The sky began to darken as the gates of the next town peeked over the horizon. This one was locked, and the banners of the men guarding it fluttered in the breeze. At least they'd made it far enough away from the last one that no one would know them here, not that anyone forgot a guy with a pair of wings coming out of his back. 

Rannok slowed his horse and waited a moment for Sasha to catch up. She'd stopped asking--and they'd stopped talking--after he'd trotted off on her. At first he'd felt relieved, but the wounded look on her face just made him feel terrible. He didn't say anything as he got off and handed her the reins.

One of the guards had his back propped against the wall and picked at his teeth with an old piece of bone, He glanced in their direction as they approached, scarcely caring enough to do more than lift his hand in their direction.

He grumbled something in a language Rannok couldn't understand before heaving himself off the wall and wiping his beard with his hand. He discarded the bone to the side and looked them up and down. "Where you from?"

His accent was heavy, tinged with forest fire smoke and mountain air. He sucked at his teeth for a moment before spitting. Sasha met Rannok's gaze for a moment, eyebrows raised, and he shrugged his shoulders before turning back to the guard. 

"Horizon," he said.

"Don't look Horizon," the man replied, as his eyes went to Rannok's wings. "No marked ones in Horizon."

"I'm traveling," Rannok replied, as if that wasn't obvious.

"She doesn't look it either." The guard brushed some crumbs off the front of his tunic and leered dangerously close to Sasha's face, dark eyes focused as if he were looking at a mouse. Rannok curled his fists so he wouldn't be so tempted to grab him by the hair and smash his face into the cobble wall behind him.

Sasha didn't blink, her face frosted over, like the guard had just cursed not only her but her entire family. 

"Sa ca vlano asei," she shot back, like daggers from her mouth. Rannok caught only the word 'insult' hovering on her tongue, then stepped toward her. The guard loomed closer, then looked her up and down, eyes sliding over her like a horse up for sale. Rannok's hand went for his blade for a moment before Sasha caught his wrist in her hand. 

"Fine. Inn's that way," the man said, jerking his thumb down a street that was hard to make out in the dark. He drew back again and signaled to someone in one of the towers, someone Rannok couldn't see. The door began to raise into the sky, until there was enough space for them to pass through with the horses. Rannok grabbed Patches' reins and tugged her through the opening.

Inside there were clusters of half-built houses encroaching on the walls, boards falling over, like they'd run out of room and started encroaching on one another. Lit torches flickered every few houses, without giving enough light to really make out the signs by. Not that Rannok could read them anyway. The horse's footsteps echoed on the empty road. Rannok tried not to focus on the sound. 

Even at home, in the village he grew up in, the streets were full of life and laughing children and market sales well into the evening. Here the streets were almost always empty after dark, void of anyone that wasn't a traveler looking for an inn. It made everything feel soft and draped in shadows, a ghost of a town that had once been. 

He'd asked her, once, if the mountains had always been this way, before remembering that she was an outsider here too. Enough of a stranger for a man she didn't know to feel comfortable questioning what she was and where she came from, even when it didn't matter. 

He waited until they were far enough away for the guard not to hear before slowing down. Sasha tore her hand from his grip and gave him a little grin.

"He thought he had me," she said, before turning down a road that looked wide enough to maybe contain an inn.

"I wanted to hit him," he replied, rolling his shoulders and trying to shake the man's stare from his memory. 

Sasha rolled her eyes at him. "And then what? Whoever's in the tower loads us up with arrows? I told you the last time that you can't fix things just by hitting them." 

He paused with his mouth open for a moment, looking for something to say, before he gave up and shook his head, laughing a little under his breath. "That doesn't stop me from wanting to. Especially when it's some asshole staring at you like he wants to kidnap you."

Sasha's smile wavered a little bit, and she turned away from him. The laugh she returned didn't sound quite real. Something that felt like guilt spread through his stomach, and the corners of his mouth turned down.

"I'm sorry I ran off earlier," he said, running his free hand through his hair. "I just...I don't know. You kept asking."

Sasha nodded, and Rannok couldn't help but feel how fragile she was. How fragile both of them were. It was like walking through a crowded kitchen with an armful of silverware and trying not to drop a glass.

Still, it felt better than being alone. At least if they were going to be broken, there would be two. At least then he knew where the holes were in the floor. At least then he knew who it was when someone pushed and he dropped them all. 

He reached out and touched her arm very gently, like touching a butterfly wing. His face fell when she flinched a little and pulled away before settling back beside him like nothing had happened.

"Are you okay?" 

He wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer to that question, but when it didn't come, his heart began to pound. Without meaning to, he imagined waking up some morning alone, outside in a cold tent, with the horses missing and rain pelting down around him. He imagined thunder and an empty bed and suddenly the air felt like it was squeezing out of his lungs, but he didn't know why.

"Sasha."

Sasha stilled. One of the horses stomped its foot impatiently, which made Rannok's heart beat faster and the panic settle further into his skin. His vision blurred a bit, so he scrubbed his hand across his face, but that just made his chest feel tighter and his head spin. 

"You're not doing anything wrong," she said after a beat. She gently rested a hand on his arm. "Do you want to sit down?"

"No," Rannok responded, far too quickly. "I'm okay. I'm just tired."

Sasha let out a deep, hollow sigh. "I'm not going to run off. It's not you, it's..." She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. "You know how you get with thunderstorms?"

"Yeah," he said. Heat creeped up his neck and into his face. He hated when she did that, saw the things he was thinking that he didn't want her to know. He hated when she looked at him like he was an orphaned lamb that needed her attention. He hated how it was all his fault, when things like this happened.

"That's how I get when people are angry with me," she said, as if he hadn't just been thinking what he'd been thinking. As if every word of it hadn't read across his face. But now that hollow feeling was back in his stomach, a lead fishing weight that he'd swallowed. 

"I'm sorry," he said, the same conversation they'd had a million times, except now he knew why it kept happening. Now he knew why it felt like he'd slapped her every time he said something a little too loud. "I didn't know, I--" 

"Next time you can punch the guard," Sasha said, giving his arm a squeeze. For a moment, the air settled back into his lungs.