Forestborn

by Elayne Audrey Becker

  The giant seems to guess his thoughts. “Do not dishonor me,” he warns. “I am no thief.”

  At that, Weslyn strides forward and places the box in his hand, the prize no bigger than a thimble would be in ours.

  The giants converge around the box, rattling the earth in their movements; Weslyn stumbles a bit on his return to my side. They examine it with great interest, conversing in a language I’ve never heard before. Several minutes pass in which Helos, Weslyn, and I dare not speak to one another. This is the moment we either succeed, or things go terribly, terribly wrong.

  “This friend of yours,” the one holding the box says, addressing Helos and me. “He is human?”

  We nod.

  “And he has earned your trust,” he continues.

  I glance at Helos, who only looks up at the giant with undisguised desperation on his face. “He’s earned our love,” I say simply.

  The five of them look up at the words, study us, then straighten.

  “Clouds cover the sky tonight,” the one with the box says. “You must wait until tomorrow to retrieve your stardust. In the meantime, you will tell us all you know of this strike.”

  Joy courses through me, powerful as the river. Finley, saved. The Fallow Throes, over, brought to heel before the scales tip into catastrophe. I imagine the looks on King Gerar’s and Violet’s faces when they see us, then grin broadly. Beside me, Weslyn sags in relief, his face lit with emotion I’ve never seen on him before, while Helos just covers his face with his hands, silent.

  “Thank you,” I say, since I’m the only one who seems capable of speech at the moment. “We’ll return tomorrow.”

  “No need,” he says, and this time he smiles. Not a cruel smile. Genuine warmth. “Come with us.”

  SEVENTEEN

  The giants’ home is a picture out of a dream. The grass that blankets the forest floor is so vibrant a green, it must never have experienced a dry spell in its life. And it’s feather-soft; as we follow the five giants through the silver aspens, the blades caress my legs, gentle as whispers. No signs of those vise-like brown stalks. Flowers I’ve never seen before paint the ground sapphire blue, purple, and white, their colonies thickest around the base of tree trunks, while the trickle of running water streams in from somewhere nearby.

  Unlike in Caela Ridge, nothing here is constructed in the trees. In place of layered ropes, dark green vines cascade down from several branches. Others have wrapped around the trunks. Their stems are thick, about the size of a fist in diameter, and strewn with leaves a hands-width long. Farther back amongst the widely spaced trees, there are large nests of moss dotting the ground.

  Giants walk the earth before us, the ground humming in their wake. There must be a dozen at least, all clothed in crinkled, cream-colored fabric—tunics with sleeves that fall just past the shoulder and wide-legged trousers that barely pass the knee. Their lean arms appear almost too long for their bodies, spindly echoes of the spires atop Castle Roanin. All wander near at our approach.

  They explain our presence to one another in our language, as a courtesy I’m sure. Unlike the dynamic back in Telyan, the giants don’t seem to be governed by hierarchy. Instead, they all speak as equals. Each of them gets an opportunity to examine the box of seeds, and though their language switches to one I can’t understand every time a new giant looks, they seem pleased with what they see.

  They give their names then, sounds that are unfamiliar to my ears, and Helos, Weslyn, and I respond in turn quite cheerfully. Everything seems easier now that we’re here, safe at last. Our way is lit by those small orbs of light, floating immobile amongst the trees. They’re not of flame—the light is frosted and white, like oversized crystals on a chandelier. Helos pauses to exchange his muddy shirt for a clean one, then we follow them to a crackling fire pit.

  “Another gift,” says Guthreh—or was it Guthteh?—gesturing to the pit. Birds are roasting on metal spits suspended above the fire.

  “Which part?” Helos asks amicably. “The birds or the spits?”

  “The spits.” Guthreh holds up her hands. “We caught the birds.”

  He glances back at me, and I can’t help but return his grin.

  My levity fades when I glance at my own hands, looking for the death on them that giant claimed to see.

  “Rora?”

  I nod, shrugging off the worry. “I’m fine.”

