The journey to the northern border took eight days, considerably longer than any of our recent travels, the landscape shifting gradually from the capital's temperate farmland into something harsher, colder, mountains rising in the distance like a promise of the isolation Aeric had been sentenced to endure.
"You've been quiet most of the journey," Darius observed, riding beside the carriage on the seventh day, close enough that only I could hear him over the sound of hooves and wheels against packed earth.
"I keep rehearsing what I'll actually say to him," I admitted. "Every version I imagine either gives him too much power over the conversation, or closes off whatever genuine information he might actually share."
"You survived his elaborate test," Darius said. "Survived the Rite, the poisoned blade, eighteen months of careful manipulation. Whatever conversation happens at the border, you're not walking in as his student anymore, regardless of how the exchange begins."
