by David Estes
“That makes two of us.”
The comment made the edge of Gareth’s lips twitch. “Can’t you do that thing where your skinmark flares up and saves us?”
Roan chuckled. “It doesn’t work that way. I can heal, that’s it. If you want, I can finish healing that sword wound of yours. The bruises on your neck, too.”
“What about that black eye I gave you?”
“Nay, I think it’s an improvement.”
“Nothing could improve your face.”
“Ha. Your wit is slipping. That was a little too obvious, even for you. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Toward that mirror.” Roan gestured into the distance.
“What’s the point?”
“To get there. To stare at our beautiful faces. I don’t know, but that’s where I’m going. Join me if you wish.” Roan stood and started off. His legs felt like lead, like he was dragging iron balls attached by heavy chains.
A moment later, Gareth caught up.
“Welcome to the party,” Roan said.
“I didn’t have anything better to do. Also you said I had a beautiful face.”
“I lied.” I didn’t.
If getting to the mirror had seemed impossible the day before, now it was almost too easy. They reached the smooth, glassy surface mere moments after they started walking. “Strange,” Roan said. “It’s like distance has no meaning in this place.” He stared at the mirror, which didn’t really seem to be a mirror, for he couldn’t see his own reflection. And yet it showed the gray sky, the rough landscape. Just not them.
Gareth reached out and touched the mirror, and it rippled. He jerked his hand back like he’d been burned. “It’s cold, like ice.”
Roan touched it, too, and the surface felt like warm water to him. Strange. His hand slipped through it, disappearing. “Can it truly be this simple?” he muttered. “We just walk through?”
“Can’t hurt to try,” Gareth said, pushing his own hand through the glass.
“At the same time?”
Gareth smirked. “At least we won’t die alone.”
They stepped through. Roan felt his body twist and then he was falling, landing hard on his boots, his knees buckling beneath him. He ended up sprawled on his back, staring up at a smooth, gray sky. Gareth was beside him, his face planted in the dirt. “Are we dead?” he asked.
“Might as well be,” Roan said. “The mirror spat us back out.” He sat up, studying the enormous surface, which was glassy once more. Something caught his attention. “Look!”
Gareth followed his gaze to where something was moving inside the mirror. Or behind the mirror, it was hard to tell. First there was something big and black and…furry? Then there was a flash of silver, there and gone. There again. Side to side, moving with inhuman speed.
Roan tracked the movement, squinting, realizing…
“Gwendolyn Storm,” he whispered.
And then the mirror split open down the middle, cracks spider-webbing across its surface. It shattered, shards of glass tinkling around them like summer rain but deadlier—razor-sharp daggers.
The wind picked up, seeming to originate from the green and brown void behind the broken mirror, which looked to be rushing up to meet them.
Thud!
Roan groaned as, once more, he hit something hard, right between his shoulder blades. Above him, branches crisscrossed, leaves rustled in a gentle breeze, rays of sunlight pierced the thick forest.
“Ungh?” he said, trying to ask a question, but feeling only pain rippling through his body.
“Yes. You’re alive.”
Roan twisted his head to find Gwen sitting on a stump, staring at him.
“Gar?” he said, unable to complete the full name.
“Beside you. Also alive. What happened to your eye? And Gareth’s neck?”
“Hit me, strangled him.” Roan felt like he was chasing his breath.
“Good. Saves me the trouble of having to beat some sense into the both of you.”
“Ungh,” Gareth said.
Roan agreed wholeheartedly. “How?” he asked.
“I fought the nymph witch,” Gwen said. “I won.”
“Dead?”
“Not yet, unfortunately she escaped before I could lop off her head. But without this, she’ll eventually die.” Gwen dangled the seed necklace from her fingertips, the silver lockets clinking against each other.
“Broken?” Roan remembered the glass shards raining down around him. He inspected his skin for cuts, but didn’t find any.
