Prince Nera Mossveil's Arc

Chapter 16 of 23

Nera rode with Atletha at his flank and the child bound to her chest. The gray mount kept a steady walk, not the hard pace the map wanted. He watched the sling with every stride. The son was quiet, but quiet was not the same as safe. By the second hour the child had cried twice for milk, and Atletha had slowed each time to feed him from the jar. The road north was three days at a gallop. At this pace it was six. The fire riders would not wait six. He drew up at a bend where the trees thinned. "We cannot ride this road with him. He will not last the cold nights, and I cannot push the mount without shaking him loose." Atletha did not argue. "Then we do not ride this road." She pointed her chin down a side track that dropped toward the creek. "The animal fairies keep a house down there. Their leader took the fawn to it. It has a warm floor and nurses. A child could sleep there while we ride on." "You would leave him." "I would leave him alive." She held his eyes. "I can ride hard behind you if my hands are free. He cannot ride hard at all." They turned down the track. The woven house sat in a clearing, leaves grown into its roof and paw prints painted on the door. The cowboy fairy was in the yard already, sleeves rolled, wings folded flat against his back. Two frost-furred monkeys sat on the low wall watching them, and a blue-marked butterfly the size of a hound rested on a stump near the door. Dusty came to the mount before Nera dismounted. "The fawn is drinking," he said. "Standing by dusk if the cold holds off." He looked at the sling. "You brought another one." "My son," Nera said. "I need him held here until I come back. Fed. Warm. Not shown to anyone who asks." He swung down. Rosalind had ridden up behind them at some point; she stood at the gate with her arms crossed, saying nothing. Her presence was the guarantee. No fire rider would burn a house she stood beside. Dusty put his hand under the sling and took the weight. "My word on him same as the fawn. He goes back to you. Not to any hall." He turned for the door. Atletha unbound the sling from her ribs and passed the cloth over without watching her hands shake. Nera mounted again. The saddle felt lighter and worse. Atletha swung up on the second mount Dusty led from the shed, a lean thing bred for distance. She gathered the reins the way a rider gathers them when nothing is holding her back. "North," she said. He nodded, and they rode. The child was behind them now, safe on a warm floor, and the herd was still ahead, and the road had shortened to what two hard riders could cross.