I fasten my mask back into place and mold my expression into one of polite confusion.
“Apologies, miss,” he says, recovering himself. “For a moment, I thought you were someone else.”
“Your message, Ambassador?” Weslyn presses when I open my mouth to respond.
Kelner inclines his head and gestures to a pub nearby. “Perhaps we can speak somewhere more private?” Perhaps and private come out more like praps and privt in his deep, gravelly voice; his northern accent clips the words short. There’s something vaguely familiar about that accent, but the recognition is too fleeting to grab hold of.
“Perhaps another time,” Weslyn says. “I have business I must see to.”
“On a gloomy day like this? No trouble, I trust.”
I twist in time to see Weslyn’s expression calcify. “I would have thought our position quite plain, Ambassador.”
Kelner summons a saccharine smile. “I regret the manner in which His Majesty and I parted ways, it’s true. But you seem to me the type who listens to reason.”
“As opposed to the king, you mean.”
His smile falters a bit. “I would never suggest—”
“You already have, so let me be clear. If you have come seeking a traitor in my father’s court, you will not find one here.” Kelner looks somewhat startled by this direct approach, but Weslyn only crosses his arms. “I trust your stay has been comfortable? I would hate for you to have to travel this evening with aching joints.”
Kelner frowns at the obvious dismissal, but there’s nothing he can do about it. He’s a representative; Weslyn’s royal. A prince outranks him without question. “Indeed,” he replies grudgingly. “It is always a relief to escape the confines of a city for such a … quaint town.”
Weslyn ignores the slight and shakes his hand. “By your leave, then.” He catches my eye meaningfully before striding away.
Kelner seems to wilt a little, his expression sour, as I follow briskly in Weslyn’s wake, wondering how this changes things. Violet had said, It’s vital he does not catch wind of your mission. From here, only one road leads north to Telyan’s border—the road, it seems, our party and Kelner will now have to share. By this point, he was meant to be far ahead.
I wait until we’ve turned the corner before speaking up. “What did he—”
“Not here,” Weslyn says, and he doesn’t say another word, doesn’t even look at me, until we’ve entered the antiquarian shop.
Inside, warm scents of leather and parchment fill the cozy room, a low-ceilinged maze of crowded stacks and narrow halls that appear, fortunately, empty.
Weslyn verifies there’s no one in sight before shutting the door and rounding on me. “Do you think he recognized what you are?” he asks in an undertone, an edge of desperation to his voice.
Not who, but what. I fold my arms and attempt to brush past the insult. “I don’t see how he could have. I wasn’t going to shift for no reason. I’m not stupid.”
“Then why did he look at you like that?”
My stomach prickles with unease. “How should I know?”
Weslyn pinches the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger before exhaling softly. “Come on, then.”
We wind through the stacks, the polished wooden floorboards slick underfoot, to a wider, brighter area in back. Helos is chatting amicably with a man who’s wrapping a small parcel in paper behind the counter. Naethan hovers nearby, frowning slightly until Ansley taps his arm and whispers in his ear, while his father—a tall, lean man with dark brown skin smartly dressed in a tie and delicate, gold-rimmed glasses—laughs robustly at something Helos said. Not for the first time, I marvel at my brother’s ability to connect with strangers.
Naethan snaps to attention at our approach. “What happened?”
Helos looks up, his smile fading when he sees us.
“Feryn,” Weslyn says to the man instead. “It’s good to see you.”
“You look tired, my boy,” Feryn says, placing a broad hand on the side of Weslyn’s face. “Always tired. You work too hard.”
“You worry too much.” Weslyn smiles. “I’m perfectly well.”
“Mm.” The corners of Feryn’s mouth curl up. “You hear that?” he says, glancing back at his son. “He’s perfectly well.”
Naethan raises a brow. “He’s an idiot. And he hasn’t answered my question.”
Ansley leans against one of the stacks, peering closely at Weslyn.
Helos and I just stand there, unsure how to navigate this dynamic.
