by K. A. Linde
Kerrigan bit her lip and prayed to whichever god would listen to watch over Fordham. She hoped that no visions meant that he was going to be safe, but she doubted it. No one was safe in the final task.
At dusk, the crowd grew restless. Kerrigan among them.
Most knew that the final task didn’t typically end that last day, but it made for a long wait to see who would show up. Luckily, the Society had other displays come into the arena—sword fighting, music, dancing, horse racing, and even some dragon flying demonstrations—while they waited on the big spectacle. But by nighttime, even Kerrigan was tired of waiting around.
A good portion of people had gone home. They would return the next morning and hope that they hadn’t missed out. Only a few diehards would remain all night in hopes of seeing one of the dragons flying home.
“I need sustenance,” Kerrigan told Valia, who was ever vigilant, staring at the horizon.
“Bring me back some hard cheese and goat’s milk, if they have it,” she requested.
Kerrigan yawned. “Sure thing.”
Nerves bit into her the entire walk back to the mountain. She didn’t like not knowing what was happening with Fordham, if he was doing all right. She was glad for the distraction of returning to the mountain. They had some food, water, and wine at the table, but it had been sitting out all day. She needed something fresh and couldn’t bring herself to ask a servant to do it for her.
She made it inside to the feasting table, which was mostly empty at this hour, and rounded up supplies for herself and Valia. She had a tray full of food and turned to exit the mountain once more when she felt a dizzy spell hit her.
Kerrigan gasped as her vision went blurry, and she felt unconsciousness beckon. “Oh gods.”
Hastily, she set the tray down on the ground and pressed her back into the cold stone of the mountain. Blissfully, the corridors were empty, but even if they weren’t, she wouldn’t have been able to fight off what was happening. A vision was coming whether she wanted it or not. Just before it pulled her through, she hoped that this was the answer to her prayers, and she would find out what was happening with Fordham. She needed good news.
Her vision went dark, and an image appeared of a small girl in boy’s clothing, walking the halls of the mountain. Kerrigan startled as she realized… it was her. Dream Kerrigan entered an unguarded room. The sentinels who should have been standing watch were distracted at the other end of the hall. Oh gods, she knew what was in that room. Dream Kerrigan looked up at the shimmery, iridescent doorway and knew what she must do. She drank from a goblet, closed her eyes, and then pressed her hand to the doorway.
Kerrigan gasped awake from the vision. She was drenched in a cold sweat. Her magic was drained, but not nearly as bad as normal. She kept waiting for unconsciousness to beckon and for her to slip under, but she felt steadier than she had with any of her other visions.
Everything was different about this vision. Her visions had never been that deliberate. This was breaking the theme of them. They always showed images of what was to come in the future. They never told her what to do. The whole thing made her uneasy. Did she follow what the vision had shown her? Or did she run and tell someone what she had seen?
She chewed on her lip a minute as she debated what to do. The longer she thought about going into that portal room, the more certain she was of its inherent rightness. She couldn’t turn her back on the dreams now. She had no idea where the portal would take her, but it had told her for a reason, and despite the recklessness… she knew it was her destiny to follow the instructions.
Kerrigan took the bread, cheese, and chunk of meat and stuffed them into the small pouch she kept at her side. After a quick jaunt back into the feast room, she found a water pouch and slung that over her head as well. She was weighed down, but she would rather have the provisions than not. She left the rest of the food behind. Valia would wonder where she had gone off to, but she couldn’t wait to run the food back to her.
With a determination set into her very marrow, Kerrigan left for the portal room. It was not a long walk, and within minutes, she was at the end of the hallway. She waited patiently for the two guards standing in front of the room to turn and walk the other way. She didn’t know what kind of gods’ luck this was, but as soon as their backs were turned, she hustled down the hallway. With her heart in her throat, she turned the doorknob and entered the room, carefully closing the door behind her.
The room itself was enormous. Big enough for multiple dragons to comfortably stand in. This was only the Fae entrance. There was a separate tunnel that the dragons could enter through that disappeared deep into the mountain. And standing as large as a house was a giant stone archway, magnificently carved and ornately built. The center of the archway shone a brilliant iridescent. Just as in her vision, there stood a goblet on a table next to the archway.
Kerrigan warily approached it. She looked into the milky liquid with unease. She knew what this did. It was the same potion the competitors had taken before walking through that portal. But why would she need to take it? She wanted to doubt the dream, but she didn’t doubt it.
So, with a deep breath, she brought the golden goblet to her mouth and consumed a few mouthfuls of the chalky substance. She gagged once around the disgusting liquid, and then she felt the magical effects. Her magic was being drained away. One second, it had been there. Then, the next, it was like pouring sand through a sieve, and it was gone. She felt suddenly bereft, just as she had that night with Clare. Her magic was empty. With her will, she reached down into that well of power and felt… nothing. It was severed. She shuddered in discomfort.
Pushing that aside, she turned to face the portal. She had walked through this once and ended up on the other side of the world. Walking through it again for another vision felt like it was all coming full circle.
