A Crown in Ash (The Ostler's Boy Book 3)

Chapter Twenty-One

Askar didn't say much of anything. The farmer had sent us in the direction of the closest road, and once we were on it, the thought of arriving in civilization was as exhausting to bear as it was pleasant. I tried to tell myself that was why he was silent, but then I couldn't stop the idea that he was mad at me for saying what I'd said.

"Are you just tired, or do you loathe me forever?" I wound up asking.

He sort of woke from whatever daze he was in. "Huh?"

"You're quiet," I told him, just as guilty.

He dismissed my comment with a lazy wave. "I'm simply eager to get home," he said.

"I see." I didn't know what to say; I felt sick. And not solely because my stomach was wrought with whatever syndrome plagued my body. I tried to consider what other ailment it could be beyond a child.

"Weird fact," I started nervously. "Aryk means powerful ruler."

"Why is that weird?" he asked.

"I don't know...? Because I'm muttering about a horse? I just... Could we talk about the tea?" I asked. "I don't really think that I'm.... you know? I just... I..." My voice trailed. "Will you not hear me?" I worried.

"Sorry," he stated. "What did you say?"

My brain told me to keep my mouth shut lest I come on too strong, too much.

"N-nothing," I said.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Not great," I told him. "Mostly silly." I felt worse when his reply was meaningless to what I'd said.

"We'll see the beach here shortly. My home is just beyond that cliff there," he said.

Ask pointed to the dark rock face ahead of us, and it was about another twenty minutes of agonizing silence before we made it. Once we cleared the first line of the jagged stone walls that started the mountain range, we came upon a strange phenomenon. It was a beach, as he had described it, but the sands were not white like they were in Oreia. They were not brown as they had been in Locke or Keye. They were black, as black and ebony as a winter night.

"What is this place?" I begged.

"This is the Duchy of Gosil," he reminded me. "The official estate seat, Löff's Edge, of course. Where I live."

"I don't understand why the beach is... is dark... Is this a volcano?" I asked, scouring the landscape for any explanation, any hint of the feature's mouth. "I've never seen a volcano," I said. "I've read about them, but I thought... I thought they were things of fiction!"

"Long before my time," he explained. "The mountain came alive and bled into the sea. Its sacrifice forged the stones that protect our lands from enemies, and it left behind this beach. I have heard its color was meant to frighten anyone who would do our people harm."