“I’ll leave you kids to talk,” Feryn says when the silence stretches long, smiling at me. He lifts the brown parcel. “And I’ll get this where it needs to be,” he tells Helos with half a wink. Then he’s gone.
Weslyn’s composure seems to fracture in Feryn’s absence. He leans against the counter and runs a hand over his face. “Eradain’s ambassador is here. He intercepted us.”
“He’s here?” Naethan exclaims. Ansley glances at me for confirmation, her face grim.
Familiar frown returning, Weslyn begins to pace the room, waving his hands as he recounts the exchange. Helos, Ansley, and Naethan take turns studying me while he talks.
Trying to ignore the feeling of being trapped, I glance longingly toward the front of the shop, wishing I could fly out and face the afternoon from the skies. Maybe I’d fly back to the castle to check on Finley, say a new goodbye that scrubs those rapidly blinking eyes from my mind. Or maybe I’d fly farther south, beyond the rolling hills and hazel thickets encasing the heart of Telyan, the hidden lakes and deciduous woods stretching far toward the horizon. All the way to Beraila, the closest continent south of ours. A tropical landscape of towering rainforests and misty mountains, jaguars and monkeys, grassy steppes holding far more human realms than Alemara’s three—I’ve studied Finley’s maps.
I would leave this dreaded continent’s Predictions behind, and never mind the fact that I don’t know whether magic still exists in life overseas, or whether it’s long since gone to ground. Trade relations and alliances among the thirty continents may have flourished once, but Alemara’s three realms have confined their ships to silent harbors for more than fifty years now. Rumblings of power struggles abroad they wanted no part in, alliances shattered between monarchies too afraid to see one another’s cracks reflected in their own façades.
“This emissary—he and my father did not part on friendly terms,” Weslyn is saying when I come back to myself. “I wouldn’t put it past him to put a tail on us.”
“That will make our road more difficult,” Naethan says, folding his arms. “Do you know how many others he’s traveling with?”
Weslyn shakes his head.
“We could delay long enough to let him get ahead.” Naethan pauses, considering. “Or leave right now and double the pace.”
“You’re forgetting one important thing,” I say at last, frustrated. Though they’re continuing to shield the terms of this ultimatum from me, I’m desperate to learn what exactly King Gerar is so reluctant to agree to, and whether it involves further restricting people like me. “Kelner didn’t seem all that shocked to find you here. Somebody must have told him.” I’m tempted to accuse Carolette, but then, I suppose I’m biased.
There’s a beat of silence.
“Will this escalate things with Eradain?” Helos asks, since no one seems eager to offer up any names.
“I don’t know.” Weslyn shakes his head again, apparently too distressed to remember to be mean. “Kelner’s report may heighten Jol’s suspicions that Telyan has begun to mobilize.”
“Not necessarily, Wes.”
Ansley’s quiet voice surprises us all.
“If Kelner had spotted us farther along our road—closer to the border, for instance—he would have had more of a reason to suspect something is going on. But right now, he has no real evidence to support that claim. He doesn’t know where you’re going or why, or even that you’re going anywhere beyond Grovewood at all.” She rub
s a palm along her forearm. “He certainly doesn’t know that Helos and Rora are shifters.”
I blink at her, taken aback. She used my name.
Weslyn grips the edge of the counter, facing the room. “I hope you’re right. In any case, I made it clear he was to depart tonight. Perhaps we should stay until later tomorrow, like Naethan said. Give him a chance to get ahead.”
“There’s no need to wait that long,” I say, making up my mind. “Every day wasted is a day closer to the deadline his king set for Telyan, and in any case, dragging our feet is not going to help Finley. If Kelner’s taking the road, we’ll simply have to avoid it entirely. We’ll trek to the border through the backcountry, and we’ll leave today.”
“But that rou—”
“Helos and I have walked it before. It won’t be a problem.” My confidence is rising in the face of his doubt.
Naethan studies me a heartbeat longer, then nods slowly. “No tail of Kelner’s will be able to follow us out there.”
Bears, maybe. Coyotes and wolves. But not like the magical ones in the Vale, at least. These are far safer.
