The king tapped the letter against his palm and shut the door with a click. “There’s no more time to waste. Do it, Blaire.”
Blaire released the man’s shirt and turned to the king with hesitant, wide eyes. “Are you sure? H-he may not ever be the same.”
The king narrowed his eyes at Blaire’s reluctance and glanced at the outline of the potion in his pocket. “I would hear the message he was intended to deliver. If you are unwilling, I’m sure Lord—”
“I will do it, Your Majesty.”
The king tucked the letter away as Blaire pulled a small vial of amber liquid from within his robe and knelt over the prostrate messenger. He forced the man’s jaw open and emptied the vial, holding the man’s mouth closed until he swallowed. The man coughed and sputtered, then lay still.
A moment later, the man jerked upright. Blaire jumped back, but the man only stared at the wall to his left. Blaire’s eyes flicked between the man and the king before he sputtered out, “Tell us the message you have to deliver.”
“We are coming.” The man’s detached voice echoed in the bare cell. “Have the location ready.” He slumped against the wall, eyes unblinking, his stare now lifeless.
The king’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. Sweat started beading on Blaire’s forehead. “Your Majesty, I don’t—”
“This will work.” He grabbed Blaire by the front of his robes. “You still have the location?”
Blaire tugged at the collar of his robe. “Yes, but—”
He pushed Blaire away. “Then stop worrying. The plan will work.”
Blaire used a handkerchief to wipe the sweat and greasy hair from his face, and bobbed his head. “Yes, of course, Your Majesty.”
Soft grass caressed my bare arms as I lay on my back in the meadow. I’d washed my tunic, trousers, and undershirt, and scrubbed the salt and dirt from every inch of my skin. Sunshine beat down on me from a cloudless sky, its rays penetrating deep into my bones like I’d become part of the Wild itself. No more pain. No more hunger or thirst. No more questions. Somehow I knew the sun wouldn’t even burn my skin, like it usually did when I was outside too long.
A tiny orange frog hopped along my line of vision. My clothes had been dry for…a while. How long? I couldn’t remember, but it was warm enough that I didn’t need the extra protective layers.
A tiny buzzing tickled my mind, some instinct long buried. I closed my eyes, but the buzzing continued, so I got up, stumbling when the ground shifted under me, and ran my fingers through the rippling silver lake on my way to the grove of trees. To my soft nook, nestled between the roots of the largest ribbon tree.
The ring on my left hand still had dirt in its engravings. Maybe if I took it off to wash it…
The buzzing pressed harder against my mind. My bare foot kicked against something hidden in the grass. When I bent to reach the small brown rectangle, my hand froze. A book? A dull ache started behind my eyes. I shook my head, trying to remember something. Hadn’t this happened before?
“What is going on?” I whispered, and picked up the book.
A swirling wave of understanding crashed into me, followed closely by guilt. Ren. Then the pain came. The tethers throbbed worse than ever before, my stomach a rock of hunger. The cut on my cheek. My dry throat. What was happening? I looked down and blinked—I was in only my underthings, and my skin was decidedly pink from the sun.
“Glaciers.” My fingers clung to the book like a lifeline. I snatched up my clothes and put them on. Searched the base of each tree until I found my sword. I buckled it around my waist, muttering every curse I knew, grabbed my staff, and ran.
How much time had I lost? I searched my memories as I went, using my staff to push away the ferns slapping against me at every step. Hazy recollections of sitting under the ribbon trees played in a loop—a day. I think I’d lost only a day.
As I distanced myself from the meadow, its tentacles held tight to the corners of my mind, urging me to turn back. Wrapping around the broken tethers and squeezing. The world spun, but I continued forward, a firm grip on my sword and Ren’s book.
At midday, I stumbled into a stream and slurped up as much water as I could. Wild blackberries grew from the mud on the bank. I hesitated, wondering if they’d make me forget, but my stomach took control and I gathered as many as I could, eating until I had to sit a moment so they wouldn’t come back up. Wretched Wild. How long had it been since I’d eaten?
