Chapter 07: Here or Nowhere

Status: First Draft
Last Edited: Nov. 9th, 2025
Content Warnings: Fantasy Violence, Suggestive Content

Chapter 7

“We’re trying to make up lost time,” huffed Ainjrejeu. Hakim had yoked the horses to the wagon and brought it around to the front entrance of the Lodge so the retinue could pack their belongings into it.

“We’ll lose more time if we don’t have enough supplies for the trip,” said Miar. “I trust Tareuk’s judgment.”

“That’s acceptable, but tell him to hurry.”

“Is there anything I can help with, sehr?” Kalolin asked from where she stood beside him.

“I should think not,” Ainjrejeu grumbled darkly. His angry expression wasn’t directed at her, but rather at the world at large.

“Really, nothing?” She stepped in closer to him and laid a hand on his chest. He recoiled as though he’d been punched in the stomach.

“Are you alright?” Miar asked. She had just set a bag down inside the mouth of the wagon.

“I’m fine,” said Ainjrejeu evenly. He stood back up straight as though nothing had happened, using two fingers to briefly pinch the bridge of his nose.

“What was that?” She walked over to where Ainjrejeu and Kalolin stood. Kalolin shook her head and shrugged.

“No cause for worry, Miar. If you’ve gotten everything from your room, you might grab Tareuk’s things as well.”

“Not eating last night and now this? If you aren’t feeling well we aren’t leaving town.” She put her hands on her hips.

Ainjrejeu huffed in frustration. "Kalem!" he called.

Kalem looked up, having just stepped out of the building. "These are Hakim's things," he said, his tone bordering on defensive. "I still have to go back up for mine."

Nykol, following behind, navigated around him and made her way to the wagon.

Ainjrejeu waved him over. "Tell Miar I'm fine."

"Are you?" Kalem raised an eyebrow skeptically as he walked over.

"Yes," said Ainjrejeu firmly.

"He's not," Miar huffed.

"And how am I supposed to convince her?"

Ainjrejeu waved Kalem even closer. Hesitantly, and with a face like it pained him, he whispered in the mustached man's ear.

Kalem listened seriously at first, then his face cracked into terrible amusement and he burst out laughing. Doubled over, he laughed until tears were in his eyes, all the while Ainjrejeu glared fury at the back of his head.

"There's no cause for alarm, Miar," he wheezed. "You'll just have to trust me on this one."

Miar sighed in defeat.

"How about this," Kalem turned back to Ainjrejeu once he caught his breath. "You can head back up and grab my instruments for me, and the farm girl can stay here and help load up the wagon."

Ainjrejeu nodded miserably, but was already halfway back into the lodge.

"Take all the time you need," Kalem shouted. "You're handling delicate equipment."

When Ainjrejeu had disappeared from sight Kalem placed a hand on Kalolin's shoulder. She yanked it out of his grasp, but he barely seemed to notice.

"Let's go secure the gear inside the wagon. The roads are about to get steeper and we don't want anything sliding around and beating the khet out of us while we’re in there."

They had tied everything already inside the wagon down when Tareuk arrived with the last of the supplies.

Ainjrejeu returned to the wagon carrying a case for a lute in one hand, and an old pan-flute in the other. He leaned in and handed them to Kalem before attempting to climb into the wagon himself. One of his feet slipped out from under him and, though he caught himself, he ended up crawling in on his hands and knees inelegantly.

He slid in beside Kalolin and unwrapped his scarf from his hair before attempting to get comfortable. The tops of his ears were flushed a deep red, and he sat so close to her that Kalolin could feel the heat radiating from him.

She was glad to know she hadn’t scared him away by being too forward. She would keep pushing, keep wearing away at him, until one of these nights she’d get to prove her usefulness to him. As her plans began to take graphic shape inside her mind, the heat of her body rose to meet his.

Ainjrejeu sneezed.

The sun was high overhead in a clear, almost turquoise sky when Hakim called back into the wagon from the driver’s seat.

“Think you’ll want to see this, sehr.” His tone was bright.

Ainjrejeu crawled forward in the aisle between Nykol and Miar, sat on opposite sides of the wagon, and then hoisted himself up over the back of the wooden bench. It was a few minutes before he turned around and stuck out an arm in Kalolin’s direction, beckoning her forward.

She came to him, trying vaguely to walk on her knees and struggling against the shaking of the wagon floor. With one hand she hiked up her freshly sewn skirt, and with the other she took his hand for support as she stepped over and onto the bench. She settled down beside him as he gestured grandly to the horizon.