It feels a little strange to be the one making the plan, but the others only look to Weslyn for their cue, and Weslyn doesn’t balk at my instruction. Instead, he appraises me another moment, then nods stiffly and grabs a piece of parchment from Feryn’s workspace. “I’ll send a letter to Roanin by raven, to tell my father what happened.”
* * *
After ensuring that Kelner has already departed, we leave Grovewood behind beneath the early evening’s golden haze, winding through the pines behind Geonen’s shop and following the remnants of a trail that likely used to guide townsfolk on a safe loop through the woods. Now it leads to nothing, so overgrown it’s nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding weeds. Helos and I have used it before, though, so it serves as our departure point into the wild.
It’s a four days’ journey through the backcountry to the border with Glenweil.
We spend the days mostly in silence, traversing the slopes at the foot of the Purple Mountains. To our right, meadows stretch as far as the eye can see, and beautiful flowers blanket the curving land: echinacea, coreopsis, butterfly weed, and bluets, a dawn-colored canvas of brilliant pinks, yellows, oranges, and purples. To our left, the mountains serve as constant sentinels. The spruce-fir forest lining their jagged peaks gleams blue-gray in the sunlight, while the lower faces are a patchwork of mixed oak. The footing becomes rougher and rockier the closer we come to the base of the range, and I hear Carolette and Dom grumbling more than once. But we’re to trail in the range’s shadow until it ends abruptly, farther to the northeast. Where the mountains end, so does Telyan.
We could track farther east, where the land flattens out closer to the kingdom’s coast. Such a route would likely turn four days into three. But east is where the road lies, and here there are no settlements under the open sky, only windswept grass and wildflowers. Stealth is well worth the slower pace.
Fortunately, by the end of the second day, my new boots have started to break in. I had a time that first night, massaging the soles of my feet and wishing that replacing my blistered pads with healthier skin would not require the heavy maintenance that all healing attempts do.
On our third day trekking in ankle-sore quiet, the temperature becomes nearly unbearable. The air sits thick and humid, so heavy I can almost taste its salted tang, and my pants stick to my calves like gloves. At least that’s all it is: heat. Summer sun. Not sinking sand, or clouds of dust that notch one’s skin. The thought nudges my heart rate higher.
“We should stop,” Helos announces from his position near the rear, when we reach a rare pair of drooping willows. “Make camp for the night.”
“No, we still have a good hour or two before the sun sets,” Weslyn says. “We should keep going.”
“His Royal Highness is right,” Dom huffs, his corded forearms shiny with sweat. “There’s no need to waste the day.”
I shake my head a little. I don’t know whether they’re stoic or just stupid, but with the amount of time we have spent hiking in this heat, unshaded, it’s not a good idea to push it even further.
Helos places his hands on his sides, breathing heavily. “Would you prefer a stroke, or sun poisoning?”
Dom’s scowl promises danger to come, but Naethan backtracks from Ansley’s side, where he’s become a semipermanent fixture—quietly philosophizing about some text or other, brightening when he teases out a laugh. “I agree we should stop, sir,” he nods to Weslyn, shading his forehead. “Carry on, and we would be asking for trouble.”
“I wouldn’t say no to a little rest,” Carolette puts in.
“You always want to rest,” Dom growls, shifting his weight.
“Except when I’m in the sparring ring, beating your ass to the ground.”
Ansley smiles a little from the front of the line.
“Enough,” Weslyn says, wiping the sweat from his neck. “We’ll stop here.”
Snorting as if he would have stopped regardless, Helos drops his pack and sits, using a trowel to clear a fire hole in the ground for later. After a brief hesitation, Naethan bends to help him. I start gathering twigs, Carolette and Ansley refuse Weslyn’s offer of help once more, and Dom looms over us all, a muscle working in his jaw.
* * *
We reach Telyan’s border with Glenweil the next day.
A prickle of apprehension pinches my spine. Forest has given way to a river of grass, and there’s not much here to mark the divide between kingdom and republic. Just a strip of shorn field and two small watchtowers positioned a couple of arrow-lengths apart on either side. Set back a short distance to our right, there’s a squat home with two long-legged horses paddocked nearby—ready to run should any message require sending.
