by S. M. Boyce
“It’s—” She played with the pronunciation, but didn’t even know where to start. “It’s a what, now?”
She reread the name several times and didn’t get anywhere, so she skimmed the description. The creatures were considered good luck, and if one could find an egg and raise the thing from birth, the creature would be bonded to that person for life. They had many small powers and in lore were considered one of the most powerful omens of good fortune.
“So it’s a miniature fox with massive ears, zebra stripes, random magical powers, and it hatches from an egg?” She paused and looked at her orb. “Why does anything here faze me anymore?”
The egg glowed brighter as she rubbed it, so she toyed with the little orb and lost herself to the thoughts of what would come.
“What are the Rose Cliffs and the Villing Caves?”
The pages flipped to a header that read, “Ourea’s Wonders.” The two-page spread was a collage of small sketches: a wall filled with diamonds that glittered despite the darkness; a cliff that overlooked hundreds of miles of forests; a tall volcano that stretched to the heavens.
She turned the page. Another two-page sketch portrayed a cliff range in stunning detail, from top to bottom. Thin vines with small blossoms covered the rock face, while a forest composed of tiny trees carpeted the hills and valleys along the bottom of the picture. If the scale was correct, the cliff had to be at least a few miles high. In the sky beside the rock wall were the words, “The Rose Cliffs.”
The page turned on its own and revealed the same image, but drawn this time in gray pencil. Thick blocks of text were overlaid in dark red ink.
The kingdom of Kirelm celebrates the Rose Cliffs as the birthplace of its race and the stronghold of its magic. Legends say that the first Blood of Kirelm was pricked by one of the hundreds of thousands of roses which span the side of the Cliffs as he climbed it in search of a better home for his tribe. In this moment, his blood was infused with the magic that later developed into the Kirelm bloodline that is known today.
The Kirelm people once lived above the cliffs, but fear of discovery drove them away shortly after the yakona race’s great divide. Still, its eleven miles of cliffs is often visited by Kirelm merchants, and one of their villages is rumored to exist in its forests.
Kara turned the page again to see yet another two-page spread, this one of a cave wall, its polished rock embossed with veins. She squinted. No, the rough lines had patterns to them: they were dragons. Many had beards, their mouths hung open in frozen bellows. Crystallized fire spewed from them, fossilized in the rock, and spiraled around a small being in the center of the massive wall.
She shifted into the moonlight to get a better view and figure out what this smaller thing was. Two legs. A face. He was a broad man, built like a tank and frozen in the rock with the dragons. His hands stretched to the curved, unmoving heavens above him, and one held a sword as tall as him. His face was locked in a roar.
Again, she turned the page for its description.
Now vacant to all but its immobile tenants, the Villing Caves were once a celebrated haven in the time of Ethos. Yakona would come from miles away to walk the endless grottos and explore the hidden caverns and lakes here. After the collapse of Ethos, however, the caves became favored by the Retrien Bloods: a yakona bloodline that preferred the heat of the caves’ nearby volcanoes.
More than two millennia ago, a vicious breed of dragon infested the network of caves that compose the caverns. They killed thousands of Retriens. To save his people and his home, the Retrien Blood led a final, desperate battle against the dragons. When it was clear that his soldiers were losing, he called upon every drop of power he possessed and sealed the dragons and himself in a stony tomb.
His bloodline has long since disappeared, as his Heir did not awaken at what all thought to be his father’s death. Instead, it’s believed that the Blood lives still, trapped in the very stone which binds his enemies.
“Ourea is intense,” Kara said, rubbing her face.
She nestled her head against the pillow, but tried to stay awake even as her eyes glazed over. Her mind would just replay the car crash over and over if she slept, like it had for a solid month after the accident. Her eyes closed even as she begged her body to stay awake.
Kara hadn’t even realized she’d fallen asleep until she woke up. She tried to shake away the groggy hum of exhaustion.
At least there weren’t any dreams.
The morning broke bright and sunny, as if there had never been a sad day in the city of Hillside. She stretched and crossed to the window. Dappled splotches of shade from the clouds above fell over the stables, where a figure with black hair walked by with two shoulder packs and disappeared into a stall.
She bathed, changed, wrapped the satchel—which she filled with her few possessions—over her shoulder, and headed for the door. She guessed her way through the hallways and somehow ended up in the kitchen twice, but eventually she found the dining hall and the door that led out to the stables.
Stone bricks framed each stall’s thick wooden door. The top half of each door lay open to let in the sunlight, while the bottom half remained closed to keep the mounts and other creatures inside. In one stall, a fully-saddled black horse whinnied, its reins shaking around its neck as it perked its ears toward her.
“Good morning, Vagabond.”
