The Prince's Mark

Chapter Fifteen

After a harrowing attempt to clean himself, complete with cowering beside his wagon as Sakshi passed lukewarm buckets of water along the ground between the wagon wheels, Mirthal was ready to head to the peaks Sakshi was so concerned with. It took an obscene amount of water to get all of that mud out of his hair, which Sakshi didn't seem pleased about. But it wasn't his fault!

Mirthal edged around the wagon to find Sakshi hauling a huge bag that looked like an enclosed trough made out of cloth. The bag was full to bursting. Grunting, she dropped it onto the back of the coach.

"Where are you going to take my wagon? Are you going to take my horses, too?" Mirthal asked.

"For now, we're going to the mountains. I'll keep your horses and everything else in the village at night."

Mirthal frowned. "So I'll be sleeping out in the wilderness by myself?"

Before going to Shalen, Mirthal had always slept alone. It hadn't been a problem until he tried sleeping in the same bed as someone else. Knowing that Tracou was in the bed with him had been comforting in a way he hadn't expected. On the road, Mirthal made sure to sleep near his horses which wasn't quite as good, but it was decent.

"I suppose you will be. Haven't you been doing that already?" Sakshi asked as she hoisted herself into the wagon.

Mirthal followed Sakshi, moving towards the front so he could direct the horses. "I had the horses with me."

"You can't have them—you'll run away."

People were just expected to be able to ride horses! Mirthal's cheeks pinked.

"I can't ride a horse."

Sakshi looked Mirthal askance. "Why?"

"I told you: I wasn't allowed to leave my home. Horse riding was out of the question. So... will you let me keep the horses?"

"I'll think about it. Let's go."

The trip took about fifteen minutes with the wagon. Why they didn't walk was a mystery to Mirthal, but maybe it was for the best. If humans had no qualms with tackling an elf to the ground, who knew what they might do to an elf's horses.

Mountains surrounded half of the Elven Kingdom, but Mirthal had never seen them. The ones here in Winlea were pitch black and so massive that they went beyond the clouds. Nothing grew on them and they were smooth so nothing could climb them. He had heard that, in the past, elves had attempted to climb over the mountains in the Elven Kingdom. But those that tried disappeared. Mirthal had once dreamed of trying to scale those peaks, but it had only been an idle fantasy. He wanted to run away, not vanish completely.

At the base of the mountains lay a variety of items ranging from spades to bottles of paint. It looked as though someone had dumped a bag of stuff, mixed them around in the dirt, and left in a hurry.

"As you can see," Sakshi began, "I've already begun my research."

Mirthal scanned the items again, bewildered.

"By making a mess?"

Sakshi's mouth snapped shut as she gave Mirthal a withering look.

Humans and dezmek got angry so easily! No elf had ever acted like this around him, no matter what he did. It was hard to deal with.

"What, um, are you researching?" Mirthal asked.

This was what Sakshi had been waiting for. She looked at Mirthal out of the corner of her eye, her lips pulling upward. "People say the mountains are moving."

Mirthal's response was automatic and firm. "Mountains don't move." Certainly, ignorance plagued Mirthal, but he was unaware of dealing with unfamiliar people in unfamiliar settings. As a prince, he had had the best education an elf could have. He might not know much about dezmek or humans and he may never have seen a mountain before, but he knew they didn't move.