She tied her red hair up into a ribbon to keep it out of her face. Then, with trepidation, she pressed her hand to the side of the portal arch, just as she had in the vision. The center of the portal shimmered and moved at her touch, and for a moment, she felt as if the portal read where she needed to go. The portal opened to darkness, and with her heart in her throat, she stepped through.
47
The Forest
A weight settled on Kerrigan’s chest in the darkness.
The portal had sucked her through, only vaguely tugging on her, as if it wanted to keep her for itself, and then she had entered this mysterious place.
She didn’t instantly recognize her surroundings, as the sun had completely fallen and only the light from the moon and the stars barely penetrated the canopy. Thankfully, the House of Dragons had equipped her with wilderness knowledge. They had taken an expedition around the mountains for a few days when she was younger. Darby stayed home, but Lyam and Hadrian went with her to learn how to start a fire and read trail signs. Growing up in the city, she hadn’t had any idea why she would need the knowledge, but she had found the camping trips more fun than being stuck in the mountain.
Now, she was thanking Mistress Moran for encouraging her to go out into the woods with Master Faris for these extracurriculars. Without her magic to light a fire, she would have to use that limited knowledge. Of course, she hadn’t used stones to light a fire in probably six years, but she knew the mechanics of it. So, she got to work, finding a few twigs and two stones that she could strike together to get sparks. After what felt like an eternity, she considered giving up, but she couldn’t. She was in unfamiliar territory, who knew how far from home, and she was alone. She needed a fire to guide her way and scare off predators, if need be.
So, with renewed determination, Kerrigan struck the stones together until, miraculously, the brush under her twigs caught fire.
“Yes!” she cheered, blowing on the small flames to encourage them to build and build. And after a few more minutes, she had enough light to see by.
She kept feeding the small fire with twigs and brush. Likely, she would need to find a large
stick to use as a torch, but it would be nearly impossible to scout for the rest of the supplies. It would be smarter and safer to build up her fire first and sit around it for the evening even though the last thing that she wanted to do was to wait until morning.
After the fire was built to a considerable height, Kerrigan found an old log and sank down onto it to wait. She felt ridiculous, but the vision had sent her for a reason. There was no use doubting it now.
Sleep had evaded her for weeks, and then suddenly, in this oppressive forest, surrounded by nature, in front of a campfire, she felt the edges of sleep finally come to her. She kept her food and water close to her chest and then snuggled up onto the ground to sleep.
But as soon as she winked out, she jolted awake at the snuffling sound of something sniffing her.
Kerrigan froze on the ground, careful not to alert whatever was smelling her that she was awake. A wet nose pressed into her shoulder and hair. She tried to not let her fear show. She had no weapon and no magic. All she had was the fire, which was burning much lower than when she had gone to sleep. It wasn’t out yet, but it was close.
The beast trotted down to her feet, and a tusk pressed against her calf. She swallowed and slowly reached for one of the larger sticks still burning in the fire. From the corner of her eye, she could make out the boar that was determining if she was its next meal. Her hand closed around the stick, ignoring the heat radiating off the fire.
The boar’s head snapped up, and she quickly brandished the stick at the beast. The creature roared in protest as she slammed the fire end into its eye. She scrambled backward away from it as it screamed and kicked at the dirt. It fixed its good eye on Kerrigan and reared back, preparing to charge. She waved the fire stick in front of her as her only weapon and hoped against hope that it would do enough.
Her heart raced in her chest, and her hands were slick on the wood. It wasn’t going to be enough. The beast would attack her and skewer her with one of its massive tusks. She would have been sent here for nothing. She settled into a defensive position and watched as if in slow motion as the beast charged toward her.
“Ahhh!” a voice suddenly screamed from the tree cover, and a body charged at the boar, ramming into it, and sending it straight into the fire.
The boar screamed as the fire ate at him and then scrambled backward out of the flames. It looked between her and the stranger dressed in all black and decided to try its luck elsewhere. The beast scampered off into the forest.
“Thank you,” Kerrigan said, letting the stick fall to her side. Her heart was still in her throat.
The figure turned to her with wide eyes. “Kerrigan?”
She gasped. “Fordham?”
He looked… wild. It was the only way to describe him. His clothes were tattered, his face covered in mud, and he was brandishing a stick that he appeared to have whittled down to a point.
“What are you doing here?”
“What happened to you?” she asked at the same time.
He shook his head. “I’ve been in this wretched forest for nearly an entire day. I passed my first test, and then it brought me here. There’s nothing to eat, and the forest is a maze. There’s no way out.”
“Wait… you’ve been here all day without food?”
He nodded.
She rummaged through her bag and brought out some provisions, passing it to him. “Here, eat this.”
“Gods,” he breathed as he reverently took the food.
“Sit at my fire and eat.” She busied herself, building the fire back up, as Fordham tried to force himself not to devour every scrap she had given him.
“And this place… it’s… it’s haunted.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts,” Kerrigan joked.
“Not like that. It’s dampened everything. I had some berries and ran around in circles for hours. I’ve been too terrified to eat since then. I don’t know what’s going on.”
And then it clicked. “Noirwood Forest.”
“What?”
