For the first time, Arn looked away and studied the darkness before them. On the port side of the ship, there was the orange flicker of flames against the trees and faces of their fellow travellers. His pause seemed to last for hours, she heard Phelia join one of the ship’s crew in a song. Splashes landed against the hull of the ship and the fire crackled and spit. Whatever had haunted his steps so far, she hoped he might finally share.
‘We receive information, sometimes,’ he spread his hands out and studied them in the pale light of the stars, ‘about our border with Staven and the lands to the south of the River Illion.’
‘Ipito?’ Lyris remembered it from the maps, though she’d never expected to travel across the river. It was supposed to be a wild land that faded into an endless desert.
