Several days after Blaide's return and Coult's recovery, I was standing at the rail of a ship watching the shoreline disappear from view. It was a compromise between Coult's desire that I should stay ensconced in an inn and my desire that I should be the one to make the journey and pay whatever price was necessary so that I could in some way make up my failure to Cennerun.
Taking this part of the journey by ship had actually lengthened our overall travel time by about two weeks. It was much less direct than going by land would have been, but supposedly we would run into fewer perils than the road had presented us with.
I watched the water surge below me and felt nothing but doubt.
Nothing but doubt and a clenching in my gut. I turned my gaze swiftly back to the horizon, hoping that I would get used to the rocking motion of the ship before too long.
Sighing at this latest turn of events, I allowed my mind to carry me back to the evening of the day Blaide had returned. After overhearing Blaide and Coult's brief conversation it hadn't come as a surprise to me when, over dinner, Coult suggested that he might go on alone.
"I don't think so," I objected coolly. Perverseness led me to ask the next question. "Why would you even suggest such a thing?"
He had exchanged a look with Blaide. "Blaide is concerned about your health," he prevaricated.
I cocked an eyebrow.
"We both are."
"As I recall," I countered smoothly, having already had enough time to formulate my response to this proposal, "I am not the one who was in a coma recently." Blaide's lips quirked upwards in a smile and I fixed him with a stern look as well. "Nor was I bashed over the head with a rock recently. There is nothing the matter with me and if you two can keep out of trouble, I might not have so many distractions to keep me from eating or sleeping properly."
Just that easily, I had won the battle. Trust Coult to figure out some way to win the war.
The boat rocked under me again, turning my stomach as sour as my thoughts. A moment later, I had to lean over the rail, keeping in mind the captain's friendly warning to heed the direction of the wind.
Grimacing as I dabbed gingerly at my mouth with the back of my hand, I became aware of a presence nearby. I turned my head slightly to discover Coult standing a few paces down from me, his eyes also on the horizon. The sea breeze lifted and toyed with his long hair and I found myself swallowing deeply.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stay angry with the man.
Turning my eyes away, I resumed my study of the shoreline, now just barely visible as a smudge against the sky. We sailed north in silence.
The time aboard ship did prove to be rather uneventful. My stomach gradually adjusted to the pitch and roll of the deck and we were not attacked by pirates, caught in storms or otherwise imperiled. I was able to maintain a cordial distance with both Coult and Blaide and although the sailors often looked in my direction, their captain was strict enough that they kept to their tasks and left me in peace.
I spent my days walking the length of the deck, being careful to stay out of the way of any activity and spent at least an hour every afternoon dueling with Coult. When I was not doing those two things, I kept to my small hole of a cabin and to my thoughts.
For all the idyllic nature of this leg of the journey, I do believe had we been at sea any longer than we were I might have gone a bit mad from the tedium.
Stepping back ashore felt strange to my legs and the sailors laughed at me as I departed, held steady by Blaide's hand underneath my elbow. Our horses and few provisions were offloaded swiftly and with only the barest of pauses at the fishing village's marketplace for supplies and the news all travelers sought, we set back off.
In only a few hours, the journey resumed something of its former feeling of freedom. The road was far less intimate than a room at an inn or the confines of a ship could ever be and Coult and I resumed our polite distance from each other. These weeks on the road were also uneventful for the most part and we reached the northern town of Isainn just as spring faded and summer bloomed.
We were in mountainous country now, with tall and fragrant pines surrounding the road as we ascended. As each day passed, Coult grew more and more grim.
"Hanani should still be in these parts," he disclosed a few days before we hit Isainn. "I doubt it has grown too remote for him."
Blaide and I exchanged glances at the cryptic statement, but as Coult did not seem to want to discuss anything relating to Hanani neither of us pressed him for an explanation.
We arrived late in the day at Isainn and found a very small community of farmers and trappers. They did boast a small inn, but it clearly made most of its trade from selling goods to the local townsfolk, for the store on the first floor had a few people browsing its wares as we requested a room for the next several nights.
