“There are no laws preventing people from wandering the woods.” Jolan’s lips tightened.
“Are you a healer?”
“I am not anyone.”
“Just a runaway who’s lugging around a backpack full of rare ingredients and a head full of moss facts? I know the alchemist’s trade when I see it.”
Jolan fixed his eyes on the ground. “I was an apprentice. But my master died before I could make journeyman. Nimbu, the local lord, sold our apothecary and cast me out.” He looked Garret in the eye. “Like I said, I’m nobody.”
Garret knew he should kill the boy. Witnesses only caused trouble. But now that he was hurt, there was value in having a healer around, especially one who knew the land and could probably spot dragons far better than Garret. Plus, it was always easier to get into a city if you had a kid with you. For reasons Garret never understood, people trusted children.
“Well, Jolan the Nobody, I am in your debt,” Garret said, standing up and sheathing his knife. “I’m headed to Deepdale. Do you know it?”
“Everybody knows Deepdale,” Jolan said, frowning. “Where are you from, exactly?”
Garret had been too preoccupied with the dragontooth in his arm to fake an Almiran accent, and he’d learned from failure that pretending to be a local only worked for short interactions.
“Far away.”
“I know all the countries in the realm. Is that a Ghalamarian accent? It sounds a little odd, but—”
“Do you know if the road to Deepdale is clear?”
Jolan shook his head. “Doubt it, this time of year. But I’m heading south as well. I know a route through the hills that won’t be washed out—the key is to avoid the floodplain.”
“Why didn’t the people who built the road avoid the floodplain?”
Jolan shrugged. “There are a lot of dragons in the hills.”
“Of course there are.”
“They usually don’t attack people in the forest. That’s a misconception.”
Garret held up his bandaged arm.
“Usually.”
Garret weighed his options. He couldn’t risk falling further behind schedule because of a flooded road. “If you guide me to Deepdale, I’ll rent you a room with a featherbed and buy you as much food as you can eat when we arrive.”
Jolan frowned at him, head tilting on his skinny neck. “Are you an outlaw?”
“Do you care?” Garret said. “Food and a bed. Yes or no?”
* * *
Jolan was quiet for a few miles, but once he began talking the boy did not shut up.
As they cut and picked their way through dense forest, steep hills, and heavy undergrowth, he prattled on about the types of trees and flowers and insects they could find in the different places they passed: cypress groves, reed-lined ponds, winding riverbanks. He talked about his old master and the poisonous snail they studied on some river in the north. About the proper way to brew coffee in the morning and set a broken bone. About the town he grew up in, and the sicknesses that had plagued the area since he was a small boy.
“Everyone thinks it’s forest demons, but there’s no such thing. That’s the first thing Morgan taught me. Then he showed me how the venom from the red-shelled snails was poisoning the water table. He got some of the villagers in the north to stop drinking from the river, but the whole area was corrupted—even freshly dug wells. And the villagers thought the purification process was demoncraft, so…”
“They just made mud statues instead?”
“Yeah.”
Garret stopped to take a sip of water and check the sky for dragons.
“What gods do they worship where you’re from?” Jolan asked after taking a sip from his own canteen.
“Never had much use for gods,” Garret said, avoiding the real question.
“Seems lonely. I know the gods aren’t real, but there’s a value to them, I think.”
Garret grunted. “What value?”
Jolan thought for a few moments.
“Here, look at that.” He pointed to a yellow butterfly that had landed on a turtle’s head. “The butterfly drinks the turtle’s tears for their salt because he can’t produce any on his own. And the butterfly is so light, he doesn’t hurt the turtle. There are a thousand relationships like that on this hill alone—different creatures working together.”
“Your point?”
“Almirans use their totems to worship the nameless gods of the forest. The gods may not be real, but the connections between all living things are. Honoring them is worth something.”
Garret put his canteen away.
“I’ve known a few alchemists,” Garret said. “They didn’t talk like you. Always seemed more interested in where to find rare ingredients than anything else.”
“That’s because the money’s all in the health tonics and pain tinctures, not long-term study. But Morgan always said that it was lazy to take from a world you didn’t understand. And it left the alchemist’s job half finished. He taught me to look for connections instead of just knowledge. He used to say that being able to name every mushroom in a forest isn’t nearly as valuable as understanding everything the mushroom touches.”
They started walking again. Both of them struggled to climb over a mossy outcropping that was crawling with orange spiders and yellow, finger-sized lizards.
“I thought I was starting to really understand the way the world works. But I was wrong. Back in Otter Rock, I saw something that I can’t even begin to explain. The people of this country would call it demoncraft, just like the water purification. But this was very, very different.”
“How?”
“I know how water purification really works. But this … shouldn’t have been possible. I have to figure it out.”
“Why’s it so important?” Garret asked, not caring enough to ask what the boy had actually seen.
Jolan chewed on that. “All my life, I’ve healed the sick. But for each fever and infection and plague I can cure, there are ten that elude treatment. And it’s not just because I’m young. Morgan spent five years trying to stop the red-shelled snail pestilence, but got nowhere. What I saw could change all of that. It could save thousands of lives. Ten of thousands, even.”
