13
We woke at the first hint of dawn. I rolled the blankets back up while Liam packed his stones away. In the early morning sun, there was nothing remarkable about the rocks. They were all dark stone, so black they almost looked like the obsidian I’d seen in some of the fancy traders’ carts. There were no markings on their surfaces, no spark glowing within like the lae stone.
When the few things were packed up, Liam stood outside the cave, staring east toward Harane for a long time.
I followed his gaze.
Even as high as we’d climbed, the trees still blocked our view of the land beyond the forest.
I knew Harane was down there somewhere. Whether it was still on fire, already reduced to ash, or if the ones who had survived the soldiers’ terror were waking up to another day as though nothi
