From this height they looked back on the way they’d come, the foothills, the long path, the fields and orchards of the great territory, and, set within them like a pistil surrounded by petals, the city they’d left behind. Calea, Bron noticed, avoided looking there, her gaze sliding away whenever she glanced even vaguely in that direction, but Bron found the sight quite enthralling. Everyone and everything he’d ever known was down there, somewhere. It was too far away to see clearly, though. At least smoke no longer rose from Jalseion; that was something.
The next days passed similarly, the travelers winding their way up the mountain step by hard-won step. The air grew thinner, their legs stronger, their evenings more pleasant in each other’s companionship. Calea kept herself at a remove, seemingly unwilling to call Bron or Nyasha anything similar to “friend,” but unable to hide her appreciation for the company.
One night, they ate their evening meal in near silence until, when the corn and dried meat was gone, Nyasha reached into her pack and drew out something wrapped in cloth. “I think we deserve a treat,” she said, setting the cylindrical object in her lap and unwrapping the tea towels around it one by one.
Bron and Calea watched with interest as a glint of glass shone yellow in the firelight, and Nyasha lifted it up for them to see. It was a jar topped with a canning ring and lid, filled with something round and delicately yellow-orange colored.
“The last jar of my mama’s peaches,” Nyasha announced, her voice chased with a ring of sadness and pride. “Most of the jars we didn’t eat over the winter were smashed when the house fell. But I found this one, and I kept it.”
“You should save it,” Bron said quietly, understanding the importance of this small, ordinary household item. “You won’t find anything like it in Thyrion.”
“I know. But…I think she would want us to eat it now.” Nyasha wrapped her hand around the lid and twisted, releasing it with an almost inaudible pop of air pressure.
Bron swore he could smell it across the fire, in the rare, dry air of the burnt mountainside–sweet and summery and distant, the scent of spiced peaches preserved by a loving mother for the joy of her husband and daughter. Nyasha set the lid aside and reached into the jar with her fingers, retrieving a pale yellow circle that gleamed in the flickering light.
“Try them,” she held out the jar to Bron, then to Calea when he hesitated. “They’re delicious.”
Calea took the jar and propped it against her stomach with her prosthetic hand so she could reach inside with her fingers. She said nothing about the uncouthness of this, and her face showed not even a hint of condescension or indifference. Calea was accepting this extraordinary gift with the gravity and grace it deserved, and so Bron had to do the same.
When Calea had her peach half, Bron took the jar and got one for himself. They were, as promised, incredibly delicious.
They passed the jar back and forth among them until the peaches were gone. Bron and Calea listened as Nyasha talked about her mother, all the little things she did, gardening and embroidery, cooking and mending, and a thousand other tasks too many folks in the busy world took for granted. After learning so much about the girl’s papa in the constant tales she told on the trail, it was good to learn more of the other person who had made Nyasha who she was.
“I never did remember to make my bed,” Nyasha finished, with a small laugh that belied the tears in her eyes, on her cheeks. “I think I left it unmade that last day when I started toward the kitchen and my house fell down around me. But every evening when I returned home, it would be neat and tidy as always. She would have liked me to be more fastidious, but she loved me as I was.”
Calea said nothing and barely reacted to anything Nyasha said or did, but she didn’t detract from the time either, never mocking or tossing her head, and Bron was grateful for her restraint. Nyasha’s speech was a fitting eulogy for a woman he had not known but wished he had. Asha Cormorin. Brand Cormorin. Two names he would not forget, though he had never known their owners in life.
“She was a wonderful woman,” he told Nyasha. He had no right to say such a thing, but he felt he must.
“Yes.” Nyasha sniffed and rubbed a hand under her nose, then looked at him across the fire, her eyes bright. “I never found out who buried them. When I went back to the house to look for the food, I dreaded what I might find. You’ll never understand my gratitude when I saw the graves. Do you know who did it?”
Calea stirred. “It was Bron.” Her voice was absolutely certain, though Bron had never told her this. “After he brought you to Dr. Burdock, he went out again and came back hours later with dirt on his boots and bloody spots on his hands from holding a shovel.” She looked at Bron, daring him to deny it.
Bron nodded, reluctant but obedient to the demand in her eyes. He looked across to Nyasha. “It was not my place. But I had to do it.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, fresh tears pouring down her dark cheeks, sparkling in the firelight. “Thank you.”
They all, even Bron, slept soundly that night, perched high up on the mountainside and protected from the elements only by a few scraggly sprigs of greenery and a carefully banked fire. Tomorrow they would reach the summit of the path.
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