  The meal is the best we’ve had since Niav—roasted grouse, huge leafy greens, oversized wild onions and tomatoes. We have to carve the food into edible bites, though, since the giants down the vegetables like handfuls of seeds and eat the cooked birds whole. We all take seconds when offered, using items from our packs as plates since theirs are longer than our arms, then attack the mound of half-crushed raspberries piled near the center. The giants join us on the ground, jarring our bones each time one sits despite their apparent effort to do so gently.

  As we eat, we tell them of our journey, of Finley and the people of Telyan, and how Helos and I came to live there. They seem especially curious about our childhood, but we recount only the outskirts of those years; this feels too pretty a place to delve into an ugly past.

  Things grow tense when they ask after the Prediction readings. I notice Weslyn avoids our gaze when he explains the last seven years, and the giants offer no comment, just consider his words in silence.

  As for myself, I’d like to cover my ears and block out the reminder. Instead, I study the ground before me, jaw clenched tight. Over the last week, I’ve been so preoccupied with getting us here that I had nearly forgotten about the Prediction, and being its rumored subject, entirely.

  After we’ve eaten our fill, one of the giants—Corloch, he reminds us—yields his nest, inviting us to sleep there for the night. The halo of moss is the size of a small house and fits all three of us easily.

  Right away, Helos and I fall into quiet conversation. Weslyn, however, remains fairly removed; he stretches out on the opposite side, using his pack for a pillow. Hardly any time has passed before his breathing slows and deepens.

  Helos rolls his eyes and points with his thumb.

  “I think we may have broken him,” I whisper in amusement.

  “Or fixed him,” Helos says.

  Crickets chatter and click around the peripheries, piercing the night with their song. After a time, I risk another glance at the sleeping Weslyn, whose features are drawn, almost troubled. As if he, too, suffers in sleep. I wonder what kind of memories might haunt him.

  “Did you miss it at all?” Helos asks, running a hand through his hair. “Being here.”

  My eyebrows arch in disbelief, only for me to realize the corner of his mouth is twitching. The question is so knowing, so absurd, that suddenly we’re bent double from laughing. A hopeless, heady charade of trying and failing to stifle the sound, a long-needed release after days of tightly coiled tension. And it feels earned, everything safer in this protected corner of the Vale, because we’re here. We actually made it. We won.

  “The giants have it pretty good, though,” I say, regaining my breath. “Peace and quiet, and plenty of birds to catch.”

  “No, it’s too easy to hear yourself think here.” Helos waves a hand. “I’d probably go mad if I had to stay.”

  I study him a bit, sobering, trying to gauge how serious he is.

  “Speaking of which—” He opens his mouth, then shuts it again. “I’m sorry.”

  “What? Why?”

  He rubs an arm, like he’s bracing himself for a confession. “I forgot what it was like. Being here, back in survival mode. And I let that distract me since crossing. I haven’t been there for you like I should have been.” He says it all in a rush, as if he’s nervous. Back in survival mode—because for him, Roanin is the soft place to land, the apothecary shop his calling, whereas I don’t think I’ve ever stopped running. “In any case, that’s over now. I promise.”

  His tone is a bit desperate despite the smile, pleading for me to forgive him when the
re’s nothing to forgive. I search his face in confusion. “You’re allowed to be affected by the past, you know. Remembering doesn’t make you weak.”

  Perhaps a bit of a joke coming from me, since the pain of the past has always been my main source of vulnerability, the mold that shaped the person I’ve become. Habits born from what we suffered and all the times I chose wrong, designed to maintain control and make me a person someone would stay for. Could love.

  My brother only shrugs.

  “Helos,” I say, firmer now. “You can’t just shut every bad thought into a box and throw away the key. Sooner or later, you’re going to collapse under the weight.”

  His face transforms from remorseful to indignant, the descent into defensiveness rapid and unfamiliar. Eyebrows knit together, lips pressed tight. “Better than letting them consume you.”

  Blood rushes to my cheeks. “You’re an expert then, are you?”

