Forestborn

by Elayne Audrey Becker

  “You should get some sleep,” I say at last, knocking his arm a little.

  He doesn’t object, though I’m not sure how much rest he’ll find in his current state. “Wake me in a few hours. I’ll take over.”

  I stand there staring into space my human senses can no longer interpret until the breathing behind me finally deepens into sleep.

  * * *

  The storm clouds break the following dawn. Once we leave the cover of the forest, the beating rain makes for a miserable slog through the mud patches peppering the road like constellations. Resigned, I mark the progress of the muck slowly soaking through my travel-worn boots and wrap my new cloak around me and my pack. The wool is nearly suffocating in the humid summer heat, but at least it repels the water for a while.

  We reach Grovewood midmorning, passing under the broad archway with a nod to the gatekeeper, who gapes a little at the sight of the royal party. As we’ve only come to collect the seeds for bartering before moving on, I can’t imagine we’ll be here long enough to wait out the thunderstorm. Already, my wet feet ache in protest at the thought, but grim recollection of Finley’s condition tempers the discomfort. Selfless, I tell myself, my new mantra.

  Sandwiched between the Old Forest and the base of the Purple Mountains, Grovewood is Telyan’s northernmost town, and one of the more pleasant to work in. Instead of Briarwend’s cracked, aching stones, here tree-lined streets of packed earth weave among a smattering of dark-grained, wooden buildings to create an atmosphere like an extension of the forest. Tailors, leatherworkers, booksellers, and smithies—a town of craftspeople and quiet specialists, close enough to do business in Roanin without having to spare the city rent.

  Fortunately, though someone has kindled the tall oil lamps lining the roads, the gloomy weather allows us to pass through the main streets without amassing spectators. Well, except for one: midway through, I notice a seated tabby cat, seemingly indifferent to the rain, marking our progress with eerie intensity—too much, surely, for an ordinary house cat. I nod in greeting, but the shifter, who doubtless can smell the magic in me, turns tail and flees.

  Sadness pricks my heart. I wonder how long they’ve been here, hiding in their animal form.

  The shop with the seeds we need sits at the end of a street at the edge of town, a stretch I’ve rarely had any reason to visit. Towering pines peek out from behind it; when we’re done here, our road lies just east of them. Around three blocks from our destination, Weslyn halts without warning outside an antiquarian shop, its thinly curtained windows glowing from oil lamplight within.

  “Go on inside,” he tells Naethan, raising his voice against the downfall. “He’ll want to see you, and we can manage alone.”

  I peer again at the painted sign jutting out from the overhang, then it clicks. Naethan’s father, once Queen Raenen’s close friend.

  “You too,” Weslyn adds to Ansley, who’s studying Naethan and biting her lip.

  “If you’re sure.” Naethan smiles and claps Weslyn on the back, unbothered by Dom’s disapproving scowl.

  He and Ansley are already stepping into the shop, Weslyn and the other guards walking away, when Helos says close to my ear, “I’m going to have a look inside.”

  I turn in surprise.

  Shielded by his cloak’s large, gray hood, my brother’s eyes have taken on a slightly misty quality, no doubt lured by the promise of worn bindings and old words. But still—

  “What about the seeds?” I ask.

  “Weslyn will get them,” Helos says. “There’s something I want to look for here first. I won’t be long.”

  Since I suppose there’s no real reason not to separate, I nod and hasten after Weslyn’s party, irked by their indifference to our whereabouts. A pair of lawkeepers, civilians who maintain the peace and report crimes or indiscretions, study my passing approach with idle interest. My face starts tingling, only a little, but enough to prompt my anxiety about giving way to ill-timed shifts. Today, I don’t have the luxury of hiding behind a borrowed face.

  I find Weslyn just outside the wooden shop with the seeds, speaking to Dom and Carolette in a voice too low to make out. The two of them nod and set off on their own, not looking particularly pleased with whatever he’s ordered them to do.

  I catch up to Weslyn right as he’s opening the door.

  “I don’t require assistance, or a spy,” he says pointedly, when I reach his side.

