The Journey Home: The Ingenairii Series: Beyond the Twenty Cities Read Online Free PDF Page A

they had a three week lead.  He shook his head.  He could travel with ultimate speed if he were traveling alone in pursuit of them; he could travel reasonably fast if he only had one or two companions; but in a group of twelve or fourteen or more, people who he feared and suspected were not trained, true warriors, the pace would be abysmal.  He needed a guide; he needed someone who could send him in the right direction, but that was all he needed.
    Andi was a problem.  She was a Black Crag guard, and he’d be happy to have such as his partner in any battle.  What’s more, she was a Warrior ingenaire now!  He had to have her at his side, and he didn’t doubt that the two of them would be a match for any opponent they would face.  But he wasn’t going to cavalierly accept her assertion that she was his soul mate; he’d not thought of her in that fashion up to the last moment he remembered , and he couldn’t force his heart to think of her differently now . 
    She was a Black Crag guard, someone who had the confidence of a person traine d to battle.  And she was young - of course, everyone was young compared to him , but at least someone like Salem had some experience of life, some sense of what had shaped them and some sense of what their shape was.  That wasn’t the Andi he had observed on the road through the mountains , a girl who was impetuous and abrasive at times . 
    And she had a handsome nobleman obviously smitten with her, hoping for any sign of acceptance from her, actively fishing for clues as to how he could clear all obstacles from his path to her heart.  Yet she made her inexplicable claims about the deep, Spiritual ties between the two of them, and buttressed the credibility of her claims with the obscure facts she knew about him.  It all seemed impossible!
    Alec felt adrift.  He wanted his memories back.  He wanted to know what to expect. He wanted to know the contours of the ground he stood upon.  He continued to wander, until he saw the shadows lengthening, then he turned and walked back to the great house he was staying in.  He was tired, he realized.  He had been tiring even before he turned around, the effect of his body having lain prone and unmoving for so many days.  When he returned to the home of Amane’s family he went straight to his room in the west wing, and laid down on his bed.  Within moments he was asleep, his mind still processing the unknown new world in which he found himself, dreaming uneasy dreams.
    When he returned to the house, Andi was already there, alternately stewing and worrying about discovering that she had been evicted from his room.  She had gone there when she returned from another garden tour, discovered her things missing, and asked the maid what was amiss.
    “Miss Andi, the Lord Alec asked that your things be sent back to your room,” the maid had told her.
    Andi had been shocked by the action, but Alec was gone, and nobody knew where he had gone, so she could not ask him what he did or why.  She could tell where he was; as she had gone on her pleasant garden tour, she had discovered that she could once again find A lec’s location through the mind- connection they shared, or that she shared with him, a sad and empty one-way conduit of feelings and knowledge now.  When she returned to the house she knew he was not there.  She had sat in her room and stewed over the eviction, then gone to sit down quietly for an early dinner with Casse, Amane, and Tarry, as was her habit.
    She felt Alec’s return while she ate, and she excused herself from the small talk at the table early, skipping dessert, to go talk to the man she loved.  But there was no answer when she knocked on his door, and when she opened it and entered the gloomy chamber, Alec was already asleep on his mattress.  She sighed, and pulled his boots off his feet, then left and returned to the dining room.
    “What time will we leave tomorrow?” she asked Tarry.
    “Mid-morning, or at