CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Echoes of the Road
The border of Valdris was marked by a stone archway that had stood for eight hundred years.
Orion remembered it from his youth—the massive granite structure carved with the kingdom's founding motto: "Strength Through Unity, Honor Through Service." As a child, he'd thought the words meant something noble. As a young man, he'd come to see them as chains disguised as poetry.
Now, approaching from the north with his wife at his side, he wasn't sure what he thought anymore.
"It's beautiful," Nera said, studying the archway. "The craftsmanship is remarkable."
"Dwarven work. My ancestors commissioned it when the kingdom was young." He guided his horse through the passage, feeling the weight of history pressing down. "Everything in Valdris is old. Old traditions, old expectations, old grudges."
"Old doesn't mean unchangeable."
"In Valdris, it usually does."
But he was smiling as he said it—a small, rueful expression that acknowledged both his frustration and his inability to hate this place entirely. It was still beautiful. Still home, in a way that Thornhaven could never quite replicate.
Aldwin had left them three days prior, riding ahead to announce their coming. They would travel the remaining distance alone, taking their time, following the route that Orion had once fled in the opposite direction.
It was, he was beginning to realize, a kind of pilgrimage. A chance to see what he'd left behind with new eyes.
* * *
They passed through Millbrook on the fifth day inside Valdris.
The town hadn't changed much since they'd fled it almost three years ago—still prosperous, still friendly, still marked by the mill where Nera had negotiated peace with a family of sprites. But it felt different now, approaching from the south rather than fleeing toward the north.
"Should we stop?" Nera asked. "Marta might—"
"The pixie lady!"
The shout came from the town square, where a familiar figure was emerging from the bakery. Marta, flour-dusted and beaming, rushed toward them with an enthusiasm that bordered on alarming.
"I knew you'd come back!" The baker embraced Nera before she could even dismount. "I told everyone—I said, 'Those two aren't ordinary travelers. They'll be back someday.' And here you are!"
"Marta." Nera laughed, accepting the embrace awkwardly from horseback. "It's good to see you."
"Good? It's wonderful! The whole town's been talking about you since you left." Marta finally stepped back, taking in Nera's human-sized form with obvious surprise. "You've... grown?"
"It's a long story."
"I'll bet it is. Come, come—you'll stay for dinner at least. The miller's been telling everyone about the sprites, and Elena's been asking after you, and—" She paused, finally noticing Orion. "And your husband's a prince, apparently. That rumor reached us last month."
"Also a long story," Orion said.
"I'll bet that one is too." Marta's eyes sparkled with curiosity. "Well, come on then. You've got stories to tell, and I've got bread to share. That's a fair trade if I ever heard one."
They stayed in Millbrook for two days.
* * *
The town was as welcoming as they remembered—more so, perhaps, now that the mystery of their hasty departure had been replaced by romantic speculation.
"A prince in hiding," Elena said, the innkeeper's daughter who had married Tomás the carpenter just days before they'd fled. "Running from responsibility, finding love with a mysterious woman who isn't what she seems. It's like something from a story."
"Life often is," Nera replied. She was seated in the inn's common room, surrounded by locals who had come to see the returned travelers. "More strange than any tale I could invent."
"And now you're going to meet his family? The king?"
"So it seems."
"Are you nervous?"
Nera considered the question. She was human-sized here too, had been since they'd left Thornhaven, and she was growing more comfortable in this form with each passing day. But comfortable didn't mean confident.
"Terrified," she admitted. "But I've found that the things worth doing usually are."
"That's wise."
"I've had time to accumulate wisdom." More than anyone here could imagine. "How is the mill? Any more trouble with the... ghosts?"
Elena laughed. "No ghosts. Aldric—the miller—he leaves milk and bread out every few days, and in return, he says his grain stays fresher longer and the mice never come near. He swears the sprites wink at him sometimes, when no one else is looking."
"They probably do. Sprites love an appreciative audience."
"You know so much about such things."
"I've had... experience."
More speculation, more questions, more stories. The town seemed hungry for connection to something larger than itself, and Orion and Nera had become symbols of that—ordinary people who had turned out to be extraordinary, adventurers who had passed through and left behind a little magic.
When they left, Marta pressed a package of her finest pastries into their hands.
"For the road," she said. "And for luck. Something tells me you'll need it."
* * *
They found echoes of themselves everywhere.
In Riverside, an old man recognized Orion from a job he'd taken years ago—clearing a cave of giant spiders before he'd ever reached Silverbrook.
"You saved my grandson," the man said, clasping Orion's hands with trembling fingers. "He'd gone into those caves on a dare, and you pulled him out before the spiders could take him. I never forgot your face."
"I remember. The boy was brave, if foolish."
"He's a father himself now. Named his first son Orion, after the adventurer who saved his life." The old man's eyes were wet. "I always hoped I'd see you again, to thank you properly."
In Thornfield, a woman approached Nera with a child in her arms—the same child, Orion realized, who had been sick when they'd passed through during their flight north.
"The pixie lady sat with her all night," the woman said. "Sang to her, held her hand, did something with light that made the fever break. The healers said she wouldn't survive, but here she is."
The child—three years old now, healthy and bright-eyed—reached for Nera with a gurgling laugh.
"I didn't do much," Nera said, but she took the child anyway, holding her with a natural ease that made Orion's heart ache. "Just stayed with her."
"You did everything." The mother's voice cracked. "I'll never forget. Never."
