You lived your life either in service to or revolt against something that turns out not to be real. I can see that’s embarrassing.”
“It’s more than that,” Kit said. “It leaves me unsure whether my life has had any meaning at all.”
“While you figure that out, you’ll need to get some rest. And start eating enough. And stop trying to take half of my watch along with yours. We have a job to do, and you need to be in a condition to do it.”
“I’m the one that brought you the job,” Kit said. “You recall, don’t you? You were the chosen one because I chose you. And if I was wrong …”
“It doesn’t matter where the job came from,” Marcus said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s something we can do. It’s the job. And you only get to pity yourself and sulk when it doesn’t get in the way of it.”
“And you feel it’s begun to?”
“Yes,” Marcus said. And then, “This is why you picked me, you know. Apart from needing someone to haul this damned uncomfortable hunk of metal, you knew at some point you might fall down and not want to get back up. I’m here to kick your ass.”
“Anytime, Kit. I’m pleased I can help. Now, honestly? Go the hell to sleep.”
The Keshet in the falling days of summer had a severe kind of beauty. The white morning sky carried shades of yellow and pink. The blue of midday served as backdrop for towering clouds that reached up a hundred times higher than mountains, white as sunlight at the top and angry grey blue at the base. At the day’s end, the slow sun would seem to linger on the horizon, red and swollen. The moon waxed and then waned. Before it waxed full again, they would be in Elassae. In Suddapal.
By choice, they met few other travelers. Sometimes Kit would spend the day singing, and his years on the boards gave his voice a range from barrel-deep to sweetly high, depending upon the song. Marcus didn’t object. Sometimes he even joined his voice with Kit’s. But beneath that, he felt himself growing narrow. Sharp. Focused. The anticipation was like being on a hunt, but it lasted for weeks. He was preparing himself. It was a sensation he’d had before, once, and it brought the nightmares.
There was no single moment when the western edge of the Keshet became the eastern reaches of Suddapal. No garrison marked the border, no tax man squatted by the side of the road. The oases and crossroads only became a little larger, a little more permanent, until at last they were villages. The dragon’s road became better traveled, and then thick. The flood of war refugees was mostly Timzinae, but Jasuru and Tralgu and Firstblood families were among them in numbers enough that Marcus and Kit could fold themselves in among them unremarked.
They approached the fivefold city from the east, passing through farmlands and pastures Marcus had never seen. The commons were so thick with tents that it was as if new towns were forming within the city, and men stood in lines at the larger houses, negotiating hospitality from the locals or else begging it. Everywhere, the word was that Antea’s army was on the march, that they would be in Suddapal very, very soon.
Displacement was a part of war, and Marcus had lived his life around it. It was a tissue of misery, fear, and uncertainty. Children would be sleeping hungry and in the streets tonight and tomorrow and likely for months if not years to come, provided nothing worse happened.
“We can go to Ela and Epetchi,” Kit said. It took Marcus a moment to place the names as belonging to the café owners they’d stayed with before leaving for Lyoneia. “They’ll take us in if they can.”
“You should stay with them for a few days,” Marcus agreed.
Kit shot a glance at him, and Marcus shrugged. There wasn’t anything more to say. They both understood why he’d chosen Suddapal. When they reached the café, it was already full to the top with refugees, but they found room for Kitap. And they knew the way to the branch of the Medean bank. It was in the western end of the cities, and a way inland. Marcus thanked them, bought a bowl of charred mutton with a few coins Kit gave him, and walked out into the city.