Hina walked in a wide circle around the city, a distant bundle of walls and towers in the distance. She scrambled over rocks and through bushes, and at one point had to backtrack nearly half an hour to find away around a wide crevice in the rocky ground. She could maybe have jumped across, but she didn't want to take the risk—it looked deep.
Bean circled around her, croaking and chirping, and occasionally coming down to rest on her shoulder. Hina was glad for the company.
It would have been faster to travel closer to the city, but she didn't want to risk being seen. Not when they were looking for her. Probably looking for her.
Strange that this was the first time they'd encountered anything like an organised search after weeks on the road. She'd have expected it to taper off with distance.
But aside from a flyer on the wall in Blandmanch, there hadn't been much—at least so far as Hina had noticed. Maybe there had been search parties and they had just managed to avoid them—the days in the Spire might have helped with that.
And maybe they were really looking for someone else in Modmin and this was all just Hina jumping to conclusions.
But she didn't think so. She was sure they were looking for her.
Maybe someone had spotted her in Blandmanch. The inn-keeper had acted a little strange now that she thought about it.
But there was nothing she could do about it in any case.
All she could do was keep going, get to the city, join the academy, and hope that was enough. Stick to the plan. She wasn't going to turn herself in—Kai would be as good as dead, or worse. So she had to put it out of her mind. There wasn't anything else she could do.
She had to focus on getting stronger, to focus on getting Kai back.
And Hina was going to get Kai back. She had to.
But the feeling like someone was about to tap her on the shoulder and take her back to Grambe—that feeling wouldn't go away. It was always there, sometimes out of sight, but always there.
Hina shook her head and walked on.
In the early evening, Hina found the road again. She watched it from a distance for a while, but only saw a few people. No sign of a search party or any kind of group of guards. It was quiet enough that she could walk along it without running into anyone else if she picked her moment.
And she was tired of walking over uneven ground. Her feet were sore, beginning to blister again after over a week of sitting in a wagon all day. And it would take hours for her to prepare a fire and a good meal.
At least Hina would eat well. She still had the salt-shaker, which hadn't seen any use while they were travelling with the caravan. They hadn't needed it—the caravan cooks had known their stuff.
Hina joined the road and walked along it, heading away from Modmin, following her shadow. According to the maps she'd studied in the Grambe city library, the road she was on led to Penkley, and then all the way to Walton by the river. She could catch the train there and arrive in Om Qalar within a day or two, with the purse of silver Olivia had given her.
There was over two crowns in that purse. More money than Hina had ever had before.
Enough for a train ticket. If Hina wanted to risk getting caught. If she left Kai behind.
Even the thought had her stomach twisting in knots. She didn't want to leave Kai behind. But if he was already lost, maybe that would be the better option. Maybe she could escape notice alone or, she supposed, with Olivia.
It was an awful idea. If there was even a chance that he was okay, she had to try to save him.
Kai was her responsibility.
* * *
The turn-off to Almewich was nothing more than a faded wooden signpost and the start of another road to the south.
Hina walked out into the scrub to the north. The ground was rocky and uneven, wind-swept and littered with boulders, scraggly trees and bushes. She found a sheltered spot that was protected from the wind on one side, and from where she would be able to see the road.
Taking off her bag, Hina took a seat on one of the nearby rocks. She took a drink from her water bottle and just sat there for a moment. It felt good to get off her feet.
But there was a lot to do and she didn't have long before dark.
First, she needed wood for a fire. She had spotted a few scraggly fallen branches as she walked here, and she gathered them up.
A little copper snake hissed at her from where it was sunning itself on a nearby stone, and she backed away carefully, carrying her armload of branches back to her campsite.
It didn't follow. She'd read that snakes didn't usually bite, if you gave them some room.
Hina made a fire with a practiced hand, using hands and sandaled feet and the nearby rocks to break up the bits of wood. She built a platform out of the branches, and lit the kindling below it, got the fire lit with only three matches.
