The haunt rose and walked down the line, pressing a hand to the head of each child. As he passed, the villagers wept. When Elen could no longer bear to watch, she turned away, walked to the next turn of the path, and waited there. Why was it so painful to see them cry? She did not even know, only that she was relieved to walk on, not because she found the villagers contemptible but because nothing in her life had ever made her cry. Tears were a luxury. Her eyes stayed dry. Or maybe there was something wrong with her, because Aoving had cried all the time; for joy, for sorrow, for anger, for fear, for all of it, tears were Ao’s answer. Elen had taught herself to smile through it all, because a smile meant more than happiness. A smile meant she wasn’t going to give up, not on herself and not on those she loved. A smile was defiance.

To her surprise, the haunt caught up with her, and they walked at the front with the others far enough behind that they couldn’t hear. He stumped along with a strange tension in his body.

At length, he spoke in a low, impassioned voice. “I am unaccountably moved by these people who have waited for hours, in the rain, merely to watch me walk past. Why do they do this? What is it they hope for?”

She could not answer, because she had no answer.

They walked in silence. He seemed content to stride beside her as he waited. But she had to come up with a reply before the wardens became too curious. Their conversation would already be drawing too much attention, since it was unheard of for a prince to converse with a deputy courier.

She said, “A prince of the realm is like a brilliant star, precious and thus out of their grasp. In their ordinary lives, they are too insignificant to be visible to such a divine emanation. Yet here you are. Maybe all they hope for is that you see them for one moment, even in passing. Maybe that is enough.”

He did not reply. She wasn’t sure if she had offended him, or if he had nothing to say. As she continued on, he fell back to walk beside Fulmo.

They walked deeper into the hills through the cloudy afternoon. Late in the day they broke out of the woodland and ascended to a rocky ridgetop path. In the trees below, she thought she spotted a small red lynx and its shadowy swalter riding astride, but it was only a glimpse, so she couldn’t be sure. Nor could she be sure what such a sight portended. Why would a swalter be riding so close to the path? The hill swalters avoided people, unless they were aggressively defending their territory.