Lacuna - N.R. Walker Page 0,45

followed by Kohaku and the two guards behind him and the spare horse pulling the small carriage. They kept a steady pace, passing through villages and towns, and rode until sundown.

The inn they stopped at was nicer than the last. The baths were bigger, the water hot, the food plentiful. Though the room was another large communal dorm with mats on the floor and low tables with cushions for chairs.

This night, Maghdlm was well enough to sit up. She drank her tea and had some bread, and after they’d eaten, Karasu undid the bandages and dabbed more numbing paste along the gash there. She didn’t say much, but her wounds were still ghastly, so Crow didn’t doubt the pain of her injuries.

“How are you feeling?” Tancho asked quietly.

“Alive,” she replied feebly. “For which I have you all to thank.”

“Kohaku carried you,” Tancho said. “Up those stairs and then on horseback for a day.”

She turned slowly to where the big Westlander sat near the fire with Soko. They were now comparing boots, of all things. Kohaku gave her a wave.

Maghdlm gave him a nod, then turned back to Crow and Tancho. “And Karasu here tells me we’re heading west.”

“Correct,” Tancho answered. “We had word of strange figures approaching my home.”

Maghdlm nodded but focused on Crow. “And the King of Northlands walks on foreign land.”

“The King of Northlands,” Crow said with a bite in his tone, “has little choice.” He held up his wrist, birthmark on display. “Remember?”

“I remember,” she whispered.

“Maghdlm, we have many questions,” Tancho tried with more manners than Crow. “To which you hold the answers.”

She nodded slowly and blinked heavily. “And I shall tell you what I know. Though I fight sleep. The tea helps my pain but makes me drift.”

The old woman closed her eyes and Crow sighed, figuring that was all they’d get out of her tonight. But Tancho tried again. “Maghdlm?”

She opened her eyes but they were unfocused. “Mm.”

Crow wondered in that split second what his first question was going to be. He would have bet good coin that it would be asking how to sever the bond between them, but he surprised Crow almost at every turn.

“Who attacked you in the archīvum? We found you on the floor there. Someone hit you and left you for dead. Did you see who it was?”

She shook her head and frowned. “No.”

If Crow could get one question in, he was going to try.

“Maghdlm,” he said. “The Aequi Kentron was deserted when we left. Everyone was gone. Do you know where they went?”

He dreaded that she would say north.

She shook her head again, her eyes barely open. “You ask the wrong question,” she whisper-mumbled as sleep tried to take her. “The question is not where they went, but how.”

Chapter Twelve

Tancho and Crow both looked at each other, confused, stunned. Her words were so quiet, Tancho wondered if he’d heard her correctly.

“It’s not where they went,” Crow repeated. “But how . . .”

Maghdlm was fast asleep, and although Tancho hated the riddle and cryptic prophecies, he wouldn’t dare wake her for explanation. The bruising that covered half her face, the swelling, was now a mottled horror show of purple, green, and yellow. It was true that the older the skin, the worse the damage, and that was true for Maghdlm. She was old and frail before being clobbered with something blunt and heavy. How it hadn’t caved her skull and how she lived at all, Tancho wasn’t sure. But she needed to sleep.

So they left her to sleep and went back to their mats. Soko hadn’t even bothered attempting to sleep next to Crow. He left that space for Tancho, and as much as it rankled him, he was also secretly pleased.

They sat beside each other, Crow leaning against the wall with his legs outstretched, Tancho cross-legged. Crow’s expression was decidedly cool, but Tancho could see the fire in his eyes. “How could they leave if not on foot or horseback?” Crow asked. “If not a procession of carriages or wagons? And we’ve asked every villager at every stop if they’ve seen anything unusual but no one has. So we can assume no one from Aequi Kentron came west before us.”

Tancho nodded. “So where did they go? Are Elmwood or Samiel walking into a trap?”

Crow’s nostrils flared and his jaw clenched. “I hope not.”

“Do you believe they went north?”

Crow’s eyes flashed to his, the fire in them dying out quickly. “It wouldn’t make sense.”

“None of this makes sense.”

“True.”

“How did they