Chapter Twenty-Nine
Traitor’s Road
The familiar peaks of the Jagged Mountains loomed over Hilgur and his family. Their presence felt strange somehow—their shadows like an enormous weight on his shoulders that made each step forward a struggle.
He knew the crisp, mountain air was no different than it had ever been. But now it seemed tainted. He found himself catching wafts of carrion in his nostrils—the acrid scent of his own charred flesh from where Lysandir had singed him.
Nothing was as it should be.
When he, Paloda, and Bilrugo had broken their fast that morning, the dried meat rations had tasted like ashes in his mouth. He found himself jumping at his son’s every boot-scrape as they drew closer to home.
Paloda walked in silence beside him. Over the past several days of travel, he