  Clearly, as he’s managed to dispose of all four guards already, though I can’t imagine why. But unlike them, I’m as much a part of this mission as he, and not in the mood for taking orders, so I ignore the callous remark and follow him over the threshold. Weslyn balls his hands into fists but doesn’t object again.

  Stepping inside the shop is like walking into a forest itself. The space is dimly lit, and there are plants everywhere, crowding the wood-planked ground, creeping up walls, and hanging from the ceiling. Some are so tall or meandering that I can’t find the pots that house their roots. It’s beautiful.

  Weslyn brushes a vine from his shoulder and calls out for the owner.

  “With you in a moment!” cries a deep voice from afar.

  I cradle a leaf between two fingers while Weslyn fiddles with his sleeve.

  “Your Royal Highness,” says a different voice, softer and just to our right. “Anything I can assist you with?”

  Weslyn smiles at the older woman who emerged through a side door. “Thank you, Nelle, but this request requires Geonen’s particular expertise.”

  Nelle’s lips press into a thin line. Dismay hits the pit of my stomach when I’m close enough to see the slight curve in the older woman’s back, the sweat beading along her warm brown skin, the flecks of gray peppering her dark, plaited hair. I included her in my last report on the afflicted population in Grovewood, which means the sway and the silence can’t be too far off. “Might I have a word first, sir? Please. It’s important.”

  Weslyn gestures for her to lead the way, and she takes us through the side door, into a brighter space lined with windows adjoining a garden just outside. A blond, yellow-clad girl with white skin is organizing herbs at the far side, but her hands grow still when she sees Nelle’s company.

  Not wanting to get told off for hovering, I feign interest in one of the cabinets near the door. Rows of jars crowd the shelves, their labels sounding medicinal in nature.

  “—third year in a row,” Nelle is saying in an undertone. “I’ve tried planting elsewhere, but it’s no use. Waste of time.”

  “No,” Weslyn counters. “You were wise to try. Have you applied for a loan?”

  “It wouldn’t matter. My business depends on the earth, and you can’t negotiate with dirt.”

  “My brother would disagree with you there.” I peer over my shoulder and see Weslyn smiling a little, though his sunken posture doesn’t mirror the lightness of the words. Nelle’s apprentice is making a good show of attending to her work, but I don’t miss the look she gives Weslyn, unabashedly scanning him up and down when his back is turned. Something I’ve never been bold enough to do with anyone; at least, not in this form. Not when half-hearted kisses in stolen bodies are easier. Safer. “What of the supplies you have?”

  “Growing fewer with every passing day. Lots of children here, sir. Children get sick.”

  “Not just children,” he says gravely. Then he bends closer, just a little. “Any illness in particular giving you trouble?” I’m certain his thoughts have taken the same grim turn as mine: she looks worn out, her eyelids drooping a little.

  Nelle shifts her weight onto the other leg. “It’s that magical one. The Fallow Throes.” Her words take on a decidedly disapproving tone. “I can’t do anything for them, other than offer herbs that treat the symptoms. Once the extra senses hit, it’s … it’s bad, sir. The pain.”

  Weslyn places a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll discover the remedy soon enough, Nelle. I know you’re doing all you can.”

  “With respect, do you—” Ne
lle hesitates a moment, then drops her voice even lower. “None of the patients I’ve tended to have magical blood. Does the crown not think it odd?”

  Dread pools in my veins as I glance behind me again, bracing for Weslyn’s reply. I can tell by the way Nelle speaks that this is the matter she wished to discuss all along.

  “Odd?” Weslyn echoes, his tone noncommittal.

  “I’m not the only one who’s concerned, sir. It’s beginning to feel, well, targeted, if you take my meaning.”

  She lets that hang for a long moment.

  “I appreciate your honesty,” Weslyn says at last. “But I’m sure you understand we cannot base policy on conjecture.” I straighten in surprise. “I would encourage you to dispel these rumors going forward. For now, there is no need to worry.” His focus drops to the woman’s feet, where she’s shifting her weight from one to the other. “Are you in pain, Nelle?”

