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I’d spent the last decade thinking that the southern village was what I wanted. I missed my family—Rahv and my sisters—and I missed the places where I used to run as a boy. The cliffs had grown larger and more impressive in my mind, the open spaces vaster and the sun brighter. They were the things that the Hinterlands bore less of, so it made a kind of sense that I’d exaggerate them in my memories.

I’d thought home was going to bring me back some piece of myself, something I had lost or forgotten about—but it hadn’t. The cliffs had just been cliffs, the sun, just the sun. The open spaces had tickled the memories of the boy I’d once been, but it felt distant. Almost out of reach. This was no longer home, I realized. I felt it like a cold rock in the pit of my stomach. At some point, this place had lost its familiarity to me, and there would be no getting it back.

We were sailing away again, this time never to return.

This time with Fenli.

Except that she was missing.

When it came time to board the boats and head north, she alone was nowhere to be found.

We searched everywhere.

“What the hell?” Baer ground out. “How do you just lose your wife?”

“It’s not like I misplaced her,” I shot back.

She’d been in her bed when I’d woken early and headed out to see to the last of my jobs. When I went back for her later, both she and the dog had been gone.

“You’ll deal with this yourself, and you’ll do it quietly.” He took a step closer and lowered his voice. “There’s been talk. No one dares say it to me, but I have ears all the same. There are those who think she shouldn’t be here, that we should send her back to Runehall, and if they knew about this—”

He didn’t finish the thought.

“But we’re married.”

“In word alone.”

And I knew what he wasn’t saying. I grit my teeth.

When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. “Axl has been made an elder.”

Her uncle, back in Runehall’s clan.Shit.

“He might let it go,” he went on, then, for the briefest moment, he hesitated. It was so unlike the old man, and I felt my heart pick up its pace against my chest. “Or he might come for her.”

I didn’t dare open my mouth. My anger was suddenly a living thing, and I didn’t trust myself to let it out. I glared back at Baer and waited for him to hurry up and spit out what I could see he wanted to say.

“If we send her back, we separate the girl and her mother. She’ll be taken in by the worst people in Runehall’s clan. Submit to their rulesor be as good as wolf meat, that’s what it would come to, and maybe it would be good for her.” He’d said the words, but the grimace on his face made me think he didn’t believe them. I didn’t believe them either. Fenli? She’d buck every rule they gave her and march herself into the dark forest just to spite them all. He went on. “If that’s what you want, fine. There are few who would blame you. Otherwise, find her. Find her and drag her to the Hinterlands, if that’s what it takes.”

He turned to go.

“Wait, you’re leaving?”

“I have to. If I let her slow us down, it will only cause her more trouble.Stupid girl.”

“But how will I—”

“I’ll leave you the small sails,” he said, referring to the smallest vessel in the fleet, able to be manned by one and still stay mast up. “Hope you’re not tired.”

Then he turned and left me to it.

With my arms crossed over my chest, I looked back to the empty village and frowned.

I’ll leave you the small sails. Hope you’re not tired.

Well, I was tired. Tired of being married to a woman who hated me, tired of everyone’s expectations, and, more than all of that, tired of the old man who’d dropped me in this situation in the first place. And now I was supposed to find Fenli and bring her north myself, just like that? Had he met her? He might as well have sent me out after a wildcat.

I didn’t know where to begin. Sighing, I set out to sweep the village once more. When Esska caught up to me, she was panting.