Edeard LaRein prepared for the part of the day he had been dreading. He finished the last few cursive swirls of his signature on his paperwork, slowly packed away his papers and ink bottles, and stood straight as a plank. His arms spread out, putting tension on tired muscles and compressed tendons. The walk to the back of the caravan passed him through all the cars. Livestock, crates of ale, paper, grains, fruits. Then came the stateroom cars. Tight bunks squeezed behind rich, wooden doors. These were the heaviest cars. He wondered if this was why he humored that girl so easily. There was more luxury than cargo on this caravan.

The connexions between cars wavered as he crossed them. They were a series of catwalks with rope railings forming the caravan’s ligaments. Stones and pebbles littered nature’s road, as did the slightest bends. The caravan moved like a long snake. While he was on a connexion he checked on the horses that flanked the catwalks. He made sure to let them roam a bit every night; staring into the back of the car ahead all day could not be have been pleasing even for creatures with simple dispositions.

The less wealthy cars were at the back, ending with the storage area for the Scoutrunners. In that lone car was a spare cabin for the priestess. It was a seven by ten feet cupboard. The loose hinges on the door rattled. He knocked quietly. When he heard no response he knocked again, louder.

The door creaked as it opened so gingerly he thought it drifted.

“Owner?” June said.

“What an awkward address. It’s LaRein. I’m a human being. I wanted to talk.”

“What about?”

“May I come in?”

“Oh shoot! Yes. Of course. I’ve never received anyone before.”

He sat down beside her on the slim one-person bed. The room was spartan. One porthole on the wall beside the bed revealed the road. The girl had lined the walls with rolls of brown cotton. It made gravely sound the wheels made a little quieter. He suspected that wasn’t the real reason she had brought them.

“How are you doing?” He asked. He studied her complexion. She had the same soft mask as she did when they first set off. Prone to being revelatory to her emotions, which were oceanic in their depth. She had hair like dry hay in the sun, and eyes like the dark between two shadows. And hands that would pain him to see sustain a single callus. Why did the Order choose people like this?

Something was wrong. She didn’t look sad. Or disappointed. Like an apathetic gargoyle she stared ahead.

“Fine,” she finally answered.

“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

“I’m doing okay, sir, thank you.”

“I’m sorry about the way things turned out.”

“You don’t need to worry about me, sir.”

“You did the right thing. You advised. You let everyone know your concerns. And you created a setting where a fair vote could be cast. The Order didn’t task this of you. Last night was all you.”

Her countenance did not change. She inhaled deeply, then exhaled.

“It didn’t really matter, did it?” She said.

“Ms. Jerylieu-”

“I’m a little tired, sir. And I’ve Rites to study and prepare in case things go wrong in the coming days.”

She wanted him to leave. Edeard had always been slow on the uptake in that regard. This desire was obvious enough. June couldn’t even say it clearly. As though it was blasphemous to even ask for such a simple thing as privacy. What did the Order do for Faleria that was worth teaching a young woman to behave this way? He didn’t want to think about it. Instead he stood, bowed quickly, and left, closing the door quietly behind him.

--

Some of the villagers tried to stop him. Their attempt was a matter of course. Jorge shrugged them off like a gnat and walked back into the forest.

“Lyosha!” He shouted. His reply was a shroud of popping and crackling. Waves of ashen air swept past the layer of sweat he had accrued. His mouth was dry, his lips cracked.

“Lyosha!” Again. He swung his axe, felling a young tree so he could see behind it. Nothing. No sign of the old man. The snow-white beard would have been apparent from a long way away. Jorge recalled with a jab of pain that he hadn’t heard Lyosha for hours leading up to their exit from the forest. The old Russian could be anywhere along the distance they had travelled.

He thought about being mad at the villagers. But once again, some part of his father in him made him understand. Most of the villagers were gone. The ones that made it barely got themselves out, let alone if they were expected to drag another out with them. Jorge couldn’t find it in himself to accuse them. He wanted so desperately to be angry.

The open wound to the forest’s outsides retreated behind him as he retraced his steps back inward. His head swept from side to side, robotically searching. It was getting warmer. There was the odd movement among the leaves, but it was just some animal fleeing. Sometimes the canopy rustled and blackened as something large skated across the top of the forest in frantic escape.

He walked deeper. His eyes were reflecting amber. Waving torches of light. They grew larger and larger until he was surrounded in it. Smoke lapped his skin and stung his eyes. The green fell away, replaced by flames. It hurt. His skin was starting to blister. He was far from invulnerable.

Jorge reemerged from the forest. His skin was reddened, but he left before any real damage had been done. The villagers waited for him on the road. They seemed elated to see him return. He shook his head and did his best to sign, “You are safe now. Your path is yours. Mine is mine.”

Then he rested the neck of his axe on his shoulder and walked away. The villagers did not follow him, and he did not look back. They did shout something in unison at him in a cheerful tone. He did not understand what it meant.

The road bisected the forest. Like a preemptive surgical blade it saved the woodlands beyond. For now. Jorge could not guess when the volcano would be spent. Perhaps the fire may come for the spared woods yet. Maybe what he just did was in vain. Not to mention he had only been there for one tribe out of many in that forest. If those others burned, how would he know? How would anyone?

He continued down the road for a time. His water was gone. His rations emptied. And he had developed a bad cough. It became the metronomic reminder that he was still alive once every minute or so. The fire continued to rage. He walked in relative quiet, alone with his thoughts.

He had been sick before. Once. It was months after the funeral. He had gained fifty pounds too quickly. He remembered a warm day. Rays of noon sun so solid you could almost reach out and break it like a pane of candy glass, and they were littered with dust motes like sprinkles of icing sugar. He hadn’t left his room in a while. Neither had he cleaned. His mother entered and his heart braced in anticipation of another fresh wound she was about to inflict with her words. Instead, she said nothing, even smiled, and left a bowl of chicken soup with the grease filtered out on a stool by his bedside. Like a madman in a sea of lunacy happening upon an island of lucidity, Dora Faett remembered how to be a mother for just one day. When he recovered her abuse resumed. But he was no longer capable of being angry at her. She abused and he ate. That was the price of being strung along by a man as pure and bright as Gustavo and then being abandoned by him.

“My life is now my own,” Jorge whispered to himself.

He didn’t remember how long he walked. The sound of steel parrying steel was distinct enough. He dove into the trees on the other side of the road and entered a sneaking stance. His movements became nearly imperceptible. The noise came from around a bend in the road. He approached it through the foliage. A battle was taking place.

There were wild looking men in brown leathers with all manner of weapons. Swords, axes (none nearly as large as his), flails, and daggers. They fought men in black: orderly, uniformed people with some sort of bird insignia on their shoulders. Behind them a long train of horse drawn cars waited. Jorge moved closer, then froze.

There were more of the wild men, whom he had quickly surmised as some kind of bandit judging by how they seemed to be perpetrating some kind of ambush. He saw them approach the caravan from behind, only to be intercepted by another squad of the black uniformed fighters. But there were more bandits than escorts.

Voices barked behind him. Jorge whipped around. Yet another group of the highwaymen. They prepared well for whatever this was. They spoke to each other in a language that was both familiar and undecipherable. It sounded similar to French and Latin, if all of the root words had different origins.

Ah what the hell. Jorge raised his free hand and said, “Hello.”

They raised their weapons and charged.