Forestborn

by Elayne Audrey Becker

  He glares at me like he knows I’m lying but doesn’t press it further, just sinks to the ground right where he is. I place the packs down next to him and survey the area for any signs of animal tracks or snake dens. When I’m satisfied nothing is about to leap out at us, I set about building a small fire, then pull some dried meat and way-bread from my pack.

  Weslyn drops off for a while, and by the time he comes to, the sky has grown dark.

  “Drink some water. And eat,” I command. He grumbles a little but does what I say. I wish I still had that cat’s tongue to lessen the pain, but our supply ran out long ago, and I don’t remember the look of it enough to go searching.

  “That sound,” he says, taking a bite of dried meat and nodding in the direction of the faint pops, like sticks snapping into pieces.

  “Probably just some squirrels rummaging for food.” I repress the urge to cover my ears. Powerful molars grinding bones into dust. Fortunately for us, marrow sheep have little interest in heartbeats.

  He pulls his waterskin from his pack. “You said you lost the trail. How?”

  My shoulders sag. “I don’t know. It was just—there one moment, gone the next. As if they’d vanished into thin air, or the ground had swallowed them whole.”

  “Could it have?”

  I imagine Helos imprisoned beneath the forest floor. Buried under layers of sediment and rock, my hallucination from the meadow come to life. I shake my head helplessly. “It’s possible.” In which case, how could I ever hope to follow? “For a moment, I thought the trail led underground.”

  He pauses. “We have to go after him.”

  “I’m going to.” And I will. Even if it means leaving Weslyn on his own for a time. I can do that, if I have to. If it means giving Helos a chance at survival.

  Can’t I?

  “We’re going to,” he amends.

  I give him a once-over. “You can barely walk, Weslyn.”

  After a while, he says, “Wes.”

  “What?”

  He smiles a little. “You saved my life. You may as well call me Wes. Anyway, I’m better now.” As if to prove it, he starts to stand.

  “Stop!” I exclaim at once, having no desire to watch him faint. “You need to rest.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re an idiot. Sit down.”

  He obeys, grinning. “What if I told you I could have you beheaded for calling me an idiot?”

  “I’d call you a liar, too,” I reply. “And I’d laugh, because you’d have to make it all the way back to Telyan to issue that order, and you’re in no state to do that at the moment.”

  He doesn’t reply, and my thoughts grow serious in the silence that follows.

  “I killed those men,” I say quietly. Their faces have plagued my thoughts alongside the image of Helos being hit in the head.

  Weslyn’s expression is grim, but determined. “You did what you had to do.”

  “I know. And I thought that was enough, earlier. I didn’t regret it.” I watch him for a few moments, waiting for him to judge. “But their deaths achieved nothing. Helos was still taken. I killed them for nothing.” My voice chokes a little on the words.

  “It wasn’t for nothing,” he says. “You saved me. And you stayed free. If you hadn’t, you would not be able to rescue your brother.”

  I laugh without humor. “I don’t know how to save him. I don’t even know where he is.”

  “But you’re going to try.”

  I nod. “I have to.”

  “We’ll go at first light,” he says. “You can start by taking me to the place the trail disappeared. Maybe we’ll find a clue you didn’t notice before.”

  I eye him dubiously but don’t object.

  “Those men,” he continues, when he realizes I’m not going to contradict him. “They were wearing Eradain colors.”

  I tug at my hair. “I know.”

  A pause. Then: “I killed many of them, too.”

  If Brock were here, I imagine he’d be proud. I only feel sick. Calm, lethal precision; I examined the bodies earlier while Weslyn was recovering.

  Wes, I correct myself.

  “Had you ever done that before?”

  He holds my gaze. “No. And I hated it.”

  My heart twists. “Despite your training?”

  “They train us to do the job when there is no other choice. Not to take pleasure in it.” He rubs at his bandaged arm, wincing slightly. “I don’t think anyone should.”

