We left Calveron at twilight, when the smoke finally thinned enough to see the stars again.
No one spoke much anymore.
Two thousand people walked behind me, and the only steady sound was boots on dirt and the creak of the litter that carried Mira. Four men took turns with the poles. They never asked for relief. Their eyes stayed fixed on the road ahead, like if they looked anywhere else they'd remember how to feel something.
I walked barefoot. The stones had stopped hurting days ago.
Villages appeared on the horizon, little clusters of warm light.
We never announced ourselves. We just arrived.
The first time, a gate guard raised a lantern and opened his mouth to challenge us. He saw the litter, saw the four silent bearers, saw me. The lantern slipped from his fingers and went out. He stepped aside without a word. By morning his uniform was folded neatly on the well, sword driven through the chest like a marker.
No one ever closed the gates after that.
People joined us the way shadows join the night: quietly, inevitably. A woman slipped out of a doorway carrying nothing but a kitchen knife and her dead son's coat. An old soldier limped from a barn, left his wolf tabard burning in the straw, and fell in step. Children sometimes. Always children. They walked in the middle where it was safest, holding hands so tightly their knuckles stayed white for days.
We took what we needed: bread, water, boots that fit.
We left the rest untouched.
At night we camped without fires. The dark felt kinder.
I sat with Mira. The cloak over her had dried stiff; when the wind moved it, it sounded like paper. I talked sometimes, low enough that only she could hear. Told her about the sky, about the way the moon followed us, about the new people who walked for her. She never answered, but that was all right. I had never been very good at listening anyway.
On the tenth night a boy no older than fifteen stumbled into camp. Deserted from Vortigern's scouts. His face was grey, lips cracked from running.
He fell at my feet and tried to speak. All that came out was a croak.
I gave him water. He drank, then looked at the litter and started crying without sound (shoulders shaking, tears cutting clean lines through the dust on his cheeks).
When he could finally talk he said, "They told us you were monsters. You're not. You're just… quiet."
I didn't correct him.
By the time we reached the edge of the Ashen Plain there were close to ten thousand of us.
Ten thousand people who had learned the same lesson: noise brings attention, attention brings soldiers, soldiers bring what happened to Calveron.
So we stayed quiet.
Even the babies stopped crying after a while.
On the last night before the plain, I climbed a small rise and looked back.
The road behind us was empty, but it felt full. Every mile we'd walked carried its own weight (memories stacked like stones). The wind moved across the grass and it sounded like breathing.
I looked down at my hands. They were clean. I hadn't noticed when that happened.
Mira's litter rested beside me. The cloak had slipped a little; moonlight touched her cheek. She looked almost peaceful, like any moment she'd open her eyes and ask why everyone was so sad.
I fixed the cloak and sat with her until dawn.
When the sky turned the color of old bruises, I stood.
Ten thousand people stood with me.
No banners. No drums. No orders.
We just started walking east.
Toward the capital.
Toward the man who still laughed in his sleep.
The road was very quiet now.
But it listened.