In a dozen villages and towns, they found people whose lives they had touched—sometimes briefly, sometimes profoundly. A fence repaired. A dispute mediated. A monster driven off. Small kindnesses and large ones, scattered across the countryside like seeds that had taken root and grown.
"I didn't realize," Orion said one evening, as they camped between towns. "How much we did. How many people we affected."
"Neither did I." Nera was human-sized, leaning against him as the fire crackled. "When you're running, you don't look back. You just keep moving. But all those moments... they mattered. To them, if not to us."
"They mattered to me too. I just didn't let myself see it."
"And now?"
"Now I see it." He pulled her closer. "We made a difference. Even when we were just trying to survive, we made a difference."
"That's what living is. Touching other lives, being touched by them. Leaving something behind besides footprints."
"Very philosophical."
"I learned from you."
"Liar. You've been philosophical for a thousand years."
"Maybe. But you make me want to put it into words." She kissed his cheek. "You make me want to be understood."
They sat together as the fire burned low, surrounded by the ghosts of their own kindness—the echoes of a journey they hadn't known they were taking.
* * *
"I've been thinking," Nera said the next morning, as they rode through rolling farmland.
"Dangerous activity."
"So you've said. Many times." But she was smiling. "I've been thinking about us. About our stories. How similar they are."
"The runaway royalty angle?"
"More than that." She guided her horse closer to his, so they rode side by side. "You told me why you left—the arranged marriage, the feeling of being a piece on a board. And when I heard it, I thought: that's exactly how I felt. Exactly."
"You never told me why you left," Orion realized. "Not really. You said you were tired of being apart, but not the specific moment."
"Because there wasn't one. Not like yours." Nera's expression grew distant. "It was more like... erosion. A thousand years of small moments, each one wearing away a little more of who I was. Until one day I looked at myself and realized there was nothing left but the crown."
"That sounds worse."
"In some ways. At least you had a clear breaking point. I just... faded. Slowly. Imperceptibly. By the time I understood what was happening, I'd been hollow for centuries."
"And then you left."
"And then I left." She managed a small smile. "Walked out of the Eternal Court in the middle of the night, shed most of my power, became a pixie wandering the mortal world. I didn't have a destination. I just needed to be... less. Less queen, less power, less everything."
"How long were you wandering?"
"Decades. Maybe a century. Time moves differently when you're not attached to anything." Her eyes met his. "And then I found you. A dying stranger in a forest, who looked at me and wished for someone to share his life with."
"I didn't know you were a queen."
"That's why it worked. You saw me—just me, without the crown, without the power, without the millennia of history. You saw a person. And you wanted that person to stay."
"I still do."
"I know." She reached over and squeezed his hand. "That's why I'm here. Why I'm riding toward your kingdom in human form, preparing to meet your family, ready to face whatever politics and complications await. Because you saw me, and now I want to see you."
"See me?"
"All of you. The prince you were, the man you became, the son who returns. I want to understand every piece of you, the way you've come to understand every piece of me."
It was, Orion thought, the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to him. Not grand gestures or passionate declarations, but this—the simple desire to know him completely.
"What if you don't like what you see?" he asked. "What if the prince I was is worse than the man you married?"
"Then I'll love the man and forgive the prince." Her voice was certain. "But I don't think I'll need to. I think you've always been who you are—you just needed to find the right place to be it."
"And my family?"
"Are part of who made you. For better or worse." She smiled. "I want to meet them. I want to understand them. And I want them to see what their lost prince has become."
"They might not approve."
"They might not. But approval was never the goal." Her eyes sparkled. "Understanding was. And maybe, if we're lucky, acceptance."
They rode on through the Valdris countryside, two people who had run from crowns and found each other—preparing to face the past that one of them had fled, together.
* * *
Three months into the journey, they reached the edge of the capital province.
The land here was different—more cultivated, more controlled. Estates dotted the hills, each flying the banner of some noble house. The roads were wider, better maintained, patrolled by soldiers in royal colors.
"We're close," Orion said. Unnecessary words—Nera could see as well as he could—but the weight of them demanded acknowledgment.
"How are you feeling?"
"Honestly? Terrified." He laughed at himself. "I've faced monsters and assassins and a literal sea god. But the thought of walking into that palace makes my stomach churn."
"That's because the stakes are different. Monsters can only kill you. Family can define you."
"That's surprisingly dark."
"I've had dark thoughts about family. Millennia of them." But she was smiling. "The difference is, you have me now. Whatever happens in there, you're not facing it alone."
"I know." He reached for her hand. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For being here. For choosing this—the complications, the politics, the whole mess. You could have stayed in Thornhaven. Could have let me face this alone."
"I could have." She squeezed his fingers. "But that's not what we do. We face things together. That's the deal."
"The deal?"
"The marriage deal. The partnership deal. The 'I love you and I'm not going anywhere' deal." She grinned. "Did you miss the fine print?"
"I must have."
"It's okay. I'll remind you."
Ahead, rising from the central valley like a dream of stone and light, the capital city of Valdris came into view. Spires and towers, walls that had stood for centuries, the grand palace at its heart where kings had ruled since the kingdom's founding.
Home.
Or what had once been home, before Orion had learned what he needed and left to find it elsewhere.
"Ready?" Nera asked.
"No."
"Me neither." She urged her horse forward. "Let's do it anyway."
Together, they rode toward the city—a prince returning to face his past, and a queen who had chosen to face it with him.
Whatever waited beyond those walls, they would meet it as they met everything.
Side by side.
Always.
— End of Chapter Twenty-Four —