I kept a few berries to take with me. I wouldn’t forget again.
* * *
That night, I dreamed of the shining lake. Of peace and painlessness. I sat up with a jolt at first light, disturbed at the strong presence that still lingered. Vines were twisted around me, fuzzy leaves caressing my cheeks, tightening so slowly I hadn’t noticed I could barely breathe.
The green ropes had pinned my arms to my sides, and the more I struggled, the more they tightened. Cords wrapped around my stomach, squeezing. Where was my sword? Not in its sheath. I cast my eyes around until I saw it—also embedded in a tangle of vines.
I squirmed from side to side until I could bring my knees to my chest. I whipped the knife from my boot and, sucking in a deep breath, cut the cords around my stomach. Then I worked on those holding my arms, trying not to slice myself in the process. Three vines snapped under my blade, and then the others unraveled and retreated back into the forest.
The ones holding my sword dragged it away, and I jumped up, hacking at them until they released it. I stood, gasping in lungfuls of air, and wiped my hand down my face.
I found my direction and set forth again. I needed to get out of this place.
Where it had drawn me in with open arms, now the Wild turned against me, ripping into my skin and snagging my clothes with every step. Beady eyes watched from above, an army of garish birds keeping pace with my strides, screeching at me to turn back.
Everywhere I turned, rivers overflowing with spring runoff from the mountains crossed my path, which meant more water, but it also meant I had to follow them until I found a safe place to cross. Fields of boulders kept me scrambling on my hands. My tender skin chafed against my clothes. But the pain anchored me, kept me from thinking about the shining lake as I hiked through the night. I didn’t dare sleep; I didn’t have enough strength to fight off the vines again. My thoughts simplified to the bare necessities for survival: food, water.
Just before dawn, as I staggered through a swath of mud, I reached the Fjalls.
A meadow filled with tall blue flowers opened from the trees, and a wall of black rock jutted from the earth. Patches of green on shards of ledges broke the smooth surface. Even the Wild was quiet at the base of these mountains.
Magic hummed everywhere, vibrating through me until I could barely focus. I gripped Ren’s book in one hand and the staff in my other, and followed the mountains, the black wall to my left, the Wild to my right. The road to Miners’ Pass couldn’t be more than a day away. Then it would be one day over the pass, one day in the Wild on Turia’s side, and then I’d be out.
The land rose steadily, and my breath grew shorter the higher I climbed. Eventually I was so high on the benches of the mountains that the misting rain turned to crystals of ice suspended in the air, which stuck to my skin as I walked through them. Even with my Hálendian blood, the cold seeped into my bones until I thought they’d shatter with every step. I tore strips from the wool shirt under my tunic and wrapped them around my exposed hands.
My chin was drooping to my chest, my eyes falling closed, when I stumbled onto the trail I had been seeking. Wary of other travelers, or of the shadowman, I stayed off the road. And by late afternoon, I couldn’t take another step. My sleepless night was catching up to me. Then the wind changed, and the animals who’d been following now settled in early. A storm was coming.
One peak of the mountain stretched jagged into the sky, higher than
the rest. The pass. Tomorrow. I’d summit tomorrow.
I’d come across only a few bushes with meager berries I recognized, and my stomach ached with hunger. I ate all I could and found a wide, flat rock—no vines—under a rocky overhang to sleep on, before closing my eyes. Water filled my dreams again. Ren’s book never left my hand.
* * *
A glaze of snow dusted everything when I woke. The white sky blanketed the mountains, with fingers of wispy clouds reaching toward me like smoke through the trees. The storm wasn’t done yet.
I tied the hood of my cloak tight around my face. Heavy snowflakes began to fall as I reached the road. Could I survive the pass in a storm? I looked up the steep, winding path shrouded in white, and back into the Wild, where clouds, building against the black wall, hid the tops of the trees.
The Wild called to me. Alluring, safe. Painless.
