“Well, Camwyn, are you ready for a ride?” Paks grinned at him.
What could he say but yes? He nodded, said the word, and followed his last teacher out of the house, down the path along the creek.
Two horses waited there. Paks always rode the same horse, a red chestnut. Today a dark horse, almost black, waited for him. Both were saddled.
“They have saddles,” Camwyn said, then felt stupid.
“Your balance is better, but now you need a different exercise,” Paks said as she mounted. “Do you remember how to use stirrups?”
Camwyn did not. The saddle looked higher—no way to jump and throw himself across it. The stirrups—what was he to do with them? Paks coached him; the horse stood patiently, and finally he was up. It felt unnatural—he couldn’t feel the horse’s muscles moving under him.
“You can fight riding bareback,” Paks said. “But it’s a lot easier to fall off or be pulled off.”
In a few days, Camwyn rode confidently in the saddle, though he still rode bareback at times. He knew he was stronger. Though he did not remember where he had learned it, his muscles seemed to know sword work, and Paks taught him new things as well. She also had him run on the hills, up and down and across the slopes, and through the woods until he no longer stumbled and fell or had any fear of heights whether he stood on a tree’s limb or at the edge of a cliff many times his height.
“Did you know me before?” he asked her once. “Do you know where I came from?”
“I know what the gods show me,” Paks said. Her gray eyes seemed to see far beyond his vision, into another world, perhaps. “And I know what you are now, because you have shown me.”
It was not the answer he wanted—not really an answer at all when he thought about it—but he knew it was the only answer she would give.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Bannerlíth, Prealíth
Coming from the elvenhome to Prealíth’s ordinary forest had been a shock, like a dip in cold water. Almost, Dorrin wanted to turn back, reenter the elvenhome, and stay there forever. But with the outside world had come that sense of urgency again. In Prealíth, the trees showed autumn colors, though still mixed with green. If she was to sail this season—and she must—they should make haste to the coast before it ended.
Days more travel lay before them even though they picked up the pace, riding more swiftly. Forest frayed into farmland with scattered patches of woods, and they had dirt lanes to ride on and farmsteads and villages where a coin would buy a night’s lodging and dinner. Finally, from a hill, Dorrin caught her first sight of the Eastern Ocean, a dark blue line against the lighter sky.
As Dorrin and her escort neared the coast, the land descended; the city of Bannerlíth seemed to flow down the last hills in a torrent of white and red to encircle its harbor. Dorrin reined in and looked down at the city and then out to sea. The ocean looked much bigger this close. She had only the vaguest notion how far it was from this shore to the distant continent from which the Seafolk had come, from which Kieri had escaped. On this afternoon the sea looked almost black-blue in the distance, but nearer to shore it had a cold green cast. Rocks and larger islands lay offshore to the north; to the south she could just see the loom of the Eastbight, a vague line in the haze.
Her stomach tightened. Now the real journey began. All across Lyonya she had been safe in the bubble of the elvenhome, guarded from any harm by the King’s Squires who escorted her. Even in western Prealíth, she had felt safer than here, where her world as she knew it ended and the unknown began. From Bannerlíth, she must go on alone.
She shook herself out of that mood and reviewed her resources. The loose jewels were well hidden, sewn into the lining of her doublet. Kieri had provided the kind of small box he said sea passengers usually carried, and the regalia fit into it underneath her spare clothes. She had a letter from him to the Sea-Prince, and this was the right season to sail from Bannerlíth to the Immerhoft Sea.
She lifted her reins. “It’s a lovely city,” she said. “At least, seen from here.”
“It is indeed,” said Berne.
The city gate was nothing more than an arch with a pole across the track and two men in green and blue lounging in the shade of a tree.
“You’re from Lyonya!” one of them said. “I remember you. Message for the Sea-Prince?”
“Yes,” said Berne.
“And who’s that?” He pointed at Dorrin.
“Someone the Sea-Prince wants to meet,” Varne said.
“Go on, then.” The two men lifted the pole from its brackets, and they rode through.