We left in a hurry the next morning. I didn't let Ana delay me further for yet another goodbye, as much as I wanted one.

"Xeraaa!" she whined, throwing her arms around me. "Stay! Just one more day!"

"I'm sorry. " I picked her up with a warm hug, then exchanged her for a sack of wheat and loaded that onto the wagon. It was a small thing, but the wheels were robust and well-oiled. Lucian had bought it from some traders before the winter, and I had just purchased it from him, along with two of the stable horses. I didn't have many avens left, but I could always do smaller mercenary jobs if the situation became dire.

"I do have to go," I said. "I really do. You know I'd stay if I could, but I need to know what happened."

"Do you think..." she said, shuffling her feet. "Do you think you really need it? Or do you just want it? The truth hurts sometimes. You never know what it'll be. It's easier to stay here."

"Yeah," I said. "It would be."

"H-hang on," she stammered. "I have something for you. I'll go get it. Don't leave!"

She raced back into the inn, and I turned and packed my spear into the side of the wagon, accessible yet hidden. My sword, I left to Lucian. It had been his, after all. A gift to make me feel more comfortable. Weapons were familiar to me.

The dagger that I had kept near the doorframe, I forced into Eskir's hands.

"I'm no fighter," he said, but I dismissed his protests.

"Someone's already tried to kill you," I said. "If someone tries again when I'm not around, you need to protect yourself."

"They poisoned my drink, Xera. I'm not going to start stabbing waitresses."

I chuckled, knowing just how I would have reacted to someone trying to stab Ana. "Yes, that's probably a bad idea. Now, where are we going?"

He looked around for a moment, as though he had no idea where he was. He had arrived in the middle of the night, after all, and if he had been fleeing from the people who had stolen his voice, it made sense for him to be a bit lost.

"Dengal might be a good place to start," he said. "Or Eaden Helm. Or we could head to where Senvia once was. I understand there's a market there now, established along the coastline by fishers stranded outside the city and traders who arrived at nothing."

"Congratulations," I applauded, "you've narrowed it down from four roads out of the inn to three."

"Well, do you want the religious perspective? Path of Knowledge?"

I faked a barf. "So you have no idea," I concluded. "Aren't you supposed to know about this organisation?"

He offered a rueful smile. Of course, he couldn't speak. He couldn't tell me whatever connection he had to them. It was possible that his dilemma prevented him from even choosing the path we'd take.

"All my days." I drew my hands over my face, frustrated. "Fine. Well, there's not much point in going to the coast. Senvia was west, but it's gone now. Eaden Helm is the furthest away, and the city's being emptied quite quickly too. Dengal is a mess right now. Besides, I'm rather suspicious of the one direction you didn't mention. We'll head east. Bell Haven."

"Interesting choice!" exclaimed my travelling partner. "How unique."

"If you're going with ambiguity," I said, "I prefer silence."

"Ah," he said, tapping his nose.

It was interesting to note at least, that that was the reaction he chose to my choosing a destination that he had not listed. 

"Xera!" Ana was racing back towards us, something clenched firmly in her hand.

"You don't need to run," I laughed as she nearly collapsed breathlessly in front of me.

Ana bent over, clutching her chest. "I need to run more," she wheezed. "Or not. Maybe not. Here." Clenched in her fingers was a tiny medallion, about the size of an aven coin.

I took it, curious. It was light and slightly cool to the touch. It was steel, with a diamond emblem engraved on its surface.

"What is this?" I asked.

"It's not magic," she said hurriedly. "It's just a silly little charm. For safekeeping. It's to make sure you come back, so you can give that back to me when you return."

I slipped it into my coin purse. "Thank you, Ana."

We finished loading the wagon with as many supplies as we could before setting out. Lucian and Ana stood by the stables, watching us roll away. Lucian had a light smile plastered on his lips, like I was his daughter finally setting out for university. He hadn't even known me, but he had taken me in, fed me, and given me a room and a job. Six months, and we'd become family in every way but blood. The week before, we'd bickered over which champion would win the ring match in Eaden Helm, stopped speaking to each other, and made up again in less than a day.

