Chapter 341: If Only.

Chapter 341: Chapter 341: If Only.

It’s a long standing joke around the castle that Montrel is not known for his brains.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

But while he might not be the sharpest knife in the kitchen, so to speak, he’s also not completely stupid.

​That’s why, when Loac had asked him when he was next on watch at the gates, he already had an inkling of what was to come.

Of what kind of favour he had in mind.

And he could’ve lied. Probably should’ve, considering their history and the obvious brand of favour.

But there are some things that are more important than any amount of bad blood, and since three days was the truth, three days was what he’d told him.

​"Then in three days, I’m gonna go for a ride," Loac had told him; expression dark, and voice dipped low, and Montrel had gotten the distinct impression that more than asking for a favour, Loac had been delivering him an order .

"...And when you see me comin’, you’re gonna look away. And you ain’t gonna look back til I’m gone."

​If Montrel had three guesses as to why, he’d probably only need one.

​It’s why, when he sees the horse coming, he looks away.

​...

​Hood pulled down low over his face, Khobi doesn’t see the gate opening, but over the heavy drumming of hoofbeats he still hears it.

Of all his ventures out beyond the castle walls, this is definitely the most brazen way, and as they draw closer his heart starts to hammer in his chest, beating away so loud it feels like the guard up on the wall will hear it.

Loac hadn’t seemed worried, but if they stop him –if they see that there are two of them stealing away on horseback –then he’s so fucked. There’d be no explaining that away. Not to the king.

​But they don’t stop him.

Loac’s horse barely even breaks stride, like they’ve seen them coming and have cleared the way, and just like that, they’re free.

​"Relax!" Loac hollers, as they wheel down towards the city, spraying up clods of dirt and mud in their wake, and Khobi realises with a flash of embarrassment just how tightly he’d been squeezing him.

​Easy for you to say , Khobi wants to snap back, eyes clenched tightly shut and his cheek pressed tight into the space between his shoulder blades as Loac maneuvers the snowy dirt roads like these are paths he’s taken many times before.

It feels like if he eases up even a little he’s going to be left behind, but as he gradually starts to grow used to the way the horse moves, he pulls back just enough to catch a view of the city as they fly on by.

And it’s a very different beast from the one he’d seen in the evenings of late summer or in the dead of a winter’s night, but a beast all the same, bustling with everyday townsfolk wrapped up warm and trudging about their everyday business.

​Despite the snow the streets they pass by and through are lively and full of sound.

​It’s a lot more colourful than he’d expected, and he finds himself wondering what it might be like to visit it properly, one day.

​The thought is fleeting though; whisked away in a moment, because the moment they reach the edge of the city, the wind of the wild rushes into his lungs, and suddenly nothing else matters but what lies beyond.

Because what lies beyond is a sea of nothing but pure, untouched white, and for all the winters spent on mountaintops, this is like nothing Khobi has ever seen.

​All this time, he’d thought he hated the plains that stretched out around the castle, because for someone who so yearned for the fathomless heights of the mountains, they were so eternally, depressingly flat, but as sunlight breaks through the clouds the white expanse of the wilderness beyond glistens like it’s filled with stars.

And as they break into a gallop across this different kind of sky; white spraying up in their wake and Khobi’s heavy winter cloak billowing out around him, their horse raises his head and brays out to the heavens, and he suddenly feels weightless.

Like at any moment they’re going to leave the ground. Maybe they’re already flying, he’s not sure.

The grey sky fades to white as it nears the horizon, so there’s just no telling where exactly the land meets the sky.

​"...You feel it too, don’t you?" he thinks he hears Loac say, and without even needing to ask, Khobi knows exactly what he’s talking about.

​The wilderness, spurring them on; calling them.

​Welcoming them home.

​And with the sound of hoofbeats drumming upon the ground and in his chest, and with the winter wind stinging his face and the wind rushing in his ears as loud and as fierce as if he were standing on a mountaintop with a storm raging around him, Khobi throws back his head and laughs.

​The wind snatches it and swallows it the moment it leaves his lips, but he thinks Loac still hears it anyways.

...

Eventually even the city vanishes behind them, swallowed up by white like it had never existed in the first place, and as they ride it’s easy to pretend that is doesn’t.

This far beyond the city the snow is still fresh; perfect and undisturbed, like it’s been patiently waiting all winter for them.

Out here there are no kings, no bloodshed, no walls; just them and sky above and the snow below and the expanse of the wild opening up beneath them.

​Khobi’s chest has never felt lighter.

​(He could get used to this.)

​He wonders what it might be like in summer; riding across a sea of green with the sky clear and blue above, and the hot summer wind on his face.

​He wonders if he could learn to ride a horse of his own one day.

​Although , he thinks, arms loose around Loac’s waist, this isn’t so bad, I guess.

​But for how endless they appear, the plains eventually end, yielding to rolling hills, and by the time Loac finally lets up the pace, Khobi sight of a treeline, looming up amongst the hills in the distance.

The smell hits him long before they reach the forest itself though, and it’s one that makes his chest lurch and makes him clench his hands into the loose furs hanging around Loac’s chest.

Because even though it’s been years, he still remembers that smell like it was only yesterday.

​Home .

​As they grow closer, Loac brings them first to a trot and then slower again, and Khobi suddenly realises that he’s been holding his breath; waiting, searching the treeline.

Most of them are still bare; sleeping through the winter, but as the pick their way through the trees, swaying with the steady stride of their horse, Khobi catches a glimpse of some that are still green.

It’s a sight that fills him with an odd sense of peace.

They’re the same kind that used to grow in the mountains.

And if he closes his eyes and breathes deep, with the chill winter air on his cheeks and the heavy scent of evergreen drowning his nose and his head, it’s so, so easy to imagine that he need only open his eyes again and he’ll wake up back on that mountaintop with his uncle by his side like these years spent apart have been nothing but a bad dream.

​(If only.)

But when Khobi opens his eyes and to Loac’s stern profile peering off into the distance; head held high and one hand loosely wrapped up in the reins, it doesn’t feel quite so much like a bad dream after all.