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“Well?” I heard Vernie ask the others as Nora and I hopped out of the back of the wagon a little while later.

“It certainly is… different,” Aleph answered dubiously, tugging at his right ear.

I stopped in my tracks, and Nora bumped into me from behind. Vernie was sporting the world’s worst dye job, and her now raven-black hair was made slick by crude, dark oil that had rubbed off in smudgy streaks around the nape of her neck.

“It’s not that bad, right?” she asked both of us. Oh no, it was much worse than simply bad. She was a red base, and she used a blue-hued black! Any warm color from her pale skin was simply gone now, and the light freckles she had looked like the faded remnants of a sickly pox.

“What was your intent?” Nora asked, one eyebrow cocked up in disbelief.

“A disguise,” Vernie admitted as she pulled up the hood of her cloak. “Red hair’s a bit of a … well, red flag around here. If I’m going to drive the wagon, I should try to blend in some.”

Nora’s nose wrinkled as she fought with the truth. “You certainly don’t look like yourself, so… you’ve achieved your objective. Right, Rae?”

“Uh, yes,” I agreed, relieved I didn’t have to add my opinion. “But shouldn’t we take turns driving the wagon? Bouncing on that box seat for hours doesn’t sound like fun…”

“Mmmm….” Vernie exhaled nervously. “Nora can probably learn… but other than that…”

We finally realized why the other travelers had been rude on the road. Even if Aleph or Tetora could sit comfortably on the driver’s bench, it would add unnecessary complications. Kopria probably had the market share of racial prejudice, but that didn’t mean their practice was confined to any particular boundary.

I looked at the team of horses with anticipation. We could move faster and rendezvous with Relias in no time. “What about me? I could try—”

“You are absolutely forbidden to touch the reins!” Tetora declared, folding his arms crossly. “Your driving is terrible!”

“You don’t know that!” It’s not like driving a team of horses is anything like driving a car! They had brains; they’d eventually figure out what I wanted them to do!

Nora started cackling, and while I should have been relieved to see her treating me like normal again, I knew what she was thinking about.

I folded my arms as I defended myself. “I’m telling you, that driving instructor purposely hid that four-way stop sign behind a tree branch! That’s why I failed!” It was true!

“You want to go fast?” Tetora looked at me disdainfully. “Ride the horse yourself. Leave me and the wagon out of it!”

Ride the horse myself… Would Cinder let me do that? I twitched a little. Maybe soon… Oh, but the wagon might be too heavy for the other three without her…

“I also abstain from such rides unless it’s a true emergency,” Aleph agreed. “Let’s not test the idea of breakneck speed… ever again…”

“Horses like to run…” I muttered under my breath. I didn’t, at least on my own two feet, but horse riding is… what, exactly? How would I know… about the exhilarating thrill of being of one mind with a powerful creature, passing by all the numerous but ultimately tiny problems that just blurred in the distance so you could finally see the great expanse of the world before you? To just keep going, never looking back…

We helped with the last part of the clean-up before we prepared for our day's travels. As we packed the wagon, I briefly summarized the redacted version of my ‘prophetic vision,’ which was again couched as a vaguely overheard conversation. After showing everyone Amos’s name in Nora’s journal, we concluded no one recalled such a being. I also shared the updates I had heard about the council members.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“To think Vetus has passed…” Aleph shook his head. “This changes things.”

“A new councilman to throw in the mix?” Nora asked. “Any ideas who?”

“No, actually. Electing a new councilman takes about a year and a half…” Aleph’s ears twitched in irritation. “And that’s only if no one contests the results.”

Nora shoved the last of the supplies into the wagon. “A year and a half? There’s no interim succession plan in place?”

“They’re all supposed to be able to cover for each other until another is elected,” Aleph shrugged as I settled in the back. “They’d know best what needs to be done.”

In a perfect world, maybe, but this place was far from it.

“So with Procul back here and Inutilis being rather inert, it’s Pravum as default, isn’t it?” Nora mumbled.

“Yes… Pravum and Relias don’t have a friendly relationship,” Aleph admitted. “To be honest, none of them do.”

