Free The Wild Road by Jennifer Roberson Page A

her, shook her, weakened her knees. She was altogether, and suddenly, hungry. Thirsty. Utterly exhausted.
    Nausea rose. Ilona pressed both trembling hands against her mouth. No, no — please, no .
    She ran. Shaking, shivering, hungry and not, in need of privacy. In need of a bath. In need of . . . something . Something as yet unrecognizable.
    She had been dead. She had been murdered. Yet lived.
    Shoia, Rhuan said. That was the glib explanation; and the only one, he said, that others would understand. He was not Shoia, nor the courier, but she apparently was.
    Shoia .
    She had no idea what it actually meant, to be Shoia. Or if, beyond offering a person seven lives, it meant anything at all.
    As Ilona reached her wagon parked beneath one of the old-growth giants, she stopped at the bottom of the steps. Nausea subsided. Now she had time to send an appeal skyward, something unconnected to her mundane belly but wholly connected to emotions, particularly self-doubt: Oh Mother, help me . Guide me in this .
    She climbed the steps into a wagon, no longer tidy in the wake of the earth’s violent upheaval. For a moment she stood just inside the door, noting with empty interest the tumbled array of belongings and supplies spilled across the floorboards, across the blankets she and Rhuan had shared. But her chaotic surroundings were of no moment. Other concerns filled her mind.
    Slowly, she folded her shaking body and sat down on the blankets. She pulled the coverlet from the floorboards, from under those things fallen. She wrapped it around her, clutched it close, but could not still her trembling.
    She had Rhuan . . . was that not enough, to have the man she desired?
    No. It was not.
    Too much, too much in her mind. Time, now, to parse the thoughts and realizations gathering behind her eyes.
    She hugged the coverlet, hugged the body beneath it, and felt tears rising.
    Ilona let them fall.
    THE FARMSTEADER MENTIONED the need to relieve himself, so Rhuan was alone as he climbed the steps into the family’s wagon. He paused just inside the door, noting that the contents of the tall, huge-wheeled conveyance were no longer set perfectly into their places, as was required to host two adults and five children. And the rib-supported canopy listed to one side, as if the earth’s shaking had pushed everything out of true.
    At the front of the wagon, wood planking formed a large, elevated platform. Atop it lay thin, straw-stuffed mattresses, muslin sheets, and a tangle of coverlets. Room for four children, Rhuan realized, but the boards had shifted and were no longer evenly aligned. Trunks filled the area beneath the platform. A child’s cloth doll lay face down in the center aisle.
    The wagon shifted as the farmsteader climbed up, ducking his head to avoid the ribs overhead. He paused, then gestured Rhuan to take a seat upon the bedding platform. He himself sat down upon the floor crosslegged. As Davyn picked up the doll, Rhuan saw that his hands shook. A quick glance at his face betrayed tears in the man’s eyes.
    A wholly human compassion rose in Rhuan. He shoved the platform boards back into order, then sat down. “It is the truth, what I’ve told you. They are safe.”
    But that was not enough. Not for husband and father. He saw it in Davyn’s eyes as tears dried.
    Rhuan moistened his lips, drew in a breath that fully expanded his lungs, and continued. “It is true that Alisanos occasionally gives up what it has taken almost immediately, but we simply cannot assume that will happen in this case. Hope, yes; of course we will hope, but we must not be frantic with it.”
    â€œâ€˜We,’” Davyn echoed. Something glinted in his eyes, something akin to a potent anger suppressed, and Rhuan realized he had erred in words meant to reassure. “ ‘We’ assume nothing,” the farmsteader declared flatly, with a sting in every word, “and I will indeed hope, and