  Silence falls again. Around us, conifer trees huddle close in the light of the flickering flames. I switch my attention to the crackling fire and the crickets’ lament in the air, the soothing scent of burning cedar. Anything to distract me from the fear for Helos threatening to eat me alive.

  “It’s my fault he was taken,” I say, pressing my hands into my forehead. “I’m the one who insisted we stay. I may as well have led him straight to them.”

  “I argued for it, too,” Wes reminds me. “If anyone is to blame, I’m as responsible as you are. But Helos agreed. He knew what he was doing.”

  I shake my head, unconvinced. “All he wanted was to bring Finley the stardust. He—they’re close, you know. Or,” I stumble, confused. “They were.”

  Wes leans back on his good hand, nodding once. “They were.”

  Hearing the past tense from somebody else only adds to my sorrow. Does he know, or has he had to piece it together alone, as I have? And if Finley has confided in him, does he know why his brother would keep Helos away when the misery of that decision is written so plainly across his face?

  I realize, right then, that I’m angry with Finley. To have found that kind of love and choose to keep it at bay with nothing more than a word, no sensible reason I can see—it’s wasteful. Insulting, even, to people like me, who have never been so lucky as to have the choice at all.

  I peer closely at Weslyn’s face and realize it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t seem ready to spill his brother’s secrets, any more than I am mine.

  “Do you miss Finley?” I ask instead, swallowing my frustration. I’ve never really asked him about his relationship with his brother. Not directly. But personal questions always seem more acceptable at night, and I did just save his life, as he pointed out.

  He runs a hand through his hair, appearing to weigh his response. “He told me to trust you, you know.”

  “He did?”

  “Mm. The night before we left.”

  I try and fail to imagine that conversation playing out. “Well, we both know you’re too stubborn to actually listen.”

  Wes smiles a little. “After my mother died, it was—difficult. My father became a shell of himself. I tried to help, but it frightened me, the change in him.” He falls quiet, his gaze a bit distant.

  For a moment, I try to picture him as a scared, grieving boy, not as the stoic, steady appraiser he’s always been in my presence. It’s difficult to envision.

  “Violet is the one who pulled him out of it. I don’t think he could have done it without her.” He draws one of his knees up and loops his arm around it. “But I couldn’t have done it without Finley.” Eyebrows arched in amusement, he nods at the surprise on my face and glances away. “He’s my little brother. I’m supposed to look out for him. But somehow he’s gotten it into that thick skull of his that it’s his job to look after me.”

  Now it’s my turn to smile. “I think it works both ways.”

  “To answer your question, I miss him, yes. More than I can say.” He looks at me then, expression turning serious once more. “We’re going to get Helos out.”

  “And the rest of your family?” I persist, looking down at my palms and brushing past the reassurance. “You must miss your mother, too.” Something is building inside me. Burning. Demanding release.

  Wes grazes a hand along his beard. A long time passes before he speaks again. “I saw her in the meadow, the other day. I knew it wasn’t real. But still, it was—” He takes a breath. “Difficult to look away.�
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  Sympathy lances through me as I remember how she managed to make me feel hopeful in so short a time. “What was she like?”

  “Clever, like Violet. Kind, like Fin.”

  And you, I almost say, but I bite back the words. For so long, I have mistaken his reservedness for severity. But it’s not. He’s just quieter. Serious. Slow to trust.

  Like me.

  “You loved her,” I say simply.

  He studies the ground. “It just didn’t make sense. She was the one who taught us to ride, she was an expert. To fall like that, on the day you both arrived…”

  My back tenses reflexively.

  “I’m not blaming you,” he continues, sensing the change in me. “It was my own problem, and I’m sorry if it hurts you. But for a long time, I couldn’t look at you without thinking of her death. I resented you for coming, for being there that day, because maybe if I had not had to—” He pauses the sudden torrent of words, tugging at the grass. “I was wrong,” he admits, and I don’t contradict him. “But I can’t stop thinking that if I had been there, if I hadn’t volunteered to take you and Helos to the castle, I might have been able to stop it.”

