Pathways Read online

:You can’t solve everyone’s problems, my love,: Taren said.

  :I’m just not trying hard enough.:

  Taren chuckled, and Marli let the affectionate sound soothe her ruffled feathers. He always indulged her need to grope for a solution, even when she hadn’t been asked. Most people were grateful anyway.

  At the station, Marli and Selte settled the Companions as comfortably as could be expected in the shade of a tall oak before heading inside.

  A layer of grime coated the floor and fixtures, mostly dust blown in by the hot wind. This Waystation didn’t have the homey, welcoming feel of the one by Marli’s hometown, but it was stocked with what they needed for a couple of nights, and it was serviceable as a shelter from the elements. Of course, rain would have been the more usual worry, but the Waystation provided a bit of relief from the unending sun, too.

  Selte moved to where her saddlebags lay on the floor and, without any shame, stripped out of her Whites.

  Marli averted her eyes. So much for a confrontation now. Even after all her time at the Collegium, she hadn’t been able to let go of her small-town breeding. A person deserved privacy while naked.

  Instead, she grabbed her own saddlebags and went back outside to sit in the biggest patch of shade she could find. Dry grass crunched under her as she got comfortable. The heat still beat down too much to be pleasant, but she’d endured worse on this trip. She removed a piece of dried meat and the map from her bag.

  She liked tracing her finger along the roads of the map, liked charting the course from one stop on their Circuit to the next. She liked imagining the conversations she could have with a more willing companion on the long stretches between settlements.

  Her finger paused at the upcoming turn the road would take once they moved on from the lake town. If they took the northern fork, they would reach her own hometown within a day and a half. Instead, their assigned Circuit directed them to the southern fork.

  Homesickness and relief warred within her. It was becoming harder to pretend she’d simply been too busy to use her Farsight even once to check in on her family and friends back home. The possibility that they had denounced her for becoming a Herald always drifted through the back of her mind. She missed everyone so terribly, but they might want nothing to do with her now.

  She’d never had to grow accustomed to loneliness.

  Fighting the burn behind her eyes, Marli tore a bite from her dried meat. She had to chew a while before her throat loosened enough to swallow. Taren was with her, she reminded herself. He would never leave her. But her Companion simply didn’t understand how her family’s rejection would hurt her. He wasn’t as reliant on other people’s approval as she was.

  Something rustled in the dry grass behind her. Unchecked, hope welled that Selte had noticed Marli’s need for another friend, that the Herald who was supposed to be her mentor had sidled over to finally allow a connection between them.

  A glance over her shoulder showed that Selte, dressed in fresh clothes, was laying her soiled Whites by the door to dry in the sun. When she finished, she went straight back inside without looking in Marli’s direction.

  Marli stuffed the rest of her dried meat in her mouth and chewed with vigor, swallowed too early, and replaced her map in her saddlebags. Then she stood, brushing dirt and grass from her pants.

  :You up for settling a few of the townsfolk’s disputes?: she sent to Taren.

  If she couldn’t solve her problem with Herald Selte, there were plenty of others waiting for her attention.

  • • •

  Cerilka had been warming to Taren, and Selte knew the two Companions had taken to chatting as they traveled. With Cerilka distracted, Selte didn’t know what to do with her comments about the weather. Anytime she considered sharing her thoughts on the patchy clouds or the strengthening wind, she hesitated. Cerilka wasn’t completely ignoring her; she gave Selte wordless mental touches now and then. But Selte still felt a bit abandoned.

  Which stung all the more since they’d veered south. Selte had as much power over their assigned course as she did over the weather, but that didn’t make the fact that their next stop was the place she’d been born any easier to stomach. Then again, maybe a visit to the village she could no longer call home would be good for her.

  She could do with a reminder of her lack of teaching qualifications.

  Trainee Marli had kept quiet since they’d left the lake town behind. When Selte glanced her way, the girl didn’t seem to be engaging in the Companions’ conversation. She simply rocked along with Taren’s gait, her head tilted back, her face a mask as it had been this entire leg of the journey. Something was bothering her, and if even Selte could pick up on it, it must be something big.

  Selte kept her muscles loose, lest she accidentally interrupt Cerilka, but it was hard with all her failures running through her mind. She knew she ought to reach out to her Trainee. Communication wouldn’t be impossible, they had options. At the very least she had to impart some weather knowledge before their Circuit wrapped up. Surely she could use the building clouds as a lesson in rainfall probability. She could point out how these clouds looked as if they might drop rain but how other factors negated the likelihood. That was simple enough, right?

  But the closer they came to Selte’s village, the more the voices echoed from the past.

  How could you have missed the signs of such a storm?

  All this destruction is your fault!

  Silence would be better than your false security.

  The memory of heat and copper filled her mouth, and she swallowed. No, no, she had no business teaching Marli a thing about the weather.

  So instead of opening any form of dialogue with Marli, Selte flipped her hood up to shadow her face.