Even with Lyana, I had never had that. She was the empress. Lucian was just... Lucian. Father, brother, whatever. In a very real way, he was the family I never had. This nameless, beaten down inn was home. And I was leaving. For who knew how long.

All I could think at that moment was, maybe I shouldn't go.

Ana's face beside him was plastered in tears. She was taller than him, and her blonde hair was cowlicked from the way she'd slept on it. She hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep, and I could see it in the heavy bags under her eyes, the clothes she'd worn for the second day in a row, and her saggy, slouched posture.

I could hear the sounds of her crying from where I stood by the wagon, which was set up across the small service road that encircled the inn, tavern, and stables.

I really, really wanted to stay.

But that thought kept nagging at the back of my mind. That loud, angry demand from my brain: what. happened. I needed to know. I owed it to myself, to Senvia, to Lyana.

Lyana had died before Senvia vanished. But it was her empire. Alaric's coronation, and his coronation speech, happened on the same day as the city vanished. Senvia was never his to claim. He hadn't even lived through the speech. He was dead seconds after that boy's dagger cut his throat open.

Alaric died because I failed in my duty. He was the emperor. It was my job to keep him alive.

Lyana died because I failed her. She wasn't just an emperor. Her life was my life. Everything I was, I owed to her.

I owed Senvia to her too, and the truth of what happened.

A small bead of liquid came from my eyes. I clamped them shut and suppressed the urge to bawl into tears. Eskir was right next to me, and Ana and Lucian would have seen.

"No emotion," I whispered to myself too softly for Eskir to hear. "Nothing at all."

Both of us sat in the back. A small pendant with a bell inside hung out in front of the horses, suspended by a beam connected to the wagon. The bell inside was a guidance charm, to keep them moving without someone to steer them. It wasn't a good one, it was old and dented, and made from copper. The modern ones were brass. But it worked.

He pulled out a biscuit from one of the bread baskets I had tucked away and loudly nibbled on it.

"If that's how you eat," I said, noticing the noise, "this is either going to be a very short trip for you, or a very long trip for me."

His face reddened, and he pocketed the biscuit in a hurry.

Then he started twiddling his fingers.

Noisily.

I planted my foot against his chest. The inn wasn't even out of sight yet. "You need to learn to stop moving for half a minute."

"I can't," he insisted. "Never have been able to. I can't focus either, my mind wanders too much. One minute I'll be thinking about this conversation, the next about wow, you have interesting hair, and the next will be about a species of bramble bush I saw as a kid, and how your hair reminds me of it. After that, it'll be the forest around us, and then the wheels of this wagon and how they keep hitting every pothole, and how uncomfortable that is even though they've been filled in, and then I'll start thinking about how much I hope whoever built this thing knew what they were doing, or our supplies may end up all over the road, and oh my, now I'm quite nervous about it all."

I stared at him, bewildered.

"Sorry," he laughed. "I can't really stop."

"Moving or talking?"

"Thinking," he said. "And moving. And talking. Why did you pick Bell Haven?"

I looked to the road ahead. "I've never been."

He knitted his fingers between his knees. "And here I thought everyone had been to Bell Haven. It might as well be the capital, if... well, if we had an emperor there. Everyone sees it that way, I think."

I turned back to him. "They don't see it that way. Every province in the empire is breaking out in war. There is no capital anymore."

"You've been to Dengal then!" he said, changing the subject.

More times than I could count. Lyana loved the spice markets. She had her own mead recipe that she would only buy the ingredients for from a few merchants on the east road. Honey, rosemary, and oak.

"Yes," I said, silently grumbling at the conversation. Would this man never shut up?

He pinched at the wagon's sideboard behind him with each hand, then sat forward. "You've seen the Attilas? How many did you see? I've heard there are always at least three in view of the city, and the one that roams the Spice Road itself!"

"I should have let the poison work."

Eskir paled, then finally stopped babbling.

It was going to be a long ride.