His eyes opened wide. Equally startled, she took a step back.

He grinned and set down the lute. “The hells!” He whistled, and the dog pattered over to him. “Usually he barks,” the boy added. He was old enough to be sent to the high pastures with the sheep but not quite old enough to be called a man. “Where did you come from?”

“Just over the ridge.” The box canyon wasn’t all that far from here, truly, although she wasn’t entirely sure how to reach it traveling on the ground. Reeves sometimes lost that skill, seeing everything from on high.

“You’re not from around here. Are you hungry, or thirsty? I’ve got plenty.”

“I would appreciate a bit.” Reeve habit died hard: you ate and drank whenever opportunity offered, as you didn’t always know in the course of a patrol when you might have leisure to eat and drink again.

He shared a cursed sharp cider and a ball of rice neatly wrapped in nai leaves, poor man’s food but filling nonetheless.

“I’m surprised to see anyone up here,” he said with nice manners which, together with his pleasant features, would make him a favorite among women when he got a bit older. He was water-born, judging by the pattern of tattoos ringing his wrists. An attractive youth, but forbidden to her because she was also water-born. “We’re about as far west as folk live. You can see how the mountains rise.” He indicated a barrier of grim peaks to the west. “Nothing beyond that but the flat salt desert.”

“You’ve seen it?”

He laughed. “Not myself. My uncle claims to have climbed the Wall, to see onto the deadlands. He said they stretched for a thousand mey, farther than he could see even from the mountains’ edge, nothing but pale gold to the flat horizon. Maybe it’s true, or maybe he just said so to impress the woman he wanted to marry. He did bring back a shard of an eagle’s egg. From a nest, so he said. Said he climbed to it, and fetched it out. But he did talk blather. I bet he just found it on the trail, fallen from a high place.”

He carefully asked no questions, plying her with highlands hospitality, offering a second flask of cider. He was an open lad, sure she wasn’t a bad person because the dog—whose name was Nip—tolerated her. She was just utterly stunned to be having a commonplace conversation.

“I see you’ve a lute there. Have you always played?”

“Surely I have, since I could pick one up. Would you like me to play for you?” He was sure she would like to hear him; everyone always enjoyed his playing.

She nodded, settling more comfortably cross-legged beside him. He plucked a pair of tunes and hummed a melancholy melody that made her eyes water. Thin clouds chased across the high landscape. As the sun passed into shadow, she shivered at the unexpected draft of cool air seeping down from above and pulled her cloak more tightly around her torso.