“Sounds a little far-fetched.”
“You wouldn’t understand. You didn’t see it.”
“Fair enough. But if you saw this thing I wouldn’t understand in Otter Rock, what are you doing down here?”
“The Daintree warrens are the only place in Almira where Gods Moss grows. And that’s the key.”
“Gods Moss again? Sounds like you’re just trying to get paid.”
“No.” Jolan frowned. “That’s not the point at all. Gods Moss is so naturally valuable that nobody’s ever tried to explore the limits of its capability. But I will.”
Garret gave Jolan a look. To his surprise, the boy seemed to be telling the truth.
They kept walking. As a rule, Garret didn’t like people. That’s why he was so good at his job. But he didn’t mind the boy so much. It was rare to meet someone with an honest heart who wasn’t also a moron.
* * *
After three days, they reached the Gorgon River, which was a wide, inexorable beast—more than a league across in most places. Her current wasn’t as strong as the Atlas, but she was dangerous in more insidious ways. Insects hovered over her waters in an incessant and vast horde, cramming themselves into the mouth and eyes of anyone that was available. There were larger animals, too. Lithe and cunning jaguars, vicious crocodiles, and the enormous river dragons that some locals believed guarded the spirit of the river. On the other side of the Gorgon lay the Dainwood, which was all canopied darkness and jungle savagery.
“What are those called?” Garret asked, pointing across the river at the colossal, twisted trunks on the far side of the bank. He’d never seen such massive trees.
“Dainwood trees,” Jolan said. “They don’t grow anywhere else.”
The boy paused for a m
oment, but then continued talking. Like he always did.
“Dainwood trees are actually very interesting. Their root systems are all—”
“Jolan, please. I don’t think I can handle any more facts today.”
The boy gave an embarrassed nod. Then looked out over the water.
“I’ve never seen the Gorgon before,” Jolan said. “Gods, she’s beautiful.”
“You say that now,” Garret responded. “Wait until we’re halfway across.”
Jolan frowned. “This doesn’t look like a crossing.”
“It isn’t.”
“Then why would we cross here?”
Garret didn’t respond. Just started wading into the water.
“Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?” Jolan called from behind him.
Garret stopped. Turned around. “You said that Deepdale was due south from here, but the nearest crossings are fifty leagues to the east and west. I am not wasting three days just to cross a river without getting my boots wet.”
“You’ve already been bit by one dragon,” Jolan reminded him. “Are you that eager to repeat the experience? I can’t help you if you get eaten.”
That was a fair point.
“Do you have a suggestion?”
“I can build a raft,” Jolan said. “Give me an hour.”
Garret glanced back at the water. About fifteen strides out, the scaled back of some unknown creature humped out of the surface. It was three times longer than the dragon that had bitten his arm.
“One hour. That’s it.”
Jolan made Garret gather straight logs while he worked on the lashings. The boy was gangly and uncoordinated when it came to walking through the woods, but his fingers worked with rapid, practiced alacrity. As promised, the makeshift raft was ready within the hour, including two oars made from hard, straight branches.
Garret began pushing the raft into the water, but Jolan bent down at the waterline and started molding a little statue with his hands.
“Seriously?” Garret asked. “After that whole speech about the gods not being real?”
“The gods aren’t real,” Jolan said, pulling two blueberries from his pack and using them as eyes. “But a little luck can’t hurt.”
Garret shrugged. He’d known a sergeant in the Balarian army who refused to wipe his ass the night before a battle—said the stink kept the arrows away. In the end, building a mud statue for luck wasn’t much different. And it was more sanitary.
“Give it some of those fish scales, at least,” Garret said, pointing to a few that were floating in an eddy.
Jolan smiled. “Good idea.”
* * *
When they were halfway across the river, the birds and insects went quiet. Jolan’s body turned rigid, his eyes went wide. They both looked down into the swirling green depths as a massive shadow snaked against the current. The aquatic dragon was ten times wider than their silly raft.
When it was gone, they paddled the rest of the way as fast as they could. Neither of them spoke until their boots were sucking mud on the far side of the shore.
“What breed was that?” Garret asked. “It was huge.”
“Glad we took the raft and made the totem now, aren’t you?” Jolan said, smiling. “That was an Almiran River Lurker. I wish he’d surfaced so we could have gotten a look.”
“You didn’t look much like you wanted him to surface while we were out there.”
“Well, you were scared, too!” Jolan said. “Now, do you want me to change that bandage, or should we wait and see if it gets infected from all the animal shit in the water?”
Garret frowned, then started rolling up his sleeve.
“What’s the rush to get to Deepdale, anyway?” Jolan asked, opening his bag of medicines.
Garret didn’t respond.
“You’re worse than Morgan was.”
“What do you mean?”
“Secrets. All the alchemists have a lot of secrets. About history and poisons. About dragons, especially. Master couldn’t tell them to me until I became a journeyman…” Jolan trailed off and focused on the bandage. “Dragon warrens, they were the key to everything. But he never talked about them.”
“Some secrets will get you killed, boy.”
“Yeah, I’ve been told that before.”
