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The pain in her head lessened with every passing moment, just as the sun dipped toward the west. She glared into it, squinting, trying to read the silhouette of mountains marching into the distance. Snow clung to the heights, frowning over the bitter coast.

Despite the sun, Sorasa shivered beneath her own tattered clothes.

“We are in Calidon,” she muttered, eyeing the mountains again. It was not yet spring, but purple flowers clung between shore and rising cliff. “Your country.”

Dom shook his head. “Hardly mine. Most Calidonians do not believe my people exist anymore, and the ones who do wish they could forget us entirely.”

“I share the sentiment,” Sorasa answered dryly.

Next to her, Dom grinned. “Mortal humor. I know it too well by now.”

Sorasa tried to smile but failed, squinting at the landscape.

His face wiped clean. “What?”

“I know little of this place,” she answered, grinding her teeth. It made her temple throb again.

Dom’s smirk felt worse. He eyed her with a rare look, mischievous, like a child with a secret.

“Are you asking for help, Sorasa Sarn?” the Elder teased.

Sorasa wanted to stand up, but doubted she could with any grace. Instead, she stayed rooted, her fists curling in the sand until tiny stones pressed between her fingers.

“I will deny it if you tell anyone,” she hissed, regretting the words as soon as they left her mouth.

To her horror, Dom’s smirk only widened and Sorasa realized she had made a terrible error. A grave miscalculation. Dom understood more than she realized. And knew the Amhara better than she ever thought possible.

Then his hand found her wrist. She jumped in her skin, almost yelping as he helped her to her feet.

Thankfully, she did not falter.

“I thought you hated it,” he said, the smirk still curling. It made her want to hit him again.

“What?” Sorasa snapped.

Dom let her wrist drop.

“Hope.”

Sorasa cursed the feel of it with every step over the rocky shore. Hope hung heavy, a weight across her shoulders, a stone in her heart, a chain around each ankle. She felt dragged by it, as if tied to a mad horse charging in the opposite direction. Every instinct in her screamed for sense. Reason. Cold logic and careful calculations.

Hope burned through them all, try as she might to snuff it out.

Lord Mercury would weep to see me now. Or laugh.

Her stomach turned at the thought of her old master. She hoped he was still ensconced across the Long Sea, shut up in his citadel, content to watch the world consume itself.

Hoped.

She gritted her teeth, biting back a snarl of frustration. Lest she reveal her vexation to Domacridhan. It would only put him in a better mood, and his mood was already trying enough.

“Stop whistling,” she snapped, tossing a stick at his back.

She doubted he felt it. The Elder did not break stride as he navigated between waves and cliff wall. They hugged the Calidonian coastline for a week now, marching east at Dom’s direction. Sorasa knew the way ahead only vaguely. They crossed the River Airdha yesterday, leaving its valley behind to climb again. To the north, jagged above them, were the mountains of Monadhrian.The mountains of the sun.

Shivering, Sorasa glanced at the so-called namesake, well hidden behind stormy clouds.

“I have been told I whistle quite well,” Dom finally said, glancing over his shoulder. His hair was still wet from a passing rainstorm, braided back in strands of dark gold.