By the time the last roof disappeared behind them, Iven had stopped listening for the town.
There were other sounds to hear.
Water traveled beneath the road’s shallow ice. Wind moved through the dead grasses on the upper bank. Somewhere out of sight, a little loose stone kept ticking down a slope long after the foot that disturbed it had gone.
Kesh heard that too.
“Goat,” she said.
“I didn’t ask.”
“You were about to look like you were asking.”
Elian smiled into his scarf and kept walking.
