Yuragwyn: Yours

---Chapter 20

∞Kaitra∞

I had almost forgotten the tearful joy of tearing one's comb through a knot of wet hair. The comb is a curious wooden thing, but it is better than nothing. I am just happy to be clean and in a house, however quaint and oddly located. Anything is better than the quagmires on the other side of the wall. Calanthe is quiet as she sits next to me, pawing through her own locks, her face drawn and somber. Briallen is nowhere to be found.

"I passed Traugott on the way back," Calanthe begins.

I face her and wait for her to continue. She sets her comb down, clasps her hands, and thinks for a moment. "Granzians have been spotted in Abyss."

"So we have to leave," I finish, falling back on our bed, the rosy sunset fading to grey. "Naturally, the moment we get to some sort of safety the enemy is spotted on our tail. Maxen said Abyss is nearly impassable and rarely traversed. Who would have seen these Granzians?"

"Goodness, who knows?" Briallen asks as she comes in. "It's too perfect."

I nod uncomfortably at Briallen's observation. The only way for the Granzians to have been spotted would have been to look for them, and who would know to do that unless someone was expecting the Granzians to come? I look at the wooden door and canvas covering the windows with new suspicion. Who might already be here? I groan; I only want one night without a watch.

"Girls," Calanthe says soothingly. "Let's just sleep while we can. Traugott will come get us in the morning."

I say nothing and pull the blanket over my head in despair.

//•••//•••///•••\\\•••\\•••\\

"Kaitra," a voice whispers. "Kaitra!"

My eyes fly open, and I sit up. "What?"

"We need to get going," Calanthe says. "There are tents pitched on the outer wall. We have to go before they wake up."

I roll out of bed and put on my boots. Calanthe twists my hair into a bun, and I shiver with the memory of Traugott doing it for me once in the woods just beyond the Yaywah. I grimace as I pull my pack on. It feels worlds heavier with the new foodstuffs. Why did they have to follow us so closely? Just one day of rest—was that too much to ask?

Traugott meets us at the door, and we walk silently, single file, out of the secondary opening in the compound wall and onto the beach. The water is still dark, the sun not even blinking with morning yet. A boat, fifteen feet long, six feet wide, with a tiny hut in the middle, rolls in the water a few yards off. Two pegasuses already prance around on board. Put out by the slight bob of the water, they ninny pitifully, as if begging to come back ashore.

We row out in a little skiff and climb aboard. I stumble a bit with the pitch of the small waves. Traugott pushes the little boat back towards shore, and Calanthe and I each grab an oar and push off the sandbar and out into the open water. Briallen takes a seat at the rudder and we make out for the grey horizon.

With the sunrise, the land of Yuragwyn has disappeared from sight, and my heart flips and rolls with the stress of being completely and utterly away from anything I have ever known or pretended to know. The sea is too close, too dangerous, and too ready to swallow us. The thin boards beneath my feet are the only things between me and a watery grave. They are too fickle to trust.