She dug in the pouch with her other hand and cast. He knew some of her stones by sight, but today he could not concentrate on anything except her long fingers, delicately touching one after the other.
“I don’t…” Her voice was puzzled. He looked up to find her frowning at the stones, a thing he had only seen once or twice before. “Destiny,” she said, touching a stone. “Danger. Ice.” Two of the stones were face down, and she turned them over. “Evenness. And the blank stone.”
The blank stone was a bastard, and a source of hope. It meant the future was uncertain, that the actions they took would determine the outcome.
“How can you have Destiny and the blank stone in the same casting?” he asked.
“I’ve never seen it before,” she said. “And never with the Evenness stone, which stands for balance restored and justice.”
“So what does it mean?”
Martine’s green eyes were wide and unguarded, as they might have been the day before. “The stone for a warlord isn’t there. No stone for fighting, or death, or battle…”
“So. No attack?”
“But there is Ice, and Danger,” she muttered.
She cocked her head, touching the stones again and bending to listen to them. He would never quite get used to that. The idea that the stones actually talked…
“I think,” she said slowly, “that there will be danger, but not in the form you expect.”
Arvid let out an exasperated sigh. Yesterday his life had been simple. He had been sad about losing Ember to the south, but they would visit, and he’d already agreed with Merroc that the first son would stay in the Far South Domain and the second would come here to be fostered and eventually be his heir. Martine had argued about that, wanting Ember to inherit, and using the Lady Sorn, ruler of Central Domain, as her precedent. But although Ember was far smarter than she ever let on, she was not the slightest bit interested in ruling a domain. If ever there was a girl designed to be a ruler’s wife, it was her. Even Martine had agreed with that, eventually, once Ember had finished begging to go south with Osfrid, away from the winters she loathed. A wedding, future grandchildren, a domain safe and secure, a loved and deeply trusted wife. All gone.
“Danger,” he repeated. “Wonderful.”
The Great Forest
Black spruce and more black spruce. The Forest stretched on endlessly, with only the change in the direction of the shadows as the sun climbed and sank to make Ember believe time had passed at all.
She wasn’t even sure how many days had passed since they had come under the shadow of the spruces.
Each clearing was like a gift; each small glade a fairing which shone bright. The horses were happy and the dogs loved it, although they complained about not being allowed to follow the tantalizing scent trails which crossed their path.
Occasionally Holly cocked her head as if hearing something, and looked at Cedar inquiringly. Sometimes he nodded, sometimes he shrugged a “no.” Ember wondered what she was hearing, and why it brought a strange kind of calm to her face, like the look of a crafter absorbed in making something, her whole mind and body attuned to the one thing.
They stopped for the night while it was still light, in a clearing with a stream on one side and a standing pool on the other. One side of the pool was taken up entirely by a massive holly tree, bright with white blossoms, which Holly regarded with amusement.
“May be a good sign,” she said. Ember found the holly tree disquieting, but then she always did. There was something about the dark glossy leaves and sharp points of a holly that made it unwelcoming.
Ash whistled the dogs back from the edge of the clearing where they had been investigating a shrew’s hole. Grip came happily, loping over and butting Ash’s side with his head, but Holdfast turned toward the holly tree, and showed her teeth in a silent growl. She was warning of something.
“What is it, girl?” Ash went over to her. “What is it, then?”
He had picked up his bow as he went and now he strung it and nocked an arrow, holding it loosely, as Ember had seen her father’s guards do at archery practice, waiting for the signal to shoot.
Holly went to stand beside him, her sword in her hand.
“Calling…” she said again, and there was a yearning in her voice that worried Ember.
“Not calling me,” Cedar said. “I hear it, but it sounds far away, and I can’t make out the words.”
“What does it sound like?” Ember asked.
“The wind in the trees, the stream in its bed,” Cedar replied.
“No,” Holly said. “It’s a voice.”
“What does it say?”
