Falnight 09 (of 14)

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The ride to Yuville was far more pleasant, buoyed by hope for Falnight and relief after breaking the silence with Harlan. He seemed shy as we cleaned up camp, probably embarrassed, but I was careful to act normal, and that seemed to relax him. I asked again after the elf he’d been with the morning we left, and this time, he answered.

 

“Hearthmoor,” he said. “We met when I left the cavalry.”

 

“A friend?” I asked. I did not mean anything more by it, sincerely, but Harlan gave me a somewhat exasperated look.

 

“They have a wife,” he said. “I am a bachelor yet, Mama.”

 

“I did not say anything,” I insisted. “I know you value your solitude.”

 

“Yet you worry.”

 

“Only for your happiness, starlight.”

 

“I am fine.”

 

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Falnight 10 (of 14)

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CH01	CH02
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CH07	CH08
CH09	CH10
CH11	CH12
CH13	CH14

 

As I had promised, we arrived in Yuville before midday, and stopped into a bakery there for lunch. The Keepers’ house was at the end of the street, built on a small hill that raised it slightly above the roofs of the shops here. I watched it as we ate, leaning against the hitching post alongside our horses. Several people came and went in that time, two of them wearing the stiff black surcoats of the healing order of the Keepers, the others patients or visitors. It made me think of Fietree, my fourth child and a member of the Keepers in the rural midwest of Ylitte, and how much I missed him. He was a fine Keeper, even Steward of his house—always so gentle and reassuring, his healing magic unmatched by his peers. He always doted on Falnight.

 

Missing him made my heart ache for Falnight that much more. I made straight for the house as soon as I had finished my lunch, and Harlan only just kept up.

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