"She pushed herself. All she had to do was tell me to slow down."

"She'd die before doing something like that, you know. Her honor wouldn't allow it."

"I'll slow down a little tomorrow," he promised.

"You did that just to prove to her that she was wrong, didn't you?"

Tarrin only gave her a slight smile, then his expression melted back into that emotionless, stony mask.

"And they think you don't have a sense of humor," Sarraya laughed. "Jegojah hasn't caught up yet."

"I don't think he's going to. I think he's started out after Kravon. Jegojah said his goodbye last night, but I don't think anyone except me noticed. And I think that's the way he wanted it."

"Well, I hope he has good luck," Sarraya chuckled.

Tarrin did slow down to a less murderous pace the next day, and the days thereafter, but it was still a pace that gave Denai serious problems. To her credit, she refused to be left behind, keeping up with them, but the effort left her all but incapacitated during the nightly camps. She would splay herself on the ground, trying to recover after they pulled in and the others made camp. Then she would eat what was offered to her, drink enough to restore her body's water, and then immediately go to sleep, wherever she happened to be at that moment. Tarrin had to carry her into her tent every night and tuck her in, a chore which he didn't mind all that much. He warned Denai that he wasn't going to dawdle, not with such an important reason to return to Suld, but he was starting to get concerned that the exertion was going to be bad for her. Denai had seemed like a little girl to him, a child, and that gave him reservations about what his pace was doing to her.

Six days after they started out, the terrain began to change. Rock spires began to appear again in the landscape, and the vegetation began to thicken considerably. Tarrin decided that it was time to start stopping during the midday heat in the shade of one of those spires to give Denai a little rest. She was just fine until the noonday, when the blistering heat of the desert sucked all the strength out of her and left her struggling for the afternoon. Denai didn't say much about the stop, but the relief and gratitude was written all over her face as they pulled in. Denai even built a fire and hunted down a handful of good-sized rabbits to serve as a noontime meal.

"I wonder why we haven't seen the Aeradalla," Denai mused. "They should have reached us by now."

"We won't see them, Denai," Sarraya told her. "They'll fly south of us. For them, Suld is reached faster by a more southerly route. They don't have to go to a pass to get over the mountains."

"I didn't think of that. It must be wonderful to fly," she said in a dreamy tone.

"I thought it was pretty nice," Tarrin said absently.

"You flew?"

"Ariana brought us down from the top of the Cloud Spire," he told her.

"Sometimes I dream about having wings too," she admitted in a distant tone. "But I guess it's just a silly daydream. The Holy Mother never meant for us to fly, or she'd have given us wings too."

"Daydreams are never silly," Sarraya told her.

"How far are we away from this forest?"

"We'll reach it tomorrow," Denai replied. "We should be able to skirt around its edge. We're about seven days from the Sandshield. Maybe five, if we keep running like we have."

"Six," Tarrin told her. "We're keeping the pace, but we'll stop during the midday from now on."

"Thank the Holy Mother," Denai said with an explosive sigh. "How do you stand running in the heat?"

"I told you before, Denai, heat doesn't bother me," he told her. "This-" he said, holding out his arms- "means nothing to me."

"You should have been born Selani," Denai grinned.

Tarrin twisted the manacle on his arm in irritation, wincing when it pulled out a few strands of fur.

"You should take them off, Tarrin," Denai told him. "I know they mean something to you, but if they're bothering you that much, you should take them off."

"It wouldn't be the same."

"Would it? Just carry them around with you. That way they're always there for whatever reason you keep them, but they're not tearing the fur out of your arms in the process."

Tarrin looked at Denai, and he could find no logical argument to deny her suggestion. He looked at Sarraya, who only laughed and winked at him, saying "don't look at me. I'd rather see you without them myself. I'm not going to give you a reason to refute Denai."

It may have been logical, but the illogical reasons were strong. It just wouldn't seem right to not wear the manacles. What they represented was more important than getting the fur pulled out of his arms. They were a reminder of the price of trust.

But what did that mean to him now? He had become more trusting, despite the manacles. He had accepted Sarraya and Phandebrass and Camara Tal. He had accepted Var and Denai, had found it in himself to resist his paranoid fear of strangers when necessary. The manacles reminded him of the price of putting his trust in strangers. Var and Denai, Camara Tal and Phandebrass, and especially Sarraya, they had proven their worth to him. They weren't strangers anymore. He still suspected and feared strangers. Did he need the manacles to remind him of that now?

"I'm going to get some rest," Denai said. "I'm going to need it."

Denai laid down by the extinguished fire, and Tarrin laid back and looked up at the sky. The Skybands were widening slowly as they moved northwest, and now they were the same width as he remembered them from Aldreth, his home. Aldreth. He hoped the village was alright. He'd come out into Arkis far to the north. and he'd be using the Skydancer mountains as a reference while he crossed the Frontier. He'd come very close to Aldreth. If he set his course right, he'd come out in Aldreth. Part of him wanted to do that. With all the stories over what happened when the Dals invaded, he wanted to go there, to his old home, go there and make sure everything was alright. And it would be nice to go back, back to the farm, look around and remember his past before being turned. It seemed so distant to him now, going there would be like a reminder of a life long lost, a reinforcement of who he was and where he had come from. No matter who or what he was now, he had started as Tarrin Kael, a young villager from Aldreth, who had lived on an isolated farmstead just far enough away from the others to make it feel like his family had the whole world to themselves. Those were good times, and he'd like to go back there and relive them again, if only for a day. To remember what he often refused to allow himself to remember, afraid of the nostalgia and bitterness it may bring in him. He was who he was. The villager boy he had been was long gone, and there was no going back. But it would still be nice to go home.

Aldreth was the only home he had ever known, and even now, with everything that had happened, it was still the only place he thought of when someone mentioned home. It was the place he imagined when someone talked about family. It was where he was meant to be, despite all the craziness that had sent him halfway across the world.

It was home.

Tarrin held up an arm, looked at the manacle there. Maybe. He might take them off, someday. His attitudes had changed since he had decided to leave them on, changed greatly. But not enough. Just as his fur and tail and claws and ears were, the manacles were a part of him, defined a part of himself, and he wouldn't abandon that just because of a little discomfort. Good or bad, they were a part of him, and they would remain.

For a while longer.

To: Title EoF