Sample:

Agane met every day of exile with anticipation and grateful delight.

Each bright tahwake promised novelty and beauty. Delicious uncertainty. New vistas, new sounds and smells, and colors, and light.

The wide world!

Nearly the breadth of Kaebrith these past twenty-odd tala; by cabinwagon and boat and fieldtrodder and, when her illness insisted, in the cradle of Dennick’s arms, she had watched it and felt it and breathed it all in.

All these days, tahwake to tahrest, Tala racing and skipping forth and back between the uncountable embers of the night sky… all these generous days with her heartfast at her side, he often taciturn, sometimes garrulous, always tender, careful, and brave. So brave.

Back in Aenikantag, where she had been caged in their home as her freedom and independence contracted, she had raged against the path she trod, crowded by the progression of the illness that held her in place body and mind and heart alike.

Now, Agane accepted and even embraced the toll each day demanded. Their home was this cabinwagon, and the road Dennick so gingerly navigated, and the land… and no matter how much infirmary and pain the Wasting delivered, there were always, everywhere, opportunities for joy.

They were nearly to Old Mound at last, where Kug believed they would find the magn from his youthful past. This memory of Kug’s, Nakanin, had been trained by a wisdom rider from the Alliance of Clans, and his faith that she could cure Agane was resolute.

So their exile was more than a surprising and fortuitous gift of experience. It was a quest.

Especially for Dennick and Kug.

Agane was far from certain this magn, if indeed, she could be tracked through the overgrown paths of Kug’s thirty year-old recollection, could do anything for her at all.

The journey was enough.

Nearly.

She imagined the atrophied cords of her neck and thinning bones of her spine moving her head to look at her heartfast sitting beside her on the wagon bench. Slowly, her wasted flesh grudgingly consented to her intention.

Dennick watched the road, carefully guiding their plainstrodders even as he chatted with her and Kug, who strode alongside the wagon.

Dennick, she knew, held fast to faith.

That, Agane understood, made Kug nervous, though their friend hid it well.

Agane loved Dennick. What else could she do, in love, other than allow his hope to steer them all? His purpose kept him strong, and safe.

If Kug’s healer could be found—if the magn had the lore Kug so confidently assigned her—then it was no folly to believe.

If not…

Well.

Agane was grateful for these days.