Kara turned to find Braeden behind her, a wide saddle on his shoulder. He rubbed the deep bags under his eyes with his free hand.
“You didn’t sleep last night, did you?” she asked.
He shrugged and walked through a hallway she hadn’t noticed before, which led to the center hallway of the stables. Each of the stalls she’d seen from the outside also had wooden, inward-facing doors that swung open on hinges.
The ceiling opened into rafters. The arched support beams curved and intertwined with each other, each one looping over and under a dozen different arches before it reached the other side of the roof. Birds twittered and sang to each other, flying from nest to nest as stable hands led horses and even a giant wolf through the hallway.
Braeden slipped into the stall next to the one with the black horse, so Kara leaned on the doorframe and looked in.
She gasped. “What is that?”
He threw the saddle on what looked like a giant, horse-sized Doberman with two heads, a short gray coat, and black stripes on its legs. Both heads turned when she appeared, their glossy black eyes looking her over while their drooping ears perked in curiosity. Each stretched its neck forward as far as it could without moving and sniffed the air around her.
“A drowng,” Braeden answered. “They’re incredibly fast and even more loyal. Most of the Hillsidians I know ride these instead of horses, because they actually attack instead of running away. No offense, Goliath.”
The black horse in the stall next to them snorted.
Boot heels slapped on the stone hallway, and Kara peeked out, turning in time to see Gavin come around the corner. His mouth turned up as though to smile, but with the bags under his eyes, it looked more like a grimace.
“Are you ready, Vagabond?”
Kara nodded.
“Wonderful. I must thank you again for agreeing to speak for Hillside on your trip. I wanted to give you a parting gift.” He patted the black horse’s stall door. “This is Goliath. He was one of Mother’s mounts, but he is now yours.”
Goliath reached his nose through a gap in the stall bars and nickered, so she rubbed his soft muzzle. He licked her hand, leaving a hot trail of saliva on her fingers. She grimaced and wiped it on her pants before peeking through the stall door to get a better look.
He was as beautiful and toned as a racehorse. His shoulder alone was taller than her, and a white crescent moon peeked through the thick black forelock which fell into his eyes.
“Thank you, Gavin.”
“I thought you would be more comfortable on a horse, even if they aren’t as smart as our other mounts.”
; Goliath snorted again and stomped his foot, but if Gavin noticed, he didn’t react. Instead, he bowed to her, nodded to Braeden, and strode from the stable.
Kara slid back into the drowng’s stall and leaned on the doorframe, eyeing Braeden as he glared at the floor, lost in thought. His eyebrows overshadowed his eyes and made the bags look darker as he turned back and tied the leather bags onto his saddle.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Of course not. You heard him last night.”
“You really needed to sleep.”
“Promise me something,” he said, walking to her. He leaned one arm against the wall and looked down at her, lowering his voice to a whisper.
“Don’t trust Gavin with anything,” he said, frowning. “If you decide to make this your home, if you decide to come back here after you go to the other kingdoms, stay away from him. Stay away from everyone.”
Kara paused, biting her tongue. She wanted to tell him about the Vagabond’s village, but her gut twisted again at the thought. Her intuition flared. Tell no one, it said. She swallowed her words and forced a wry smile.
“What happened to kissing babies?” she finally muttered.
“Kara, no jokes. Not now.”
“I was kind of being serious. If I’m here, I’m supposed to socialize. That’s what you said, isn’t it?”
“The Gavin you saw through the crack in the door last night was just a taste of who he truly is. If he wants you, he will do absolutely anything to control you. You can’t trust anyone here.”
“I trust you,” she said, catching his eye. He tensed his jaw and sighed.
“I know.” He forced a smile and set a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you.”
Goliath nipped her shirt through a hole in the stall and pulled her away, nickering in glee once he had her attention.
She and Braeden laughed, the dark spell of their conversation broken, but they avoided eye contact. Braeden opened the stall door which led to the field behind the castle and pulled himself onto his drowng.
“We should get going,” he said, ushering his mount into the sunlight.
Kara slipped into Goliath’s stall. The horse perked its ears again and nuzzled his nose into her shoulder as she ran her hands down to the saddle. Up until now, Rowthe had simply read her mind and known where to go. She thought back to a horse camp she’d gone to in the eighth grade. Hopefully, she remembered enough to at least mount her horse without looking like a complete idiot.
She opened the outward-facing stall door and caught sight of Braeden as he waited for her under a passing patch of shade. Goliath stood still as she slid her foot into the stirrup and hoisted herself onto the giant horse. She muttered a silent victory when she didn’t fall off the other side.
She lifted the soft reins until there was only a slight bend in the line between her hand and Goliath’s mouth, gently tilted his head toward the exit, and tapped him lightly with her heel. He started a slow walk toward the Stelian Heir, who waited for her to reach him before he steered his drowng around the castle.
