Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 154

Chapter 154: The Search
The nights grew longer. Anaisa held Ewan as much as she could, seemingly enraptured with his tiny baby features.

Trace watched her with unaccountably potent emotion. When she smiled at the infant, her face seemed to be lit from the inside with joy. It was nigh irresistible.

Images filtered through his thoughts. He pictured her, standing and looking at him, half a dozen children of varying sizes holding to her skirts, the littlest in her arms, all looking like blends of Trace and his wife.

Longing. He finally named the feeling.

He longed for that future with Anaisa. Things didn’t progress between them, other than the fact that she grew more comfortable with his casual touches. When he held her hand, she would entwine her fingers in his. When they handed items back and forth, they both lingered a moment.

But while they were awake, they were with other people, and they never slept at the same time.

As much as he would prefer otherwise, they still needed to keep watch. Oakdown was crafty, and unlikely to simply let them leave without repercussions.

At the last town they traveled through, the news of the princess’s upcoming marriage had been posted and was the subject of much talk. They needed to work quickly.

Trace worried about what explanation would be given about the royal physician’s sudden departure on the same day that the Princess’s bodyguard was dismissed and her maid disappeared.

There was also the matter of Deborah. If she had been wanted so badly by the Count, then wouldn’t he have had her watched or followed? That worried Trace. Anaisa had taken care of Conlan for the time being, but if there were a separate spy who saw Deborah meet up with them and leave the city…

Well, at least they didn’t reveal Ewan until they were out into the forest.

Still, Oakdown would know they were up to something, and would be out to stop them. The best case scenario was that he thought Trace simply wanted to escape, and perhaps flee to another country for refuge from what was sure to be a tyrannical regime.

But Trace couldn’t do that in good conscience.

Ewan, against all the doctor’s predictions, was holding onto life, if only barely. He was smaller than Trace knew a baby could be, but he ate regularly and took the medicine the doctor made.

In a few days, they were past the forest and drawing ever-closer to the land where Trace grew up.

The feeling was bittersweet. He knew he couldn’t go home; it would endanger his family to be seen with them. Yet, there was comfort in the growing familiarity of the world around him. The city had been different, and the palace still more strange.

To be surrounded by stone and colored glass and fine furniture was a novelty, not a way of life. He couldn’t live like that.

The going was slower than he wanted, but Ewan’s life took precedence over speed. It was over a week before they reached the area where Trace wanted to begin searching for the mysterious cave.

These outlying areas were not well-mapped, and Trace wished he had some official survey of the kingdom from the capital he could use for reference to begin his search, but he had to settle for a hand-drawn amateur map from one of the oldest men in the last town they went through.

Things near the border were sparsely populated, although if trade were ever established between their country and Foundrel, he imagined the river would become a very popular place to live.

As it was, the river often changed courses in rainy season, shifting the border between nations. That was the purported basis of the war; Foundrel’s claim of what land was theirs was based on the most extreme path the river had ever taken rather than its average.

Numerous aquatic avulsions over the past years made farming too close to the river dangerous; to plant crops only to have them wiped out in a flash flood or find your house in the river’s new path was out of the question if someone wanted to survive.

The river could all but disappear during dry season, adding to the unpredictability of the region. Trace’s parents, and most other farmers, depended on rain, wells, and irrigation to grow their crops.

And so, this hand-drawn map of the river’s current approximate position as a landmark was helpful, but not nearly as helpful as it should have been.

The landscape was treacherous; wide plains would suddenly give way to rock formations and eroded hills. It was beautiful, but not very conducive to thorough searches. During the days, Trace would often leave the others to ride in a wide search pattern. Covering far more ground alone than he could with the others, he returned by nightfall.

He was becoming anxious; time seemed to be running out. How close were they now to the royal wedding?

Topping another ridge, He sighed at the horizon. The sun would be setting soon. The air was crisp, and he shivered. Could Ewan last the winter without better shelter than the tent the little group had? Would they need to take him to Foundrel and live in hiding there until they found a better plan for taking back the country from the Count’s grasp?

If only King Harold could give him more instructions, or better ones. If only there was some way to communicate with him.

But that wasn’t possible with their current powers or abilities. To send a letter would accomplish nothing, and there would be no way to receive a reply without also alerting Oakdown to their location.

Feeling defeated, Trace went back to the camp and fell into his bedroll, exhausted. It was Anaisa’s turn to keep first watch, and so without even eating, he cast himself off into his dream world.

There was not much to it, despite his efforts at rebuilding. Barely half a continent, and not much detail to it yet. Few plants and fewer creatures. Perhaps he should work on more of the ocean…

He drifted to the edge of his dream world, ready to expand it, when he spotted something strange off in the distance…

A glowing, translucent orb.