A sense of overwhelming loss rushes over her in waves, so powerful Jian cannot find the space for any other feeling. Her hands are covered in muck and grass. She looks down; sees she's been clawing at the dirt without thinking.

"Homeland."

This time, at last, the word comes from her own mouth.

The people of Elsinoor were not only charming, but endearingly naive.

You would have thought he'd come from Homeland itself, for all the attention paid to Madrigal by Gillele's mother and sisters when they arrived home. He no longer detected any sign of the wariness he'd perceived in the town square that first afternoon, and knocks had come on the door to offer him food and long-term lodging. Word had been going around, he heard with his own ears from Gillele's twelve-year-old sister Rashay, that a 'handsome young swordsman' was staying at her house.

He couldn't imagine a traveller stumbling upon Laudonia and being invited, nearly sight-unseen, to sleep in someone's home. Even the inn would just barely be considered safe.

Here he was, though; warm, well-fed and surprisingly relaxed. No one pressed too hard about the situation in Kesmet. And the women! They were obviously interested, especially the girl Gillele, but to Madrigal's surprise, even she didn't come on too strongly. He'd been prepared to send her away and even block the door to prevent multiple nighttime visits of the type he'd come to expect in Laudonia, but when he awoke each morning after a sound sleep, he felt only sunlight on his face. Not a single caller arrived at Madrigal's door in the night.

How refreshing. It was unfortunate he'd be leaving so soon, after such a welcome, but Elsinoor was too close to Kesmet. Word would make it back here eventually, and it would only be harder to leave if he got to know the locals. Restocking and getting out would give him a better chance of finding a place to overwinter safely in the northlands.

Madrigal studied the contents of his pack while still safely away from prying eyes. He'd hardly come equipped for a long journey, just the opposite; when he'd left home, he'd thrown together supplies thinking he'd be away a few days at most. Only what they'd need on the road to Kesmet, and nothing more. Back in Laudonia was his long-term equipment; his heavy clothing, his camp tools. He would need to barter for supplies here, if he didn't plan to go home.

He wasn't sure he ever could.

There was a gentle knock at the door. Madrigal took a deep breath before he answered. "Yes?"

"Oh, you're awake! You have a visitor." It was Gillele's voice. "I'll sit with her, so you take your time to freshen up."

He couldn't stop the jolt of adrenaline from rushing through him. It didn't necessarily mean bad news—but perhaps it did. Perhaps he'd be leaving even sooner than anticipated. At least for a her, he probably wouldn't need to draw his sword.

The woman slid a ring across the table, positioning the stone so that it caught the sunbeam striking the wood. "We cannot pay you," Nim said, "but this ring has been in my family for five generations. You could barter it, if you took it to a village closer to the southlands."

A beautiful ring, Madrigal couldn't help but notice, and he would need bargaining power to resupply for the winter. Nim's request, however, didn't suit him at all. "It's certainly valuable, but as I said, I planned to go north, to the End of Lands. I won't find anyone to trade with there. And I hadn't planned to travel back for a while. Definitely not all the way to the southlands, dragging a girl behind me."

"Please, my daughter is very capable," Nim said. "I promise you, she won't need to be 'dragged,' and you'll find she's an experienced wayfinder. We only ask because it's been so long since anyone left Elsinoor to return to Homeland."

Madrigal wasn't certain what had happened to the Elders' push to send the girl Jian to Kesmet to be a priestess. On one hand, he wanted no part of Jian's entanglement with Maere. On the other, he wouldn't wish Kesmet's doctrine of training on anyone right now, especially not a country girl who wasn't sure what she believed.

"And I don't think your Jian should be the next to try it," he replied, bluntly honest. "What if we get all the way to Homeland and I don't intend to come back? Am I shackled to your daughter, because of this ring?"

"No, of course not," Nim assured him. "Goddess forbid, Maere might even want Jian to stay there. But if not, and you don't plan to return, she can barter with another coming back this way. We've also heard that in the southlands, they have animals who will carry travellers."

