What Travels Faster

Morning in the southern valley arrived without kindness.

The sun rose hot and unfiltered, bleaching color from the land as if even light were rationed here. Alina woke to the sound of coughing nearby, dry and relentless, the kind that scraped at the throat long after sleep should have eased it. She lay still for a moment, listening, orienting herself not to the palace bells of home but to the low murmur of voices and the restless shuffle of feet outside the tent.

The valley was already awake.

She sat up and pushed the canvas flap aside. Smoke hung low in the air, trapped by stillness. Cooking fires burned with little enthusiasm, their flames thin and stubborn. A woman knelt nearby, stirring a pot of porridge so watery it barely clung to the spoon.

“They say you came without the Crown,” the woman said without looking up.

“Yes,” Alina replied.

“They say that means it failed.”

Alina watched the porridge bubble weakly. “They say many things.”

The woman finally lifted her head. Her eyes were sharp, not unkind. “My daughter drank from the well yesterday,” she said. “She is worse today.”

“I know,” Alina said. “I tasted it.”

The woman studied her for a long moment, then nodded once. “Then you did not lie.”

That was how it went.

Truth did not soothe. It did not inspire. But it marked something clean between them.

By midmorning, the camp had grown restless. People gathered not in reverence but in proximity, drawn by rumor as much as need. Alina moved among them slowly, listening, asking, kneeling when asked, standing when confronted. She did not hurry her answers. She did not dress them up.

At a crossroads near the river, voices rose.

“You listen,” a man said, his tone sharp with frustration. “But listening does not fill our jars.”

Another voice cut in. “You promised nothing. That is worse.”

Alina raised her hands, not to quiet them, but to show them she was present. “I will not perform hope,” she said. “I will not trade truth for patience.”

A woman near the front folded her arms. “Then what are you here for?”

The question landed hard, sharp enough to draw blood if she let it.

“To understand what must change before miracles are asked for,” Alina said.

The words did not satisfy.

A man laughed sharply. “That sounds like delay.”

“It is work,” Alina replied.

The crowd thinned without resolution, their disappointment carried away like dust on the wind.

By the time the sun reached its height, riders had passed through the valley twice. They did not stop. They did not ask questions. They carried stories instead.

Some said Alina had refused the Crown out of fear.

Others said the Crown had rejected her.

A few said the Vigil had been staged to buy time.

Each version spread faster than the last.

Alina felt it in the way people looked at her now. Not with hope. With appraisal. With calculation.

Hope, once awakened, did not wait patiently.

By late afternoon, a delegation arrived from a neighboring settlement. They did not greet her. They stood in a tight line, arms crossed, faces set.

“You have come too late,” one of them said.

Alina nodded. “Yes.”

That was not the answer they expected.

“You come without the Crown,” another said. “Without power.”

“I come with my word,” Alina replied.

The first man snorted. “Words do not stop drought.”

“No,” Alina said. “But lies will make it worse.”

They left without further exchange.

As evening fell, Cael returned from the road. Dust coated his boots, his cloak darkened with sweat. His expression was grave.

“Rumors are ahead of us now,” he said quietly. “They say you are stalling. They say the Crown failed you.”

Alina closed her eyes briefly. The words stung, even though she had expected them. “Then the testing has begun.”

Cael studied her face in the firelight. “Do you regret coming?”

She shook her head. “No.”

That surprised her with its certainty.

The fire crackled. Somewhere beyond the camp, a child cried, then quieted.

Alina stared into the flames, feeling the weight of the path she had chosen settle more firmly on her shoulders.

Hope had awakened.

Now it was being tested.

Not in halls of power, but in dust and hunger and fear.

And Alina understood, with a clarity that both steadied and frightened her, that the next phase had begun not with triumph, but with resistance.

With truth walking into uncertainty without armor.

With a Crown that refused to be controlled.

And with a promise that would demand more of her than courage alone.

Night deepened.

Voices rose again, this time sharper, more fractured. An argument broke out near the edge of the camp. Alina moved toward it instinctively.

“They say the palace hoards grain,” a man shouted.

“They say the Crown sleeps because she is unworthy,” another answered.

“They say she chose silence,” a woman hissed.

Alina stopped.

The last words cut deeper than the rest.

She did not correct them.

Not yet.

To explain now would not heal. It would fracture.

She turned back toward the fire, heart pounding, pulse loud in her ears.

Cael watched her closely. “You cannot carry every accusation alone.”

“I am not,” Alina said softly. “But I will not run from them.”

The wind picked up, scattering sparks from the fire. Ash drifted briefly, glowing, then vanished into the dark.

Rumors did not need fuel. They needed space.

And space was everywhere.

Before dawn, a messenger arrived breathless, eyes wide with urgency.

“The road ahead is blocked,” he said. “People are gathering. Not to welcome you.”

Alina straightened slowly. Fear flickered through her, quick and bright, then steadied.

“Then we will meet them,” she said.

The messenger hesitated. “They are angry.”

“So am I,” Alina replied. “But anger is not the same as violence.”

Not always.

She looked out at the darkened valley, at the faint glow of distant fires marking villages that waited for relief that had not yet arrived.

Hope had been awakened.

Now it was being shaped by voices she could not control.

And she knew, with a certainty that tightened her chest, that whatever came next would not be decided by miracles.

It would be decided by whose story traveled faster.