His heart was a rapid staccato as his mind whirled with possibility. If... if that was truly the history of his people, why did none know of it?
“Why did they not fight back?” Grimult found himself asking, wondering if it was wrong to interrupt and if it might frighten her away from continuing.
Penryn released a deep sigh. “If I was to guess,” she answered softly, “which I shall have to do as it is only a story, I would suppose that the people of the air had not faced a foe on the ground before. They had much to learn in order to fight back properly.”
“Training,” he whispered to himself, and he did not turn in order to see Penryn’s reaction.
“For all,” Penryn continued. “Until they could push back those on land, past the plains and the forests, and the plains again. Until their deaths could no longer be used as a rite of passage, as a novelty to be displayed in the homes of those who had hunted them.”
Grimult did not know what to say, questions wanting to seep out, clarifications of doubts long nurtured and worried over.
But Penryn seemed determined to keep up the pretence that it was not his people’s history that was being disclosed, and he did not want to frighten her away from the topic entirely.
“Why was that story lost?” he asked instead, wondering at the construction of the Wall, wondering why Penryn had to be the one to go beyond its border. How she had been chosen as Lightkeep at all.
Penryn was quiet for a moment, and he wondered if he had trespassed too far. But her voice was soft when she answered. Sad. “Not lost. Locked away. Hidden with those who would keep it, and allow the others to live without knowing such evils lurked in the rest of the world.”
Boys sent to train. Not one selected for a singular position. Many initiates plucked from their families to learn how to fight, their sparing on the ground rather than the air.
Not everyone was trained to protect their people, but enough. A host, every generation, of the strongest of their kind, brought and finely honed, so that if ever there was need, they could give defence.
He wanted to argue with her. To claim that it was wrong to keep such things from his kind, to have buried it away and hide behind ritual and deception rather than the truth of what had once existed.
Still did. Behind the wall and in front of it.
The horror at Penryn’s realisation that the rider was real and truly there. Not where he was supposed to be.
Locked away, but free to roam a border that was forbidden to all but the Lightkeep and her Guardian.
And quite comfortable doing so.
She did not keep giving titbits of history. Instead her fingers set to work yet again, a gentle hum coming from her throat. A lullaby, not dissimilar to ones he had heard from mothers in his clan, likely passed on to her by one of her first minders.
The longer he lay still, the muzzier his thoughts became. They should be sharp, should be agonising over every detail she had related to him of this supposed story, but his body did not agree with the insistence of his mind. There would be tomorrow, when he could gently coax more specifics from her, could assuage some of the burning need to know which had been his near constant companion since the Journey had begun.
But for now, he was warm from the fire and he had not experienced such ministrations since he was a fledgling, and it was rather nice after all, and it was not as if she could slip away while he was using her to cushion his head...
He awoke a few hours later, or so he thought. Penryn had slumped against the wall of their little shelter, her neck at an awkward angle. It would hurt, come morning, if allowed to remain as it was. The fire was low, but there was warmth enough.
It would be too much to carry her over to her own bedroll stationed on the other side of the fire, and before he could think better of it, he urged her downward into a recline, her eyelids fluttering for a moment, and he hushed her gently before he watched her slip further into slumber, tucked fully into his bedroll. He would not enter it with her, but allowed himself to remain near, until sleep took him once again, satisfied that she was now properly at rest.
◆◆◆
Morning brought a shy exchange as both awoke at nearly the same time, far closer than they had ever been during the rest of their travels. Penryn realised slowly that she was not in her own bedroll and had no memory of climbing so boldly into his own, but at his quiet explanation that she had been cold, she nodded, her cheeks a brilliant pink, but a soft smile was at her lips so he was confident she was not terribly angry for his presumption.
Their ablutions were hasty affairs, breakfast even more so. Dried fruits passed between them as they walked, fingers delving into the pouch and guesses made as to what the fruit had once resembled when it was plump and whole.
It was as they crested the third rise that they saw it for the first time.
The Wall had never been truly described to them, his mind supplanting a vision that did not equal what was before them. At a distance, yet, but there was no mistaking that they would reach it before nightfall.
His heart beat wildly at the thought, that their time was truly at its end, and as Penryn took a step nearer to it, he found himself reaching out, grasping her shoulder and keeping her still.
She turned, alarmed at his sudden action, her brow furrowing as
