Fu Ling had lost count of the villages they'd passed. The roads had turned from stone to packed dirt, then to nothing more than winding trails through fields of yellow grass.
It took them three months to put the capital far behind them.
They stopped in small towns for food and lodging, sometimes pretending to be traveling merchants, other times just a pair of wanderers.
They bought a modest carriage halfway through the journey when the horse began to tire.
Their horse, freed from the burden of their combined weight, pulled the small carriage easily. The days grew slower after that.
The farther they traveled, the softer Fu Ling became. The lines between his brows eased. His hair, no longer tied in the strict knot of a general, was now gathered loosely with a ribbon Wei Tingche had bought at a roadside stall.
When they finally reached a small town by the river, they both knew without words that this was the place.
