Chapter 12 | Part 3

The road to Riverhold was dusty and ordinary.

Maris was grateful for both.

Farm carts passed her.

A merchant train rolled west.

One guard looked at the blood dried near her mouth and decided not to ask.

Good man.

The hand surfaced again over the passing wheels. Maris stopped rather than risk stepping beneath a cart.

She let the image run until the water closed over the fingers. Her stomach turned with it.

When the road returned, the cart had passed her.

She held her sore hand against the rough fencepost.

This is real.

Dust settled over her boots. She could feel sweat cooling beneath her collar and hear the wheels receding.

The road is real.

The question came anyway.

Am I awake now?

She hated that question because it had survived every answer she’d ever given it.

Riverhold’s gate appeared ahead.

Maris joined the queue.

When her turn came, the guard barely looked up.

“Name?”

“Maris Hale.”

“Business?”

“Trade.”

That was easier than explaining the truth.

“How long?”

“A day. Maybe two.”

He waved her through.

Inside the gate, a shopkeeper was fighting a swollen shutter. He slammed it again as Maris passed.

Two women argued over a bruised pear.

A child crying because another child had something red and apparently important.

A dog barking at a cart wheel.

Maris stopped beside a wall and listened until none of it became anything else.

The shopkeeper swore and kicked his shutter. She almost thanked him.

When she turned left, pressure drove into her temple. Turning right eased it.

Maris frowned.

“Of course.”

She walked right.

At the next junction she tried the same thing.

Straight made the pressure spike.

Left eased it.

She went left.

She could test this at the next corner. No need to explain anything to anyone.

At least drowning in someone else’s black water was new.

She laughed once.

Then followed the headache.

End of Chapter 12.3 —> 12.4: The Grass Where She Fell: The Conduit