Jareen's sore throat woke her. Judging by the light, it was not yet night, though she was not sure whether the twilight was due to the smoke and rainclouds or whether it was due to eventide. A couple yards away, Coir rolled over, hacked, spit, coughed, and blew out his nostrils. Jareen squinted in disgust, even though she was used to human behavior. He looked over and saw that her eyes were open.

"Hormil told me some horrifying stories about the Mingling," he said. "But nothing about wildfires."

"I have never heard of wildfires in the Embrace or the Mingling," Jareen said. "Nor of rain lasting for days." She glanced at the sky. She was soaked to the skin, but thankfully the rain was warm. The track continued more or less eastward, though it was questionable whether it was used by Vien or merely animals. Findeluvié was home to plenty of animals, including herds of diminutive muntjac deer that didn't reach Jareen's knee and were notorious for harassing gardens. The Vien did not hunt animals unless they were dangerous. They allowed a population of wildcats to thrive and hunt the little deer and other small beasts, keeping their populations in check.

There was nothing to fear from animals in the Embrace. The Mingling was different. All Vien had heard stories of the beasts that lived there. In the High Tir, she had felt Coir's insistence on bringing weapons to be a little extreme, but as they drew closer, she was thankful for the knives in her sash, at least—she had no idea how to use the swords.

There was no use waiting around in conditions too miserable for sleep. They continued for a few more miles, staring around at the unfamiliar trees, when the rain ended just as suddenly as it had begun. Coir and Jareen gaped at the landscape ahead. Burnt out husks of trees still smoked. The ground was scorched, and a haze of smoke limited their vision. Within the space of twenty yards, the ground went from soaked to hard and cracked and charred.

"Well, this is definitely not what Hormil described to me," Coir muttered.

"This is new. It is still smoking," Jareen said. "This couldn't have burned more than a few. . ." She hesitated, unsure of how long it took for a forest to burn.

The path disappeared, lost somewhere in ash and desolation, but with their back to the rain and their face to the smoke, they had a general idea of where east lay, so they continued. Neither were in the mood to speak. Few words had been exchanged on their long trek. Darkness fell, and the glimmer of hot embers glowed at the bases of trees and gnawed at fallen logs. Her damp scarf hardly helped her breathe. An unnatural silence permeated the burnt-out woods. A few strange bird-calls broke the stillness, but even they were rare.

"It will be hard to find food here," Coir said. "Or water."

Jareen had already thought of it. She was hungry all the time. As they'd moved eastward, leaving the cultivation of the Vien behind, there was less and less food to graze upon. Wild herbs had helped, but now there was nothing but withered husks and ash. Jareen had feared many things about the Mingling, but this was beyond anything she imagined. Mile after mile of burned and wasted forest passed behind them. The daylight came in a yellow haze through the pall of smoke. Their lips cracked. More and more she thought of the poor of Nosh.

"Where are we going?" Jareen asked, stopping to take a rest. Her nose and throat felt afire. Coir stopped and reached into his satchel, searching for the tenae that housed his map. He found and unrolled it, holding it up and squinting.

"I don't know," he said at last. "I learned of many places and some trails from Hormil and from the Aelor records—" he glanced at Jareen "—I maybe perused some when Eldre wasn't paying attention—but I don't know how I can make sense of anything, now. We could pass trails and never know it."

The trees looked like skeletons, often only their central trunk and a few stubs of charred limbs remained. Others had fallen, little more than piles of char. A layer of ash covered the ground. It was hard to imagine how it must once have looked. When Jareen wiped her nose, her hand came away streaked with blood.

"What do we do?" she asked.

Coir sighed, looking around as if seeking his bearings.

"Everything I have learned indicated that the Mingling isn't much more than fifty miles wide. . . At least, before the Charth side. We must have already come fifteen."

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

That felt like an over estimation to Jareen if they were just counting the edge of the burning.

"We cannot go on for another two days," Jareen said. Food was one thing, but without water there was no hope. "And what if the Charth side is burned as well?"

Coir looked around.

"Our best choice is to press on east."

Jareen wasn't sure.

"Are we sure we are still headed east?" she asked. Through the haze, it was impossible to track the movement of the sun. Even at sunrise, it may prove difficult to tell in this thick haze.

