she had made to him the day before, but she also had a burning desire to meet the woman who was her mother.

The woman who she had never been able to call mother. Who apparently she never would be able to call mother, if what her father told her was true. Suddenly it was all so overwhelming and she wished she could rewind time and go back to believing that her mother had thought about her all these years. Had wanted to know Blayre.

A soothing tendril of magic touched her, when they began moving again, and Blayre realized that Caval had dropped back to ride beside her, while Ainslee and Fletcher continued to banter back and forth about where the best geographical location was to live.

He was quiet as he said, "I know what the answer will probably be, but do you want to talk?"

She gave him a small smile, "Mind-reading again?"

He laughed.

"I know I should talk about it - about both things. That it will make me feel better. But I think that perhaps I just don't want to feel better quite yet."

"Sometimes we need time to grieve." He said. After a pause, he continued, "I think I can understand a little of how you feel. I never knew my father. And it would be a lie if I said that I didn't want to know who he was. It would be a lie to say that I never resented my mother for not knowing him or being able to tell me those details."

Blayre gave him a sympathetic smile. "I do wonder too - about my mother."

"I - very possibly - overheard your conversation with your father," Caval said, only slightly sheepish.

"Very possibly, eh?"

"I have good hearing," the sorcerer flashed Blayre one of his winning smiles.