  She waves a crinkled hand, visibly disappointed. “Don’t worry about me, sir. What of His Majesty? Your family, are they well?”

  “Quite well,” Weslyn replies, the lie slipping from his tongue as easily as any of mine ever have. As easily, I suspect, as hers. “I’ll consider what you said about the soil. In the meantime, I’m afraid my companion and I have business to attend to.”

  At a quick glance from Weslyn, I follow him back into the first room, determinedly avoiding Nelle’s gaze. I can hear the blond girl whispering rapidly behind us.

  “Your Royal Highness!” greets the store owner as soon as we’re back among the hanging plants. “Forgive me, I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  My back tenses.

  It’s not the green, needlelike hair that makes me stare, nor the furrowed, gray-brown skin that must mirror the bark on his home tree. It’s that he’s here, a forest walker in Grovewood, greeting us like nothing at all is wrong.

  Slandered by his own colleague, moments ago.

  “How are you, Geonen?” Weslyn asks, smiling graciously. Another person he knows by name, and a magical one, no less. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me, but it does.

  Geonen wipes his knobby hands on his apron and nods a greeting my way. “Fine, fine. Business is as usual.” I raise my eyebrows, but he sounds genuine enough. “How is His Majesty? Is it the grounds again?”

  Weslyn shakes his head. “No. I’m here for another reason. I need seeds from the Old Forest, for trees that don’t grow anywhere else in Alemara.”

  Geonen scratches an eyebrow, which looks like plated scales of pine bark. “From the Old Forest, eh? I should have some in the back. Come with me.”

  Following him is easier said than done. The shop extends farther back than I’d realized on prior visits, and broad leaves crowd thick around us. I’m passing through a doorway into a back room when I collide with someone small.

  “Apologies, miss,” Geonen says on the girl’s behalf. “My daughter.”

  She’s young, likely no more than eight or nine, with hair as green and needling as her father’s. She stares up at me with wide, clear eyes.

  I offer her a smile, now doubly angry with Nelle’s gossiping tongue. “That’s all right.”

  “Sorrell, come with me.”

  The girl steps quietly to her father’s side, and the two of them lead us into the back room.

  This area is cooler, and much neater; the sea of plants has been replaced by several bags and boxes lining shelves built into the walls. Darkness hangs even heavier here than in the front rooms, and I sink into its embrace with relief.

  By the time my eyes have adjusted to the dimness, Geonen has evaluated several cloth bags, weighing them briefly in his palm before shaking his head and placing them back on the shelves. The bag he finally hands to Weslyn is rather small, about the size of my fist.

  “These should do well,” he says, looking between me and Weslyn, while Sorrell clutches his leg. “Just make sure to keep them dry, and in the dark. Here, since you’ll want to leave the bag closed until you’re ready to use them, I’ll show you now so you know what you’re getting.”

  With a bit of work, Geonen unfastens the tightly knotted string that seals the top. Then he holds the bag out to Weslyn, who carefully sticks his hand inside and captures a few seeds in his palm. After a quick examination, he holds them out for me. I can’t think why he should suddenly want my opinion or approval—maybe it’s just for show—but I nod all the same.

  “Perhaps,” says Weslyn, “given the weather we’ve had, it would be best to seal them further, just in case.”

  Geonen considers this. “Well, they should be all right, since Roanin isn’t far. But—” He breaks off and pulls a small box from the shelf, setting its previous contents aside. “Take this just in case.”

  Trading Weslyn the box for the seeds, Geonen reseals the bag and places it in the open container.

  Weslyn pulls a few coins from his pocket. “Thank you, Geonen.”

  The man’s eyes widen slightly, and he runs a hand along his face. “That’s too much, sir.”

  Weslyn keeps his palm outstretched. “Then take what I owe you.”

  The man takes three of the five pieces offered and bows a little. Weslyn hands the other two to the girl, who holds them delicately in her tiny palms. “For your help,” he says, and a ghost of a smile crosses her lips.

  I nod to Geonen and follow Weslyn out of the shop, torn between budding confusion and resentment. Outside, the rain has tapered to a misty drizzle.

