"This is so pointless," Jason complained as they forced their way through some thick underbrush. "If we could just travel on the road then we'd probably have long since gotten through the mountains."
He walked just behind Vanya who led the way, and Nora who, as always, stayed on the demon's heels. Being able to have a conversation without opening his mouth was one benefit of having a companion that could read your mind.
"You keep saying that," the sparrow replied, "but you refuse to bring it up with Vanya again."
"That isn't entirely true." The sparrow gave him an irritatingly clear head tilt from where she sat on his shoulder. "Fine, I'll ask her again, but they're starting to like me again. I don't want to ruin it."
"Tolerate you is probably a better word," she said. "It's been days since you talked to anyone besides me, and you think that they like you? Besides," she said, sarcasm disappearing. "The only reason she even lets you walk with her is because you killed someone."
Jason didn't have an answer for that. Well, actually he did, and he had been wrestling with it for the last week in his head, which meant that the sparrow had gotten a front row seat to it. That was a drawback of having a companion who could read your mind.
The reality was that Jason did not feel bad about what he had done. The man, both of the men, had deserved what they got. Either one of them would have murdered Nora without a second thought if he hadn't done what he had. No, he didn't regret a single thing.
And that was what he was struggling with. He had killed a man. Two men, and one of them he'd killed with his bare hands. He no longer fought himself over whether that had been necessary. Had he had time to pick up the knife? Would it have been any better if he had killed both of them with the knife?
None of it really mattered because he had enjoyed killing the man. It wasn't the, "I want to do it again" kind of enjoyment, and he certainly did not want to do it again. Looking back on it, he couldn't understand how he had enjoyed it, or even really what it had felt like to enjoy it.
All he remembered was that he had wanted to keep killing him. He hadn't wanted to take his hands off the bandit's throat. The sparrow had been surprisingly understanding, saying that she didn't think less of him or blame him for it, but…
"You cannot keep putting words in my mouth like that," the sparrow interjected into his thoughts. "I do not blame you. I…I actually think that you did the correct thing."
"How can you know that for sure?" Jason said, unsure why he was arguing.
"I do not know for sure. I do not know anything for sure," she said, obviously agitated. "When you appeared, everything seemed so certain and obvious. I may not have known how or why things needed to be done, but I at least knew what needed to happen."
She seemed to be growing steadily more agitated. "I knew what should be and what should not be. I knew that demons would kill you on sight and that they were little more than unreasoning animals. I knew that killing was always wrong and that you should always find another way."
Her tiny form was trembling on his shoulder. "I know that you should not have killed that man, but I do not know what else you could have done. I know that killing is evil, but what do you do when every action you take ends in death? The world, I am finding, is a far more complicated place than I ever could have imagined."
"Welcome to the club," Jason thought wryly. She had slowly been opening up to him over the past week, and he felt he was growing to understand her better. Her existence had only started when Jason had appeared. She had no memories from before, but she was filled with knowledge. The imprint of a god like she had said.
It sounded terrifying to Jason. Normal people came into the world as children and slowly came to terms with how the world works and their existence. They were born knowing nothing, so everything they learned made a sort of sense.
The sparrow didn't have that. She had been born with knowledge that she knew made sense, but that conflicted with the way she was experiencing the world. She was experiencing all the revelations that a child should experience slowly as they grow up, without a child's innocence.
It was difficult for him to comprehend, so he avoided thinking about it. He needed to confront Vanya again. He hated it, because the sparrow would know that he was just doing it to avoid answering. He hated it because he knew how Vanya would react, but the truth was that running through the wilderness was going to grow more and more impossible the closer they got to civilization.
"Vanya, we need to talk about what we are going to do when we get through the mountains."
The demon didn't slow her pace. They no longer ran through the day, but that didn't mean that they moved slowly. "We are going to the capital, like your guide said."
The word guide was filled with contempt. She had barely accepted Jason's explanations of the sparrow, and certainly didn't appreciate being reminded that she existed.
"And what about once we get there," Jason pushed forward. "Are you just going to wait outside the city while I take care of things?"
He had hit a nerve and he knew it, but what else was he supposed to say. She continued to avoid the problem, but it was going to be upon them sooner than later.
They continued walking for a short distance in silence until Vanya suddenly stopped. Was she just going to ignore him? Why did everyone around him have to act so childish?
He pushed through some small shrubs, and stopped as he saw what she was looking at. There was another mountain ahead of them, blocking any view beyond it, but rising up from behind the mountain was a massive pillar of smoke.
It was easy to understand why they had missed it until now. The mountainside where they were walking was fairly overgrown so the sky was always partially hidden making it somewhat pointless to look up. Furthermore, the jumble of rocks and plants combined with the occasional section of loose dirt or rocks made it important to watch where you stepped.
Still, someone should have noticed this by now. The wind was blowing the smoke away from them otherwise, they probably would be smelling it by now. It couldn't be a forest fire could it? No, it was too concentrated in one area and it felt wrong somehow.
"You guys stay here," he said to Vanya and Nora. "I'm going to go down to the pass and see if anyone knows what is going on."
Vanya, as usual when he made a suggestion that she agreed with, said nothing and looked away. Nora could have gone with him if she had wanted to, but she didn't and Jason was glad for that. She would be in more danger with him, and he didn't know how well he could control her if they were surrounded by people.
The mountain pass had grown more and more busy as they went, a clear sign to Jason that they were nearly through. However, more people meant that they had needed to stay further and further away from where the people were, and despite knowing the general direction, it took him a while to actually find it.
He heard it before he saw it. It sounded like there had to be hundreds and hundreds of people there! He pushed through another copse of trees, and nearly lost his breath at the sight below.
Throughout their days traveling through the mountains, there had rarely been anyone traveling away from the capital that he had seen. Now, there looked to be an entire city's worth of people fleeing through the narrow pass.