by Amber Argyle
Sweep. Stab. Reposition. “Denan showed me this before.”
“Not in working with a line, he didn’t.”
He stood shoulder to shoulder with her, and they repelled a dozen imaginary mulgars.
“Shouldn’t you be teaching me to fight druids?” The mulgars couldn’t reach them here.
Tam took a deep breath. “If we’re caught, we’re dead. Unless we can convince them to ransom us.”
She swallowed. “It might make a difference.”
He considered her. “Your sword and shield are a last resort. If anyone sees you using a magic blade, it’s over. Here, wrap me up from behind.” She wrapped her arms around him. “Slice your foot down my shin, stomp on my foot, and throw the back of your head into my nose.” He demonstrated slowly. “Now you try.”
She worked on the move until he was satisfied.
“You can throw an elbow into my guts too. Always remember—hard to soft. So elbow to guts, fist to throat, fingers to eyes, knee to groin, that kind of thing.”
Her lip curled in distaste. “One more time.”
He wrapped his arms around her. She slid, stomped, elbowed, and headbutted. “Good.”
“Now for the front.” He turned her so she faced him. “In this pos—”
“What is going on?” Iniya stared at them from the doorway, her jaw tight.
Larkin and Tam jumped back, though they’d done nothing wrong. “He’s teaching me to fight.”
Iniya jabbed her cane at them. “The only fighting you’ll be doing is with your wits.” She tossed something at Larkin. A dome-shaped pillow and a rag belt used for monthlies. “We’ve the Black Rites to attend. Tie that around your middle. The horses are waiting.”
The pillow stuffed under her shirt to imitate Nesha’s pregnancy, Larkin settled into the saddle atop a placid gelding. It had been a long time since Bane had taught her to ride on his own horse, but her body remembered what to do.
Ancestors, Bane. I wish you were here with me. Was Denan having any luck with ransoming him? Surely the Black Druids would value money more than hanging a lord’s son.
Feet planted firmly on the ground, Tam stared at his horse. “Could we not take the carriage?”
“The roads outside the city will be a swamp from all the rain.” Harben swung effortlessly into the saddle. He reached down and patted his mare’s neck. He seemed happy, content even. It wasn’t fair after what he’d put them through. Thankfully, Raeneth stayed home with her baby.
Oben pushed Iniya’s rump into the saddle. She winced, rubbing her hip as if it pained her. “Surely the Captain of a Hundred Men can master a dumb beast.”
Tam glared at her. “We don’t have them where I come from.”
“Why?” Harben asked.
“Horses can’t climb trees,” Tam said darkly.
Larkin winced to think of an innocent horse faced with mindless mulgars, gilgads, and evil wraiths.
“Stay behind if you like.” Iniya kicked her own horse into a smooth trot.
“It’s all in your legs,” Larkin told him.
Tam pulled himself awkwardly into the saddle, his expression set like when he faced down mulgars.
After the first few blocks, he settled. “This isn’t so bad.”
They passed beneath the gates they’d crossed only that morning, workers still constructing the wall and dead men still hung by their necks. Shortly after, the sun set. Larkin found herself sweating, her hands shaking. She itched for the nearest tree—she suspected the impulse to hide at sunset would never fully leave her.
“We’re late.” Iniya kicked her horse into a lope.
Tam’s eyes widened. “There’s nothing natural about this.”
Larkin held back her horse, which fought to keep from being left behind. “Roll your hips and brace your legs when the horse hits the ground.”
One hand on each rein, Tam tried to hold his horse back, but it took the bit between its teeth and took off. Larkin released her own gelding and leaned forward. Tam’s arms flapped and his backside bounced, but he managed to hold on. Larkin caught up with him. The look of fear on his face … She tipped back her head and laughed. He glared at her.
She swallowed the rest of her laughter. “I’m sorry. It’s just nice to be better at something for once.”
