V
After she made her preemptive magical strike on the imperial army, Olivia hastened on foot from the battlefield. She met Felix in the location they had previously agreed on.
“I don’t see Silky with you...” he said.
“Yeah, I don’t know why, but she got super angry and stormed off back to Lassara,” Olivia said, stroking the neck of her horse, Comet, with whom she had been reunited. Felix appeared to consider for a moment, then he nimbly mounted his own horse.
“Well, whatever it was, I’m glad she went back. Let us be off at once.”
From then, they rode at full gallop for five days. Slipping past the watchful eyes of the imperial army as they went, they arrived on the outskirts of an isolated farming village on the western edge of imperial lands. There, they diverted left away from the road to climb a sloping path enclosed in a thick canopy of trees. At the top, it suddenly opened out on a sweeping view of thatch-roofed houses and crop fields scattered here and there across a wide, flat valley. Farmers paused as they swung their hoes to slap their aching backs, and small children were hard at work with hatchets to chop up firewood. There was a sort of tragic bravery to the scene. Seven-tenths of the empire’s lands were cold and barren, and crops struggled to grow there. Out on the peripheries, things were even harsher. All that mattered to the people who lived in such parts was surviving from one day to the next. Wars entered into on the whims of bureaucrats were nothing but annoyances to them.
Felix looked down on the farming village with a complex mix of emotions. Olivia hesitantly poked his arm.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Are we resting here?”
“No, we’ll just leave our horses in the village.”
“Huh? Our horses? How come?”
“We’re still all right here, but the closer we get to the capital, the more likely we are to be found.”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh. So...?”
Felix stifled a laugh at Olivia’s response, then went on. “As our time is limited, it is imperative that we avoid any unnecessary confrontations. My plan is to continue on to the imperial capital through the mountains, where horses may slow us down.”
“Ahh, I see what you mean.” To Comet, she said, “It’s goodbye for a bit, then.”
The horse gave a small, plaintive neigh, and his head seemed to droop. It was easy to see how attached he was to Olivia.
“We could rest a little. What do you want to do?” Felix asked.
“It’s fine. I’m not tired at all.”
“Then let us waste no time.”
Felix soon located a stable. He paid the farmer who fed the horses a little more generously than was necessary, then they left their steeds and swiftly departed the village.
“As I said, we really do not have much time. We’ll travel with Swift Step.”
“Gotcha.”
There was no sign of any figures moving off east, only the echo of a sound like a snap.
It would be some time before the two of them arrived at the imperial capital.
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