“Come. Come home. Come home.”
Ember took a step toward the pool. None of them had drunk from that pool, preferring the running stream to the standing water.
“Stay back, my lady,” Holly said. Ember had been schooled in this type of obedience by her parents; it was her duty as warlord’s daughter to let her guards protect her. To not get in their way. So she stayed where she was, by the big log they had all sat on. Curlew and Tern flanked her, swords in hands.
The last of the twilight was almost gone, now, and the moon was barely up, not showing yet above the encircling trees. Holly moved into shadow as she approached the pool, but something about the way her foot slid on the ground brought a memory back to Ember, a realization of why the holly bush had seemed odd to her earlier. Berries. There had been holly berries all around the foot of the tree, and in the water. Berries fallen from the tree, and not eaten.
In the harsh northern winter, when every edible scrap was the difference between life and death, a carpet of holly berries uneaten by birds was impossible.
“Come back!” she called softly. “Come away from the tree.”
“There’s something in the pool,” Holly said, ignoring her, standing next to the holly tree and peering down. “That’s where it’s coming from.”
“Holly, don’t!” Cedar said.
“Don’t touch it!” Ember cried.
Ash moved forward at the same moment they spoke, but it was too late. Holly bent and dipped a hand in the water, scooping some up and looking at it closely in the dim light. Ash paused, drawing his belt knife, but nothing happened.
“Don’t drink it,” Cedar advised. Grip and Holdfast were both growling softly, now, a long undulating sound that sent chills down Ember’s spine.
“It smells of—home,” Holly said. Her voice was odd. Younger, like a child’s.
“Guard, to your duty!” Ember said in her best imitation of her father. Her heart was beating so fast she could feel it shaking her body. She began to move, to force herself to walk toward Holly. She had to be brave. She had to be. Holly would listen to her. She took a step, two, but Curlew pulled her back and it took her a moment to break free of him, her resolution suddenly stronger, so Ash was there before her, reaching out, putting his hand on Holly’s arm, forcing it down so that the water in her palm fell back into the pool. She shook off his touch irritably, and some drops of water flicked across her face, her cheeks, her lips. Her tongue came out reflexively and tasted them.
“I’m not an idiot!” she said, but she didn’t move away. “Can’t you hear it?”
“Come away,” Ash said. “Or I’ll pick you up and carry you.”
Ember had reached her now, and took her hand, pulling her toward the center of the clearing.
“Come away, Holly,” she pleaded. “It’s unchancy, this tree.”
Holly looked resigned and allowed her to pull, but before Holly had taken a step she looked down at her feet and frowned.
“I can’t,” she said in surprise. The dogs had stopped growling and begun whining instead, as if they weren’t sure whether they faced an enemy or not.
“Ember, move back,” Ash said.
“Get her away!” Cedar shouted. When Ember kept pulling Holly, Ash simply picked her up by her waist and dragged her backward, ripping their hands apart, leaving Holly standing, puzzled,
alone next to the tree. Curlew helped him pull Ember into the center of the clearing.
“Put me down! Help her instead!” Ember shouted. Then Holly cried out. Around her feet, holly roots were writhing. It’s trying to trap her! Ember thought. Tern and Curlew moved forward, swinging their swords, cutting the roots as close to Holly’s feet as they dared.
She screamed. The dogs were barking, teeth bared, the noise horrible.
“Stop! Stop it!”
“They’re her,” Cedar said, sounding sickened. “They’re her.”
Straining through the dim light, Ember didn’t understand what he meant at first. Then she saw.
“Dragon’s breath,” Ash whispered.
The roots were not coming to Holly; they were coming out of her. And up her body, on her arms, her legs, her fingers, shoots were springing forth, like a dead winter tree coming to life in the spring, but fast, so fast.
