The pact sealed over the fire felt solid, a lodestone pulling them south. But the Salt Road, indifferent to human resolutions, offered no shortcuts. The dusty ribbon unspooled beneath relentless sun, the golden plains baking into a cracked, ochre expanse. Water became a currency more precious than their dwindling silver coins. Springs marked on Borin's mental map proved brackish or dry. The air shimmered with heat haze, distorting the distant, blue-hazed mountains that were now irrelevant – their gaze fixed on the unseen southern sea.
The caravan's rhythm grew heavier, the oxen lowing with thirst, the wagon wheels groaning like tired bones. Ash felt the familiar, hollow ache within him deepen. His magic, drained to near extinction in the Fens and the desperate flight before, hadn't replenished. The constant vigilance, the oppressive heat, the sheer effort of placing one foot in front of the other, scraped at his reserves. He felt like a vessel cracked and empty, the vital spark within him reduced to faint, guttering embers. The subtle distortions he'd used instinctively to blur their trail now felt like trying to lift a mountain with bare hands. He kept his senses stretched taut, but the world felt muffled, the magical currents distant and sluggish.
Preston, conversely, seemed to harden under the sun. Perry's disguise became less an act and more a weathered second skin. She moved with a lean, efficient economy, her eyes perpetually scanning – not just for threats, but for the faintest sign of moisture: a different shade of green in a distant wadi, a particular clustering of hardy, silver-leafed shrubs Marta called "thirst-tongues" whose roots, she claimed, held precious drops. Her hands, once soft, were now calloused and nicked, deftly mending gear or weaving tough grass into wider-brimmed hats under Marta's tutelage.
One scorching afternoon, the heat pressing down like a physical weight, the caravan wound through a labyrinth of wind-sculpted sandstone buttes. The narrow passage offered shade but amplified the oppressive stillness. Ash, walking point with Kael, felt the prickle on his neck too late. A rock clattered high above.
"Ambush!" Kael roared, his voice raw, even as three figures, lean and ragged, erupted from crevices above, sliding down ropes of braided hide. Bandits, desperate from the drought. They targeted the rearmost wagon – the potter's family, less guarded.
Chaos erupted. Guards shouted, drawing blades. Oxen bellowed in panic. Ash moved instinctively, shoving the potter's wide-eyed son behind a wagon wheel, his own knife flashing up to parry a crude, rusted scimitar aimed at Marta. The bandit, wild-eyed and reeking of desperation, was strong. Ash's arm jarred with the impact, his exhausted muscles screaming. He couldn't summon even a wisp of distraction magic. He was relying purely on reflexes honed in palace kitchens and desperate flights, but fatigue made him slow.
The bandit lunged again, a vicious thrust aimed low. Ash twisted, the blade scoring a burning line across his ribs instead of piercing his gut. He gasped, stumbling back. The bandit grinned, sensing weakness, raising his blade for the kill.
A blur of motion. Not a blade, but a hardened, sharpened wagon-spoke, thrust with surprising force and precision. It caught the bandit high on the shoulder, not deep, but painful and shocking. He howled, staggering. Preston – Perry – stood braced, face set in a snarl, already yanking the makeshift spear back for another strike. "Get back, Ash!" she yelled, her voice Perry's rough bark, but the command in it was pure Preston.
The moment's distraction was enough. Kael's heavy sword took the bandit from behind. The other two, seeing their companion fall and the guards converging, scrambled back up their ropes, vanishing into the maze of rock.
Silence descended, heavy with the smell of dust, blood, and fear. Marta rushed to her son. Kael checked the fallen bandit – dead. Ash pressed a hand to his stinging ribs, the cut shallow but a stark reminder of his vulnerability. He looked at Preston. She was breathing hard, her knuckles white on the bloodied wagon spoke, Perry's defiant mask firmly in place, but her eyes met his – wide, fierce, and utterly present.
"Quick thinking, lad," Kael grunted, wiping his blade. "Ugly tool, effective." He clapped Perry roughly on the shoulder.
Preston just nodded, her gaze still locked with Ash's. No words were needed. The message was clear: I see you. I have your back. Even when you falter. It wasn't pity; it was partnership, forged in the blinding heat and the metallic tang of near-disaster. Ash gave a single, curt nod. Acknowledgement. Gratitude. Resolve.