They slowed the horses when they reached a muddy road between green fields of all different types of grains, vegetables, and orchards. In the distance, before the dark smear of trees, bonfires roared, throwing long shadows on the hundreds of people gathered.
Their voices rose like rushing water punctuated with a woman’s wailing. At the back of the crowd, the rich rode horses like Larkin and her companions, offering a better view and keeping them out of the mud.
In the center of the crowd of hundreds stood a huge curse tree. Lanterns had been tied to the upper boughs so that it gleamed like starlight reflected on water. They drew closer, the fresh, bright colors dancing on garlands through the boughs as the druids tied up the last of them. Closer still, and Larkin could make out thorns the size of her smallest finger.
Even wearing leather chaps, jackets, and gloves, some of the druids sported bloody bandages from the worst of them. Larkin’s group shifted to the left, keeping back far enough that they could speak softly without being overheard.
Beneath the tree, twenty or so men stood side by side in a long line. They wore druid black, weapons bristling from their backs and hips. Before one of those men was the wailing woman—his mother, clearly—and behind them, a platform had been built. Upon it stood a bald man with shoulder-length silver hair, his jowls scruffy. The flames on his elaborately tooled belt marked him as the Master Druid.
“Your grandfather, Fenwick,” Harben said tightly from beside her.
Larkin tried to find something of her mother in this man. Perhaps she was too far away, perhaps it was the living shadows in the hollows of his face, but all she saw was her own hatred reflected at her.
Fenwick held up his fist. The crowd fell silent. He turned to the druids. “Tonight, you face the Forbidden Forest of your own free will. You have studied and prepared and trained. Throw that training away.”
The druids looked uneasily among themselves. The crowd murmured.
“I take it this isn’t his usual speech,” Larkin said to Iniya.
“Fenwick is a soldier turned politician,” Iniya said. “The older he gets, the more the politician dies.”
“Nothing is what it seems,” Master Fenwick went on. “Knowledge waits inside the forest. But that knowledge comes with a price. Some of you—perhaps all of you—will pay with your lives. Those who wish may proceed. Those who do not will remain behind, ignorant but alive. Make your decision.”
Larkin searched the shadows beneath the trees. Two dozen paces in lay the barrier. Then they would face gilgads and mulgars and wraiths. If they didn’t figure out to hide in the trees after sundown, they wouldn’t survive a single night.
“Someone should warn them,” Larkin said.
“The curse binds our tongues,” Iniya said. “This is the only sure way they can learn the truth of the forest.”
“And how did you learn?” Larkin asked.
“My father took me inside the forest to meet with the pipers when I was six years old,” Iniya said, her voice heavy with grief.
Six? What kind of father took his daughter into the forest at six?
The first man stepped beneath the shadows. Two more followed a few steps behind. Then three. Then a dozen. Until two men remained. One looked at the other and stepped out of sight into the Forbidden Forest. The last ducked his head and marched back into the crowd toward one of the horses. He mounted up and galloped through the crowd and past them without looking to the right or left.
“Well,” Fenwick said. “Bast, if you will make the offering to the forest.” The man nodded to someone in the crowd. A pair of druids brought out a bleating goat.
Larkin looked away. As a child, she’d always hated this part. As she
grew older, she lamented the waste of a healthy animal. And now … knowing this was all just theater made it that much worse.
Motioning for them to follow, Iniya reined her horse toward a cluster of men and women. “Humbent. Manervin.”
A man and woman around Iniya’s own age turned to them. The woman was slight, willowy even. The man had a large paunch and a solid build.
The man frowned at Harben. “Iniya. It is good to see you out of the city.”
“Do you remember when we were children?” Iniya said. “The year none of the druids came out of the forest alive.”
The man exchanged a look with the woman, then stared at Larkin and Tam. “Who are they?”
“My granddaughter and her trusted guard.”
Humbent glanced around nervously, but they were far enough back from the crowd, and his group was all around him.
