“Very.” Was this what it had been like for Aven when he’d arrived in my world? Like he was in an alien place, with no names for the things around him, no clue what was dangerous and what was safe? How quick had he adapted to survive?
How quick would I have to adapt?
The faint, melodic sounds of life beyond the trees mingled with a deep rumble and a half-realized cry that cut off too abruptly. I quivered.
Quick, no doubt.
There are more than a few people there who you’d catch the eyes of like that. Aven’s comment flashed through my mind, and I tightened my hold on Tobin’s bow. Monsters and people alike were threats here. I couldn’t forget that just because Aven had some morals and charm.
“If you don’t know where we are, what if we’re only wandering deeper into nowhere?” I asked. How could we find somewhere safe if we had no idea where we were?
“Every forest ends somewhere,” Aven replied. “It’s better than being in the open. There are less things that will eat you in here than out there.”
I hoped the fear tightening my chest wasn’t written across my face. “At least there’s that.”
We continued in silence, and I listened to the rustling of the strange forest around us. Something scurried across a branch before I could catch sight of it, and I watched the higher branches for a glimpse of the creatures living in them. I asked, “How will you know where to find my brother?”
He lifted one shoulder. “That’s your job. I’ll help if I can, but our world is as vast as yours. He could be oceans away from where we are.”
Please, no. I’d never get to him in time. I wouldn’t even know where to begin securing passage across an ocean. “What if he is?”
“I don’t know, Hania. How far would you go to find him?”
I met his gaze. “As far as I have to.”
He stopped walking. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I am.” I would do anything to save Tobin. Anything.
“Would you fight? Kill? Give up yourself and everything you are? Die to get him home?”
“Why are you asking?” My voice wavered.
“Because humans don’t return from the Realm of Tides. You and I both know that. And I understand that you want to save him. I understand that he doesn’t deserve to be in the position he’s in. But I also want to know that you aren’t in over your head.”
I’d been in over my head since I’d taken Inka and left the farm. I knew that. I knew people didn’t come back from what I was doing. And who was I? A poor farmgirl. I wasn’t a guardsman, I wasn’t a warrior. I had minimal skill with a bow and desperate determination, but that wasn’t going to keep me alive.
It was too late now. I could turn around and swim back to the passing and crawl home defeated, or I could lie down and wait for the Realm of Tides to eat me alive, or I could fight.
“You were in over your head when you were caught,” I said.
“Exactly, and if I could go back I’d never walk into that village.”
“How did you survive?”
“I survived because they let me,” he said. For once he didn’t look away when he admitted it. Something burned in his gaze that I couldn’t read. “They could have burned my skin and killed me then and there. They wanted me alive to suffer. And there were days I wished they’d killed me. At least it would have been quicker than wasting away. There are people here who will do the same to you, and you’re much less equipped to fend them off than I was. And I still lost.”
I took a deep breath. “If that happens, so be it. I made my choice before I even met you, Aven. I won’t go home without Tobin, and if that means dying…then at least I die trying.”
“You’re too young to imagine what dying here means. Dying is the easy part. They’ll break you before they let you die, and when you start to break you won’t believe any of this noble bravery speech I’m sure you’ve been practicing for days.”
“So I won’t break.”
A quiet, tired laugh cracked the worry in his face, and he looked away, shaking his head. “Why did I agree to help the single stupidest human in the world?”
His words were harsh but not his voice. The warmth in his tone spread through me, lightening the icy ache in my muscles, and I fought down a smile as I continued past him. “Because you didn’t have much of a choice.”
Aven was silent before I heard the whisper of his footsteps behind me. “No, I didn’t,” he muttered.
The forest quieted around us, settling. I watched it, taking in every piece of it I could. The color here was richer, dazzling everywhere I turned. A branch bobbed as if something had leapt off it, and a handful of those feathery leaves rained down over me. I shook my head, shedding a few, but felt more tangle their way into my hair. “What was that?” I asked, reaching up to pull the leaves out, as Aven stopped beside me.
“Bad timing and some skittish rodent.” I paused my work when he pulled a leaf free with gentle, sure fingers and, without another word, tossed it to the ground and kept walking. I stared at his back for a few seconds too long before I made my feet move.
We walked in comfortable silence, passing my quickly-emptying water skin between us. The sun beat down, warming as the day drew on, until I’d passed dry and had sweat sliding down my spine. The ache in my legs and shoulders started up again, my pack too heavy, and my stomach growled its displeasure at having gone without breakfast. We were out of food; the bit of fish we’d had left over had been left on the beach. I stared at a bush drooping with heavy, dark berries as we passed it but didn’t touch them.
Aven was looking worn thin as well when he stopped. “We don’t have any food left, do we?” he asked me. I shook my head.
“We need more water too, if we’re going to get far.”
“Give me your bow.”
My fingers tightened around the smooth wood. “Why?”
“Because you have no hope of hunting anything here. I do.”
“I haven’t seen anything to hunt, unless we’re going to eat those bugs that eat the flower petals.”
His nose wrinkled in disgust, and he shook his head. “You don’t want to eat those, trust me.” He held out his hand, a silent request.