"No," Coir answered. "But if we don't know, the discussion is moot."

"We could go back to the rain and follow it to the coast, north or south."

"That would add great distance," Coir said.

"Or we could hide in the eastern edge of Miret. We saw no one there."

"Your babe is a scion of the Synod," Coir answered. "The Son of Talanael. I believe they will find the babe if we remain within their reach. The Current will bring them to us."

"You don't know that." She knew her suggestion was a poor one, but she was approaching exhaustion, and she was grasping at any illusion of relief.

"If my suspicions are correct, the only reason we have not been discovered is because you are an Insensitive and I am a human. We pass unseen. Perhaps you protect your babe as well."

"You think the Synod can see from afar?"

Coir paused before he answered, still looking at his map.

"I think you and I can have little comprehension of what their capabilities are."

Jareen put her head in her hands. The man was irritating. She was hungry and thirsty and wanted to cry and hit him at the same time. She should have fled to the coast. What madness had possessed her to listen to him and come to the Mingling?

"Come," Coir said. "We must keep walking."

"I don't want to walk."

"This is no place to stop," he answered, rolling up his map and sliding it back into the tenae. He replaced it in his bag and held out his hand to her. "Come, Jareen. For your child."

That made her even angrier. She stood, but she did not accept his proffered hand. They walked on, even as darkness fell. There was no use trying to sleep. They needed to cover as much ground as they could before thirst overtook them. In the night, Jareen removed the bulky mail and threw the helmet, greaves, and vambraces into the darkness. Coir begged her to keep the swords, but she threw them into the ashes as well, keeping only the knives.

Twice they had to avoid areas where fires still burned in heaps of fallen logs, fierce heat emanating outward. Whether they held an easterly course or not, Jareen wasn't sure. Before morning, Coir removed his mail and left it in the ash, keeping only one sword, the knives, and his bag of belongings slung over his shoulder.

Though Jareen had feared they would not be able to tell, the dawn gave them enough hint of east to adjust their course. They had veered southward. With lips and nose crusted with blood, Jareen trudged through that day, not knowing how she found the strength to place one foot before the other. Coir walked in silence as well, his shoulders hunched. Their breaths rasped.

Night had fallen again when the burnt husks of the trees fell away and they walked upon a rolling field of dark sand and charred grass that fell to ash underfoot. Jareen's tongue was sticking to her mouth, and coughing fits came more frequently. She worried for her babe. Surely if she suffered so from want of water, the babe must suffer as well.

"I'm sorry," she muttered under her breath, her hand on her belly. "But I'd rather we both die like this than let them kill you."

***

The dawn came in a yellow haze, and they climbed a rise in the rolling ashen field. The smoke was so thick that they could not see more than half a mile in any direction. They could see no trees anywhere. Had they come through the Mingling only to find an empty waste?

Jareen sunk to the ground, folding her knees under her. What she wouldn't give for a breeze. What she wouldn't give for a cup of water. She used to moisten the tongues of the dying with little drops after they could no longer swallow.

"Jareen," Coir said softly.

"What?"

"Look down the hill to our right."

She looked, and her whole body flexed.

Not two hundred yards away, a creature crouched in the ashes, almost lost in the smoke. She knew it must be tall, though it hunched close to the ground. It was clearly not a mindless beast, for it wore strange bulky garments. Its face appeared to be covered in a long grey fur, though Jareen wasn't sure if the smoke lent it that color. On its head was some kind of helm, and spiked axes were tucked into a thick belt. It sniffed at the air and craned its neck forward, looking in their direction.

"What is it?" Jareen whispered, not moving.

"I. . . think it might be a quth."

She felt her muscles tighten even more, and the babe kicked. Would it attack? The quth and the two exhausted sojourners watched each other. Without warning, the quth sprang from its crouch, but not toward them. In a bent loping run, it disappeared eastward into the haze.

"Was it afraid of us?" she asked.

"I find that hard to believe."

"Do they speak?"

"So far as I know, yes. . . but Hormil said they are incomprehensible."

"We should go." Jareen started to rise. This may be their only chance before it came back with others.

"I don't think so," Coir said. "I think we should stay right here."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.