"Yes," he said, that bitterness still ringing in his voice. "My nerve failed, Keeper. I wanted to run away like a child. I still do. Run and hide and live a normal life, as if I were a normal . . ." He sucked in his breath and squared his shoulders. "To run is worse than cowardice. It is complicity. If I run, I help my father because I cannot thwart his plans."
He looked over at her. "I know the emperor did not truly wish for you to simply spy on my father, Moria. He asked you to kill him."
"I--"
"But you are no assassin. To attempt that alone would gravely endanger you. I have said I will do everything in my power to see that no harm comes to you, Keeper. You have a duty, to your emperor and your empire, yes, but more important to your village and your father. To avenge them. And I will make sure you get that revenge." He looked at her again. "Do you understand?"
She did. And so they decided they would find Alvar Kitsune's shadow stalker camp and, in that way, be returned to him. It was, in the end, all they could do.
TWENTY-ONE
They'd been on the road since the fiend dog attack. They'd set out that night, ridden all day, and then taken turns sleeping in the wagon the following night. Now it was day again, and Ronan wasn't happy.
"He said it was a day's ride," Ronan grumbled. "We are on the second day."
"I know."
"He says we had to divert to avoid the towns, but he didn't add that to the estimate of time, did he?"
"I know."
He looked over. "And you'd like me to stop complaining about it."
"Not truly." Ronan was only saying what Ashyn was thinking. Her grandfather was eager to get her to the dragons--it was the culmination of a life's work and dreams. Was she surprised he'd misled them about the distance?
"I understand you wish to return to Jorn and Aidra as quickly as you can," she said. "If you want to do so, I understand, as I always have."
A flash of emotion. Then his face hardened. "My brother and sister will be fine for a little longer. You need me more than they do. But I'm hoping it'll be a brief delay." He peered out at the landscape. "Our destination had better not be in the North."
"It is a fortnight's ride to the North," Ashyn said. "Edwyn would not expect to get us that far before we revolted. We seem to be heading toward the steppes."
"Which border the North."
Ashyn shook her head. "The steppes begin a four-day ride from the imperial city. We were already to the northwest and . . . And you do not wish a lesson in imperial geography."
He shrugged. "I'm happy to listen if it will distract you from worrying about Moria."
"I'm not--"
His look cut her short.
"I'm trying not to," she said.
"I know. So if it helps to talk about anything else, I'm happy to listen, Ash."
When she said nothing for the next hundred paces, he drew his horse up closer to hers and said, "I ought not to have mentioned Moria."
"It doesn't matter. She's never far from my mind. Moria and Daigo and Tyrus and the children of Edgewood and Fairview and . . ." She turned to look at him. "Am I doing the right thing, Ronan? They're back there. All of them. And I'm riding this way to do something I'm not even sure is possible, and I don't know if I'm doing it because I believe it's the best choice or because I feel useless otherwise. I want to find Moria, but Tyrus and Daigo are better equipped for that, and all I did was get Guin killed and nearly get you killed and--"
"You had nothing to do with Guin's death. If anyone could have handled that situation better, it was me. As for the arrow in my neck, I'm the one who told you to run, and if I had the chance to do it over, I'd still do the same, because clearly Dalain Okami was not the ally he claimed to be if he let his men try to kill me."
"But am I doing the right thing, Ronan? Are we? I know you want to get back to your siblings, and I've not brought that up, no more than you've brought up Moria, but we're both thinking it, aren't we? That there's someplace else we need to be, and this path is taking us further from it."
"I know." He cast a grim glance back at the others.
"Do you fear they wouldn't let us leave?" she whispered.
"I could leave. But you are not simply the person Edwyn believes can awaken his dragons, Ash. You're his granddaughter. He's not about to let you run off with a thief."