Once we had gained our room, a cramped affair made worse by the fact that we were all to share it, Coult brusquely dismissed Blaide and myself to find something to eat for dinner. He was going to ask a few questions around town to gather what news he could of the mysterious Hanani .
Once again, Coult's very bearing seemed to forbid either of us asking any further questions. Blaide and I purchased a poor dinner from the inn's serving room and ate it in silence. The sense of excitement that had been rising in me as we had approached our final destination was now thoroughly dampened.
What if we had come all this way for nothing?
I refused to let the question past my lips but that didn't keep it from circling my thoughts on endless repeat.
After we had finished eating, Blaide and I returned to our room in silence and made desultory conversation for another few hours. Coult did not return before sleep claimed me, and I went to my dreams fitfully, my mind filled with foreboding.
In the morning, I awoke to the sound of rain drumming overhead on the roof. I sat up and glanced around the dim room, relieved to see that Coult had eventually made his way back. He looked tense, even in his sleep and I redoubled worrying and wondering what it was about Hanani that had Coult so on edge.
Not wishing to disturb either of the men in the room, I lay back against my flat pillow and stared at the ceiling, hardly noticing when the room grew slightly brighter with the coming of morning. The rain drummed on steadily but did nothing to soothe me back to sleep. There seemed to be an implicit urgency in the sound that would not allow for rest.
At last, the men began stirring, one of them disturbing the other as they shared a mattress. Within a few minutes, both were awake and stretching. I tried not to stare, but I couldn't help but dart glances in Coult's direction every few moments. He looked tired and unkempt, his hair in wild disarray and several days behind on shaving. My thoughts of Hanani and Cennerun fled in the face of my fierce desire to somehow care for him, to see him happy and at ease.
After a bit of initial awkwardness amongst us all, we managed to settle back into some semblance of our morning routine. Within a quarter hour, we were dressed and headed downstairs in hopes of a better quality of breakfast than dinner had been the night before. In this, we were disappointed.
By unspoken consent, we waited until we had settled around a table and put in our orders for a meal to the slovenly man who waited on us. Coult eyed the man as he retreated to the kitchens and then waited a few moments longer before he sighed heavily and opened the conversation.
"Hanani is still in the area," he started. "His place is a bit out of town, but easy enough to reach." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and then cleared his throat. "I've been debating since Stormwind whether or not it would be advisable for anyone other than myself to see him. He is… not a good person.
"However, I know him well enough to believe that he will want to hear firsthand our reason for coming and in that event it would be safer for us to go in numbers."
Blaide and I exchanged a quick glance and I was opening my mouth to speak even as Blaide beat me to the question that had been on our minds with increasing frequency in the past few days. "Who is this Hanani to you, Coult?"
Coult's lips compressed into a thin line, but he looked aggrieved rather than annoyed. "He's my father," he said stiffly, and then sealed his lips again, as though holding back from saying anything more.
"Your father?" I repeated. "But then-"
"Do not ask about it," Coult warned. "Our past would make your relationship with your family look wonderful in comparison."
Chastened, I sat back, lowering my eyes in embarrassment. For as much as that answer explained Coult's recent behavior, it also invited a dozen other questions that I was clearly not welcome to ask. They ran through my mind anyhow, speculations about Coult's power and the sympathies he had shown for my familial situation.
Another part of my mind wondered at how I would feel at going back to my family, a group of people I had not missed in my years apart from them. I had long since grown out of my childish hurts and frustrations with them, but the very thought of returning to that farm made me squirm in discomfort. Whatever things existed between Coult and his father were clearly not forgotten or small matters. I was struck anew at how much Coult had sacrificed to come along on this quest with me, to save a man he neither knew nor cared about.
His motivations were a mystery to me. He clearly didn't want to face his father and there were no inducements offered for him to accompany us since he practically hated me and, when Coult had agreed to help, Blaide had been a stranger.