Before them, to the East, the ground rose up into gentle peaks. Behind each mountain it seemed there might be a dozen more, layers stretching on forever into the blue of the sky itself.

“Beautiful,” Kalolin breathed.

Tareuk leaned an arm on the back of the bench beside Ainjrejeu, looking out over his shoulder.

“Thoughts?” he asked him.

Ainjrejeu smiled back sheepishly.

“You’ve already made up your mind then,” Tareuk said with a chuckle.

“Sorry to have strung you out,” said Ainjrejeu. “You know I made up my mind back in Sarnai.” He reached his hands out as though to hold the horizon in them. “I’m building the branch here or nowhere.”

“The procession should arrive at the Northlands Palace in about seven days,” said Ainjrejeu. The mountains had grown close, now towering masses of fall foliage dappled in late afternoon sunlight. The road they followed weaved between rolling foothills, each a sea of golden grass.

I might have gone my whole life never seeing this, thought Kalolin. Would that really have been living?

As the air had grown colder, she had moved closer to Ainjrejeu on the wooden bench at the front of the wagon. Now, she rested her head lazily on his shoulder and basked in the peaceful countryside.

“If you head North first thing in the morning,” Ainjrejeu said to Hakim, “you should catch up with it at the Northlands border.”

“I should catch up with it? Or we should catch up with it?”

“I will, hypothetically, make it there before you,” said Ainjrejeu with a tilt of his head.

“Whoa,” said Hakim. He held his horses, literally, and the wagon slowed to a halt. “You can’t be saying what I think you’re saying.”

There was a stir from behind them in the wagon, the others concerned by the sudden stop.

“I am saying what I am saying,” offered Ainjrejeu. “If what you’re thinking is that I am a reckless madman, you might be right.”

“No one makes it,” protested Hakim. “You could have a dozen armed guards and you still wouldn’t make it through the Green Pass.”

“I’ve better than a dozen guards,” replied Ainjrejeu. He tugged at the end of his braid. “I’ve got this.”

Ainjrejeu had again covered his hair before they were in sight of the Village of Kveltz, and the others had covered their fine Sarnain clothing with wool coats and other modest attire. The Elerhem river was narrower here, such that you might recognize a friend walking along the opposite bank.

Ahead, it connected to a crystalline lake at the base of a rocky wall, white water cascading down the rock.

Ainjrejeu let out a breath beside Kalolin. “Reading about it in books doesn’t do it justice.”

The small village was nestled at the foot of the mountain on the North side of the lake. Small, wooden buildings were sparse, intermingling with patches of dense trees. Wisps of smoke escaped from chimneys into the cold, clear sky. Farmhouses dotted the rolling hills outside the village, but much of the land was still empty and wild.

They ventured passed fields of grazing sheep and eventually entered the village itself. It was quiet, the people as sparse as the few buildings. Those they passed looked up when they heard the rattle of the wagon, and kept their eyes trained darkly on it as it went by. In other towns, they had been greeted warmly, or at least curiously.

"Not very welcoming," Kalolin said.

"We aren't welcome," said Ainjrejeu placidly. "Travelers go North through Setsuza’oa, and on towards Nime. Or they take the road South a few hours back to get to Maplvtch. This village isn't used to outsiders."

Near the heart of the village they were flagged down by a middle aged man with densely curled brown hair and a long, bushy beard.

"Yee volks lost?" He squinted at them with weary, black eyes. His fair skin was marked by dark circles under them.

"This is Kveltz, yeh?" Ainjrejeu said. He had affected the regional dialect in a way that surpassed friendly and bordered on cutsey.

The man nodded his head.

"Nei lost," grinned Ainjrejeu down at him.

"Yee brown, 'cept the Fen girl. Yee from Sarnai?"

"Yeh'am," Ainjrejeu's pleasant smile never left his face. "Just here to see the falls, then we'll be off North."

A pregnant woman with a young child clinging to her skirt had stopped on the edge of the dirt road and was watching the exchange intensely.

"Yee'd add two days on yer trip to see the falls?" The man raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"S'nei the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?" asked Ainjrejeu, as though taken aback.

The man's beard wavered with a slight smile. "Next to my wife."

"There wouldn't happen to be a public house, would there?"

The man shook his head. "Closest one is back in Setsuza’oa, way yee came."