  Once they crested the next hill, the defensive walls surrounding the village came into view. The last time she’d seen them, a storm of unprecedented strength had blasted them clean of all ivy and caused damage by smashing some uprooted trees against them. Now they were repaired, and tendrils of yellowed green were snaking their way upward once more. The people wouldn’t take kindly to Marli telling them to clear the new growth away, but it was too much of a fire hazard until the rains came more reliably.

  Signs of long-standing repairs shone beyond the walls, too, with shingled roofs she didn’t recognize bearing the dull sheen of many seasons’ worth of high winds. In the distance, the strip mines that pulled iron ore from the mountainsides seemed to have returned to full working order.

  Nestled at the entrance to a long valley, this metalworking settlement made an ideal place to study rapidly changing weather patterns, though not many could read those patterns accurately, as Selte well knew. The strong winds set the flags on the observation towers flapping and snapping and drove much of the summer heat away down the length of the valley. They also carried the smoke from the forges away from the Heralds’ northern approach, for which Selte was grateful. She didn’t know if she could handle the smell of hot metal now. She groped for the clasp of her hood, holding it in place against the breeze.

  Motion drew her eye to the high top of the weather reader’s tower, where she had spent every spare moment of her childhood. Someone stood beside the barometer, apparently ignoring the way the wind yanked on his student robes. The boy was young, but his face already bore the effects of long candlemarks enduring the elements.

  He noticed their approach and hailed them, then rang the bell three times to signal the arrival of a Herald to the village.

  Marli perked up the moment the four of them passed through the gate. A scattering of people came to greet them, children fawning over the Companions while their parents scolded them halfheartedly. Smiles sprouted on every face, which Marli returned in spades.

  Selte huddled deeper into the shadows of her hood. They hadn’t recognized her yet, but it was only a matter of time.

  She tightened
her fingers in Cerilka’s mane and pulled back gently. These people didn’t want her here, and rightly so.

  Cerilka twitched her neck in counterargument. She took the sting from her disagreement by swishing her tail against Selte’s legs. Things would play out as they were meant to, according to the Companion.

  By the time a decent crowd had gathered, Selte was swimming in her own sweat. She recognized a handful of faces, and though they wore cheery grins now, Selte’s memory saw them twisted with fury.

  Cerilka swished her tail again, and Selte took a deep breath. She pulled on her own time as a Herald Trainee and grounded herself. The past was in the past. She could deal with the fallout only if she stayed in the present.

  Beside her, Marli radiated confidence as she brought out the fire safety codes. No other Herald had stopped here before them, so the full education was in order. Marli excelled at teaching people. Selte had seen copious evidence of such at each town they visited. The girl addressed concerns without trivializing them, and she always took the time to ensure all of her students had a base understanding of the material before moving on.

  But it didn’t take long for this group to challenge her.

  “What do you mean, we have to shut down some of the forges? That’s our livelihood, woman!”

  Marli didn’t back down. “I understand we’re asking you to make a sacrifice, but you have to weigh the cost of cutting your iron production against the very real chance of a stray spark sending fire sweeping through town. This temporary measure is designed to keep everyone safe while we wait out the drought.”

  “The clouds have been building for weeks,” one man grumbled. “The weather reader says the rains will fall any day now. Maybe there’s no need to shut down any of the forges.”

  Selte lifted her head to glance at the sky. True, a bank of clouds hovered near the peaks to the east, but the wind that currently blew from that same direction had been whispering of changing course all morning. When that happened, the clouds would disperse, and the weather would hold its dry pattern for a while longer.

  But she could have misread those signs. Here at the site of her most catastrophic failure, what right did she have to question the interpretation of their current weather reader?

  She tilted her face down again, only to find Marli watching her. The Trainee nodded, then turned to address the people again.

  “Herald Selte thinks the rains will not fall for some time yet. You can trust her judgment. She has read the weather throughout Valdemar for many years.”

  Selte wasn’t certain how to process this revelation. How had Marli known what she was thinking?

  Marli’s statement affected the gathered people, too. An angry muttering broke out, and many faces pointed toward Selte where she sat astride Cerilka.

  Cerilka stomped her rear left hoof, but Selte barely registered the Companion’s attempt to calm her.

  Blood pounded in her ears, and her throat constricted as she met the stares of the very people who had condemned her to silence.

  There was the matron of the stables, who’d lost her best horses when the roof crashed down in the winds. Behind her came the man who used to oversee the mine operations, the lines on his face not enough to disguise the long, jagged scar across his cheek where he’d been caught by flying debris.

  Standing closest to her now was the master of the forges. His eldest son had worked in the strip mines and had been struck dead by lightning before he could reach shelter. The master’s grip had the strength of tempered steel as he’d held Selte down and brought the red-hot tongs toward her to carry out her punishment.

  Liars should be silenced!

  But she hadn’t lied. She’d been young and brash, and she’d made a mistake. But the punishment had been carried out, and the trauma had taken more than just her physical voice.

  Selte fought to catch her breath through the haze of memory and fear.

  The forge master pointed at her, his eyes like flaring embers. “Selte? They’ll let anyone wear those fancy uniforms these days, won’t they? But we know how to keep our people safe. We’ll not listen to ‘advice’ from one we already know has designs for our destruction. The forges will run as usual. You Heralds had best be moving on.”

