Page 54

Harl shouts. The wagon’s front wheel strikes the edge of the track and the load swings toward the pedestrian path.

I step back into the railing. A jar lifts clear of the others, turning slowly enough that I see the painted flowers on its side.

A root rises beneath my boots. Daurek catches me as it carries me clear of the rail, and branches thrust up between us and the wagon.

The jar breaks against them. The wheel strikes the new barrier, driving it against the railing with a crack that I feel through Daurek’s chest.

He keeps one arm around me and reaches toward the animal with the other. Roots brace the wheels while a broad coil takes the weight beneath the fallen beast’s belly.

I can’t stop staring at the broken jar caught in the branches.

“Vai. Are you hurt?”

“No.” I swallow. “I don’t think so.”

He carries me a few paces farther up the bank and lowers me onto level ground away from the track. I hold on to his arm until my legs are steady enough to trust.

Reivaka reaches us. Daurek asks her to check me, then goes back to the team.

She makes me look at her while she checks the scrape on my wrist.

“From the rail?”

I nod. It stings now that she’s pointed it out.

She cleans it with water from her flask and wraps a strip of cloth around it. By the time she’s done, both animals are on their feet and Harl is leading them toward the clearing.

The second beast stops beside Daurek and presses its enormous wet nose into his shoulder.

“Knows who helped it,” Harl says.

“Or it wants to eat the leaves,” Senna says behind me.

A laugh escapes me. My voice sounds odd, and I laugh again because I’m standing here to do it.

Daurek looks over the animal’s head at me.

I want to get close to him. I wait while he makes certain the beast can walk, but when he returns, I put my arms around him without looking to see who is watching.

He holds me until I loosen them.

It takes another hour to clear the wagons. Two deck boards have split where the wheel struck, and the railing is broken. Daurek braces the boards from beneath with roots, signs Senna’s promise on paper from Reivaka’s satchel, and waits while her wagon crosses. Then Reivaka closes the bridge until the boards can be replaced.

“I’ll finish here,” she tells Daurek. “Take her somewhere she can’t see the broken jars.”

“Yes,” I say. “Please.”

He offers his arm. We follow a narrow footpath upstream, away from the clearing, until we reach an old footbridge over a quiet side channel. A newer path serves the gardens beyond it. Moss has grown over half the boards.

Daurek checks the rail before I lean against it.

“No wagons,” he says.

“I can see that.”

“I needed to say it.”

He looks toward the trees screening us from the clearing. The leaves along his shoulders haven’t settled since he caught me.