“Of course not…” I sighed, feeling bad for Relias in particular. “I’m guessing being the tiebreaker doesn’t win you anything except the losers’ disdain…”

Our travel pace was annoyingly sluggish, and my worries only grew as I bounced along in the wagon while Nora and Vernie rode up front. We were traveling faster than before, but not nearly enough, in my opinion.

“Why don’t you rest, little one?” Aleph eventually asked. “Soon, you’ll be out of hay to braid.”

I flinched a little, tossing aside my impromptu handicraft. The only way I had learned to enter a dreamless slumber and avoid… you know, was to stay up past the point of exhaustion first. “No… I think I got enough last night, thanks.”

I made them tell me more stories about Raelynn. Many of them were already familiar to me from the novel, but their added commentary gave me more dimension to who she was or… perhaps who I was. Still… it sounded like she never wavered even once, and that was probably the biggest difference between us. Wasn’t she ever scared? Or anxious? She just… did what she had to do. None of their stories included Oliver, of course, though I had been secretly hoping they’d let something slip about him. How would I deal with him if I didn’t know his true characteristics and weaknesses?

“What the… NO!” I suddenly shouted out loud at myself for such a troublesome thought. I don't want to deal with him!

Tetora scowled. “Are you really so hungry you can’t wait another hour? If we stop now, we’ll lose the daylight!”

They must have been discussing tonight’s schedule. “What? Oh… no… I don’t know what I was thinking. I can manage.” I sighed and shook my head.

The evening was filled with disappointment. Although Cinder let me climb up her back, she didn’t seem keen on going anywhere, really. I couldn’t blame her since she had put in a full day’s work, but I had been hoping she had wanted to go for a short trot after dinner. I gave up pressuring her and instead participated in the evening grooming ritual with everyone else.

With Tetora back in action, nighttime training resumed under Nora’s bright ball of bouncing light. While Aleph had allowed me to explore different sword stances with a range of acceptable variations, Tetora was convinced that if a move was not executed perfectly, it was an utter failure. I silently amassed several derogatory names to call him should I ever find a good opportunity to do so.

The days passed as our new routine settled around us. With the wagon, no one tried to run us off the road like before. A few people exchanged brief pleasantries with Vernie and Nora. There was also the occasional threatening or vulgar proposition that necessitated Vernie to brandish her knife, but no one ever took her up on her counteroffer. Although it was never openly discussed, Aleph, Tetora, and I, being the most recognizable members of the party now, stayed in the wagon during daylight hours to minimize the chance of being spotted.

After a week or so, I found myself particularly antsy from the moment I awoke. We proceeded as normal, but another hour or so passed until I finally put my finger on what was bothering me the most. “No one has passed us by…” I quickly peered out one of the triangular openings along the wagon's side. “Where are the other travelers? No one’s coming from either direction.”

“Stop the wagon!” Tetora ordered, though he didn’t bother to wait until it came to a halt. He bounded out the back and dashed a few hundred feet down the road before pausing. His ears first flattened, then turned in several directions. His lips curled up into a sneer, and he took a few breaths as if he were tasting the very air itself.

“There’s no one around,” he reported back tersely.

“No one?” Aleph repeated in dubious disbelief.

I glanced at the landscape. There were no farms here, just vast, open fields, unmarred by any tools and overgrown with various plants fighting to reach the sun.

“We passed a few offshoots on our way here… but this is the main road to the east…” Aleph stared into the distance.

“No. They’re… hiding themselves,” I stubbornly disagreed, instinctively focusing my aura. “They’re nearby, hiding in the brush to the north. No, wait. To the… west?” There were hostile intents around us, for sure.

Aleph turned. “Rae, I know you’re worried, but–”

“Look!” I pointed into the distance, where several birds had darted off from one of the fields in unison.

“Get in the wagon!” Aleph boomed. “Nora, in the back. Vernie! Get us to the foot of that hill!”

As we took flight ourselves, I heard the blood-chilling call of a brass horn from our distant left, only to be answered by another from behind. The Order of the Blue was closing in on us.

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