  “Never mind. Forget I said anything.” He rolls onto his side, keeping his back to me. Then, as if returning to himself, he quietly adds, “Get some sleep.”

  The food has soured in my stomach, and I watch his hunched form for a while before switching to the gathering darkness, uneasy. My brother and I have always been a team. We don’t fight, not really.

  Despite the peaceful surroundings, rest is slow to come.

  * * *

  Dawn has long since stretched its wings by the time I awaken the next morning. The only murmurs in the breeze drift in from songbirds and the stream, but I know further sleep isn’t possible. Behind closed lids, I watched the soldiers’ faces and heard the caegar’s labored breathing and the thrum of arrows flying from angry bows. Finishing the job, Kallen growled, over and over in my head. Finishing the job. Who the bloody ends are you?

  When the ground begins to shake, I jolt upright to wake the others in case of an earthquake—but it’s only the trembling footsteps of a giant. Exhaling in relief, I grab my pack and set out in search of a place to bathe, noting that while Helos is still fast asleep, Weslyn is nowhere to be found.

  I follow the stream barefoot, deep into the woods, wending around clusters of overgrown firs until the water branches off in two directions. For once, I feel no pressure to hurry or scan my surroundings for threats. Today feels like freedom—from danger, from worry—and the sensation is as unfamiliar as it is welcome. The tributary I choose leads to a small, blue-gray pool rippling out from the base of a waterfall. I shed my clothes and lower myself in, using a cloth to scrub the grime from my skin.

  Despite my newfound ease, I can’t help but try to figure out how those soldiers could have gotten here. The only crossing is in Niav, but they can’t have used it; Minister Mereth would not have been interested in our offer to spy if she knew they were here already.

  Jol must have already begun surveying the Vale.

  My attention sharpens at the scrabbling to my right—not a man, but a small creature perched on one of the branches, wings outstretched as he collects his balance. He’s like a fox in miniature, but raven black, with furry wings nearly twice the size of his body. Nightwing.

  There’s a brief period in which the two of us lock eyes—he on his branch, and me sitting knees-to-chest on a shelf near the edge of the pool, water lapping gently against my collarbone. Then he launches from the branch and, in a few rapid wingbeats, settles close to the waterfall, apparently deciding I’m not worth his fear.

  Slowly, methodically, my hands tease out the knots in my hair while I watch the little nightwing from the corner of my eye. He’s crouched low to the rim, his tiny pink tongue swiping the water in rapid strokes. The sight catches me off guard, brushes the dust from a truth long-buried beneath the sediment of trauma and time. I have spent so many years fearing the danger in this stretch of land, I had forgotten there’s beauty in it, too. Beauty, and life.

  When I have banished every trace of dirt from my skin, I climb out and throw on the cleanest item of clothing I possess: the lavender dress. Then I empty my pack of its contents and dunk the clothes and worn towel into the water one by one, beating and rinsing them as thoroughly as possible before laying them out to dry.

  To my surprise, when I locate Weslyn, he’s already seated amid a group of six giants, beard shaved to shadow once more, gesturing with his hands in the midst of some passionate recounting. The sight is oddly uplifting, an unexpected feeling considering I spent the first half of this journey wishing simply to be rid of him. But lately, the apathy between us back in Roanin feels as distant as the city itself.

  Across the way, Guthreh sits cross-legged with one palm resting on an enormous knee, the other cupping her chin. She’s looking down at Weslyn without blinking.

  “—thinks killing all magical beings is the key to destroying magic.”

  “Then he’s correct, in a way,” says Guthreh. “But he does not understand why.”

  Several heads twist in my direction as I approach, Weslyn’s last of all. He starts to smile when he sees me, then works his mouth into a straighter line, as if confused by his own reaction.

  “You’re talking about King Jol?” I ask, chest tightening as I take a seat beside him.

  “Humans have never understood the connection between magic in the land and the beings it inhabits,” Guthreh says by way of reply. She points a bony finger in my direction. “They’re the same. Of the same magic, only divided among different hosts.”

