Bow and Sparrow

CH 36

After we said our goodbyes to Marge and Benny -though I was the only one to scratch him between his pointed ears- we set off again under the cloak of darkness, this time with Dava trotting beside us. Rylan had tried to get me to ride her so I wouldn't have to walk the entire way, but I refused. I had a bum shoulder but my feet were fine, I told him. So instead, she carried some of our supplies.

"How can you tell where we're going?" I asked Rylan, watching as he glanced at the sky again. I had lost all sense of direction when the sun went down and I couldn't grasp how he could know which way to go.

"I have a general idea, but the stars keep us in the right direction."

I looked up at the jumble of constellations above us, but they didn't make much sense to me. I had heard that there were people who could navigate using just the stars but I never knew how they did it.

"That one there," Rylan pointed to a bright star to the right of us. "That's Polaris. It always points north. And from there-" Rylan dragged his finger across the sky, tracing down a path lined with stars. "We just need to go west... ish. Dast is in southern Verdana?"

He spoke with such confidence that it took me a moment to register his question. "Yes, it is."

I couldn't believe that after all this time, I was finally going home. I was putting a lot of faith in my father accepting my traveling companions, and I prayed I was right and that he would be able to set aside his long-held grudge against Rezantri. I thought he would, but I didn't voice my concerns. We already had enough to worry about without my doubts hovering over us.

We made camp around midnight, using the few blankets Marge had lent to us as makeshift beds. We didn't risk a fire, not with being still so close to Hazend, but the warm spring air kept us warm enough anyway. Rylan took the first watch and with no complaints from the others, they were asleep within minutes. We still had a long way to go. They needed the rest.

I laid back on my own blanket but between my aching shoulder and my racing thoughts, my eyes refused to stay shut. After several minutes of tossing and turning, sleep was obviously evading me so I gave up, grabbing my satchel and went searching for Rylan.

He wasn't far. He was brushing through Dava's mane with his fingers. She seemed to be enjoying it from the way her eyelids would drift shut. Rylan must've heard me coming because he turned around when I got close.

"Can't sleep?"

I shook my head, wrapping my good arm around my waist. Rylan gestured for me to follow him, giving Dava one last pat on the shoulder. We wandered into the forest, stopping at a small clearing nearby. I could still hear Anders snoring nearby, but we were far enough away that we could talk freely without worry of waking the others.

We sat side by side with our backs pressed against the trunk of a large oak tree. Rylan sat on my left, his arm brushing against mine. I reached into my satchel, pulling free the carefully wrapped honey cakes. There were plenty in the package, more than enough for each of us so I didn't worry about indulging. I picked one up, sugar already coating my fingers and popped the entire cake in my mouth.

"I promise I'll share." I said around the mouthful of food, holding out the cakes to Rylan. He picked one up between his fingers, taking more careful bites than I did. I grabbed another and put the rest away for safekeeping.

"Do you wish you had stayed?" My voice was barely louder than the wind whispering in the tree branches above our heads, but Rylan shook his head. King Tano had pardoned him and Rylan could have had a life not spent on the run. The king had offered me that too but I had refused him. Perhaps for the same reasons Rylan had. Freedom.

"There's a hundred things I wish I could've done differently. But that's not one of them." I waited for him to elaborate but he never did. He was lost in his own thoughts now.

We had a clear view of the sky now, no clouds in sight, and I fixed my gaze on the bright star that Rylan had called Polaris. Now that I was really looking at it, I noticed that it burned brighter than all the other stars around it and I wondered how I never noticed it before. I looked at the other stars, wondering if they had names too or if Polaris was just special.

It was like Rylan read my mind or maybe he just noticed what I was looking at because he started naming the constellations in the sky.

"That one there." Rylan pointed to a cluster of stars. "That one is called The Mother. She was cursed by the gods and banished to the night sky. As punishment, she was forced to watch her children suffer on earth. And those-" Rylan dragged his finger lower in the sky. "-are her children. One by one, they joined their mother. To be so close yet so far for all eternity."

I couldn't make out the shapes that Rylan described, and he seemed to notice this because he picked up a stick nearby and started drawing lines in the dirt. A woman with her head bent in sorrow and her arms outstretched, reaching towards her children but not quite touching. I looked up at the sky again, but I found myself drawn to Rylan's tracings instead.

"Why was she cursed?"

Rylan paused, his drawing stick hovering above the dirt. "No one knows. Some say she tried defying the gods. Others say she did nothing wrong and was punished anyway."

I stared at the ground, at The Mother and the children she would never be with again. I couldn't think of a punishment worse than that. Could the gods have been so cruel?

"This one is called the Sparrow or the Lost Bird." Rylan pulled me from my thoughts. He didn't even look up at the sky this time. I dropped my head on his shoulder and watched as he drew another figure in the dirt. A bird in flight. As exhaustion settled over me, my eyes slipped closed and I fell asleep to the sound of his voice. "It flew too high and got lost in the stars."

A/N

Okay, I really enjoyed writing this chapter and I got a little teary-eyed at the end. If you liked the chapter, be sure to vote and comment. 

Happy Readings!

-T