“Yes,” Gwen said. “I broke Felicity’s, but not her sisters’. I get the feeling she’s kept them captive for a long time. And anyway, now that we have their souls”—she clinked the lockets against each other once more—“the forest might be slightly more cooperative.”
Roan sat up, rubbing his head, which felt bruised. Beside him, Gareth stretched out his spine. He found his voice. “Thank you.”
Gwen nodded. “Saving two kings seemed a worthy enough cause.”
“I’m not a king,” Roan and Gareth said simultaneously.
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Gwen said. “But I wasn’t willing to risk it. Plus, I need you both if I’m going to gain access to the Western Archives.”
“How do you figure?” Roan asked.
“I need you because you’re a Loren,” she said. “And I need Gareth to ransom in case they don’t believe you’re the long-lost prince of the west.”
Gareth looked at Roan. “Can we go back in the locket?” he asked.
Gwendolyn was right. The forest had changed. The trees were further apart and no longer spiked, the undergrowth less thick and thorn-free, and the vines seemed to have pulled themselves higher, dangling from the uppermost boughs of the tallest trees.
For once, they were all in agreement as to which direction the sun had risen from, and thus, knew where to go. Still, that night they slept in a tight circle, just in case Felicity attempted to retrieve her sisters’ lockets. According to Gwen, the nymph queen was dying, but it was a long process that could take over a year.
The next morning, they ate blueberries from a bush that had appeared beside them during the night. “The Tangle is most hospitable,” Gareth said, purple juice dribbling down his chin.
“Aye,” Roan said. “It pays to travel with a warrior of the iron forest.”
Roan expected his comment to at least earn him a wry smile from Gwen, but instead she glanced away, looking uncomfortable. Gareth seemed to notice the change in her demeanor as well. “What?” he asked.
“I might’ve left a small detail out of my story,” she said, still refusing to meet either of their stares.
Roan frowned, trying to remember what she’d said to them, what she could’ve left out. Nothing sprang to mind. “What detail?”
“How I saved you. Well, sort of. I did save you, but I had help.”
“Help?”
She nodded. “Yes, from a…a bear. He helped me defeat Felicity.”
Gareth chuckled. “Color me amused,” he said. “You had me going there. Roan too.”
Roan would’ve thought she was joking, too, if not for the serious expression she wore. “A bear, like an animal?” he said. And then he remembered what he’d seen through the mirror just before he’d realized it was Gwen. Dark fur.
“It’s no jest,” Gwen said. “I thought maybe I was hallucinating, some final nymph trick—that’s why I didn’t mention it right away. But now I don’t know…” She stared at her feet for a moment, and then her eyes darted up to meet Roan’s, then Gareth’s. “I think it was real. After we’d smashed the nymph’s locket, the bear spoke to me. Well, he wasn’t a bear anymore, he was a large man, one of the largest I’ve ever seen. Even Beorn Stonesledge would’ve had to look up to meet his eyes. He was half-naked, and his skin was covered in words.”
“Words?” Roan said.
“Aye. I was so shocked I didn’t have a chance to say much, but I read some of the words. I
think…” She trailed away, chewing her lip.
“What?” Roan said. “What did the words say?”
“I think they were prophecies about the fatemarks.”
Gareth laughed. “I think I might still be inside the locket, dreaming.”
Gwen ignored him. “The man called himself Bear Blackboots.”
“I’ve never heard that name before,” Roan said.
“That’s because she made it up,” Gareth said. “Roan, she’s amusing herself at your expense.”
“Me neither,” Gwen said, continuing to ignore Gareth to focus on Roan. “But he told me something. Something that might be important.”
“What?”
“He told me who his mother was.”
“Who?”
“The Western Oracle.” As quickly as she could, Gwen brought Gareth up to speed on everything she knew about the Western Oracle and her prophecies.
Gareth threw another handful of berries into his mouth, munching loudly. “You actually believe the words you’re saying, don’t you?”