"I've heard the same." The suggestion of the trip being one-way made it slightly more palatable, but at the same time, he couldn't imagine walking for thirty cycles or more with Jian at his side. She'd want to talk; she'd want to know all about him. And who were these Elsinoorans to casually hire a stranger to ferry one of their daughters all the way to the southlands? Madrigal had deduced they didn't fear strangers the way Laudonians did, but he would never have trusted his sisters in the company of a man from another village, and not because he didn't trust the man. "But I don't know if I want to go south. And even if I do, how do you know I won't leave your girl behind in the woods at the first chance and pocket this ring? You don't know me."

Nim laid both her hands on Madrigal's. A craftwoman's hands; rough with calluses, stained purple around the edges of the cuticles, the nails a faded blue. She worked hard, he thought, doing whatever it was she did. They were small and cold, like Niall's, but these were hands that knew a trade. "I don't know that for sure," she said. "But I would rather Jian left with you, and I believing she is safer, than with no one at her side."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Madrigal couldn't believe he was even considering it, but before he knew it, he was holding the ring up to the light. This one piece of jewellry could get him far enough away that he'd never have to see Kesmet again. "I'll speak to your daughter."

Nim and Jian lived in a smaller dwelling than Gillele's—as befitting a family of two, Madrigal supposed. More cluttered than he'd expected, as well; fabric hung everywhere, stretched taut over frames and draped over tables and poles. The faint scent of overripe berries lingered in the air.

Jian invited Madrigal in, but barely spared him a glance, so focused was she on her task. She looked like a different person than the one he'd originally met, in the square, days before. The redhead wore leggings under her turquoise shift dress and had arranged her hair in a dozen braids, thicker at the back, their ends bound with colourful thread. It was a style unlike any he'd seen. "Your hair is interesting," he said when he became aware she'd noticed his roving eye. "Pretty."

A Laudonian girl would have lapped up the compliment, but Jian merely shrugged. "I don't want my hair damaged while I'm on the road," she said. "Long hair is hard to care for. I wore it the same way for a year during my Pathfinding Trial."

"A year?" Elsinoor's strange people and customs continued to surprise him. "Right, you said something of the sort before. What's this trial all about?"

Jian paused, as if considering whether she should be surprised Madrigal had never heard of a Trial. "Perhaps things are different where you come from? In Elsinoor, if a boy or girl hasn't received their Path from the Goddess by their fifteenth year, they undergo a solitary ritual to help connect them with Maere. It's said that your mind must be too busy, and so the Goddess is having trouble seeing into it to guide you. Once the Trial begins, you're not to return to the village or speak to any other person unless Maere shows Herself in a vision. So we seclude ourselves from all other contact by making camp in the forest near the village or going down to the Land's End."

"And what do you do when you get there?"

"Survive." Jian wrapped her possessions in balls of dyed fabric. "Meditate. Think. Become comfortable with ourselves and consider our place in the future, so that Maere can reach our hearts."

A ritual unlike any he'd heard about in Kesmet, but Madrigal knew Kesmet boasted a connection to Maere that its residents considered special. Niall had spoken of prayers and blessings performed for the youth who didn't yet have Paths laid for them. In Elsinoor, a village without any of those flashy shrines or prostrated priestesses, things were different.

Even without being "blessed," Madrigal couldn't help but feel the Elsinoorans were better off.

Unaware of his thoughts, Jian continued going about her task, speaking matter-of-factly. "At the end of the year, we're to come home. Of course, everyone has connected with the Goddess by that point." Her voice lowered noticeably. "And if we've not, at least we've gained new perspective."

"How so? What do you learn, if you didn't hear from Her in an entire year?"

