Chapter 9: Aldrath Falls Ill, and the Fellowship Splinters Slightly

The morning Aldrath fell was also the morning we found the second set of wheel-ruts, which I note not because the two events were connected but because the coincidence of timing was, in retrospect, characteristic of the Greywood's particular sense of irony.

We had been three days past the Thornwall, moving along a track that Caelen navigated from memory and which I had been reconciling, with moderate success, against Aldrath's provided route. The track ran between silver-barked trees that grew more sparsely here, the Greywood thinning toward its eastern boundary, and the light had improved to a quality that resembled, if not actual sunlight, at least the memory of it. I had noted, that morning, that the shadows were falling in the correct directions again. This seemed worth recording.

Aldrath was in the cart.