Together, they walked toward one of the roads which led away from the city. They were quiet. The memories Verum had pried from her swarmed in the silence, flashing and screeching and echoing with the lost sound of her mom’s voice. She didn’t know why she wanted to tell him, to confess, but she knew he would understand.
“Braeden?”
He looked over. “Yes?”
“My Mom died in a car crash six months ago. I was driving. It was my fault. That’s why I was going to a therapist.”
He watched her, even though she couldn’t peel her eyes from the shifting cobblestone road, and didn’t respond. She didn’t want him to.
“I think about her every day,” she continued. “The ironic thing is that I was just trying to get her to a hospital, because she was sick and her dad was out of town on business. I didn’t know what to do. It had just rained, but who am I kidding? It’s always raining in Tallahassee. I took the curves too sharply. I hit a ditch. Glass was everywhere—” Her voice broke.
“I’m sorry you had to relive that, Kara.”
“The drenowith said I was broken, that I couldn’t help anyone until I fixed myself.” She scoffed. “I don’t even know how to do that.”
“You aren’t broken,” he said softly. “You made a mistake and you can’t forgive yourself for it. That just means you are normal.”
She glanced up to him from the corner of her eye, and he shot her a reassuring smile.
“It gets better,” he added. “The pain never goes away, but it does get better.”
The gate came into focus at the end of the road, the gold of its metal ivy glinting in the warm summer sun. It was framed on either side by redwood trees, the metal ivy stretched between them and welded to their trunks. The vines slithered over each other as she and Braeden came closer, unweaving themselves to create a hole large enough for them to pass through. A stone path lined with pine trees led the way into a lush forest.
Six mounted Hillsidians, each sitting on a drowng, waited on the other side of the gate. They wore green uniforms with a golden tree in the center and swords around their waists. The tallest of them trotted forward to meet her as the ivy gate closed behind them.
Braeden smiled and nodded to him. “Good morning, Captain Demnug. Kara, this is the captain Blood Gavin mentioned last night. He will take you to the Rose Cliffs.”
Blood Gavin. His title sounded too formal. It sounded wrong.
“It’s nice to meet you, Captain,” she said.
“The pleasure is mine. We will make sure you get to the Rose Cliffs safely, Vagabond.”
“I will see you when you return, then, Kara,” Braeden lied.
She glanced over to him as he steered his mount away. He winked, flashing the white shell necklace, and she had to remind herself that he wasn’t really leaving. She wasn’t really alone in this.
The incessant Hillside fog rolled into the lane, shrouding the distance in white mist. Braeden bolted down the path to the thundering sound of his drowng’s paws and became a black figure in the vapor before he dissolved from sight completely.
The six Hillsidian guards closed in around her, making a circle with her at its center, and started forward at a slower pace.
A green flash surrounded them in a sudden blaze. An icy breath of frost blew up her arms, leaving goose bumps. She turned to look at the gates, but all that remained were closely-knit trees branching out into the forest, shrouded in more of the deep fog.
“What was that?” she asked.
“We passed through Hillside’s lichgate, Vagabond,” the captain answered. “I forget you aren’t from Ourea. With most lichgates, you see a blue light and feel a kick in your gut. But we have perfected ours so that you feel only a slight chill. I must confess that the green light is just vanity on our part. We liked it.”
“Ah.”
The somber guards ushered her forward, but sat on the edges of their seats. Their stirrups rested on the balls of their feet as they examined every break in the forest they passed.
The sun crawled overhead, and her satchel rubbed against her lower back, making her think of the blue egg inside that was slowly turning orange the closer it came to hatching. A few names ran through her mind, mostly those she’d dreamt up for the Siberian Husky she’d never been allowed to get. One popped randomly into her head: Flick. She toyed with it.
I like it. Flick.
The sun warmed her neck and arms as they passed through the occasional beam of sunlight. The stone road faded into a dirt path that wound in and out of the trees. Birds sang and fluttered. Creatures—more of what she didn’t want to assume were squirrels—tore through the tree branches above, scattering leaves onto the company like rain. The forest was alive and unafraid, so unlike the foreboding silence that had eaten at her nerves when she’d returned last night.
She tried to focus on the sunlight instead of the many memories which plagued her and instead watched the cap
tain, who examined the forest. He kept one hand on the hilt of his sword.
“How far away are the Rose Cliffs?” she asked.
“A day and a half’s ride if we don’t take any detours,” he answered before turning back to the forest.
All right. No conversation, then.
She decided to use the silence to practice the magic she’d learned thus far. She started with flames, focusing her energy on her palm and drawing a small fire. She made it larger, then smaller, and then made it flicker out completely. They walked like this for hours, listening and watching and waiting for something to happen.