Take that, Kai.
When the fire was burning well, she filled the new pot with a healthy serving of beans, tossing a couple to a happy bird as she worked. She poured water over them and set them down near the fire while she waited for it to burn down to a good cooking temperature.
While she had appreciated having regular meals provided by the caravan staff, she was glad to be back to cooking her own meals for a while. There was something satisfying about cooking over a campfire, pot bubbling away, spreading good smells out into the night.
And she even had a little bag of flour and some yeast in her pack, so she could try making campfire bread if she wanted to. And maybe she'd be able to bake properly again when she—when they—reached the city.
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Maybe there'd be a good kitchen wherever they ended up.
Hina took her branch wand out from where it was tied to the side of her bag, and focused her mind while she waited. She found the sense of power at the edges of her being, and drew it in. She drew power until her well was full.
And then she set the beans to bubbling on the fire.
Bean was perched on a rock nearby. "Gonna put up the barrier now," she said.
He chirruped.
She figured that meant he was okay with it.
Taking up the wand, Hina began the process of summoning the patterns of the barrier working.
She drew a broad circle in the dirt around her campfire, bigger than any she'd attempted before. Enough for the three of them to lie down comfortably—not almost on top of each other like they had been, in those last few nights before the caravan.
The others would have been impressed, if only they were here.
When she came back around to her starting point and the working snapped together, she was pleased to find that over a quarter of her power remained.
And she felt a deep sense of relief. Nobody would find her here now. She could rest safely.
Hina sat by the fire while her dinner bubbled away.
She added a shake from the salt shaker to the pot and stirred it with her spoon. The little bit of white powder in the bottom of the shaker looked bigger now. Bigger than she remembered.
She had the rest of the night, and tomorrow too, to wait for Olivia.
As she ate, Hina considered what she could do with that time, to prepare. To be prepared for the worst case: if nobody was coming to save Kai and she had to do it herself. Somehow.
She dug through her bag until she found the invitation from the Grove. She unfolded the thick paper and froze.
Scrawled across the empty space at the top of the page was a message in large, spidery letters.
> Come and find us near Almewich
Hina's heart raced. She looked around, but there was nobody there. She was alone except for Bean, who peered back at her with a bright eye and croaked in a questioning tone.
She got out the note from Gerda and compared the handwriting. It wasn't the same. But she had no idea who could have written it.
Or how they'd gotten access to the invitation to alter it.
Had the message been there all along? Or perhaps hidden in some way so that she hadn't seen it until now? The chances of someone getting into her bag without her noticing seemed slim, but she couldn't rule it out.
The walls of Modmin stood proud in the fading light. No-one seemed to be moving in the rocky scrub around her.
She shivered despite the warmth of the evening.
But there was nothing to be done about it. And now, at least, she knew where to start looking.
Convenient that it was so close to where she was, and where she was going.
She'd just have to make sure she was ready for it, whether Olivia showed up or not. She hoped Olivia would show up, but she couldn't count on it.
Mentally, she ran through her list of weapons. She had her sling—she'd been practicing with it every day, and she was getting better at hitting her targets consistently. Her knife, and Kai's hammer both still hung at her belt.
But none of those seemed like they would be enough. Not when faced with someone like Gerda.
The only thing Hina had within reach that seemed like it would be useful was the sigil.
Though there was some irony in that she was considering using the sigil to fight Gerda, when Gerda had given it to her in the first place. Why had she done that?
Hina shook off the thought. It didn't matter. She didn't have any better options, and if she could use the sigil to save Kai, she would.
If she could use the sigil without it turning her into a drooling vegetable. Or worse.
The question was whether she had developed her ambit enough. She had gone through the compression exercise three times—that was enough, right? What had Gerda said? Just that she needed to develop it more, not how much.
Last time she had accidentally summoned the sigil, that had been okay. She had been able to control it enough to dismiss it. And that had been after her first successful compression. Maybe it would be fine this time.