The encounter left a different kind of thirst. That night, camped in the dubious shelter of a vast, skeletal ribcage of some long-dead leviathan – the "Bone Wagon," Borin called it – the tension was palpable. The near-loss, Ash's visible vulnerability, the sheer harshness of the land, pressed down harder than the heat.
Preston sought him out as he sat sharpening his knife, the rhythmic shhhk-shhhk a grounding ritual. She didn't sit, just stood nearby, watching the stars pierce the velvet blackness.
"Your… spark," she said quietly, abandoning Perry's voice entirely. "It's still out." It wasn't a question.
Ash didn't look up. "Drained. Takes time. Or… something I haven't found." He paused, the knife stilling. "It made me slow."
"Being human makes you slow sometimes," Preston countered, surprising him. "Magic or not, you took that cut pushing Tomas out of the way. That wasn't slow. That was choice." She knelt, picking up a smooth, white bone fragment, turning it over in her hands. "Maybe the spark needs more than rest. Maybe it needs… fuel. Purpose. Not just hiding." She looked towards the south, invisible beyond the darkness. "Nayir feels like purpose. Getting there feels like the fight that matters now."
He understood. The journey wasn't just distance; it was the crucible forging the tools they'd need for survival in Nayir. His magic wasn't just a weapon; it was part of him, starving because he was only focused on endurance, not growth. On hiding, not becoming.
The next challenge wasn't blades, but thieves. Two days later, as the caravan navigated a treacherous scree slope, a wiry youth, part of the musician family, tried to filch their small pouch of salt – a vital commodity. Preston, sharp-eyed as ever, spotted the furtive movement. Instead of shouting, she acted. She deliberately stumbled into the youth, knocking the pouch from his grasp before he could hide it. As he scrambled, flustered and caught, Preston pinned him with Perry's fiercest glare. "Lose somethin', pip-squeak?" she growled, loud enough for nearby guards to hear. "Salt's worth more'n your lyre out here. Hands off."
The youth stammered apologies, slinking away under the guards' scowls. Preston retrieved the pouch, handing it back to Ash without fanfare. It was quick, clever, avoiding bloodshed but asserting possession. Ash realized her value wasn't just in a blade, but in perception, in acting decisively within the caravan's unspoken rules. She navigated the social terrain as deftly as she navigated the Fens.
Later, as they crested a rise, the land fell away dramatically. Below, nestled in a wide valley carved by a sluggish, silty river, lay Westhaven. It wasn't a grand city, but a sprawling, chaotic tapestry of wooden buildings, stockades, and docks jutting into a wide, brown estuary. Ships – river barges, coastal cutters, and a few larger, ocean-going vessels with unfamiliar, colourful sails – clustered like waterfowl. The air, even from this distance, carried a new scent: mud, fish, smoke, and the undeniable tang of the sea.
A collective sigh seemed to ripple through the caravan. The end of the Salt Road. The beginning of everything else.
Ash and Preston stood side-by-side, looking down at the bustling port. The sight was exhilarating and terrifying. Freedom and danger, tangled together like rigging on the docks.
"Ready, Salt?" Preston asked, using the name for the first time, a testing of the waters, a nod to the pact and the road they'd shared.
Ash felt the pouch of salt in his hand, the sting of his healing cut, the faint, almost imperceptible stirring deep within him – not magic yet, but the potential for it, sparked by her words, by the sight of the sea, by the shared trials. He looked at her, at the determined set of her jaw, the intelligence in her eyes that Perry couldn't fully mask, the ally who'd thrown a wagon spoke to save him.
"Ready, Smoke," he replied, the name fitting her – sometimes sharp and acrid, sometimes offering warmth and clarity, always shifting, always present. It was the language they'd learned on the road, a shorthand for trust forged in dust and thirst.
They didn't rush down the slope. They stood a moment longer, watching the sun glint on distant water, feeling the Salt Road's dust settle on their skin like a second layer. The journey had stripped them bare, tested their limits, and taught them the vocabulary of their partnership: a glance, a grunt, the names Salt and Smoke. Westhaven beckoned, a noisy, chaotic gateway. The sea beyond it was vast, unknown, promising sanctuary or shipwreck. But as they started the descent, the crunch of grit under their boots a familiar rhythm, they carried with them the most vital provision earned on the long road: not just coin or pelts, but the hard-won knowledge that whatever the sea held, they would face it together, speaking the language only the Salt Road could teach. The destination mattered, yes, but the journey had forged the compass that would guide them there.