Gwen nodded.
“Fair enough. So you’re not joking. Considering everything that’s happened, I’ll suspend disbelief. Let’s assume the Western Oracle was a real person and not some western fantasy. If so, she’s been dead for almost two centuries. How would her son still be alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“And he was a bear first, right? And then a man? How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s some kind of a shapeshifter.”
Gareth rolled his eyes. “And why would he have helped you? Why would he have even appeared to you? Why do you suppose eight rulers have to die in order for the Western Oracle’s prophecy to be fulfilled?” he asked.
Roan had considered that very question numerous times already. “Because the monarchs are the ones causing the war.” The more he’d thought about the Western Oracle, the more he believed she’d wanted peace. That thought only made him more eager to learn more about her and her teachings.
“Don’t tell me you agree with her.”
Roan glanced from Gwen to Gareth. “I don’t know anything about Bear Blackboots or whether the Western Oracle had a son, but I trust Gwen.”
“Aye, I get that, so do I. But this forest plays tricks on the best of us.”
“I saw what I saw,” Gwen said.
“Right, a talking bear.”
Gwen grit her teeth. “The bear didn’t talk until—”
“It transformed into a giant man wearing prophecies instead of a shirt, right, I got that part,” Gareth said. “So he’s the two-hundred-year-old son of the Western Oracle, here to help her carry out some prophecy. But why eight rulers? Why not six? Or four, one from each kingdom.”
Gwen said, “It would need to be five now that the south is in civil war.”
“Regardless,” Gareth said.
Roan chewed on the question. “Perhaps Kings’ Bane will kill two from each kingdom. The current ruler, and the primary heir. Perhaps he thinks that will be sufficient to change the mindset.”
“Let’s assume you’re right,” Gareth continued. “What happens when Bane fails to kill a monarch, or the king or queen is killed by someone else. Do those deaths count?”
“I don’t know,” Roan said. “That’s what we need to find out. That’s why we’re going west. For information.”
Gareth wasn’t finished. “And what about my death? I was dead before Roan brought me back, wasn’t I? Will he come to finish me off?”
“Gareth,” Roan said. “We don’t know, but we’re in this together. We’re not going to let him kill you. All we can hope is that the Archives have the answers.”
“And if they don’t?”
“We find someone or something that does.”
Gareth took his last handful of berries and tossed them away in frustration. He stood and stalked off. “Aye, someone like this Bear Blackboots fellow, right? Maybe we really are doomed.”
“Gareth,” Roan said, and started to get up to follow, but Gwen stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Let him go,” she said. “He has to cope with all of this in his own way.”
“Cope with what? I told him we’ll protect him. I’ll heal him again if necessary.”
“Sometimes I think you have rocks inside that pretty head of yours.” Roan raised his eyebrows, more because she’d referred to him as ‘pretty’ than because of the insult. Her hand was still on his arm, her fingers warm against his skin. It reminded him of how he’d felt when Gareth’s head was nestled against his side, the prince sleeping peacefully inside the locket. He’d just shifted during the night, he told himself. His closeness wasn’t intentional. The prince doesn’t want me, but maybe Gwen still could.
He had the urge to reach out and touch her hand, but he didn’t. Gwen said, “He’s worried about his brother, not himself. He fears that by giving up the throne he sentenced Grian to death. Grian is the only family he has left.”
“Oh,” Roan said, feeling foolish.
“Aye. I can relate. I have no family left either.”
Roan couldn’t hold back any longer—he placed his hand on hers. Gwen’s cat-like eyes danced to their hands, then back to his eyes. Roan said, “You have me. You have Gareth, too. You don’t have to push us away. Not anymore.”
Gwen’s pink lips knitted into a firm line, and Roan waited for her usual response: anger, or flight, or a punch in the shoulder. Which was why he was surprised when she rotated her hand until her palm was touching his. One by one, her fingers laced between his. The sensation was like warm water on skin, more powerful than anything he had ever felt, including the pain of being nearly impaled by a dragon’s tooth. His chest swarmed with butterflies. Was this really happening?