“We’re in Noirwood Forest. It’s a black forest just off the western coast, where everything you could eat within it is poisonous. We don’t know what happened to the woods to make it this way, but travelers who pass within must bring enough provisions to survive without eating or drinking anything in the forest. The berries likely made you hallucinate. You’re lucky you didn’t die.”
Fordham looked back at her blankly. “I’m beginning to think my education about Alandria is woefully incomplete.”
Kerrigan frowned. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he said, taking a sip of her waterskin and nodding his thanks. “And you were sent for me?”
“A vision,” she admitted.
“Did the vision show you how to get out of here?”
“No. It didn’t tell me anything, except to walk through the portal.”
“Do you still have your magic?”
She shook her head. “But I have this.”
Then, she produced Lyam’s compass. She’d had it with her at all times since they had gone together to the alley where he had been murdered. It had just been a trinket, a memory. But right now, she had never been gladder to see it.
He came to his feet. “Well, that’s lucky.”
She swallowed back the lump in her throat. “Lyam here to save us after all.”
“We should probably set out at dawn,” Fordham said. “Together, we can get out of here.”
“All right, princeling,” she said with a half-smile. “But first, we’re going to need some pinecones.”
Fordham didn’t ask, just helped her cover a few pinecones in sap, and then she cracked the two biggest sticks she’d found on a sharp piece of rock, placing the sap-covered pinecones inside and dipping them in the flames.
He looked at her, impressed. “Torches. How did you know how to do that?”
“House of Dragons teaches us more than just etiquette,” she said with a grin. She brushed mud off his brow and laughed. “You look ridiculous.”
“I ate poisonous berries,” he reminded her.
And then they both laughed.
The weight and fear of the night before had dissipated at dawn. They had gotten through a lot together this last month. This was one more adventure.
Together, they tracked through the forest, heading north through the woods by the dial on Lyam’s compass. Though they saw more eyes peeking out at them and a few howls in the forest, nothing else approached them. And by high noon, they reached the edge of the trees.
Fordham sighed in relief and wiped sweat and mud from his brow. “Thank the gods.”
“Second test complete.”
“Yeah… wonder what the third will be if the forest was…”
But he didn’t finish. If Fordham Ollivier could be shaken by the Noirwood Forest, then it was an atrocious hellhole that she never wished to venture into again.
A snap jolted both of them to rush farther out of the forest. When they turned around to face the beast that surely was going to attack them, Darrid strode out of the tree line toward them. Kerrigan frowned. Darrid had had a grudge against Fordham from the start. He’d tried to attack him in the first task and pushed him off the platform in the second. Him being here in the forest was not a cause for celebration.
Kerrigan instinctively reached down into her well of magic to keep her safe before remembering that it didn’t work. She had no magic to defend herself against Darrid.
“Ollivier,” Darrid said.
“Darrid,” Fordham volleyed back, already stepping closer to Kerrigan.
“Fancy meeting you out here.”
“What do you want?”
“No pleasantries?” Darrid asked. “Right down to it?”
“What do you want?” Fordham repeated.
“I’d like to know what your leatha whore is doing in the woods with you.”
“Don’t call her that,” Fordham snarled.
Darrid laughed. “You know, I thought that i
t must just be a dalliance. What would a prince of the House of Shadows want with a half-Fae girl when your people have slaughtered them for millennia? But do you actually care for her?”
Kerrigan bristled at his words. She hadn’t realized that Darrid was a bigot. They just hid in plain sight, ready to use that horrid name and reveal themselves at such inopportune moments.
“We don’t need to deal with you,” Fordham said. “Be on your way.”
“See, I would,” Darrid said, revealing a short dagger from his waistband. Kerrigan tensed. “But I don’t like you, and the last thing we need are more bastards like you in the Society.”
Kerrigan sighed. “You’re all so predictable.”
“Shut up, bitch,” Darrid snarled, brandishing the weapon in her direction.
“It’s two on one, Darrid,” Fordham said evenly. “What do you think you’ll accomplish?”
“Oh, is it?” he asked.
And then Kerrigan realized Darrid had been the distraction. Taiga came out of the woods to their left and Chelcie to their right. From high in the tree above Darrid, Posana knocked an arrow and let it loose at their feet, just to let them know that running would be no use.
“There’s nowhere to go,” Darrid jeered.
“Four against two. That’s almost a fair fight,” Fordham said confidently. “Look at you, the little gang leader of the wayward competitors.”
Darrid stiffened at the words. “We’re going to cut you down, Ollivier, and no one will mourn you.”
“Fordham,” Kerrigan whispered, drawing even closer. “The medallion.”
He nodded his head once and then tensed, as if preparing to meet Darrid’s attack. But they had been training so long that they both saw it coming. Darrid hadn’t been training out his mistakes, and he had many.
“Left,” Fordham whispered.
“And turn.”
“One, two, three.”
Darrid ran at them with the knife, but as a seamless unit, Kerrigan and Fordham pivoted left, away from the oncoming assault, just missing the arrow from Posana. Fordham broke open the raven medallion and waited for what he had risked his life for.