“I can use it. You can show me what can be hunted and how to track it.”
“You’ve caught one rabbit since I’ve known you. You aren’t exactly a great huntress, forgive me for saying.”
My cheeks burned but I handed the bow over. My few other attempts to catch us food had failed, leaving me with spooked animals disappearing into the underbrush and long searches for arrows that had missed their mark. I slid the quiver off and handed it to him, watching the too-few arrows within it as he slung it over his shoulder. “Be careful with it.”
“I wouldn’t dream of breaking anything of yours, Hania,” he promised. “Stay here. Nothing will bother you during the day as long as you stay on the ground. And…don’t touch anything.”
With that he was gone, vanishing through the trees without so much as a whisper—a hunter through and through, his predatory side back all at once. I sighed and sat down, back against a tree and pack resting in the grass beside me. Nothing to do but wait.
Another low growl came from somewhere and I slid my knife free. I trusted Aven’s words that nothing would attack me here, but the weight of it in my hand was reassuring. If something like the sellye appeared it wouldn’t save me, but it might give me a head start.
I jumped as a branch above me wobbled again, a few more leaves drifting toward the ground. Another rodent hopping branch to branch? Was this normal here?
It bobbed again, more violently this time, and I scrambled to my feet before the shower of leaves landed on me. Shielding my eyes from the sun’s glare, I tilted my head up to the branch but saw nothing. Whatever was in the tree must move fast.
I stepped around the tree, craning my neck to get a look, but found empty branches.
Another branch shook. More leaves fluttered loose over my head. “Stop
that!” I called, as if that might discourage whatever creature was running around up there.
A flash of movement, too quick to catch, and a branch in the next tree over shook as well. Then the next. My curiosity pushed me to follow it; I stepped away from the unmarked path Aven and I had been taking, casting a glance over my shoulder and trying to memorize the trees around me.
I wouldn’t go far. If it went more than another tree or two away I’d turn back, so I wouldn’t get lost.
It moved again, shaking another branch of the same tree. Deeper into the forest, the opposite direction Aven had gone. I stepped forward again, trying to mimic Aven’s smooth, silent footsteps.
I just wanted to see what it was, what other strange little things lurked about here…
The trembling branches quieted, and I stopped. No sign of any movement.
I had almost turned back when a scuffling sound in the grass got my attention, and I looked toward it. A few little creatures scurried from a shadow, meeting around a large cluster of plants. They were rodents of some sort, or something like them: long-bodied, short-legged, with sharp little faces and planes of bristled scales across their backs and shoulders, though their underbellies looked soft and vulnerable. I shifted my grip on my knife, watching them dig at the roots of the plants and nibble at seeds clutched in their forepaws.
If I had my bow I could catch them from here, but my knife would have to do. The wind drifted away from them; my scent would be hidden. If I could be quiet enough—
I managed one careful step before the plants moved.
Not plants at all—an animal rolled onto the ground, its back camouflaged.
A flash of claws and teeth and one of the rodents was dragged into the tangle of plants with a sharp squeal. The others bolted in all directions, one darting so close I felt the brush of its fur. Tiny, dark eyes hidden among colorful leaves turned after it, toward me, and I bolted as well, praying it wouldn’t give chase.
It appeared content with its snack; it let me go, and I glanced back once to ensure it had decided to ignore my presence. When I reached the tree I’d been resting under, I saw my pack had been torn open, supplies tossed on the ground. My candles, water skin, scattered as if someone had dug through them and found them unworthy of their attention.
“Aven?” I called in a hushed voice, turning a circle in place. There was no sign of anybody, my companion or otherwise. The back of my neck prickled, like there were eyes in every tree watching me. My palm was slick with sweat against my knife, and my mind spun with every story of my childhood, every painted figure, every rain-shrouded monster. All the things that might be here to kill me. And who knew what other monsters dwelled in the Realm of Tides that we had never seen, never even imagined? What creatures might see me as a lovely snack? “Hello?”
Aven had said nothing would bother me. My insides knotted with fear, my breath quickening. A flash of movement, something like metal, caught in the corner of my eye, and I spun to it. Nothing was there, only the trees. Not a soul in sight.
Aven should never have left me. He had been right; I was severely ill-equipped to handle this world.
“Who’s there?”
I heard a laugh, drifting on the wind, and I couldn’t tell where it came from. “Go home, little one, this isn’t your world.” The voice was like the tide given words, soft and flowing and holding beautiful danger.
I clenched my fingers around my knife again. “I know that. I came with one of your kind. And he’s not one you want to upset.” I had no idea if that was true—Aven’s power might have been startling to me, but for all I knew it was average for tidespeople. Intimidation felt like the best course of action. The weak became prey, and someone here was much more likely to believe that a human was protected by a fierce tidesperson than that they could survive on their own.
“Did you, now? Pray tell, who brought you here?”
I swallowed the terror rising in my throat and turned again, searching for the owner of that impossible voice. I still saw no one. “A selkie.”
“A selkie? Where did a little human youngling find a selkie?”
“I answered your question, now you answer mine. Who are you? Where are you?”