She spoke: “Why did you question your own existence as a child?” she asked.
He didn’t know what he’d expected her to say, but not that. “I—I don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
He was trapped in her gaze, and he knew he would tell her anything in that moment. It was like being enchanted all over again. “I felt alone. I felt abandoned.”
Gwen nodded. “I loved someone once.”
“The poet?” Roan asked.
Gwen nodded.
He wanted to say I’m sorry but knew it wouldn’t be nearly enough. “When? How?”
“During the Dragon Massacre. Many years ago,” she said.
Roan rubbed his finger against hers. Though he hadn’t been alive when the Calypsians and their dragons had invaded Ferria, the southerners told the tale often. They wore the event like a badge of honor, despite the fact that they’d lost the battle. “But it hurts like yesterday,” Roan said.
Gwen blinked. “Sometimes. But not always. Time fades the best and the worst. Dulls the pain. But it’s always there, lingering, rising up when I least expect it.” Her thumb began moving against his, a tender dance.
“Will you recite his poem for me?” Roan asked, holding his breath.
Her thumb stopped moving. “No.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“No, I mean, I don’t remember it.”
“Night black, day bright,” Roan started, recalling the first line from her iron gate.
The words seemed to awaken something inside Gwen, and she squeezed his hand. “Stars sparkle, moonlight / Leaves rustle, streams flow / Lightning flashes, winds blow / Gleaming ore hawks, a silver dove / So much beauty, but none like you / My love.”
When she finished, the breath rushed out of her and her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “Oh Alastair,” she murmured.
“That was his name?”
She nodded.
Roan said, “He was a beautiful poet. But then again, he had a beautiful muse.”
Gwen let out a surprised laugh, and it felt more real than anything Roan had ever heard her utter, save perhaps for the poem she’d just recited and the name of her lost love. She withdrew her hand. “Don’t make me hur
t you,” she said.
Roan grinned. “I’m not trying to flatter you. My heart is simply on my sleeve—I have trouble hiding it when there’s something I want.”
“Or someone?”
He nodded, holding his breath. Waiting for the rejection, like with Gareth.
“Everyone I get close to dies.”
And there it was:
The reason.
Why she was the way she was. Why not only her body was sheathed in armor, but her heart too. Why she didn’t want any friends. Why she wanted Roan to be naught but a traveling companion. He remembered the way she’d been when the man known as Bark was dying, how she’d threatened Roan, pleaded with him, implored him to save Bark before her. But he didn’t. He refused her request and saved her instead. And then it was too late to save Bark. Her friend.
He remembered how much it seemed to break her.
Everyone I get close to dies.
Yet, as painful as her words were to hear, they were not a rejection. “I’m not going to die,” Roan said.
“You can’t promise me that. No one can.”
“I bear the lifemark. Not plague nor dragon can kill me. I’m invincible. I’m perfect for you.”
Gwen smiled again, dashing the tears from the corners of her eyes with her knuckles. “Speaking of which: Aren’t you going to heal your face?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. Anyway, it makes me look more dangerous, don’t you think?”
“If dangerous is a mouse with long blond hair.”
“All cower before my meekness,” Roan said.
“Aye, you’ve moved from as dangerous as a turtle to as dangerous as a chicken.”
Roan flapped his arms like wings and made a clucking sound. Gwen laughed. Roan stopped, turning serious. “In truth, I need to feel pain sometimes, just like everyone else. The bruises I wear are a reminder that I can hurt friends as easily as they can hurt me.”
Gwen’s eyes studied his face, as if tracing every mark, every bruise. It took all of his self-control not to shrink away from her scrutiny. “They will heal well enough on their own,” she agreed.
Roan was feeling bolder by the second. He reached up and traced her jawline with his thumb. “What say you?”