  “You couldn’t have changed it,” I tell him.

  Wes looks at me sadly. “You don’t know that.”

  “I know that you can’t keep torturing yourself about it,” I say, more gently now. “And I don’t think she would want you to. The odds you could have done anything to prevent that accident are very small.”

  He falls silent for a long while. Around our meager fire, the night presses closer, as if offering a hand to hide us from the world. Clouds cover the moon tonight, but a few stubborn stars are glimmering through the wisps.

  “Sometimes I think it’s just easier not to feel at all,” Wes mutters.

  There’s a rawness to the words, a soft honesty in his voice that makes me wonder if he’s ever said that aloud.

  “Does that make you happy?” I ask after a moment.

  His jaw tightens, just a little. “It’s not—it wasn’t—about being happy.”

  “Is that why you came on this journey, then?”

  He blinks at me.

  “That’s why you’re trying to help your father and save your brother? I saw you with those people in Grovewood, Wes. You make a good show of it, but you don’t seem to me like someone determined not to feel.” I find I’m actually grinning. “In fact, I think you might be very bad at it.”

  He laughs at last, surprised and heartfelt, and it feels like a victory.

  “Have I just risked execution again, for telling you you’re bad at something?”

  “If you have, you’ll have to join a queue,” he says, shaking his head. “Naethan tells me that every other day.”

  He looks down again, calmer now.

  In light of his openness, the thing building inside me has sharpened into claws, needling my insides, insistent. The painful awareness that I’m lying to him, even now. I don’t know if it’s the fact that we’re alone in these woods, or just the baffling, endless patience in his bearing, but I can’t shake the conviction that if he’s going to put his trust in me—this person I now understand is damaged but so inherently good, just like Finley said, who feels so deeply and listens and owns his mistakes without prompting—he needs to know.

  I drop my gaze, fiddling with my hands.

  “I don’t miss my mother,” I confess into the dark. Already, it’s the tip of madness, putting the worst of me on display. But it’s out now, can’t take it back. “She abandoned us when we were only a few years old. Humans attacked our village, I don’t know why, and she fled without taking us with her. She left us there to die.” I pause to gather breath, old grief tightening its fist around my heart. “They must have killed her after she left, because we never saw her again. And I’m almost glad, because sometimes I think I hate her, Wes. I try not to, but I do.”

  Speaking the words aloud brings a strange mixture of mortification and relief. I’m terrified to see his reaction, but when I steal a glance at last, he’s only watching me intently.

  “At the giants, you said both of your parents were murdered. Your father?”

  How long has he been waiting to ask that? “He was shot in the back after our house caught fire.” I press my lips together. “In front of me. He was helping me escape.”

  Wes opens his mouth, closes it again. “Rora,” he whispers, sadly.

  I shake my head. “Helos and I ran for our lives. He told us to. But when we returned the next morning, no one was left.”

  “No one? Why did those people attack your village?”

  “I don’t know. The wondering still keeps me up at night.”

  Wes doesn’t speak for a while, and my nerves twist into knots. I have never spoken this much about my past, even with Finley, despite all his pressing. Not with anyone other than Helos, who lived it, too. After a time, I start to worry I’ve made a mistake in telling him these things. My fingers dig at the ground.

  “I figured you were—orphans,” he acknowledges at last, stumbling over the last word. “But I thought your parents must have died just before you came to Telyan. I had no idea—” He breaks off. “I’m sorry.”

  I shrug a little, like it isn’t a big deal, like it’s not the biggest deal in the world. “Helos has always been enough. He’s always been … better than me. It should have been me who was taken.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “No, it’s true. It should have been. But it wasn’t, because it never is. Did you know I left him to drown once?”