Another flash of dazzling movement made me blink and whirl toward it, but it was gone again. I got another laugh in response. “Don’t you worry about that. Where’s your selkie, little one?”
My hands were trembling and I silently cursed them. Where was Aven? I saw no sign of him. If I shouted would he hear? Would he care? “He’s—he’s hunting.”
“And he left you by yourself?”
“He’ll be back.”
“Are you sure?” I hesitated to answer. “He must not care much for his pet. He didn’t even put you on a leash.”
“I’m not his pet!” I didn’t mean to raise my voice but it burst from me. “Now come out where I can see you, you—”
“Enough, Hania.” Aven’s quiet voice made me jump, and I turned to him. He was standing half in shadow and looking not at me but up at the trees. “Don’t antagonize it. Speak,” he ordered, and I’d never heard him sound so commanding.
There was silence. We both stayed motionless, and I looked around the forest again and again, waiting. The voice didn’t come. Aven tensed, watching.
And then: “You do have a selkie, little one.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I looked to Aven, but he was staring with widened eyes, shock written across his face. His voice was strained when he spoke. “Come out.” Another moment of nothing but silence. “I said, come out.”
I expected a monster to come creeping from the shadows of the branches, or someone sleek and stunning and fatal like Aven, but all I saw was a twinkling point of light drifting through the air. I blinked and look away until it stopped in a shadow, cutting off the reflection of sunlight across it.
It stood a handful of inches high, bobbing eye-level in the air and watching us. Almost human in shape, but somehow too strange and delicate and exotic. And its entire body, clear and misty, was made of water, swirling and sparkling like waves in the sun. It took careful studying to see the faint shapes of eyes, a nose, a mouth. I gaped at it, but Aven was unfazed.
“Moray,” he greeted it.
It lowered its voice, attention on him. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“And you’re supposed to be at home. Not terrorizing humans.”
Its slender arms crossed. “You left. I can do what I like. Why are you halfway across the continent?”
I looked between them, silently begging Aven for an explanation and hoping he understood because I wasn’t sure my voice would cooperate. He nodded between us in a brief introduction. “Hania, Moray. Moray, Hania. Now let’s go, I found food. We need to figure out our next step.” And with that he started off the way he’d come, not looking back at either of us.
I couldn’t tear my eyes from the little creature, who watched Aven before turning to me. “Hello,” I managed.
Moray bared droplet fangs. “He’s lost his mind, taking a human pet. You’ll get him killed.” It hurried after Aven, leaving me staring.
“Can you explain, please, Aven?” I asked, eyeing Moray as it—he? She? —flitted around our makeshift camp.
Aven sighed, looking to the sky as if it would give him an answer. “Moray is an old friend. Unlikely for us to meet here, but it’s not the worst thing.”
“And what is…Moray?”
“A sprite.”
“Sprite?”
“A water spirit. Vain and vicious little things, but useful to have on your side.”
I gave Moray another look. It was enjoying itself drifting on air currents, flashing and sparkling in the sun. Pretty, yes, but it didn’t look like it could do much—but then, I knew looks could be deceiving. “How so?”
Aven laughed. “Don’t underestimate a sprite, I’ll leave it at that.”
I didn’t ask for more. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Instead, I watched the dancing reflect
ions on Moray’s strange little body until I felt the need to comment, “It doesn’t like me very much.”
“Sprites are possessive and jealous,” he shrugged. “I’ve known Moray for a long time. I don’t think it’d take kindly to my traveling with anyone else, but a human is like an insult.”
So it especially hated me. Lovely. I sighed and brushed a bit of dirt off my dress. “So what now, then?”
Aven settled onto his back in the grass, closing his eyes. “Now we get our strength back. The passing wore on both of us and we have a long way to go if we’re going to find your brother. And if he’s alive, I doubt whoever has him will be very willing to let him go. It’ll be a fight, one way or another.”
I was sore and exhausted. The food had helped, but only so much. But my fingers tapped against my knees, my feet itched to keep moving. To know more, to do more. Aven opened one eye and called the sprite over. “Moray.”
Moray bolted to him in a dazzling flash that made me blink. “Yes?”
“You said we’re halfway across the continent from home. Where are we, exactly?”
“Don’t you know?”
“We came through a passing.”
It scoffed. “And the great Aven doesn’t know where the passing took him?”
“Humor me, Moray.”
It laughed, a sound more genuine than the cold, mocking ones it had given me, and did a little flip through the air. “Oh, alright. We’re near the eastern edge of the Court of the Sun.”
“What are you doing in the Court of the Sun?”
“Looking for you.”
“Why would I be here?”
“You are now, aren’t you?”
Aven looked like he had to resist the urge to roll his eyes and sat up and looked around. “Home should be northeast from here.” Moray nodded in confirmation. “We could go directly there through the mountains, but the path would be easier if we cut east and then north through the Whispering Court. But the real question is where we’re going first.”
The Court of the Sun. The Whispering Court. Aven’s home Court, northeast. I repeated the information to myself, trying to memorize it. “What’s that way?” I asked, pointing the way neither of them had indicated.
Tide Page 15