He hadn't intended to be unkind, but Madrigal immediately knew he'd touched a nerve. Jian's movements slowed, and she unwound the strip of cloth she'd been wrapping protectively around an array of small glass flasks. "By myself, I had to learn how to gather food and fresh water, and how to make things like clothing without my mother's help. How to adapt to my environment, in my cave. How to live without others, in case I'm not blessed with husband or children. And to enjoy solitude. I learned how to be lonely."

Dumbstruck, Madrigal leaned back against the patterned wall. Open worship of Maere would never succeed in Laudonia, yet he could imagine what good such a ritual of self-sufficiency would do for the people there. "That's very different from the customs where I come from," he said, "but we don't receive Paths in Laudonia."

Now it was Jian's turn to look astonished. "No Paths? I thought everyone did."

"Not everyone. It's a big world out there."

"But how do you decide who does what?"

He shrugged. "We just do what we want. It's been a long time since any Laudonian had a Pathfinding vision. Hundreds of years."

Madrigal waited for Jian's shock to deepen, as Niall's had; her Goddess was so tied to every aspect of her life that the concept of Maere's abandonment had all but caused her to faint. Jian's brow furrowed, ginger eyebrows knotted together. "So it's true, then, that there are people whom Maere doesn't reach for. I wonder why?"

"I don't know. You're hardly the first to ask."

"Maybe a solitary ritual could have helped some of them." Jian chuckled. "Although it didn't help me."

Madrigal didn't think that was true at all. No modern Laudonian girl would have ever known how to survive in the wilderness by themselves. Countless women were lost each year to the "middle sickness," casting themselves from Heartbreak Lookout on the edge of town, even the ones too young to be considered "middle;" girls Madrigal had spent his school days with, had romanced and danced with, as a boy. For them, a solitary life was unthinkable. They'd been raised for a singular goal, and failing that, they couldn't start over. So numb were the townspeople that the departure of an unattached woman to the Lookout hardly caused a stir.

Less competition for the rest of us, Madrigal's sister once said.

"That's it," Jian announced, tying the bundle with expert hands. Unlike his, her pack was home-grown, made entirely of brightly-coloured, knotted cloth of the same type drying everywhere in the dwelling. Madrigal realized belatedly that Nim's hands were stained the colours of the hanging textiles.

"Wait," Madrigal said. "I came here because your mother asked me to take you to Homeland. Why the rush? Yesterday, when you came to Gillele's home, it was only an idea, one you weren't even committed to. Now you act as if you're out of time."

"Something, or someone, is waiting for me there." Jian shouldered the pack, tested its weight. "And I thank you, but I don't need any accompaniment. Maere Herself asked me to come, and so I know I'll be safe."

"You had another vision?"

"I did." Jian cinched the fabric tightly over her chest and lifted her braids out from under the strap. "I heard the word over and over: Homeland, Homeland, Homeland. And an unmistakable sense of urgency. I must go there, and I must leave right away. So this afternoon, I'll set out for the cave where I completed my ritual, and at first light, I head south."

"Alone?" Madrigal prompted, though it wasn't really a question. "Did you not see anyone travelling with you in the vision?"

She hesitated, and at last Madrigal saw a flash of uncertainty in her eyes. "I don't know. I just know I have to go there. I have to see Maere in person. And I would welcome company, but not from someone who feels begrudged to chaperone me."

She'd seen through him, Madrigal realized. She knew he didn't really want to accompany her. And yet—something in the back of his mind whispered that it was not yet time for he and Jian to part ways. if he went to Homeland, could he, too, see Maere for himself? Put to the Creator the questions he'd been asking himself for the last year? Demand to know why She favoured some, but not others; why She allowed even those who were devoted to Her to suffer?

Growing up, Madrigal had never really been sure Maere truly existed. No proof of her love had reached Laudonia in two centuries. Yet in Kesmet, and in Elsinoor, barely a day's walk away, the Creator touched every Human who lived there. Why was it so? Madrigal wanted to know.

Arriving in this town, meeting this girl—it was almost as if the Goddess Maere were guiding him down his own Path at last.

If he believed in such things.