She had to try.
But better not to rush into it. Better to wait and do it when she wasn't so tired. She would wait until morning, and if something went wrong then, at least Olivia wouldn't be too far away.
If she waited until Olivia was here, Olivia might try to stop her, so it had to be first thing in the morning.
In the mean time, she needed to finish reading the book. After the temple—after the letter from Gerda—it seemed more important than ever to understand that book.
Hina shared the last of the food with Bean, and then started to read.
* * *
She woke to the sound of a rock skittering across the ground. She sat up and looked around. The fire had well and truly died out, and the sun was low in the sky to the east.
Looking towards the road, she saw a figure approaching. Olivia? It was hard to tell from this distance, but she was pretty sure it was Olivia.
Hina watched and waited as the figure approached. She didn't want to call attention to herself until she was sure who it was.
Bean chirruped and flapped up into the air, breaking the barrier as he crossed it with a loud snap. He flew in a wide circle around Hina, and then over to the approaching figure. He crowed and glided down.
Probably Olivia then.
Hina took a deep breath and stood up. And sat down again.
This was sooner than she had expected. There would be no time to practice with the sigil this morning. And surely good news would have taken longer?
"Hello Hina," Olivia said, stepping around a boulder and into Hina's campsite, Bean perched proud on her shoulder. Olivia's eyes were red and she looked tired.
"How did it go? Did you manage to get in touch with your parents?"
"Yes," Olivia said with a frown, "yes, I did. They're—they're not going to help. I'm sorry." She sat down on the rock next to Hina.
"Oh." Hina felt a little deflated. "I guess that's that then. I guess we'll have to go and look for Kai ourselves?"
"About that," Olivia said, voice small. "I have been told that under no circumstances am I to accompany you if you intend to search for your brother. I'm—I have to return to the caravan. And catch the train to the city from Walton."
"Oh."
"Sorry." She scrunched up her face. "It's awful. I'm so sorry."
Hina sighed. "It's okay," she said, "I'll—I'll figure something out."
"There's—there's more. My mother says—she made me promise I would tell you this—that your brother is already dead, and that if you know what's good for you, you'll come with me, and never step foot anywhere near that cursed place. She said that she'll cover the cost of your travel."
Hina sighed.
"I didn't—I didn't tell her about the other thing."
"Anything else?"
"No, that about covers it."
"Thank you for passing on the message."
"What are you going to do?"
"I have to try. I have to." Hina didn't even need to think about it. She was sure. "I don't think—I can't live with myself if I don't try. He's—he's my responsibility."
"Yes." Olivia sniffed. "I figured."
"Did she, did she know anything about where it might be?"
"No. She said she didn't know, but it wouldn't be responsible to tell you—or me—even if she did. I'm sorry."
"Oh." It would have been nice to have confirmation, but at least she already had a lead. "I understand."
And then Olivia was rummaging through her satchel. "I picked up a few things while the market was open yesterday, you know, while I was waiting for the relay? It's not much." She took out a series of wrapped paper packages and set them on the ground one by one. "But I hope it helps, even if just a bit."
Hina leaned forward and picked one up, unwrapped a corner. "Meat?"
"Salt pork. It should last a week or so."
"Oh, thank you."
"And some rice and salt and some spices—I thought you might like to branch out a bit. Especially since you can't go shopping for yourself."
"Thank you," Hina said. "I appreciate it."
"Sorry again. I really wish I could come with you." Olivia sniffed.
"No, I—I understand, really I do. I'm sorry I got you into all of this. If I could just walk away..."
"It's not like that." Olivia sniffed. "I just—I can't." She shook her head. "I have to get back before the caravan leaves. I don't want to wait for the next one."
"Go on then. I'll see you at the academy. Travel safe."
Olivia spread her arms wide and Hina embraced her.
And then Hina was alone again.