I ran a trembling hand over my face and shook away the desire to return. I wouldn’t forget. Wouldn’t give up.
My steps crunched along the steep trail, irreverent in the graveyard silence within the short, scrubby trees. I turned another broken branch into a staff to keep my traction in the mud and rocks. I didn’t want to relinquish Ren’s book to my pocket, but I needed the help to balance, especially if the wind worsened. The trail wove back and forth as it climbed, the next turn always hidden.
I pushed for hours, my calves and lungs burning from the uphill battle. Snow drifted against the jagged rocks and blew in my face. The wind tugged at me, icy fingers trying to drag me back toward the shining lake. My sword banged against my hip with every step. Ren’s book in my pocket grew heavier.
I’d lost track of time in the blizzard—it could have been midday or midnight. But when I next raised my head against the onslaught of elements, a strange stack of rocks peeked out of the snowbank. I shivered, yet I was burning, sweating. The mountain rose on both the left and right of me, everything else shrouded in a veil of clouds.
I stared at the craggy formation. A burial marker? I shook the thought loose. No, it was something else. I knew what it was, but my thoughts were so slow. I rested my hand over my pocket. Over Ren’s book.
My brain finally unscrambled, and I realized those rocks signaled the summit of the pass. I would have smiled had my face not been numb.
I crossed the summit of the Fjalls as the storm raged. A whole new set of muscles began aching on the downward trek—my thighs and back burned—but the staffs kept me from sliding off the mountain.
The landscape of white blurred in and out of focus before me as I pressed on, one foot in front of the other. Had I been hiking for hours or days? Either way, I must be close. The Wild’s grasp on my mind stretched thinner on this side of the mountain, though its claws sank deep.
Another step, and the snow underfoot shifted. My heart lurched into my throat, and I would have careened head over feet had one staff not gotten wedged into a rock buried in snow. And had my grip not been frozen to the wood. My other staff tumbled downhill, pulling more and more snow with it until a small avalanche crashed into the trees below.
I gripped my staff and breathed for a moment. It had saved my life.
Once my heart had stopped racing, I continued, stepping as gingerly as I could. The wind finally calmed as I descended past the tree line again, and every breath got easier. Clouds still hung low, and the snow had turned to rain—but I wasn’t going to get much farther on my shaking legs in the darkening night.
I was searching off the path for a place to rest, covering my tracks as well as I could, when a rock slipped under my foot and I tumbled forward. I rolled once, twice, coming to a stop only when my body slammed into something hard and rough.
Groaning, I pushed myself up on shaking arms. My ribs burned where I’d hit the tree stump. But ahead, a small rock overhang created a shallow cave. There were no signs of wildlife, and no vines, so I scooted down the ridge and crawled into the alcove.
My eyes drifted shut almost immediately from exhaustion.
Survive.
They snapped open. I carefully unwrapped my hands, nervous to see what damage had been done. My fingertips were white, but there was no black—the strips of the wool shirt and heavy cloak had protected them from the worst of the cold. I laid the strips out to dry and wished desperately for water. If I ate the snow, it would only freeze me from the inside out.
I pulled my arms from the damp sleeves of my tunic and wrapped them around my torso, trying to keep all my body heat together.
My eyes drifted shut again, and I couldn’t fight it this time.
* * *
I spent most of the night shivering, dreaming of the lake, of ribbon trees wrapping around me, falling asleep only to be jerked awake in fear I would forget again. That the vines had returned. But I opened my eyes to sunshine; the storm had run its course.
The narrow path wasn’t much wider than an animal trail, but I followed it regardless—anything to get me out of the Wild faster. I tried to remember the map of Turia I had studied so long ago. I exhaled long and slow. I’d been so focused on getting out of the Wild, I’d forgotten that a whole new set of troubles awaited me. Mining towns dotted the western forests of Turia, and my light hair marked me as a foreigner.