"You should both keep silent as much as possible," Coult advised us now. "Especially about the extent of your powers." He fixed me with a look that made me think the warning had been more for me. "Hanani has always craved power above everything and there is nothing he would not do to obtain more."
He paused as the waiter brought us our food, slinging the plates onto the table with a carelessness that threatened to spill half their contents onto the grimy table.
I waited only for him to get a few steps away before muttering under my breath about my eagerness to leave Isainn far behind.
Blaide and Coult didn't comment but I thought I caught the ghost of a nod from Coult. My heart tugged in my chest again and I impulsively bent my magic in his direction, even knowing that it could do nothing to in and of itself for his emotional state. But he sensed it and flicked me a small smile that seemed to convey thanks before he bent to his meal.
We spoke little throughout the rest of the hurried meal, focusing instead on choking down the bland offering and doing what we could to taste as little of it as possible.
Then it was time to go petition Hanani for his aid and I found myself suddenly breathless with renewed anticipation. With Coult's warnings and mood still fresh in my mind, I worked to display what I hoped was a passive visage. After all, I reminded myself as I swung into my saddle, Hanani might very well not help at all.
An eternity and a breath later, we were approaching Hanani's dwelling, a smallish cottage that could have housed a doting grandmother or a newly married couple but which seemed unlikely to harbor a man as grasping and evil as Coult had implied. Coult frowned at it, but did not seem surprised by its appearance.
"Remember what I said about saying as little as possible," he warned as we dismounted in the yard before the door. He had been punctuating our entire ride out with such reminders and dire mutterings. He had frightened me then, but looking at the cottage, I began to wonder whether he was exaggerating his father's bad qualities.
Stepping up to the door, Coult rapped on it firmly, his face a mask of calm that I knew was forced. I looked to Blaide and caught a glimmer of puzzlement in his eyes. He was also wondering at Coult's description, but I knew he would never voice it.
At length, the door opened to reveal a man who looked so much like Coult that he might have been an older brother. There was more gray in this man's hair and his face was more heavily lined but they had the same dark eyes and the same facial structure. Hanani was, I decided, not an unattractive man. This made it even more impossible for me to believe Coult's account.
"Coulter," Hanani greeted his son, even his voice sounding much like his son's. His tone was faintly sardonic, but not remotely surprised. "I thought you had informed me you were never going to see me again."
From my place at Coult's side, I could easily see the way his eyes narrowed and the firm set of his jaw as he clenched his teeth.
"Believe me, it was my intention not to do so."
"And who are these people?" Hanani asked, swinging his gaze to take Blaide and me in. He seemed to ignore Coult's obvious dislike, relaxing against his doorframe with his arms folded across his chest. "Brought a wife home to meet me, have you?"
Coult's voice grew icy as my own cheeks flamed red. "Hardly that. This young woman came to the Cathedral seeking assistance for a friend. Blaide accompanied her for safety."
I couldn't help but notice that my name was not provided, along with anything that indicated Coult had known me or been my mentor.
Hanani made a scoffing sound, straightening from his relaxed posture and eyeing me more keenly. "Don't take me for a fool, boy," he said to his son. "But I can see you are trying to protect her from me." He leered briefly, making me shiver in response.
"You might as well all come in," Hanani continued, hardly missing a beat and turning his back to all of us as he moved to go back inside his cottage. "If nothing else it should be interesting to hear what it is that made you forswear your vows, boy. Oh, and I have another sister for you to meet, while you're here."
Having delivered all of this in a perfectly offhand manner, it took me a moment to catch the meaning of his words. When I did, I turned to gape at Coult who was frozen with some emotion – rage or shock, I couldn't tell.
I could sense a storm brewing inside of Coult, one of magic and power. He set his jaw and strode after his father, a man clearly heading to do battle.
Feeling suddenly small and frightened myself, I darted a look to Blaide for support, but he had also turned tense, his eyes fixated on a window left of the door. Bewildered, I looked to it even as we all obediently followed Hanani into his house and was shocked to see the face of the mysterious mute girl smirking back at me.