"It was late summer when I left home," Jian said softly, placing a hand on the cool rock. The cave was exactly as she remembered. "As I walked, I had to wrap muslin around my face and my shoulders to keep them from being burned. Those who are red are sensitive to sun, you see. It took a long while for my skin to get used to life outdoors."

Madrigal, naturally bronzed, grunted. "I see."

"You must travel more easily than I," she continued. "Do many people in Laudonia have red hair? My grandmother, when she was alive, used to sit me in the grass for exactly an hour each day, to build up my tolerance to the sun. It never did much good, for every year I'd burn in the first weeks of summer, without fail. Except," she smiled ironically, "this year, I suppose." Living outdoors all through winter, spring and early summer had left her tanned a few shades lighter than her hair.

"It's common," Madrigal said. "My father has red hair, as does my sister."

"Ah, so you understand." Jian's skin still tingled when she thought back to the early days of her trial, the maddening scrape of rough muslin over healing burns. The scent of water had lured her to the river, where she'd scooped it up in her hands and poured it, clear and cold, over her parched skin. That fresh running water, not stale bottled rain, tasted better than any she'd ever drank before.

There, angled away from the rock she'd knelt on to drink, Jian had seen the cave for the first time. Yawning open to the west with two crooked lumps of moss-covered rock perched atop the entrance, it looked like a giant's mouth, lazily inhaling light from the setting sun.

Now, in the dark, the cave could easily be missed. Jian knew this place, however; knew it as well as she did the home she'd grown up in. Every patch of grass here was familiar to her.

Madrigal looked slightly more interested when he saw the rock formation up close. "And you lived here alone for a year?"

"Yes."

"That's a long time to be on your own," he observed.

Jian's curiosity tempered her eagerness to rush inside her cave. Surely Madrigal wouldn't blink at a year alone, if he were as well-seasoned a traveller as he claimed. "I thought it would be impossible," she said. "But the time went by so quickly. I blinked, and the leaves were beginning to fall, and soon the trees were bare. Winter came and went in what felt like days."

Madrigal shook his head. "In Laudonia, we suffered a longer winter than usual. Many of the crops were frozen out. We had to beg Kesmet for food."

She'd heard the same, but Elsinoor's fields had somehow survived the frost. Jian didn't think it was an appropriate time, however, to imply that Laudonia's supply might not have been as blessed by Maere. "To me, it seemed short. The Elders said I must have meditated well to get through winter in such good spirits, but, well..."

Now might not be the time to imply that, either, Jian realized. Not to this man, whom she had only met yesterday.

Madrigal picked up on what had been left unsaid. "You think it something else?"

"Maybe." Jian hurriedly turned away. She stepped into the yawning mouth, where the lantern painted zigzag patterns on the walls. Madrigal followed, a few steps behind. "At the time, I thought Maere might be helping me. Of course, then She didn't appear with any Path for me, so I started thinking maybe it was something more. Something about the cave itself. It could have some sort of, you know...effect."

"Magic?" Madrigal spat out the forbidden word like the unwanted pit of a cherry. "Hah."

"They say our fore-elders arrived here from the southern lands with knowledge of magic." Jian's face reddened at his reaction, and she was grateful he couldn't see her flush in the dark. She laid the palm of one hand on the cool grey stone, remembering those days of meditation, where she'd gaze into a point on the wall and the hours seemed to fall away. "It's not so far-fetched."

"In Laudonia, no one believes in such things, but then again, they don't believe in your Creator, either."

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Jian couldn't hide her astonishment. She tried to chuckle, to cover the break in her voice. "You must be joking. Don't believe in the Creator? Isn't the Path proof enough that Maere exists?"

"I told you, no one in Laudonia has received a Path in two hundred years."

"But surely they've heard about Pathfinding from other villages. You said Laudonia was only a day's walk from Kesmet."

Madrigal seemed to fold in on himself, furling like an autumn leaf, at her words. "Laudonia and Kesmet don't always see eye to eye on such matters. Our people are...divided."

Jian couldn't miss the change in his posture, and so she turned her face away to think about what to say next, uncertain how much she wished to press this man. The concept of a place where the Creator's very existence was in question was unfathomable. "Do you believe? In Her, I mean."

