Maren Goldweaver's Arc

Chapter 35 of 42

The trees closed behind them within an hour. Maren walked with the date and the place set in her head like two nails. Nine days. She did not know the roads. She did not know the rivers. She only knew east, and east was not enough. They stopped at a stream to fill the skins. Kato crouched by the water, still slow but steady. Gisela knelt beside him and rinsed her hands. "We can't take the road," Miller said. "Not with your face on paper in every village between here and there." "Then we don't take the road," Maren said. "Woods, then. All the way." "Nine days through woods we don't know." "Better than nine days on a road that knows us." Kato spat into the water. "There's a ridge line east. Runs most of the way. Traders use it when the tolls go up. No patrols. No inns." "You've walked it?" Maren asked. "Once. Halfway. There's a river crossing four days in. Shallow at a bend. I can find it again." "And after that?" "After that we ask the trees." Gisela looked up. "We'll manage. We always have." Maren studied her sister's face. Sixteen years old and already talking like someone who had buried people. She nodded once. They moved on before dusk. Kato took the front. Gisela walked at his shoulder, quiet, watching his footing. Maren and Miller fell back a stone's throw behind, out of the others' hearing. "I've suspected for a while," Maren said. "My father had something to do with the rebels. This only makes my suspicions stronger." Miller looked at her. "Our name buried in a Registry manifest. A date. A place. Someone hid it there for a reader who knew to look. He knew people who knew how to hide things like that." Miller did not answer at once. He stepped over a root and held a branch back for her. "He kept a suit at your forge for years," she said. "He gave you the dagger work. He trusted you with things he didn't tell me." "He paid me to make blades. That's all I know." "You'd tell me if it wasn't." "I'd tell you." She stopped walking. He stopped with her. He bent and kissed her forehead. She was not used to it. Her breath caught for a beat before it steadied. "We can't assume," he said. "Not yet. We go to the place. We see what's there. Then we know." "And if it's a trap." "Then we know that too." She nodded. Ahead, Kato had stopped at the edge of a clearing and lifted one hand. Gisela dropped low beside him. Maren and Miller closed the gap fast and quiet. Kato pointed through the brush. A narrow track ran east through the pines, packed dirt, no wheel ruts. Old. "The ridge line," Kato said. "We're on it." Maren looked east. Nine days. She stepped onto the track.