“Two old friends chatting after a ceremony is nothing suspicious,” Iniya said. “It’s the clandestine meetings they watch for.”
“It’s been over fifty years, Iniya.” His voice pitched low.
“Your father and mine were the best of friends, Humbent,” Iniya hissed. “You swore when the time came you would support us.”
His mouth tightened. “And what chance do you think we stand? The druids have an army.”
“An army made up of our own people,” Iniya said. “People who are tired of the druids failing to keep them safe.”
Humbent shook his head. Iniya gripped his arm. “Come to my house. Tomorrow. I swear you’ll understand.”
He considered her before nodding. Iniya released him and turned her horse away from the gathering.
Larkin started after her. “What if Humbent doesn’t agree to help us?”
Iniya didn’t even glance at Larkin. “He will.” She kicked her horse into another lope, Harben following.
Larkin’s mouth thinned. Behind her, the crowd stilled. She turned, wondering how so many people could be so utterly quiet. She quickly found out. From far away came the sound of a man’s terrified screams.
In the early morning light, Larkin pushed through the willows to the spot she and Bane always went swimming. But when she arrived, the river was gone, and instead she found herself pushing into his barn. She blinked in confusion and glanced around.
“Bane?”
No answer.
The barn was empty of even the animals. Not even his dog came out barking with her puppies in tow. Larkin checked his house. It, too, was empty.
She stood on the front step. “Venna? Bane? Daydon?”
From the village came the sounds of shouts. Had another girl been taken? Larkin started running and instantly found herself amid a crowd. She spun, seeing all the people she’d known her entire life. “What’s going on? What is it?”
No one would speak to her. No one would answer. They wouldn’t look at her. It was like she was a ghost. But they were shouting at something. She pushed through them, trying to see what they were looking at.
Over their heads, she could make out the top of an enormous tree; through the press of bodies, neatly arranged sticks fanned out. She stumbled through and fell onto the sticks. She looked up to find Bane chained to the tree.
Not sticks. Kindling.
Someone threw a torch, fire racing toward his feet. He sobbed and yelled while the crowd chanted, “Traitor, traitor, traitor.”
Larkin flared her magic, but nothing happened. She lunged for him. But for every step she took, he only seemed to get farther and farther away.
“He’s not a traitor,” Larkin cried. “Please.”
Swallowed by the crowd, she screamed as the tree lit up like a torch.
Larkin bolted upright, the smell of burning strong in her nostrils. Somewhere a baby wailed. She took a gasping breath and caught sight of a figure hunched on the end of her bed. She gave a startled cry before remembering her weapons. Her sword flared in her hand as she jumped to her feet atop the bed.
The figure didn’t move. Larkin eased her sword forward, so it illuminated the upturned face of Maisy, her arms wrapped around her legs.
“Maisy?” Larkin gasped. “What are you doing here?”
Her feet were bare, her entire body streaked with soot. She reeked of cinders. Why did she reek of cinders?
“How did you find me? How did you get in the room?” Larkin caught sight of the open window. One question answered.
“You left me,” the girl accused in a small voice.
All the fight drained out of Larkin, her knees unsteady. She sat, her sword fading away. She rubbed at the dull headache forming at her crown. “Maisy …”
“First, you tell me to stay away, then you leave without so much as saying goodbye.”
How had Maisy found them? “Maisy, you were safe with the pipers.”
“You’re not safe.”
“Some risks are worth taking.”
“You need to leave this place, Larkin. Leave before it’s too late.”
Larkin reached for Maisy, but the girl pulled away. “Can you hear him? The beast is coming for you.”
This was not the first time Maisy had referred to the wraiths as the beast. A chill crept up Larkin’s spine and into the hair at the nape of her neck.
“Go to Cordova and head straight east at first light,” Larkin said. “Follow the river to the lake. Can you do that?”
“Listen, Larkin. Listen.” Maisy rocked back and forth.