"I wanted to," he said softly. He laid a hand on the wall, in nearly the same spot Jian had touched. The light of her lantern seemed to be laughing as it danced over his face. "Even though I've never seen the proof for myself. I thought I might find it, if I agreed to take you there."

"You will," Jian promised. "In Homeland. If you want to, that is."

One side of Madrigal's lips turned up slightly, in a lopsided smile that was more of a grimace than anything else. It was the first time Jian had seen him wearing any expression but a frown. "There was a time where I very much wanted to believe in Maere. I wanted Her blessing more than anything else."

Jian considered her next words carefully. "I felt the same way, when I returned home from my Trial. I have a lot of questions that I don't think will ever be answered, unless I see Maere with my own eyes. And since you will too, you should ask Her yourself."

Madrigal opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, saying nothing.

He's shuffling around, noisily, guiltily, in the dark.

"I was sleeping," Jian protests. The words come out thick, like syrup. He's hiding something, she knows, but the noises don't stop. She takes a deep breath and lets it out again. "What's happening? What are you doing?"

He flinches. Silver brows knit together over those luminescent eyes. "I'm sorry. I have to go. There's no more time."

"Go?" Jian sits up, instantly aware. "Where?"

"Homeland."

Homeland. Homeland. Homeland.

He draws closer, coming into focus in the light of the lamp. A shock of silver hair, framing a round and elfin face. Bloodless lips, so pale they are nearly white, and she isn't certain if it's the dim light or the pressing feeling of something wrong, something terrible.

Perhaps both.

Jian's limbs feel weighed down, as if her bones themselves have transformed into stone. "Don't."

"I stayed too long already," he says. "Wait here. I'll be back for you."

Jian voice is stolen away, somehow, without a single thread of wind or sound. As if by magic, she thinks. And a moment later, he's been stolen away, too.

When she woke, Jian found herself already sitting upright. "Wait," she said aloud.

No reply--she was alone. Madrigal had elected to spend the night outside the cave, under the stars.

Another vision, just as she'd anticipated. Jian sunk her head into her hands, scrabbling for the memory, afraid it would slip away again. This dream had been so much clearer than any other; her own shout had jolted her awake.

Madrigal appeared, backlit by the moon descending over the river, looking disheveled in his breeches and a tattered white undershirt. "What's wrong?" He looked even wider awake than she.

"I had another vision," Jian said slowly, but as the recollection unfurled in her mind like a spool of parchment, she fell silent again, because she'd clearly seen the face of the person who'd been calling her so desperately. Not Maere at all, but a Human. A boy, younger than she, with eyes like Aselun's. Blessed by the Goddess.

"Great," Madrigal growled. "Thanks to your magic cave, I'll bet."

"Don't be angry. I'm sorry for waking you."

"You didn't."

She drew her legs up to her chest. "You can sleep in here, if you're having trouble." She didn't want to invite him into her sacred space, but it seemed like the polite thing to do.

To Jian's relief, Madrigal ran both hands through his messy curls and dragged his palms down his face, shaking his head. "No. I'd rather be outside. I'll wake you at first light."

"Okay," she agreed, feeling suddenly small.

The shadow of Madrigal shuffled back to the entrance, and she heard him scuffling around the bivouac, muttering to himself. Jian lay back and stared at the ceiling.

A boy. The person with the luminescent eyes was not the Creator at all, but a boy, and one who seemed to know her. One she reached out for in panic. Who told her to wait.

Had she been mistaken, in all those turbulent dreams back home? Could this be the real future Maere hoped to guide her to?

It almost made Jian want to turn around and return to Elsinoor, to ask the Elders what to do next. Everything was wrong. So many separate Pathfinding visions, connected, but not in the way they'd thought. And the boy, he was the one supposed to go to Homeland, not Jian. She'd looked into a future that might not yet happen for years.

The thought of Madrigal, the unbeliever, stilled her. Hadn't she encouraged him mere hours before to come with her to Homeland, to look into the Creator's eyes for himself? If she turned back now, neither of them would likely see Maere in their lifetimes.

They would forge on, Jian decided. Already there were more questions than she ever had hope of answering on her own, and though she didn't know why, somehow Jian knew there had to be more at stake than the Path of one Elsinooran girl.