Bridging the Ancient ✓

Chapter 52

I kick the flank of the horse, ordering her faster along the dirt trail twisting through the thick forest. She stops once more, picking at a bush on the side of the trail, and I nudge her further with the heel of my boot.

We've been going like this for days now, stopping and going, as this horse is not a pristine version of the one I rode on this entire journey. This is a Lona horse—not trained, unfocused, and determined to piss me off. I can say the same for Renit's horse, who has faced cuss words more than once over the span of the last few hours.

In a forest like this, a forest I've recognized since I was a child, there aren't any dangers to worry about. This place has been untouched for years but for the business of the trail, my father never ventured out this far. But Arego is gone now and hardly anyone passes through to find us or receive the gossip on what is happening to the people brave enough to escape.

Nothing. Nothing had been happening, but Arego is a ghost-land now. What's left of the village is merely a few miles north, past the river and through a cluster of forest that my father was cutting down to build more houses. He traveled out here once to discover how far this forest extended and now that I've seen it for myself, Arego would have been sustainable for years beyond this. If the king never ended the beautiful village, my father would cut down those trees for many years down the road—by Bren and any witches of lumber in the kingdom.

The uncooperative horse keeps me from worrying about how close we are to the village. Smoke doesn't plume from the sky any longer, all witches have fled, and the ocean will forever spray against the side of the cliff and kiss mist against what is left of the stone buildings.

I wonder what is left of our home; if the drawings I spent so long crafting were completely burnt or somehow spared by a witch of water. Celestine's journals stacked in the corner, ruined and left to hope for discovery by a witch brave enough to uncover the remnants of second chances. They'll find my father's coats, my mother's jewelry, my charcoal pens, and Celestine's paper. Then again, all of that could be ash.

The horse stops again and I tug on the reins to get her moving. With a huff of disappointment, she slides in next to Renit's horse and decides to give up trying to eat as much food as it would take for her to collapse. Until a bushier and brighter plant comes along, she'll cooperate. It won't be long, I have a feeling.

I feel Renit's eyes on the side of my face but avoid looking at him. We've known each other for months now and along with coming to understand each other, we're aware of what makes each other tick and what bothers us. He knows we're close to Arego—it would be mere minutes on horseback for us to make it there. Memories of a long-forgotten past. A past I've learned to forget.

"Since you haven't said a word in hours, I'm guessing you don't want to go through what's left," Renit speculates. He tugs on the reins of his own horse, stopping him from biting at a low branch before he can reach it. Renit's reflexes are much quicker than mine, he grew up around these beasts.

I shake my head. "After all this, I want a break. We've been going since the start, neither of us has slowed down, and I think it's time we do something other than focus on the past or the king's duties," I respond evenly. My spine aches with how straight I'm forcing myself to keep it.

Don't appear weak.

"My father might have another mission for us when we get back. We have to prepare ourselves."

Those words alone cause my shoulders to slouch with exhaustion. I want to see Celestine; I want to help Silas improve on his condition; I want to cook in the kitchens with Dalis and listen to Mills' stories about his time cooking meals for soldiers in the war. I've enjoyed these weeks with Renit, scouring the entire kingdom for these boxes, but there are other parts of life I want to explore. With him still at my side but with everyone else, too.