The beast comes. The beast takes.
That which he takes, he breaks.
That which he breaks, he remakes,
And then a beast like him awakes.
A beast like him. The wraiths wanted to make Larkin into one of them. Fear broke out in a sick sweat over her whole body.
Shuffled steps and the tap of a cane sounded down the hall. Maisy’s head whipped toward the sound. She vaulted off the bed and bolted for the balcony beyond the open glass doors.
“Maisy, wait!”
Larkin’s door banged open. Barefoot, hair disheveled, Iniya appeared in the doorway with an oil lamp in hand. Maisy climbed over the balustrade.
“Harben!” She set the lamp down and pressed a catch on her cane, releasing a short sword. She advanced on Maisy.
“Wait,” Larkin cried as Maisy dropped out of sight. Larkin reached the edge of the balcony just as Maisy disappeared over the garden wall. Larkin swung out to go after her.
Arms gripped her, hauling her back. “What’s going on?” Harben asked.
“Are you hurt?” Iniya said.
Larkin jerked free of her father’s grasp. “Don’t touch me!”
Limping heavily, Iniya bent down to retrieve the cane that had hidden her sword. She pushed it firmly into place. “Explain.”
“She’s a girl from my village,” Larkin said. “Taken by the wraiths years ago. When she came back, she was mad. She’s attached to me, that’s all.”
“That was Maisy?” Harben said.
“How did she find you?” Iniya said.
“I don’t know.”
The baby’s wails finally settled. Her half brother, she realized.
Motion at the door. Tam appeared, his bow and arrow out. He scanned the room before lowering it. “What happened?”
Iniya collapsed.
Harben rushed to her side. “Mother?”
“Oh.” The weak sound slipped from her lips.
The sight of indomitable Iniya on the floor stunned Larkin to stillness.
Tam hurried over with the lantern, which revealed her pale skin shining with sweat. “Is she sick?”
“All of them. How can it be all of them?” Iniya cried. She rolled over and vomited onto the floor.
Larkin jumped back to keep from being splashed. Them? Who was them?
“Tinsy!” Harben scooped her into his arms and started toward the door.
Larkin followed, but Tam stopped her with a hand on her arm. “What happened?”
“Maisy.”
“Maisy?” he cried.
Tinsy appeared in the hallway, her hair covered by a kerchief.
“She was sick in the blue room,” Harben said as he edged past the maid.
“Yes, sir.” Tinsy hurried downstairs.
Larkin followed Harben to the opposite end of the hall. He shouldered open a door to a severely bare room. Iniya trembled so hard she nearly vibrated out of his arms before he managed to lay her in the bed. She was pale, her skin coated in freckles that had been all but invisible the day before.
“Leave me,” Iniya said.
“Mother—” Harben began.
“I said go!” Iniya pulled the blankets beneath her chattering teeth.
Harben pursed his lips before herding Larkin out. She started to protest. “It will only make it worse,” Harben said.
He shut the door on Iniya’s muffled sobs. They stood in silence, listening to the older woman cry. Larkin hadn’t thought the woman capable of something so base as tears.
“Will she be all right?”
“She’s never been all right, Larkin—not since they died.”
The them she had called for. Her entire family. Dead. “How did it happen?”
He led her away from the door. “When she was seventeen, armed men stole into the castle. She was yanked out of her bed, bound and gagged, and hauled into the courtyard where she watched the mob behead her entire family, including all her siblings.”
Larkin knew what it was like to wake to a mob screaming for her blood. She still had nightmares about it. She couldn’t imagine watching while that mob killed her family. “But not her?”
“The druids came at the end and saved her. They rounded up the men who’d done it and hanged them.”
“Then why isn’t she queen?” Seventeen was old enough to rule.
“She wasn’t … well for a long time afterward. The druids took over. And when she was finally ready to take her place, they had decided not to give the kingdom back.”
