Erean tied the cinch tighter around the brown paint mare's belly and scratched the spot behind her ears that she seemed to like. He was anxious to get moving, now that the packing was completed, though Rannok dragged his feet to the place the horses were tied and then stood a fair distance off as Sasha got them ready so their party could depart.

"What is this one's name?"

"Patches," Sasha replied. "It's not very creative, but she's sweet." She struggled to get the bit in her own horse's mouth. He craned his head upwards until his nose touched the sky and snorted at her. Sasha climbed up onto a rock and pulled his head down again, then managed to wrestle the beast into the contraption.

"Are you sure you should be taking that one?"

"Driver's more fire than he looks, as long as you don't try to steal him," Sasha said. She shot a pointed, narrow-eyed glance to Rannok. Erean chuckled. He'd heard about their conflict at breakfast. At least the boy had not gotten far, though he'd have to talk to him later about whether or not he could be trusted as a scribe.

The crow fluttered down from somewhere overhead and landed on his horse's rump. It startled for a mere half-second, then settled down and let out a heady snort. Erean eyed the black and white animal. It hopped onto his shoulder and clicked its beak together a few times.

"Are you certain you know where the nesting grounds are?"

"Approximately," Erean replied. "My sources are very old, we aren't guaranteed it hasn't moved." He patted the horse's nose and picked up some rolls of gauze to place in the saddle's medicine pack. The horse pawed the ground and reached down to snatch at some loose grass through its bit.

"Your lack of motivation concerns me."

Erean laughed. "My lack of motivation, or your lack of ability to see it?" He'd read about the crows before, and of their abilities. How they could reach into your mind like a cold tendril and steal your innermost thoughts.

"Mostly the latter. You have nothing to worry about from my intrusions."

"Forgive me for not trusting a stranger." Erean could feel the crow's mind banging against his, searching for a way to get in. At least the time he'd wasted deciphering words on parchment almost too faded to read had paid off. He'd spent hours meditating, learning to turn his thoughts away from intrusions that could be latched onto. To clear it until it contained almost nothing. 

"Rannok, take your crow," he said. The crow fluffed its feathers and let out a small hiss.

"I am no one's," it said as it took off and alighted on a post next to the boy. Rannok followed him with his eyes as Erean went back into the house. The muscles in Erean's shoulders relaxed as the bird's attempts at intrusion eased. 

Of course, his techniques wouldn't prevent a more experienced adversary, if they really tried. He would have to practice harder before they got to the nesting grounds and ran into some real trouble. He knew better than to think that the solutions he needed would be given freely. Magical beings were not so kind or generous as to solve the problems of humans on a whim.

His heart ached, thinking of it. His daughter's body curled up in spasms that racked her tiny form. How she had screamed and cried and reached out for Erean's hand until eventually, her breathing stopped, then slowed, and then the spasms ceased. He had not known at the time whether it was a relief.

He knew he had the same disease, just as his father had, and his grandmother before that. It had killed his uncle and one of his cousins and his father as well, when he had gotten old. Every single one of them racked with pain. He was only happy his case was not as severe, which meant there was hope a solution could be found before the stiffness in his hands progressed and his breath was stolen from him, as well.

He finished his packing and strode back toward the house. They'd eat what would likely be the last good meal for a while before they took off into the jungle. Erean smelled the pork roast wafting off the oven. His mouth watered. He turned away from the kitchen and started up the stairs.

The tiny room still held a few of his belongings. A quill he'd gotten from the research organization in the tiny town of Belast, where he'd departed from the southern planes toward Horizon. A book with his studies, before he'd been asked to leave. A pile of parchment with hastily drawn maps.

He'd leave the first, burn the second, and take the rest with him, that which wasn't too much to carry on horseback. He'd thrown the rest of his notebooks into the ocean, to keep those on the boat from realizing the nature of his research. He'd wanted to cry as he watched them float away on the currents, then slowly sink below the waves. Losing his notes was a worthy price for erasing his tracks. 

Behind him lay five years of research and a trail of dissected bodies. None of them brought him any closer to answers. He still had no idea why his muscles seized without warning, or what affliction had stolen his daughter and his father and various uncles and cousins. And as toll for all of his work, an uprooted family that still did not belong in Belast any more than he belonged in Horizon. A family without a father.

But Erean did not believe in magic, not truly. Or at least he hadn't, until he'd seen Rannok, and the wings that hung from his back like waves. He'd thought the marked ones only a legend; something to tell small children at night so they would be too frightened to leave their beds. But then he had appeared like an apparition, all flesh and life and bone in front of him, and Erean had never been so certain curses existed.

He stared out the window at the boy, who shied from the horses and stared into the crow's eyes as if they were once again lost deep in conversation that no one else could hear. Erean reminded himself not to tell the boy a word, to keep to his cover story. To tell him that he was simply an ecologist looking to find out more about the crows. It was a thin lie, but it would do. 

Every day he got a little weaker. The last few months he'd felt it tug at his legs in addition to his arms. He hid the pain well, even on days where his muscles ached for hours and he did not want to do anything other than lay still. 

His older sons were twelve and thirteen. Old enough to understand pain and to know that they, too, awaited the same fate. They suspected, before the research institute had found his cache of bodies and asked him to leave, that Erean was suffering. He could see it in their eyes when he kissed their foreheads and drew his hands over the food for blessings. He knew they saw his hands shake and the sweat dot his forehead from the effort.

He tried not to think of how he'd get back to them. Of how he'd sneak back into Belast without alerting the research institute, or finding himself in prison. He didn't even know if they'd still be there, or if they would have given up hope of his return, then gone back to the village he had even less hope of traveling to. But had to find a way. He only hoped by the time he did it would not be too late.