Kaye had become proficient at hurting. Thankfully, it was all directed at herself.

  The herd of elk had been spotted two days ago, traversing the windy grass pin in a tight group of nearly fifty individuals for protection. The hunters who would serve as herders mounted horses, first moving into position, then scaring the creatures into fright. The elk could have trampled them, but once one of the animals started running the others followed.

  That was as far as Kaye saw and only did so because the herders were headed in her direction, from southwest to northeast. The elk were a dark stain against the green and yellow grass punctuated by the pointy ends of their antlers; the hunters no more than moving spots of different colors depending on their mount, positioned to funnel the herd in a controlled, directed mass of panic.

  She turned to follow the others down the only considerable descent she’d seen in the pins yet. The terrain was mostly ft, rolling but hardly amounting to hills. Herding the animals meant knowing where the nearby cliffs were, then waiting for an opportunity.

  Still, Kaye could imagine what was happening above. The elk in a desperate struggle to put distance between themselves and the danger rushing closer, except that, unlike the predators they knew, these did not stop after catching the slowest of prey. No attempt was made to hurt, only to chase, and the confusion, the feeling that they should have been far enough now must be deepening their fear.

  They waited below the cliff for a long time, distancing themselves northward and east. Twenty-something men, all armed with bows and arrows, some with spears for when it was time to close in.

  There was no rumble to the ground, not enough numbers for that, but the stomping footfalls announced the herd’s arrival before they could be seen.

  One, five, ten and more. One after the other, the elk leaped off the cliff. Seemingly organized at first, then smming into each other mid-air, letting out high-pitched screams. The creatures crashed down, the slowest on top of the fastest. Not a single one managed to stop in its own tracks. Above the cliff, the hunters appeared atop their horses.

  Kaye and the others where well spread, but all coming from the same direction to avoid loose arrows. They spotted the crippled, crying beasts with arrows, then moved in with spears to finish them off. She wasn’t sure what they would do with the tangle at the back where the elk formed a writhing heap.

  Spear in hand, she did her part, trying and failing to hide the trembles that rose to her face. If anyone noticed, they didn’t say anything. An infamous reputation had formed around her after the fiasco with Aien and Kaye was sure some had compined to the guild officials. Threatening to kill a man in her first job. Bringing issues that dangerous into the party’s midst.

  The constant cries of pain kept her going.

  Kaye sat by herself back at camp, the notebook cradled in her p. Her depiction of the elk leaping to their deaths was a ghastly thing. Forms made of simple, clean charcoal lines — she was becoming parsimonious with her lines — indistinct enough that no one could be recognized as a particur, named individual, not even the hunters.

  She heard footsteps approaching, crunching leaves. They stopped by her side. She didn’t have to look up to know it was her uncle.

  “I thought you had gone missing,” Hogog spoke.

  “I joined the killing party,” Kaye answered, looking up at him.

  “The others told me.” Hogog walked around her, sitting down on the opposite side of yesterday’s fire, the embers now cold and brittle. “I understand this is how you deal with it, but you know I have to ask. You’re doing this again, keeping yourself distant. Not talking.”

  Kaye looked up from the drawing to stare at her uncle.

  “I’m doing better than I look, and I mean it. That, the shouting and firing arrows, it’s not something I’m proud of. This is not the same thing.”

  “Can you expin it?” Hogog asked, stretching his legs.

  Basking in suffering keeps me from deciding if I did the right thing or not.

  “Have you ever felt as if the only way to get over something is to let yourself be hurt? As if you deserve it?”

  Hogog nodded without dey. Kaye hadn’t thought about it until then, though she expected to say those words to him eventually, but she didn’t know what it was that her uncle was thinking about.

  “How are you doing?” Kaye asked.

  “I’m still not sure if I believe it. Yes, you told me what happened and I heard a lot from the others, and I had time to think since then, but it’s hard to accept. Aien… He…” Hogog sighed, pulling his legs back together and crisscrossing them, csping his hands together in a tight grip. “If I was there, we would both have been sent back to the city by now.” He gestured to the rest of camp with his head. “They wouldn’t want us around after what I would have done.”

  I don’t know if I would’ve stopped you, not then.

  I don’t think I had the strength for it.

  What would I be doing with myself if it had gone that way?

  “I’m tired,” Kaye said, closing the notebook. “And I’ve made a decision.”

  “About?” Hogog dragged the word.

  “I don’t know when, and I promise to let you know when the time comes, but even if we’re not running away from something anymore, one day I’m still going to leave again.”

  Hogog reached for the pot containing yesterday’s leftovers, then began rummaging through the cold embers of the firepce, making space for new fuel.

  “Then I will leave with you.”