"Thanks anyhow," Ainjrejeu said, then urged Hakim to start the wagon moving again. There was a cluster of small shops nearby. The bearded man walked over to them and popped his head in one of the doors. The wagon was still in view when the dark haired shopkeeper joined the other man to leer at the moving wagon.

They continued on as far as the wagon could take them. The dirt road ended abruptly at a copse of trees, the roof of a house just visible amongst them. The forested mountainside rose up into the sky beyond, like a surging wave.

Hakim brought the horses to a stop in a patch of sunlight, and Ainjrejeu tapped Kalolin lightly on her side. She scooted to the edge of the bench and then hopped down to the rocky dirt road below. Her thin Hanzo’an shoes were meant for smooth city streets, and did little to protect her feet from either the cold or the rough ground. Ainjrejeu dismounted after her and stretched his legs.

Hakim unhitched the horses from the wagon and watched them graze while the rest of the travelers took food down to the lakeside. The water was dark and turbid, a white mist lingering over the surface from the spray of the falls.

Ainjrejeu shoved bread and hard cheese into his mouth in a rush. “Going to get a closer look,” he mumbled through a mouthful. He set off on the sandy bank toward the rushing water. Kalolin grabbed one last slice of bread and jumped up to follow.

He moved quickly, stepping over tree roots and hoping over stones, and for a moment she struggled to keep up.

There was a small stream branching off from the lake, feeding down into a ravine that was about hip height at the deepest, and then ending in a dirty little pond, no more than few feet across. Trying to avoid getting his feet wet, Ainjrejeu scrambled up the steep dirt face of the near side of the ravine, and then moved to step across.

Some of the dirt gave way under his foot, slowly, in a miniature landslide. Without purchase, he slid down into the ravine, barely staying in an upright position. His feet met the wet bottom of the ravine without injury, but he huffed and splashed back upstream to where Kalolin stood waiting, keeping her laughter to herself.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than follow me around, little dog?” he grumbled.

Kalolin took a bite of bread and shook her head. “I live to serve, sehr.”

He slowed his pace so she could walk in step alongside him. The rushing of the waterfall became a roar, and the ground beneath them became rough and steep, until they were climbing up it. They came to a small rocky shelf and Ainjrejeu settled down onto a smooth slab in the ground, a lone bare patch of flat rock that was likely hundreds of times larger underneath the surface of the mountain. They were about a quarter of the way up the height of the waterfall, and close enough that the mist in the air caressed their skin. The entire lake was visible from here, and they could make out the four small figures on the lake shore below.

As the sun began to set, its orange light danced along the surface of the lake and sparkled off the waterfall. Kalolin had to keep reminding herself not to look directly into the sun as it slowly sunk into the Elerhem, leading back to the West.

Ainjrejeu’s voice came softly from beside her, and Kalolin turned to find his eyes closed, his hands pressed to his chest.

“Lanei. Faal kef.”

The words were sweet and musical, though she could not understand them. She wanted to ask what he was saying but her tongue felt clumsy in her mouth, like her words would be crass and intrusive.

They sat in silence for a few minutes more, until the sun was no longer at risk of being taken up right into Kalolin’s eyes.

“We should head back,” Ainjrejeu said. “We’ll fall to our deaths if it gets any darker.”

Tareuk met them on the sandy shore as they returned. His face was grim, but he smiled through it.

“Does it…” he hesitated. “Does it feel like home?”

“It’s beautiful,” replied Ainjrejeu. His voice cracked like the words caught on the way up. “Not from down here, at least,” he said finally.

Tareuk nodded. “You’re going to go up,” he said, half statement, half question. “Through the Green Pass.”

“We have work to do,” Ainjrejeu changed the subject.

Ainjrejeu and Tareuk took the horses to scout the land nearby while the others huddled inside the shelter of the wagon. They gathered all of the blankets and spare clothing they had to use as bedding, making the cold, wooden floor of the wagon slightly more bearable to lay upon. Kalolin lay at the front of the wagon, just behind the driver’s seat, where she could look up at the starry sky above. Milky swirls seemed to dance in the black sky above her, beckoning her to sleep, but she was restless anyway.

“What are they doing now?” Kalolin rolled onto her side to face the still silhouettes of the others. “And what is the Green Pass?”

“The Green Pass is where Ainjrejeu’s mother was from,” Miar answered from the darkness deeper inside the wagon. “It leads to the Northlands on the other side of the mountain, but they say no one has ever made it past the Benni that live there.”

“But he’ll be able to pass through,” Kalolin said.