Weslyn looks fully at ease as he takes the lead, which is good because even Helos is hesitating a little. No doubt he, too, is remembering the time we crossed here, years ago.
There had been a brief line of questioning on the Glenweil side of the border. Names? State your business. You’re young to be traveling alone. Where are your parents?
Dead and gone, I had almost replied.
“They sent us on ahead,” Helos answered, sounding admirably sure of himself. Noticeably lacking the Telyan people’s lilting accent.
The border guard, whose tone had betrayed concern up until that point, had suddenly eyed us with open suspicion—two half-starved kids, a tangle of dust and fatigue and matted hair. “For what purpose?”
Helos didn’t have an answer to that, malnourishment and too many sleepless nights having addled our brains. After a minor hesitation, he opened his mouth to speak, but the damage had been done.
“All right,” the guard said. “It’s all right, lad. We’ll wait for them, eh? How about a cup of tea?”
My grip on Helos’s arm had tightened. I couldn’t have told which weighed stronger—fear or longing.
My brother sensed my mood and smiled rather weakly. “Thank you,” he told the guard. “Maybe later. We’ll head back and see if we can find them.”
The guard started to object, but Helos took my hand and led us back in the direction we’d come from, so we could hide out of sight. When night had fallen, we shifted to fox and mouse—me clinging to the fur on his back—and stole across the border.
In the present, the Telyan guard hails a greeting, which Weslyn returns with confidence. The gray-haired woman gapes a little when she sees whom she’s stopped, placing a fist across her brown leather breastplate and bending into a crooked bow while her younger counterpart emerges from the house. Weslyn exchanges a few words with them about our need for subtlety, and then we’re over the border and making for the pair of Glenweil guards waiting on the other side.
Neither of those two recognize Weslyn for who he is, and Weslyn makes no move to inform them, simply stating in a rather quiet voice that we’re heading for Niav. The pair seems satisfied enough with his story and lets us pass
without further interrogation. I suppose Telyan’s border is not the border that concerns them.
We make for the open hills.
It takes us several days to traverse the sprawling countryside, an isolating expanse of horse pastures, sheep enclosures, and cattle farms. Naethan has softened toward Helos, as most usually do after a few days in his amiable presence. Ansley, whose pale complexion has suffered more than anyone else’s under the summer sun, even thanks me when I help her cross a stream, and I find myself returning her friendly smile. If we were closer, I might reassure her that her interest in Naethan is obviously mutual, at least to me, and ask what’s holding her back. But that kind of close friendship is still relatively uncharted territory, and I don’t want to risk offending her and losing her newfound warmth.
Unlike the younger guards, Dom remains unmoved by my lack of incriminating activity. He continues to appraise Helos and me with unmasked skepticism, his presence an impenetrable thundercloud over the group. Carolette’s attitude is hardly better, her well-worn bitterness manifesting as a constant string of challenges to every suggestion I make. But at least, for the most part, Weslyn simply ignores us.
Four years have gone since I last traversed this land, and I cannot say I’ve missed it. Before leaving Glenweil’s borders for Telyan, we’d spent a week crossing its level grasslands and winding riverbeds to the north, then south among the rolling blue-green meadows, hugging the shadow of the Purple Mountains. The grasslands weren’t forgiving—violent winds burned our skin and lack of coverage made food sparse—but at least they weren’t predisposed to fear us.
In the present, I steal a glance at my brother, wondering if he’s reliving the same memories.
His bearing is no different than usual, his expression no less relaxed. Of course. He’s built that wall in his mind. I wonder how hard he’s had to work to make it solid as stone.
When at last we reach Glenweil’s capital city, it’s nothing like Roanin. Nestled primarily between rolling hills and river, Niav has a rather sprawling look to it. Unconfined by dense forest, the roads and buildings spill across the open land in an almost haphazard way. A palace of dark, weathered stone crowns the slope overlooking the city. That palace is our destination, the final leg of our journey before we cross the river into wilderness. Into magic.
Forestborn Page 9
