Lithian nodded mutely. He felt largely fine, physically. It was the emotional impact of it all that threw him, but it wasn’t his family — not directly — and so he had no right to make himself any more of a burden on Casseth or Kilian. They both had more than enough to deal with. Thus, he shoved his reactions aside as best he could, pushing a thin, forced smile into place and mounting with the automatic, practiced ease of someone who knew the motions well enough to perform them without thought.

They rode for hours, until night had long passed, and stopped for the night when they must have already been close to shore. There, after gathering firewood for the night, Lithian tended to Kilian’s wounds to the best of his ability, and the following morning, they rode the remaining distance out to the docks on Soudul’s southern shore, and caught the first boat back to Eowyn. Though Casseth did not take the ride any more smoothly than he had the previous time, Lithian, for his part, was more grateful than he could express in words to be back over the open ocean, and when they landed on Eowyn, Lithian was quite sure it was the happiest he’d ever been to see nothing but desert before him.