They rode east.
Seven freed students, one scholar, one scout, one princess, one Dragon Warden.
The first day was quiet. The seven adjusted to movement, to open sky, to the particular exhaustion of people rediscovering that existing in continuous time required constant small decisions. Chen Wei rode well — muscle memory surviving three centuries intact. Two of the others needed reminding which way to hold the reins.
Lian watched all of this without comment and shared her rations without being asked, which Xin noted and appreciated.
By the second morning the seven were talking.
Quietly at first. Then more. Three hundred years of accumulated silence finding its way out in fragments — questions about the world, observations about the landscape, occasional sentences that stopped mid-though