  Weslyn leans forward, resting his elbows on crossed legs. “Scholars have speculated as much.”

  Guthreh appears unimpressed. “But do they understand the implication? The magic east of the river has begun to fade, you say?”

  Weslyn nods. “The land there rarely stirs anymore. Outside of the Fallow Throes, it’s almost as if the magic is dead.”

  Dead.

  Before, the idea might have brought relief, to have a permanent respite from the terrain of our youth. Sitting alongside these ancient people, though, the word feels far too heavy and final.

  “It is not dead, not yet. Magic will always fight to survive.” Guthreh shakes her head. “But it will not last forever. Every day now, segments leak into the sea and vanish like mist.”

  I straighten in shock.

  “It’s true. Though imperceptible day by day, the magic is slipping away. But like calls to like, and so long as magical beings walk the earth, drawing their counterpart to the surface, the land’s magic will continue to flourish. It will grow stronger, or at least stave off the gradual weakening.”

  “Like magnets,” Weslyn says.

  Guthreh appraises him for several moments. “Like seeds. They are born with magic in their veins, and they awaken magic where they go. When they die, their magic returns to the soil.”

  Like water, I add silently. Rising from the ocean. Gathering, falling, returning. “But I feel no different in the east than I do in the Vale.”

  “Your survival is not dependent on the land’s magic, and one shifter alone is not enough to call it forth.” Guthreh pauses thoughtfully. “But if it vanishes entirely, your kind—all magical people, and animals—will weaken over time. And you will die.” Guthreh’s attention flicks back to Weslyn. “If not sooner, whether by natural causes or targeted attacks.”

  I let the idea float together, blurred around the edges as if viewed through water. Wilderness razed, and meadows paved with roads. Human settlements stretching across the entire continent. Perhaps, once they felt more secure at home, they’d even open their borders once again to those across the sea. Magic might become myth, and folk like me, no more than a dream.

  Guthreh sighs as if in finality. “You would have us go to war. Perpetuate these attacks. But we only want peace. We moved to the Vale to avoid human conflict, not participate in it.”

  “I’m trying to stop further attacks,” Weslyn counters. “Against your people and mine. But I fear the only way to secure peace will be to fight back against those who seek to undermine it.” He frowns. “I would have you help us, yes.”

 
The pieces shift into place. “You think your father will say no to Eradain.”

  His silence is answer enough.

  “Remaining here does not mean we condone what might happen,” Guthreh says.

  “Doesn’t inaction amount to the same?” Weslyn challenges.

  I stare at him, recalling our conversation in Willahelm Palace when I posited roughly the same thing. I hadn’t expected my words to have any real effect on his attitude.

  “What you must understand,” says Hutta, one of the giants who greeted us the night before, “is that it does no good for us to stand against the people of the north. We already tried interfering, long ago. If you really wish to fix the problem now, opposition must come from within.”

  “It will,” Weslyn insists. “I ask only that you stand with us when the time comes, not that you stand alone. You once urged my people to act on logic rather than emotion. I thought you’d want to hold us accountable.”

  “And we will,” Guthreh replies, a hint of threat in her voice. A warning to back off. “When the time is right.”

  “The time is now,” I say. “There are soldiers in the Vale, practically on your doorstep. They tried to carry off a caegar and called it some kind of job. King Jol has made his intentions perfectly clear.”

  She eyes me wearily. “The prince told us this already.”

  “Well?” I demand. “Don’t you want to know what they’re doing here?” My words are met with more silence, then two of the spectators mutter in a different language. “I don’t understand. What’s the problem? Why do you hesitate?”

  “There is a way to these things,” Hutta replies at last, studying me with an expression I can’t interpret. “You mustn’t rush forward before knowing the whole story. There is danger in acting reactively.”

  “Better than doing nothing at all.”

  Weslyn murmurs a word of caution, but I shake it off.

  Hutta only stares at me. “Ah, shifter. You have been among humans too long.”