The trip back to the palace only took about a week from the noble’s home, and Iztris only wanted to spend a day or two there before heading out. Alyson and Jacob both tried to convince Iztris to take them, for whatever reason—Alyson likely just wanted to see a place that was normally not considered in politics and diplomacy, and Jacob outright said that he didn’t feel like doing schoolwork.

Iztris wanted to spend some time on their own, but a few minutes before they decided to leave the palace, Alyson came outside to where Iztris had opted to hide. “Father and I just came across a few reports,” she said fairly evenly.

“Are they important?” Iztris asked.

“A few towns have said that they’ve seen a group that seems to be traveling south,” Alyson said dutifully. “All of the reports say something about their leader not fighting, and it seems like they’re all the same group. Is that enough to let us come with you?”

Iztris sighed. “You are aware that, logically, it makes more sense to deal with all of one continent before moving on to another?”

“The only towns that have been attacked so far are the ones with generally poor reputations,” Alyson said a bit less firmly than earlier. “We only ran into one group of thieves in Relan, and even then they’re likely to have been with the other servant. That servant could be trying to kill the criminals first? You’ve said before that they’re not exactly a strategist.”

The argument made sense, even if the actions being argued weren’t. Iztris understood, however, that whatever they did would fail to convince Alyson otherwise. They sighed. “All right—if you won’t ask too many odd questions and know you won’t shy away while we’re there, you two can come with me to Letrela. Go get your brother.”

Alyson nodded and went back into the castle. Iztris waited without any further protests; two other people added a few days onto the trip that was already over a month long. On the other hand, however, there was conversation, so at least they weren’t traveling in silence. Iztris couldn’t say they were entirely pleased, but at least one thing made up for the other; they never could do much of anything without some kind of talking they could ignore.

For the most part, given the location of Cheryn’s capital they didn’t have to go far before they got to the coast; about two weeks due to the time they had to linger at night. The longest part overall was traveling overseas, which took a little over a month.

When they got to Letrela, it was Alyson and Jacob that didn’t seem to fit in; people from Cheryn were in the ports, manning ships coming in or going out with goods or people, but in every other place there wouldn’t be a relatively even ratio.

“Keep your weapons close,” Iztris told the other two as they left the ship and walked into the town, “But try not to look like you want to use them. People were defensive of strangers when I was here last—I can imagine they only would have grown more cautious in time.”

The other two nodded, and saying that it was still the morning they kept on walking through the town. As Iztris led, Jacob opted to hold a kind of conversation. “Do you remember what this place was like when you lived here?” Jacob asked curiously.

“As in, what Letrela was like in general?” Iztris replied, glancing back at the prince for a moment. When Jacob nodded, Iztris faced forward again. “I remember more about it from my time as a servant, to be honest. Letrela was separated into several small villages—those closer to the shore were the ones who fought and waged war, while the rest of us more-or-less supplied them with meat, furs, weapons, and such. My family was in a kind of ‘community,’ instead of a village—it was seen as ‘traditional’ back then, so I can’t say it would have happened to survive to this day. I barely left the area, if I left at all.”

“Were you as scowl-y as you are now?” Jacob asked humorously.

Iztris shook their head. “No; there were just certain rules the family had to follow. You had to be a certain age before you could travel—you had to be two or three years older to travel alone. I was about Jacob’s age, so I wasn’t old enough to travel by myself.”

“Wait,” Alyson said. She walked a bit quicker so she was next to Iztris, then asked a bit incredulously, “You were seventeen when you died?”

Iztris only paused for a second. “Sixteen, actually,” they replied simply.

“Wow, that’s…young,” Jacob noted, losing whatever humor he had earlier. “How did you actually die?”

Alyson fell back to her brother’s pace, hissed his name quietly, and judging from his murmured complaint of pain she must have hit him lightly. Iztris sighed. “It’s all right. I wanted for a similar reason, so I don’t mind.” They paused, and simply said, “There was a fire lit by some group or another; either one of the more militant families or some group that Letrela had wronged in their conquests. No one died in the fire itself, but I was in the midst of most of it—aside from being burned, I had inhaled quite a bit of smoke. I was dead by that next morning.”

Both of the other two understandably fell silent, and Iztris didn’t say any more. To be honest…with all the time that’s past, it barely bothered them anymore. So much has happened since then.