The wagon slowed.
Aldric did not know how long they had been moving. An hour. Maybe more. The road had been rough and then smooth and then rough again and he had stopped noticing the difference.
Garrett's voice came from the front. Low. A command to the horses, not to them. The wheels ground to a halt. The wagon settled.
"Out," Garrett said. His face was the same face it had been since the square — closed, set, working. "Stretch your legs. Drink water if you have it."
Nobody moved at first. The wagon had become a kind of shelter — dark, enclosed, a place where they did not have to look at anything beyond the canvas walls and each other.
Soren moved first. He climbed out without a word, walked a few paces, and stood with his arms folded and his back to them. He stared at the treeline the way a man stares at a wall.
Kira stepped down and sat on the wagon step. She did not go further. Her hands laced together in her lap, tight. Her breathing was slow. Deliberate. The kind of breathing that costs effort.
Petra did not climb out. She slid off the bench and sat on the floor of the wagon with her knees drawn up, and then the sound came — a single, ragged breath that broke into something worse. She cried the way someone cries when they have been holding it since the first blast and their body has decided that holding is over. She pressed her sleeve against her mouth and it did not help.
Aldric climbed out.
The air hit him. Cool, damp, carrying the smell of grass and rain that had not fallen yet. They had stopped on a flat stretch of road beside a stand of trees. The sky was grey and low. It was the kind of place no one would remember passing.
He stood beside the wagon and his hands would not stay still. He pressed them against his legs. He folded his arms. He let them hang and then pressed them against his legs again. His body wanted to do something and there was nothing to do.
Garrett was at the front, checking the horses. His hands moved the way they always moved — rope, buckle, harness. He checked the wheels. He checked the axle. He did all of it without rushing and without pausing, and Aldric understood that this was how Garrett held himself together. By working. By making his hands do the next thing and the next thing and the thing after that.
The woman with the bow had positioned herself on a low rise beside the road, looking back the way they had come. Her hand rested near the quiver at her hip. She was not watching them. She was watching everything else.
Kira sat on the wagon step. She had not moved. After a while she took a breath — long, careful — and let it out. Her hands stayed clasped. Her knuckles stayed white.
Soren had not turned around.
Inside the wagon, Petra went quiet. The silence that followed was worse than the crying.
* * *
Petra came out of the wagon. Her eyes were red and her face was blotched and she did not care who saw it. She sat on the grass beside the wheel and pulled her knees up and stared at the ground.
Nobody spoke. The wind moved through the trees. The horses shifted in their harness.
"What about Darin?" Petra said.
Garrett turned from the horses. He looked at her. Then at the others.
"He's gone," Garrett said. Not harsh. Not soft. The voice of a man stating what is true because someone needs to hear it said out loud.
"His body," Petra said. "You left him there."
Garrett was quiet for a moment. "I got four of you out. That was the choice."
"But he's still —" Her voice caught. She pressed her mouth shut and breathed through her nose and tried again. "He's still in that street."
Garrett walked to where the swordsman sat near the wagon. He spoke low — a few words, a nod toward the road behind them. The swordsman stood, sheathed his blade, and went to his horse without question. He mounted and looked at Garrett once.
"The innkeeper at The Stone Barrel," Garrett said. "Tell him the crown will cover the cost. The body stays in his care until I send someone from Valmont."
The swordsman nodded and rode. The sound of hooves faded down the road and then it was quiet again.
Garrett turned back to the group. He was lighter by one man. The road ahead was the same road but he would walk it with less, and they all knew it even if none of them said so.
"I'll send word to his family from Valmont," he said. "The crown will make sure the body is returned to Millford."
The name landed. Millford. Forty families, one inn, and a goat that bit anyone who came near the well. A mother who had dropped a basket of eggs when the Aether Stone lit up. A father whose flour sacks would not carry themselves.
Aldric thought about the honey in his bag. He had been saving it. He did not know what for. It did not matter now.
Petra wiped her face with her sleeve. She did not thank Garrett. She did not say anything. She pulled her knees tighter and looked at the grass between her feet.
The woman with the bow came down from the rise. She spoke to Garrett. He shook his head.
"We rest here a while longer," Garrett said. "Then we move."
He said it to all of them. But his eyes stayed on the road behind them, watching the empty stretch where his man had disappeared.
* * *
The silence lasted a long time.
They sat apart from each other — Petra by the wheel, Soren near the treeline, Kira on the wagon step, Aldric in the grass. Close enough to be a group. Far enough to be alone.
Petra spoke first.
"I'm not going to Valmont."
Nobody reacted. The words sat in the air the way the silence had — heavy, taking up space.
"I want to go home," she said. She was not crying anymore. Her voice was flat and dry and finished. "I want to go back to my family."
Garrett looked at her. He did not argue. He studied her face for a moment, then nodded.
"I can arrange that," he said. "When we reach the next town, I'll find you a place on a cart."
Petra nodded. She looked at the grass between her feet. That was the end of it.
Nobody else spoke. Soren walked back to the wagon and climbed in. Kira stood from the step and followed him. Their bags went in. The canvas closed behind them.
Aldric stayed in the grass.
The wind went through the trees. The horses pulled at the grass. Garrett called from the front that they were moving soon.
Aldric picked up his bag and climbed into the wagon. He sat in his usual spot and did not speak.
The wagon lurched forward. The wheels creaked. The road went on.