  The confession clearly startles him. And it should. My heart is screaming at me to shut my mouth before I ruin his impression of me forever, but now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop. It’s the worst truth of all, the shame a brand upon my soul.

  “I did. When we crossed the river to enter Glenweil. He insisted I wait on the bank while he went in first, to make sure it was safe. Of course it wasn’t. He only swam a short way into the water before the current swept him under. It was slamming into him, he couldn’t keep his head above the surface, he was drowning, and I was watching him there from the bank. And I—” I break off. “Did you know that shifters can take three animal forms in the course of their lives? We can’t choose which. They just appear at a moment of greatest need.” I swallow bitterly. “My brother was drowning, and I wanted to save him. I tried to save him, I ran to the water, and do you know what my body did?”

  Weslyn only stares.

  “It shifted to a stupid bird! So I could fly across instead of swimming and maybe drowning, too. I stood there watching my brother dying, and my core, my deepest self, thought the right response was to flee and save myself.” My voice is wobbling precariously now. “Do you know what my third form is, besides the hawk and the lynx? It’s a mouse. So I can hide. A lynx, so I can defend myself. Helos’s two forms appeared when he needed to save me, not himself.” A small sob. “I bet my mother saw it, whatever in me that’s gone wrong, and that’s why she left. I guess I hate her, but I also can’t blame her. At least if you had been there the day your mother died, you would have done the right thing. I was there the day Helos almost died. And I didn’t. I’m not a good person, Wes.”

  And just like that, the dam within me breaks, and the tears that have been threatening to fall all day flow freely. I hate crying in front of him, in front of anyone, really, but it’s all just too much, and I can’t imprison myself any longer. I press my palms into my sodden eyes until it hurts. I know he’s going to leave now that he knows, and he’ll be right to, but even so I can’t keep holding on to this suffocating guilt. The self-loathing. The conviction that I’ll never be enough. I am just too tired.

  Impossibly, an arm wraps around my shoulders. It only makes me cry harder.

  “What was it you said about torturing yourself?” he says quietly.

  “That was different,” I insist, sniffing a bit.

  “Mm.” He rests his head on top of mine.

&n
bsp; “It was.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you, Rora. You said yourself you couldn’t control what form you took. But you could control whether or not you went after him, and you did. Your mother’s choice does not reflect on you.”

  I don’t know whether I should fight him or thank him, but either way, I can’t seem to gather enough breath to say anything at all.

  “You’re the bravest person I know,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry I was too stupid to see it sooner.”

  He doesn’t speak after that, just lets me cry, lets me alert the entire forest to our presence. Sturdy. Steady.

  The oak.

  Because as it turns out, his heart is not hard at all.

  * * *

  We wake at first light to an altered campsite. Where the fire had burned for most of the previous evening, patches of wildflowers have sprouted in clumps: star-shaped violet columbines and stalks of magenta fireweed as tall as my calves. It’s hard to appreciate the sight.

  Somewhere in the Vale, Helos spent the night alone. He could be frightened, and hurting, and doing fortune knows what with those soldiers in charge. And the more time that passes, the less likely we are to ever find the trail.

  As Wes and I start to collect our things, the sounds of scuffling pinch the air to my left. It takes me several moments to spot the peeku crouched among the rocks; with his round body and dusty-brown fur, he appears practically an extension of stone.

  My muscles lock up the instant our eyes connect, and his tiny nose quivers as it sniffs the air. He’s smaller than a holly hare and infinitely more dangerous. “Wes,” I whisper. “Don’t make a sound.”

  Slowly, Weslyn lowers the waterskin from his lips.

  I nod to the rocks where the peeku is squatting and raise my hands to cover my ears, in an exaggerated fashion so Wes knows to copy. Behind me, his confusion is a near-tangible thing, but to my relief he’s keeping quiet. Move toward the creature, or move away—I’m trying to figure out the best course of action when fangs puncture the peeku’s neck and snatch him to the ground.