“Master Morgan again?”
“No,” Jolan said, a serious look creeping across his face. “Someone else.”
Jolan finished his work. Stood up and oriented himself against the sun. “Let’s keep moving. If we keep a good pace, we can reach Deepdale in a week.”
9
ASHLYN
Almira, Atlas Coast
Ashlyn looked down at her father’s face. Someone had combed black dye into his beard to hide the silver and gray. He would have hated that. Hertzog Malgrave was a lot of things, but vain wasn’t one of them. He would have wanted to go down the river without hiding who he really was, both inside and out.
As news of the king’s death spread, peasants and wardens and lords across Almira would cease work and spend a week in mourning, drinking to his memory and retelling stories of his heroism in the Balarian Invasion. There would be other things, too. Darker things. Spells and sacrifices performed in basements and cellars and moonlit fields. Ashlyn wondered how many goats and chickens would be bled out beneath the stars. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. If Hertzog had died five hundred years ago, the lords would be sacrificing children in his honor instead of animals.
Almira was considered a backward country in the realm of Terra, but Ashlyn was thankful that her people had at least evolved beyond that dark and terrible custom.
Traditionally, the deceased royalty of Almira were sent back to the Soul Sea from a castle courtyard that opened into the harbor, so there was no chance their souls would get lost. The lords and ladies of the court were all invited to watch their fallen liege return to the place where all souls were born. Afterward, most of them got blind drunk and cried to the waves. It wasn’t uncommon for the ceremony to degenerate into a sorrowful orgy.
Despite being Papyrian, Ashlyn’s mother had wanted to follow the Almiran custom for her burial. But when she died, Hertzog didn’t send her back to the Soul Sea from Floodhaven. Instead, he took her to a small, hidden river a day’s ride north of the city. People whispered that he’d gone alone because he was still so furious with her infidelity that he’d actually buried her corpse without a shell and covered it with rocks, but Ashlyn had never believed that.
Before he died, her father had asked to be taken to that same hidden river. No ceremony, no nobles screwing each other, just Ashlyn saying good-bye next to a hidden river. The nobility of Floodhaven was shocked by the decision—and clearly disappointed they didn’t have the opportunity to show their loyalty through a display of grief—but Ashlyn honored her father’s decision. She was the queen now. They needed to see that she was in charge, not Almiran traditions.
Ashlyn was escorted to the river by Hayden and a score of her personal wardens for protection. They helped Ashlyn lay Hertzog Malgrave in his boat, then melted into the forest and formed a perimeter, giving her space to say good-bye.
When Ashlyn was alone, she waited for a wave of grief to wash over her, but it didn’t arrive. No tears. No trembling fingers. Ashlyn had never forgiven Hertzog for what he’d done to Silas, she’d just found a way to live with it. And her father had been dying for years—they’d both planned for it. Both known that one day soon, she’d be in this exact spot.
Ashlyn thumbed the seashell that she’d brought with her. Light cream, with twists of orange and green. Hertzog had chosen it himself a year ago, when his cough started producing blood.
A squirrel ventured down from a nearby tree and skittered along the banks of the river. Trout darted in and out of the clear water beneath the funeral boat, which was painted dark blue.
She needed to say some words. That was one tradition she would keep.
“Hertzog Malgrave was a good king of Almira,” As
hlyn began. “He raised two strong sons and two beautiful daughters. Halted the Balarian Invasion at the battle of Black Pine. Forged thirty years of peace and prosperity.”
Ashlyn paused. There was nobody else here, why was she talking as if there was? She started over.
“My father was quick to lose his temper and slow to forgive his enemies. He ruled the lords of Almira through violence, intimidation, and the threat of two blue bars on their cheeks.” She swallowed. “But he was loyal and generous to his friends. Fiercely protective of his family. We saw Almira through different eyes, but we both loved our country in our own way.”
Ashlyn opened her father’s mouth and slipped the seashell inside. Closed it again. “Good-bye, Father. May your soul find a calm course back to the sea. I will keep Almira safe. I promise.”
She pushed his boat into the current, causing the trout to scatter. Watched until it disappeared around a bend in the river. For the first time in her life, Ashlyn was the only Malgrave in Almira.
She had never felt so alone.
* * *
When Ashlyn returned to the castle, she headed straight to the dovecote, which was guarded by three Malgrave wardens and managed by an ancient steward named Godfrey. He had a thin layer of pigeon shit permanently coating his shoulders.
Almira had the most unreliable roads in the realm. They were muddy and poorly maintained—every spring half of them got washed out by floods. Hertzog had struggled for years to build a reliable highway system that would allow him to better move and communicate with his armies, but her father couldn’t prevent the spring monsoons or conjure enough viable quarries in his country to build paved roads in the Balarian style. This poor infrastructure, combined with a fragmented and chaotic religion, was one of the main reasons that Almira had remained a backward and divided country—ruled by superstition and feudal warlords instead of centralizing and innovating like Balaria.
Expanding the Almiran network of carrier pigeons to avoid the roads entirely had been Ashlyn’s idea, which made Godfrey one of the busiest men in Castle Malgrave.
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