Resolved to sort that out later, I ate the few shriveled wild strawberries I came across, again wishing for water. I’d traveled only a short way before the silence got to me. Birds weren’t singing here. No squirrels chirping. Just creaking trees.
The Wild’s magic seemed muted here, and though my mind was clearer, a feeling of being watched crept in.
I wasn’t sure if the shadowman could have tracked me through that storm, but I darted off the trail and headed straight south. Stay on the road, everyone had said. But if the Wild was protecting me from the shadowman, its reach wouldn’t extend to the roads.
In the forest, I pressed on. Still, I didn’t cross any streams, and my throat ached with thirst. Every step away from the Fjalls, every step away from the Wild, the emptiness inside grew until my every thought stayed focused on it. My hands shook. The hole from the tethers threatened to consume me.
I didn’t even hear the wolf until it lunged.
Instinct took over, and my walking staff came up, the only thing between me and the sharp fangs of the wolf. I used its momentum to roll back and kick it off, then swung my staff at its muzzle. It yelped and stood in my path, a menacing growl deep in its throat. Two other massive beasts stalked out of the brush to stand next to their leader. Their muscles rippled beneath their thick fur. They were so big.
I switched my staff to my left hand and eased my sword out of its scabbard. Sweat dripped beneath my tunic. My ring burned against my finger. I stepped back—once, twice. The wolves didn’t follow.
My brow furrowed, and I stepped back again. The biggest wolf, the one in the middle, sat on his haunches. The other two lay down, their tongues lolling to the side. Their leader watched as I checked above to either side and behind me. But there were no other predators nearby.
Cautiously, I stepped forward. The biggest wolf stood. I retreated, and the wolf sat again. I ground my jaw together. Wretched Wild.
“I have to keep going,” I said aloud, my voice shattering the cadence of the forest around us. The wolves stood.
Run, the Wild whispered again. Run away. I squeezed my eyes tight against the memory of the shining lake and ribbon trees. I wouldn’t forget. I’d bear the pain of the tethers forever if it meant not forgetting Ren and my father.
Survive, Hafa had said.
My focus narrowed down to my sword, staff, and the wolves. I stepped forward. “Let me pass.”
Their hackles rose once more. The biggest wolf lunged. I dodged to the side and brought my sword up, nicking its side, and threw my staff at the next wolf like a javelin, connecting with its neck.
I swung and ducked, lunging out of
the way and trying to push my way past them. My blade was an extension of my arm, and power thrummed through me. Even so, my strength was waning too fast.
A wolf jumped at me from the side as I engaged the other two in front. My arm came up to block the attack, even though I knew the wolf’s claws would rip it to shreds.
But the wolf never reached me. Instead, it flew back into a tree, landing in a heap. Yelping in pain, it scrambled to its feet and loped into the forest. The rest of the pack eyed me warily before following.
I studied the underbrush for more threats before falling to my knees, staring at my sword. Magic. I’d somehow used magic. But the tethers were broken. So how?
Then I remembered. The mage in the clearing. The vibrating heat as my ring had absorbed his magic that kept everyone else from moving. I studied the dirt-encrusted gem. I didn’t feel anything in it—had almost forgotten about it, actually. But it had saved the energy.
My hands shook, and I stumbled back. Magic. Not my own, but I’d used it nonetheless.
I bent to retrieve my staff and gasped at a burning across my side. My staff had rows of gouges from the claws or teeth of the wolves. So did I. I winced and sat hard in the dirt. I gently lifted the torn layers of material away from my body. Three red streaks dripped blood between my protruding hip bone and my ribs.
I tore a strip from the bottom of my tunic and pressed it into my side, breathing through my nose when the world began to spin. The scent of the ribbon trees lingered in the air, churning my stomach. I put more pressure on the wounds, then pulled the cloth away—they weren’t deep. I exhaled in relief, then slowly, ever so slowly, got to my feet.
I had to make it to Turia. Aleinn had died in my place. Hafa had died defending me. Their sacrifices wouldn’t be in vain.
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