“Benni aren’t fond of outsiders,” said Miar. “From the way Ainjrejeu speaks about it, they tend to consider half-Benni children outsiders as well.”

“Then...what’s going to happen? They’ll turn him away, or…?” Kalolin trailed off, not liking any of the other options.

“I hope so with my whole heart.” Miar’s voice was heavy with concern.

“Why risk it? What’s he after?”

“I wish I knew,” said Miar. “If I did, maybe I could talk him out of it. There’s no rush to get to the Northlands. I fear he’s seeking out the Benni themselves. He really believes he is one of them.”

“But you don’t.”

“No,” Miar replied. “He grew up in Sarnai. He is Sarnain whether he likes it or not.”

Kalolin frowned in the dark. In Setsuza’oa, Ainjrejeu had used Fenlander honorifics effortlessly. Here in Kveltz, he had adopted the local dialect just as easily. If he had been able to change the color of his skin, he might have passed as a native in any town they’d traveled through. He, more than anyone she’d ever met, could choose to become something else.

She thought of him speaking that unfamiliar tongue by the waterfall, a language that had to be Benni. That man had not appeared Sarnain to her. To simply declare him one or the other seemed...misguided.

She rolled back over and shut her eyes, making an effort to fall asleep. Every rustle of wind or snap of twig from the forest beyond the road roused her. She heard neither the eerie sound of footsteps on the forest floor, nor the hoof-beats along the road that would sound Ainjrejeu’s return. Instead, she lie awake next to Nykol’s peacefully slumbering form and tried to match her breathing to the slow, calm rhythm of the other woman’s breaths.

Kalolin thought she had only just closed her eyes again when she felt a presence beside her. She recognized Ainjrejeu’s earthy, spicy scent and her eyelids fluttered open.

I must have fallen asleep to have not heard him return.

She rolled over, turning to face the shadowy form on the driver’s seat above her, but once it was no longer in the edge of her vision, it vanished, her view of the stars above unbroken. She was too tired to feel unnerved, her eyes falling back shut of their own accord.

Kalolin woke to a pain in her back where it lay on the smooth wooden floor of the wagon, and struggled to lift her heavy eyelids. The sky was only beginning to lighten to gray, veils of mist around the mountains above them and a chill all the way to her bones.

It was the soft voices from outside the wagon that must have woken her.

"You aren't going to say goodbye?" said Miar’s gentle voice.

"No, don't wake her. I wouldn't know what to say anyway. With luck, I'll find some young, lesser noble to pawn her off on in the Northlands."

Kalolin crawled to the end of the wagon, careful not to disturb the still-sleeping Nykol, and searched for the source of the voices. Ainjrejeu was leaning against the rough trunk of a tree, dark bags under his eyes suggesting he’d had little to no sleep that night.

“I doubt we’ll leave before she wakes,” said Hakim. “The horses are still resting. You kept them up late, after all, sehr.”

Ainjrejeu nodded. “I understand. Leave whenever you see fit, but I need to get moving.”

Tareuk stood beside him, arms crossed. Stubble was starting to grow in around his worried frown. “You could leave tomorrow and still get to the Northlands days ahead of the procession. Why not get some sleep?”

Ainjrejeu shook his head. “I’m going to need all of the extra time I can spare for if—when my plans go sideways.”

Tareuk sighed. “Do you enjoy running me ragged, sehr?”

“I’d really prefer to go on my own,” replied Ainjrejeu.

“Not happening,” Tareuk’s voice was an indisputable rumble like that of the earth itself.

“I’m going, too,” said Kalem from his other side. The musician’s hair was still disheveled from sleep. “No way I’m letting my meal ticket just wander off into the woods forever.”

Furrowing his copper brow, Ainjrejeu made a growl like a perturbed animal. “Fine,” he grumbled. “Hurry up and get your things so we can leave before I acquire any more hangers-on. Leave any valuables in the wagon or be prepared to never see them again.”

On cue, Kalolin stumbled, still a little sleep dazed and blurry eyed, from the wagon. “You’re leaving? For the Green Pass?”

Ainjrejeu groaned. “Yes, I am. Get back in the wagon.”

“I’m going with you,” said Kalolin, already decided.

“You’d like a word?” he asked, but the asking was a threat. “Give us a moment,” he said to the others. He gestured for Kalolin to follow him as he walked briskly in the direction of the lake. The air was cold and damp, and Kalolin hugged her wool vest to herself gratefully. Once they were out of sight and earshot of the others, he whipped around to face her.