Ember screamed, too. The holly twigs, so sharp and hard, punctured Holly’s skin at a hundred points and immediately sprouted leaves. Holly’s mouth was wide with astonishment and pain but then, suddenly, impossibly, she smiled. She looked straight at Cedar, as though he were the only one who could understand, and said, “Called me home.”
Then her head tipped back, her eyes and mouth opened wide and holly shoots pierced her, emerging from mouth and eyes and ears and nostrils, growing frantically, writhing, reaching, and a moment later, a breath later, a heartbeat later, there was no human body standing there at all, only a second holly tree, smaller than the first.
They gathered together, staring, waiting, although Ember didn’t know for what. Didn’t understand why they weren’t running screaming into the darkness, away from the horror. The dogs had gone—they were curled up together in a corner of the glade, whimpering.
Ash stood next to her and she reached out to grip his hand hard. Cedar took her other hand, and Curlew and Tern flanked them, swords still in hand, dripping a sap that was not white, like holly sap, but red. Tears ran down Curlew’s face ceaselessly.
They stood, waiting, for what seemed like a long time, until the moon had risen enough to touch the tip of Holly’s tree. As the first ray silvered the topmost leaf, flowers began appearing all over the tree; the white, pure blossoms like stars in the darkness.
Ember let go of her cousins’ hands and walked forward, and no one tried to stop her.
“You are very beautiful, Holly,” she said. “Are you home?”
As if in answer, petals drifted from the tree and landed on her face and hair, surrounding her with scent. Ash leaped forward in alarm, followed by Curlew and Tern, but she was safe, she knew. They all were.
The Forest had wanted only Holly.
The Great Forest
Sleepless, they waited for the light before dawn and saddled the horses. Holly’s mare was gone. Her tracks led off into the deep wood and, although it tore Ember’s heart in two, they all knew they couldn’t search for her, especially since her hobbles lay beside the holly tree, cut clean through, although none of them had heard anything in the night, and the dogs had not woken. The Forest had its own way of taking what it wanted.
They left the two holly trees behind them with deep sadness.
Ember sought for the right words to say goodbye, but in the end all she could think of was, “Gods bless and keep you,” which she felt the Forest might not like. “We will miss you and pray for you,” she whispered to the living tree, instead, and watered its roots with her tears.
Curlew led the way out of the clearing, his face set against tears, but he looked back for as long as he could until Holly was out of sight.
They began to climb upward soon after, the path curving in a long, gentle rise, so gradual that they didn’t know how high they had climbed until at sunset they paused at the top of a small knoll and looked back. The tall larches and black spruce were still on either side, but if Ember looked straight back down the path she could see an expanse of forest below them, tree tips emerging from the evening mist, the shadows falling blue.
They were out of the huge bowl they had seen from the far ridge.
“We’re in the foothills,” Curlew said, staring upward to where the rounded hills were raised, rank on rank. They were too close to them to see the peaks beyond, but they could feel their eternally snow-covered presence in the chill of the evening breeze flowing down the slopes toward them.
Ember knew that they were safer out of the Forest than in, but she felt, as they climbed higher, that a familiar blanket was being slowly pulled away from her shoulders and leaving her exposed to the chill air. Cedar seemed to share her discomfort. He looked behind often, back at the bowl of Forest. When he caught her watching him, his mouth twisted wryly and he shrugged.
“It feels too easy,” he said.
“We paid our toll,” Curlew said harshly, his eyes red from weeping.
“Even so,” Cedar replied.
It was not a straight climb. The foothills were reached by ridge after ridge, each one appearing to be the last, and each time they came to the top to find what seemed like exactly the same view, as though they had been climbing the same ridge over and over. Even the trees looked the same.
Ash was riding in front, his horse flanked by the two dogs. Ember brought Merry up beside Thatch and said quietly, “Are we just going over and over the same ground?”
Ash flicked a surprised look at her, and then his eyes narrowed.
