Before the Sky Fell

[ 7 ] Into the Void

"I'm going to explore it all," Whik told her. "Every stream, every forest. Do you think I can do that? See it all?"

"You can do anything you want."

"Henderson told me that only weak people get lonely."

"Only weak people think loneliness is a weakness, Whik. You know, when I was the loneliest I've ever been, my mother came to me and told me something I'll never forget. Would you like to hear it?"

Whik nodded.

"She told me that loneliness is a funny thing. That it would come upon you in the strangest of times. Maybe in a crowded marketplace or even beneath the sheets when you're with the one you love." Charlotte ran her fingers along Whik's soft skin and smiled, remembering the day her mother wiped her tears from her cheeks after Timothy Saldemon kissed another girl. "She told me you have to stop and feel it with everything you have. She said you may want to chase it away, but it will clasp onto your clothing, your skin, your soul. She said it is the most persistent of feelings. It may leave you for a while, but when it returns, embrace it with open arms. It's in those times that we meet our most loyal friend, ourselves. That's strength, not weakness."

Whik tapped his fingers on Charlotte's hand to the beat of the horse's hooves. "How are we our most loyal friend? That doesn't make sense to me."

Charlotte looked ahead and spotted Geoffrey turning towards her with a smile. She returned the gesture. "We are the only person that can know ourselves in and out. We know what makes us cringe at night and what makes us pull the covers over our heads. We know what makes us laugh until our belly hurts. We know our deepest secrets and wildest dreams. But most of all we know that we can always betray ourselves, but we can never leave ourselves."

Whik shrugged his shoulders. "I still don't understand."

"You will, someday. Here, take the reins." Charlotte placed his hands on the restraints. "The horse will go whichever way you choose, so guide her with the rest of the group."

When Whik guided the horse in between two large trees, he gasped. The remains of two bloated birds were strewn across the ground. A host of feathers radiated outward from the carcass.

"They're falcons," Whik said. "We didn't have those in Hemonstalia."Whik leaned over and Charlotte kept him from falling. "What happened to them?"

Henderson probably killed them, she thought. "I'm not sure."

They kept silent after that, passing through bogs and around boulders. When a shriek came from ahead, the train of horses came to a halt. Charlotte rode up to the survivors, who gathered around a fallen horse. Henderson reached down and helped a man stand.

"He's broken his ankle," Henderson said, standing above the mare. "Put the thing down. We're losing time. We can salvage its meat, put the supplies on another saddle. Or grab them on the way back."

Geoffrey Marg and the others gathered around. The horse kicked its legs through the air, shuffled about in the mud.

Charlotte stared at Henderson, whose eyes were a dark brown, angry and accusing. "We should decide as a group. Who are you to decide who lives and who dies?"

"What decision?" Henderson snapped. "It's a horse, woman. What would you have me do, throw him onto the saddle with you?"

Henderson may as well have smacked her across the cheek. The anger that rose in Charlotte would have amounted to the same. "If the horse can be nursed back to health, we could use it to scout, gather resources. Worth more than a night's dinner. You stab the man that may be the only witness to what happened here, now you want to cut a horse's throat without asking the rest of us?"