  “Wait, friends,” Marli cried. “We have only your safety in mind with these codes. Please hear me out.”

  “We’ll hear nothing if it comes from her,” said the stable matron. “She bears the mark of a liar.”

  Others joined her, pointing and spitting at both Heralds and Companions now, until the Companions were forced to back toward the gate.

  Marli continued her attempts to soothe and placate, but as more people became aware of what was happening, her words fell on deaf ears and were eventually drowned out.

  “—Liars!—”

  “—Take your false advice elsewhere!—”

  “—Fire! A fire at the mines!—”

  The call rolled over the rest of the rabble like thunder even though the crier gasped for breath from his dash. And like thunder, it made everyone freeze in their tracks with paralyzing fear.

  In that motionless moment, the wind shifted as it had told Selte it would. Traces of smoke drifted through the village. Selte tasted ash.

  By the time the student in the observation tower caught up with the emergency enough to hammer the signal bell in the double peal of “fire,” Selte had envisioned multiple ways for the air currents to fan the flames directly at the vulnerable settlement.

  She couldn’t let them get that far.

  Beside her, Marli trembled astride Taren, her face pale. Even Taren remained stock still except for the agitated swishing of his tail. In all the time they’d been riding this Circuit, trying to prepare the citizens of Valdemar for the event of fire, they themselves had yet to run into even a single errant ember. Having knowledge of the codes was one thing, but applying them was quite another.

  Selte grabbed her Trainee’s sleeve and shook her. Once she had Marli’s attention, she pantomimed dumping a bucket of water repeatedly.

  Marli’s face remained pale, but she nodded and turned to address the people in a calm, commanding tone. “Form a bucket line. Use what water you can spare.”

  By now the village leaders, the stable matron and the forge master, had regained their wits, too. They barked orders to those nearby, and people scrambled to form up. Some ran to collect buckets, others descended upon the water pump.

  They would waste a lot of water in their panic.

  Selte tapped her heels against Cerilka’s sides. Marli could stay behind to direct the bucket line, but someone had to control the fight at the flames. She would go to the mines and help the men cart dirt and sand back up the hill.

  Cerilka signaled her agreement and shot away at a gallop for the southern gate. Selte trusted that the Companion had informed Taren of their plans.

  The smoke grew thicker and grittier as they hurtled down the main road, but Selte didn’t see the flash of fire until they reached the gateway in the southern segment of the village wall. The men who watched for bandits were gathered along the walkway at the top, either dashing around aimlessly or standing motionless and staring at the oncoming destruction. Nobody seemed certain what to do.

  Cerilka thundered through the open gateway, then skidded to a halt. The fire had already crept partway up the grassy hillside separating the mines from the village, binging on the feast of dry fuel and growing into a gluttonous inferno. As Selte had feared, the wind fanned the flames directly toward the village.

  Her stomach churned. The path to the mines was already cut off.

  She’d never dealt with a firestorm before, but she had weathered plenty of other storms. A change in the situation necessitated a change in the plan of action.

  She couldn’t access the dirt and sand at the mines; therefore, a fast trench would have to do.

&nbs
p; Cerilka pivoted to face the village wall and the people standing atop it. Rearing back, she flailed her front hooves and let out a shrill scream.

  The maneuver worked, and all eyes turned down to the two of them.

  Selte swept her arm out to indicate a line running parallel to the wall, and Cerilka pawed at the packed dirt hard enough to make a deep gouge.

  A few of the men caught her meaning, and their calls soon had everyone running for their shovels and picks. Selte leaped off Cerilka’s back and accepted the shovel one early responder pushed at her. Cerilka returned to her pawing, and Selte dug the point of her shovel into the hard packed soil.

  Together, alongside men who once thought her the least trustworthy person among them, Selte worked to cut the trench. The flames drew closer and closer every time she looked up, until she simply decided to stop looking. She didn’t need the evidence of her eyes to follow their enemy’s progress, not when the crack and roar of it filled her ears, and the stinking fumes it kicked up smothered her nose and mouth. The searing heat grew and grew, until the shovel’s handle slipped in her sweaty hands.

  She and the men sweated so much together it seemed to turn the ground they were rushing to break into sloppy mud.

  Selte blinked ash and salt from her eyes. The ground really was muddy. Had the bucket line arrived? She wiped surprisingly cool sweat from her brow, and caught fresh raindrops on her forehead when she tilted her face up.

  The fire hissed and guttered mere paces away from the ragged trench as the rain intensified. Soon, the inferno that had swept up from the mines was reduced to only so much smoke, which the wind tore to shreds.

  Selte dropped her shovel and slumped against Cerilka’s side. She ran her fingers through her Companion’s mud-streaked coat, not saying anything, just exchanging comfort.

  She’d been wrong about the weather again. But this time, her village had benefited from her mistake.

  • • •

  Selte and Cerilka didn’t rush ahead for solitude as the four of them rode away from the village, and Marli and Taren didn’t lag behind in uneasy silence. They traveled side by side like old friends.