  It’s strange to watch him interact with his people, the lightness in his bearing so unlike the rigid way he storms around Castle Roanin. His care for them is obvious, and perhaps I ought to respect him for it, or at least be grateful for the respite. But every time he greets another one by name, all I can think about is the fact that he’s never called me by mine since the day he asked what it was. And somehow, that hurts worse than if he didn’t know it at all.

  “We shouldn’t linger,” he says when we’re outside, keeping his voice low. “We’ll leave this afternoon. There’s something I have to take care of first.”

  “I can—”

  “Alone,” he adds, rather rudely.

  I fold my arms. “Your father gave me this assignment, too, you know.”

  “And?”

  “And, that means I’m here to help. You can’t do everything alone.”

  “He asked for your help in the Vale,” Weslyn clarifies. “And we’re not there yet, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  I might have to kill him, promise to Finley and Violet or no.

  “Just find something else to do for an hour or two, if you think you can manage that. Here,” he says, drawing a few coins from his pocket and dropping them in my palm. “Consider this an advance on your payment. Buy yourself some new shoes. Yours are wrecked.”

  Before I can reply, he simply walks away, indifferent. His back to me, like always.

  I study his retreat with temper rising. “What could be so urgent that you have to do it now? What’s more important than saving Finley?”

  Weslyn is back in a few short strides, and the fire in his gaze is enough to frighten me. “Nothing is more important. Nothing. I can’t believe you’d even suggest it.”

  I’ve rarely heard him sound so angry. Still—

  “If you really felt that way, you would leave now instead of touring the town.”

  Weslyn releases a tight breath, clearly striving for control. “Good to know you think so little of me,” he says at last, quiet. “But there is work to be done here before we leave, and it does not concern you.”

  “It does when we travel together,” I insist. “I’m sick of being treated like I’m worthless. Either that or some sort of curse. Ignore me all you like when we return, but things are different out here, and I won’t stand for it any longer. As you said, the road is long.”

  His eyes narrow. “Are you threatening a prince?”

  I place my hands behind my back. “You told me to drop the title.”

  Weslyn says nothing for a while
, just stands there, staring at me. I wring my hands, grateful that my back hides them from view. They’re shaking.

  “We will leave this afternoon,” he says, drawing the words out slowly. “In the meantime—”

  “Your Royal Highness,” says a raspy voice to our left. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

  We turn as one to the wavy-haired, middle-aged man hovering a few paces away, flushed white skin creased with laughter lines. He’s smiling in a manner reminiscent of a hound cornering a fox. Though he’s not dressed in the telling red-and-navy uniform, I recognize his face from that morning at Castle Roanin nonetheless.

  The Eradain emissary.

  SIX

  He won’t recognize me. He can’t. So long as I keep my emotions under control, nothing about my appearance screams shifter. Logically, I know this.

  But being so close to a man from that land, a place where death and disappearances are rumored to stalk the streets, makes my insides shrivel with fear. Who knows how many families have suffered at his hand—or, at the very least, the hand of the king he works for. I have no idea how he could stomach it, if the whispers are true.

  Weslyn stiffens beside me. “Ambassador Kelner,” he says with a nod. “Well met.” And to his credit, he almost sounds as if he means it.

  “It’s lucky I’ve run into you, really.” Kelner’s gaze remains fixed on Weslyn alone, predator to prey, and it’s clear to me this meeting is not the work of chance at all. I shift backward a step, wishing only to melt into the shadows. “I wonder if I might have a word.”

  “Do you,” Weslyn says, voice flat.

  “If I may. See, you seem to—”

  Kelner breaks off when his attention flicks to me at last. His eyes widen at the sight.

  For a long moment, we both stare at each other. Forehead wrinkled, Kelner appears just as startled as I feel. No messenger here to intercept me, no wall to hide behind. I focus on beating back the tingling in my shoulders, the forbidden strands of coolness teasing my skin. My body sensing fear and offering ill-timed escape in the form of a mouse. Expulsions, executions—