He chuckled lightly. “That makes sense. Come here, Amaris,” Odrin said, gesturing toward the horse. “You can take the saddle this time. It’ll be easier on those jelly legs of yours.” He helped her up with ease before swinging himself into the space behind her.

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

“About your jelly legs?” He did his best not to look patronizing. “It’s clear you’re no rider. You’ll need the saddle’s help more than I will.”

“No.” Her brows furrowed from where she sat in front of him, knowing he couldn’t see her perplexed expression. “Why do you say that about my name?”

He clicked his tongue to urge the horse forward. The dappled mount began plodding away from the campfire as Odrin asked, “Do you know what it means? Your name, that is?”

She nodded. She did know.

“The matrons gave it to me. Since I was a gift left on their doorstep, they said it meant ‘gift from the goddess.’”

He held the reins, steering the horse from the woods as he considered the piece of information.

“Did they now?” He chewed on that for a moment. “Perhaps in a dialect deeper in the south of the continent it means something to that effect. But that’s not what people in the north will hear.”

“What does it mean in the north?”

She could hear the smile in his voice as he said, “Child of the moon.”

* * *

The two unlikely travel companions arrived in a small village by the last coppery lights of sundown. At least, Amaris assumed it was a village. She’d never been anywhere and had no basis for comparison.

The horse lumbered down the grassy center of the village, carrying them amidst the row of homes and shops. Amaris wasn’t sure if there were establishments or cottages behind trees or around bends out of view, but the village seemed to have fewer than ten buildings. Wilted, gray-brown straw thickly topped the roof of nearly every home. A steepled church with the iron sign of the All Mother decorating its cathedral sat proudly in the center. The structure at the heart of the village looked just as she’d imagined an inn might.