Prince Nera Mossveil's Arc

Chapter 14 of 23

Nera sat the gray beast at the yard gate and watched the road. The mount was his. The map was folded at his knee. The fawn lay in a basket by the hearth inside, warmed by the winged kittens, but its breath was thinning. Without milk it would not last the first day of riding. He counted his choices and found two. Wait for Atletha and lose ground to the fire riders. Leave now and lose the fawn. Rosalind came out into the yard with her arms wrapped against the cold. The hem of her dress moved with a small orange light she did not hide. "Scout signals a rider on the low path," she said. "One horse. Coming fast." "Yours?" Nera asked. "Mine went east. This one is not mine." He swung down and drew the blade at his hip. Then he heard the pattern of the hooves and knew them. He had watched Atletha ride out on that horse three nights back. He walked to the gate and pulled the bar. Atletha rode into the yard at a hard trot and stopped short. She was bound across the chest with a sling, and the sling held a bundle that was not a milk skin. A small face showed in the folds. Dark hair. Eyes shut. A hand no bigger than a walnut curled against her collar. Behind her, tied to the saddle, hung two clay jars stoppered with wax. The milk. She had brought both. Nera did not speak. He stepped to the horse and lifted the jars free first, because the fawn needed them and his hands knew what to do before the rest of him did. He set them by the step. Then he came back and looked up at her. "He was born at the camp two nights ago," Atletha said. "I did not know until my water broke on the road in. Rosalind's people held me through it. I rode as soon as I could sit the saddle." She looked down at him. Her wing underveils caught the lantern and showed his colors clean along the lower edge. "He is yours. I did not want you to hear it from a scout." Nera lifted his arms. She passed the child down. The weight settled against his chest and the child did not wake. He carried the boy to the step, sat, and pressed his forehead to the small warm skull. Inside, Rosalind was already at the hearth with one of the jars, tipping milk into a cloth for the fawn. The kittens circled her hands. Glacienne stood in the doorway and watched without speaking. Nera lifted his head and looked at the map at the gate and the mount past it, and at the woman who had ridden through birth and cold to bring him a son and a fawn's life in the same sling. The road north had not gotten shorter. It had gotten heavier, and it had gotten his.