The trail was growing staler by the day. They’d traveled far, and though her discomfort had waned somewhat, Jaliqai had grown weary of finding nothing to speak of. Perhaps the former princess had drowned, like she’d entertained before. Eaten by a tiger shark or some other carnivorous sea dwelling creature.
Jaliqai didn’t really like to think about what fresh and unknown horrors lurked at the depths of the ocean.
She could feel the tension coming from Aika. If she tried, she might cut it from the air with her hunting knife the way that she had severed the throat of her father’s dragon elk in sacrifice to the spirits for a safe journey and an alleviation of the bad spirits that had circulated them since his death and improper burial. It should have been fine. You had his soul purified with fire, as you ought to have done.
Still, it had not been enough.
Jaliqai leaned heavily against her saddle, swaying with the movement of Altantsetseg below her, the silence of their group weighing heavy on her shoulders. They’d enough supplies to last them for some time, but she thought that perhaps Aika and Hanae would be glad of an inn’s warm, soft, beds instead of the cold of the forest ground this night. Perhaps it would lift their spirits and alleviate some of this strange tension that had hung about them since the journey’s beginning.
The Cragwoman turned to Aika, braids swaying heavily over her shoulder as she did, and the evening light shining warm against her skin through the silent sentinels of the trees around them.
“We should stop at the nearest town; find an inn and a warm bath and meal.” She glanced at Hanae where she rode on Aika’s other side, a blue shadow that nearly blended in with the shadows cast by the tree trunks.