“You’re getting back in that wagon, and you are riding pretty and polite in it all the way to the Northlands, is that clear?” There was a barely contained fire in his eyes.

Kalolin shook her head, tangled, black hair lashing fiercely around her face.

“Where’s all that obedience when I need it?” he sneered. “This is a very easy thing I am asking of you.”

“I can’t serve you if I’m not with you,” Kalolin said. She set her mouth in a determined line, hoping it didn’t look too much like pouting.

“Perhaps you are just incredibly dense.” Ainjrejeu took a deep breath, his hands clenched into fists. “I am about to do something very reckless, and very dangerous. The best way you can serve me is by going with Nykol and Miar, and staying out of harm’s way.”

“And then what?” snapped Kalolin. “Pawn me off on someone else? How are you bored of me already when you haven’t even—.” Tears were threatening the corners of her eyes. She swallowed them down and pressed them into anger.

“I don’t care,” he replied. “You can marry some inbred ‘King’s fourth cousin thrice removed’ or run home and get hitched to a farmboy with too many names for apples. At least you’ll be alive.”

“I can’t go home,” she insisted. “I won’t.”

“I can make you,” Ainjrejeu lowered his voice. “I’m under no delusion that I can prevent Kalem, much less Tareuk, from coming with me if they want to, but you I can tie up and drag a couple feet if I have to.”

“I’ll run away the first chance I get and come back to you.” Kalolin lifted her chin defiantly. “It’ll be less work to just take me with you.”

“This isn’t a game, Kalolin!” he shouted.

Hearing her name from his mouth for the first time, she was stunned silent for a moment. She had really believed he didn’t remember it. “I know,” she said finally. “You’re doing something very reckless, and very dangerous, and you think it might get me killed…”

“I’m glad you’re seeing sense.”

“I’m not finished.” She looked up at him, holding his gaze with her own big, dark eyes. “You’re going to have to accept it. I’m not leaving your side, and I’m not going home, because…” The tears behind her eyes were threatening to well up and out, and she could feel her emotions flushing in her cheeks. “I’d rather die than hear ‘I told you so’ even one more time.”

He stepped closer to her. She closed her eyes, bracing for him to strike her, ready to stand her ground anyway. Any woman would be proud to marry Mister Kaelkarim, she invoked. In a way, it meant ‘all the pride I have left is wrapped up in this man.’ There were no other options she could stomach. For once, she wasn’t exaggerating—she would stick with her decision, even if it killed her.

“I’ll make sure to tell you ‘I told you so’ when I get you killed,” Ainjrejeu said. His hands were warm against the back of her neck, his mouth hot against her lips. Kalolin flinched back in surprise, unsure for a moment what was happening, but Ainjrejeu held her tight.

It was over too quickly. She was just reaching forward to pull his body closer to her when he broke away, leaving her a little unsteady on her feet, chasing after him. Her heart was pounding in her ears, fear and excitement muddled together in her chest. He spun away from her, not meeting her gaze.

There was tension in the air when they returned, though not from their absence or their argument being overheard. Tareuk and Kalem were fitting supplies and blankets into knapsacks just outside the wagon. Still half asleep, Nykol was sitting upright inside in the dimness while Miar sat at the end, worrying one of the straps of Ainjrejeu’s pack between her slender fingers. Hakim had stopped fixing the horses to the wagon as the bearded man from the village approached.

“Yee volks still here, I see,” he grumbled at them.

“Just about on wer way out,” Ainjrejeu’s false chipper tone was marred by breathlessness.

“Slept by the falls. Back West to the main road now?” The man squinted.

Ainjrejeu nodded a single, strong nod.

“Then what those packs for?”

Ainjrejeu thought for a moment, as though preparing a lie, but what came out of his mouth was the truth. “I am going up the mountain.”

The man threw his hands up in the air. “Hexes, I knew it. Yee outsiders always come to make trouble.” he shouted. “We get to live in peace so long as we leave thems in peace,” he pointed a finger up the mountain. “You’ve come all this way just to make another mess for we to clean up? You think a dozen men haven’t tried it before you? Theys all come back down the falls in pieces, boy!”

Unfazed, Ainjrejeu untied the scarf from around his hair and let it rest around his shoulders. The man’s eyes grew wide with shock, his mouth hanging open, and then a look of resignation stilled his features.

“I am going up the mountain,” said Ainjrejeu.