The road had taken three days.
Not because the distance demanded it, but because Fenix had walked it deliberately, the way you did with things that deserved to be approached rather than arrived at. He had passed through two small towns and one stretch of open country where the sky was wide enough to make a person feel accurately small, and he had used the time the way Soren had taught him to use stillness — not to empty his mind but to let it settle, the way disturbed water settled when you stopped touching it.