  “Do you want to leave with me, or will you do it because you feel responsible?” Before Hogog could answer, Kaye continued, “If you find something you enjoy here, it can be in Geshin or anywhere else, I don’t want to take that away from you. This guild. Friends. A lover that makes you want to settle down.”

  “One of those is less likely than the others,” Hogog said, smiling as he reached for his flint and steel.

  “Can you promise me that, uncle? Please?”

  He stopped sending sparks with the flint and steel. Held her gaze.

  “I can. I promise you that, when the time comes for you to leave, I will seriously consider what I have here before making a decision. Here or anywhere else.”

  Kaye helped him get the fire started.

  “Can you tell me what you pn on doing?” Hogog asked. He was cautiously tending to the fmes before pcing the pot over it.

  I suppose I never really expined it to anyone, she thought.

  “I want to go wherever I please. Live without anything keeping me in one pce. I understand this might hurt you, but it’s not that—”

  “I know,” Hogog interrupted her, “I know it’s not for a ck of love.” He smiled reassuringly.

  “Thank you. But there isn’t much beyond that. To see as many sights and pce as I can reasonably visit. In a way, I don’t feel as if I’ve started until now. I wish I could have spent longer in Kakinse, but there was Saldassa and Sarak. We didn’t have much of a choice there, always on the run, and I was too lost in my own grieving.”

  “I think…” Hogog pced a lid on the pot, “Not now, but when you tell me you’re leaving, I think that what I will worry about the most is not what you want to do, but your safety. It’s not just about responsibility. You said it yourself, we’ve been in constant danger since the start.”

  “But there is no war waging here.”

  “What about those bandits? The ones who kidnapped the kids from the vilge?”

  Some bandits pnned on kidnapping me.

  “There is always going to be some kind of danger, I think. I won’t be traveling alone, not always. There will be caravans and who knows, I might meet some people who I want to travel with. I doubt that Gima will want to leave, but Uruoro might. I’m surprised that he seems to have taken to the city so easily.”

  “Uruoro is my friend as well, but he isn’t exactly a fighter,” Hogog said, pulling his bedding still rolled into the shape of a scroll to use it as a cushion.

  Their conversation and the way that he sat, hands reaching for the pot that was finally getting hot, reminded Kaye of Taya.

  “You’re just like mother,” she said, a smiling accompanying her words to show that she wasn’t compining.

  “I was always the one asking them to let you a little loose, wasn’t I?” her uncle asked with longing eyes.

  “You were, and that always helped.”

  “Good. That was the idea.”

  “I wasn’t trying to avoid the conversation, before you ask. I won’t stop you from following me if you decide to do so, I just want to make sure I’m not forcing you into doing it. There might be some danger, yes, but I’ve learned a thing or two about danger since Kakinse. What I can promise you is that I will be cautious.”

  “You were always cautious. That is why I felt comfortable telling Gairin and Taya off. Even when you struggled with the hunting, you didn’t commit many mistakes. If anything, you’ve been less cautious since we had to leave.”

  Kaye hadn’t considered that. She only had to think about the past months for a few moments before realizing that he was right. She had bmed herself for her more recent outburst, but all her emotional moments were followed by violence, or at least the desire for it.

  Was she stunted in some way? Had the life of a kid forced to consider her own death before most are ever asked to understand what it means, followed by another life keeping others away to avoid forming bonds that would need to be severed made her unhealthy? Too many things bottled up, too much time spent avoiding feelings?

  It wasn’t simply violence. It wasn’t shing out, as the Captain Mavis had put it, but it wasn’t fleeing, not in that sense. If it was about fleeing, then self-preservation would have kept her from staying with the caravan in the worst moments, fighting with them despite being fully aware of how slim the chances were. Had Aien not stopped her back in Rair’s pce in Kakinse, she would have stalked off to the streets to look for the Urcan.

  No, not fleeing. On the contrary, it was an unmistakable desire to wound without consideration for the danger.

  She had wanted to help everyone — her parents, the caravan, Uruoro, Loho and Gima. Even when considering it from a different angle now, that was still the case. But there was something else. Something she might never have asked herself if someone else didn’t make her realize it.

  Am I suicidal?

  “Did I say something I shouldn’t have?” Hogog asked, genuine concern writ on his face.

  “No, not at all. You are right, uncle. Not saying I’m giving up on the idea, but you are right, I do need to consider this more thoroughly.”

  “That is all I ask. Now, do you want some of this?”

  There wasn’t much of yesterday’s stew left, but she accepted.

  She wasn’t ready to consider what that realization meant for her.

  She was, however, gd that the arrow didn’t hit Aien. She was gd that Hogog hadn’t been there.

  Eating was a good distraction.