Bridging the Ancient ✓

Chapter 42

A wind moving faster than any winter storm I've trudged through pushes against my back. It's not a cold wind or one that is unsettlingly hot like in the Blood Desert. This one is right in the middle, enough to dull the chills of the night that the mountains will provide.

Small patches of snow cover their tips but have long ago frozen, and left as nothing but swirls of ice picked up by the brisk wind. We won't be traveling that high, at least I hope we won't. Renit hasn't exactly given me every little detail about making it the rest of the way to Lona through the Oxpea Mountains. Besides the villages stationed somewhere in the many caves along the towering peaks, I don't know what we'll be facing. Monsters and witches alike.

Renit dismounts, and walks around the side of his horse to take the reins, urging for me to do the same. We didn't plan to continue the rest of this journey on foot but the slick rock and fallen stone will not bode well for horses.

Opening his palm to the guide at the base of the mountains, Renit frowns at the small collection of copper coins dropped against his skin. Much less than what someone should pay for two castle horses but it's better than nothing. We couldn't have someone stealing them for nothing at all and using the beasts for their own personal gains. The guide will rent out these horses to those willing to make the trek towards the Oxpea Mountains. But he will go no further.

No one does, they claim the eyes of the peaks are always watching. I never bothered to ask who the eyes were, if they're figments of the imagination, superstitions, or actual witches waiting to strike us down. It's just another thing to add to the list on why I can't stand to think of going to the most dangerous city in all of Esaria.

The land is beautiful, I can attest to that myself, but there are some places better off not witnessing. I believe Lona is one of them. Renit offered to allow me freedom from ever stepping foot onto the blood covered streets but I'm not allowing him to go there alone. They might respect the king and all his wrong-doings, but Renit is as good a target as any.

He might as well be bait for the fighting pits. And Renit told me they don't fight fair like in Ducoria. Hidden weapons, use of powers, anything to gain the advantage. We'll have to be ghosts in a city that looks for them in every shadowed corner.

I hand the reins over to the guide and stare up at the mountains one last time. The mountains we will be climbing. It'll take us days to get to the other side. Lona is directly at the bottom of these mountains but to get there, we'll be exhausting all our food, supplies, and lack of weapons. Although we managed to purchase an extra bow, two swords, and throwing knives from someone in Ducoria, I still don't think we have enough.

The weapons are weak compared to what we could purchase in the capital. We are to travel light this time around; the horses couldn't carry us all the way from one end of the kingdom to the other carrying every weapon this land has to offer.

Renit allows me to carry the new bow as the string is tighter and more secure than the one we stole. A quiver of arrows rests against my hip and the selection of throwing knives leans against my beating heart, strapped to a baldric across my chest. Another thing we spent our precious coins on, Renit didn't believe I could go without one.

As the guide takes our horses away, heading back to the post along the trail, I glance at Renit out of the corner of my eye as he stares up at those mountains. His throat bobs in a swallow and the wind tears at the strands of his hair. The prince is clean-shaven once more, both of us cleaned ourselves up on our last day in Ducoria, the same day a storm rolled in and ruined the streets further.

The storm didn't follow us out here. The wind is merely what accompanies these mountains like a forever friend. We'll be dealing with it the entire trek from the ground.