“We’ll see,” he said. He reined Thatch in and dismounted, then went to the side of the track and overturned a big lichen-covered rock. Underneath, insects scurried for shelter in the dark earth. Grip sniffed at them and sneezed, and they all laughed. As if embarrassed, he lifted his leg onto the rock and pissed.
Ash smiled up at Ember.
“We should be able to recognize that again,” she said.
They toiled up the ridge and down into the next valley, over the stream at the bottom and on. Halfway up the hill on the other side, there was the overturned rock, the earth below it beginning to pale as it dried out. Grip sniffed at his own mark and looked puzzled.
“Dragon’s fart!” Curlew said. “Have we been climbing the same hill all morning?”
Cedar cocked an eyebrow at Ember and she said, “Yes, I know you said it was too easy. Now what?”
“It seems to me,” Ash said, “that this hill is a gate.”
Following his thought, Ember nodded. “So where is the gatekeeper?”
“Let’s go to the top,” Curlew said to Ash. It was a suggestion, not an order. With Holly gone, Ember had expected Curlew to take control, but the other men looked to Ash as the leader. She never quite understood how they worked those things out. In every group of men there was a leader, she’d noticed, but it wasn’t always the one a woman would have expected. None of them even considered her as a possible chief. She smiled ruefully. She’d have chosen Ash, too.
“Aye,” Ash replied to Curlew. “Best get our bearings if we can.”
The view from the top of the ridge was the same as before. Ember had half-hoped that just noticing the spell would be enough to break it but, as Cedar had said, nothing was that easy. The path was wide enough here for them to range across it abreast, each of them looking hard to see if there were any other way to go than straight down again.
“Cedar?” Ash said. “Can you See anything?”
“No. Nothing that wasn’t there before.”
Curlew’s hand was at the pommel of his sword, but there was no enemy in sight.
Courtesy was a warlord’s daughter’s main training. Courtesy, rank, honor, hospitality, command. Perhaps this was one of those times when a soft word was more powerful than a sword.
Ember edged Merry forward just a little, until he was poised so that one more step would take him on the downhill track.
“Humbly we request passage through this land,” she said clearly, making her voice as sweet and pleasant as she could. “To whomever guards this place, we make promise: we will respect the l
ife we find here, we will journey through without malice or greed.”
The ring of scar on her wrist burned suddenly, and she bit back an exclamation. Was it Fire which barred their way?
The air shimmered like a heat haze and the expanse of trees, hills, ridges before them shifted and disappeared. Beyond was grassland dotted with trees and small streams; a plateau with knee-high grasses and wildflowers blooming sky blue and sun gold. Beyond, the Eye Teeth Mountains rose sheer and astonishing, much closer than they had looked only moments before.
A wisp of fog along the ridge thickened and became two figures. Ghosts.
Of course, Ember had seen ghosts before. In the Last Domain, the quickening ceremony, held three days after someone had died, was a well-attended affair; the kind of wake that other places had after the burial. But burial in the north was often difficult during the winter months, when any corpses were reverently stored in a special cabin at the fort until the ground had thawed enough to dig graves. Unlike the southern domains, there were no caves near most of the northern settlements to take the dead and the ground was too hard or too marshy lower down to dig anything but single graves.
So the quickening ceremony had come to take the place of the burial feast, and everyone came, hoping that the spirit of the dead person had gone on peacefully to rebirth. But sometimes, when the death had been an accident, or an assault (more common as the long winters dragged on), the person didn’t realize they were dead, and three days later their spirit rose at the place they had died. Then, if someone had caused their death, that person admitted guilt and gave blood to the spirit in recompense. Ember had seen her first ghost when she was four years old—a cranky old woman she’d never liked who had been speared by an icicle dropping from the eaves of her house when she went out to get snow for cooking. She was used to seeing the pale, insubstantial form flow together. But normally ghosts were a shimmer in the air, a suggestion rather than a shape, although people with Sight saw them more clearly, she’d been told. And the Prowman could even make them speak.
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