The Poison of Woedenwoud

by K. Ferrin

  “Nantes.” Dreskin shook his head. “There’s no overland route to Vosh from there without crossing the Woedenwoud. Besides, the Brisians are too dangerous.”

  “It’s risky, I admit. But we’ve got as many allies among them as we do enemies. It’s a lot of coastline for them to watch, but with as much as Fariss wants to stop us and just plain wants Ling, he’ll be pouring all of his resources into making sure we don’t make it to land. Our best chance is to hope he doesn’t expect us to travel so far to the south.”

  “That’s true, but Drake, the enemies we have among them are more of a risk to us than any other. They could have a bird in the air with a message for Fariss within seconds of seeing us. There’s no question they’ll have descriptions of us from Fariss through the same. The Tovendieren are too dangerous.”

  “Then we remain below the radar. If they never see us at all they can’t report our location to Fariss,” Drake responded.

  Ling had told Fariss she was going to kill him. She’d written about it extensively in the grimoire. He’d laughed at her then, believing himself safe with his magic and his warlock army. She’d barely escaped him, twice. She should have stayed and found a way to kill him instead. Her lack of action meant that now he’d find Evelyn and kill her instead. Somewhere deep inside she felt a clock she’d not known was there start to tick.

  “Look here.” Drake settled her finger at Nantes, sliding it across the protrusion of the horn to the far coast. “We land at Nantes, pick up some supplies and horses from the chevalmyn, and ride across to Caen. There is a tiny port there. They run quick trips up and down the coast, shipping goods and passengers between Lille in Brielle and Caen in Brisia. From Lille we can head inland through Brielle into Bremen, and follow the inland mountains to Vosh. We’ll travel along the border of the Woedenwoud, but on the Brielle side. Ling and I will stay out of sight at all times; we’ll bypass towns where we can.”

  “Even if we manage to stay ahead of them and out of sight, that’s months of travel, Drake. We don’t have that kind of time.”

  “Months? It can’t be months. We need a faster route,” Ling said.

  As a child, Evelyn had endured a recurring nightmare about a strange man who’d broken into her house and killed her parents. She’d searched the house, running desperately from room to room as her parents screamed and begged him to stop, but she could never find them. She’d smashed door after door open only to step into an empty room.

  Until the bathroom. The lights of that room would flash on as she rushed through the door, revealing blood dripping down every wall, a bathtub filled with the thick reddish brown of semi-congealed blood and the dismembered bodies of her parents and everyone she knew: Legs jutting out at unnatural angles, hands poking up out of the opaque depths as if reaching for aid or redemption—far too many for just two people. And worst of all, bobbing heads with open, staring eyes.

  She’d always wake up then, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets and screaming. She’d hear her parents’ footsteps thumping down the hallway to her room, where they would wash her face with a cool washcloth and rub her back until she calmed.

  Her dream was becoming a reality, and this time there was no sweat-soaked bed, no soothing back rubs. This time it was all real, and now she knew who the man was. Fariss.

  “Can you think of another way? Brielle and Vosh are too obvious, and their coasts are too smooth for us to sneak into. Brisia is perfect. There are a thousand islands between here and there, reefs everywhere, plenty of places to hide and keep hidden,” Drake said.

  Ling opened her mouth to object further, but before she made a sound, the door to the cabin slammed open.

  Fern stood in the doorway, so emaciated and pale she looked like a ghost. The fine blue scaling along her cheeks sparkled brightly against the livid scars and rough red scabs of her healing flesh. Her blonde hair wafted wildly around her head like a wind-torn sail.

  Ling’s objection condensed into a single word. “Fern!” She jumped to her feet, relieved Fern was awake at last. Relieved to finally have someone to talk to who would understand. She put an arm around her friend and pulled her into the room. “I’m so glad you’re awake; I was so worried.”

  Drake and Dreskin sprung into motion as well. Drake straightened the sheets on the bed and propped up the pillow, while Dreskin poured a cup of coffee for her. But Fern pulled herself away from Ling, her hollowed eyes staring wide at all of them. “I know what we have to do,” she said. She pushed Dreskin’s offered cup away and crossed her arms over her too narrow chest.

  Fern’s eyes darted between the three of them, never settling for more than a moment. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, arms crossing and uncrossing, hands rubbing against one another, restless. “We never should have left her. You never should have left her.” Those last words were directed at Drake.

  The smile that had lit Drake’s face when Fern had walked in drained all at once.

  “Of all people, you, Drake. How could you leave her like that?”

  “Fern—” Drake began, but Fern interrupted her.

  “We’re going back. I’ve told them already, the crew. They won’t set a course until you give the command, Drake. We’ve been drifting, for weeks, circling and circling, wasting so much time.”

  Drake stood where she was, mouth open wide in shock.

  “We’re not going back, Fern. You know as well as I do what we need to do. Alyssum knew it too. We’ve solved the puzzle!” Dreskin approached Fern slowly, hands out, palms up in an offering of peace. “You’re tired—”

  “I’m not tired. I’m not sick, not anymore. I see clearly now that we never should have left her there. Never. She was not in her right mind when she asked it.”

  Dreskin dropped his hands to his sides. He took a deep breath, the muscles of his chest bunching and releasing beneath his shirt. “We’re not going back. We’re going to Nantes. From there we’ll make our way north to Vosh, where we will learn everything we can about the navire. They are the key, Fern. We need the people of Vosh to show us the way.”

  Fern went still as Dreskin spoke, her eyes pinned to the floor. Ling crept close, reaching to place a hand on Fern’s shoulder. Fern spun and shoved. Ling tried to catch herself, stumbling several times before she crashed to the floor, her head cracking against the edge of the bed.

  “This is your fault,” Fern said, pointing at Ling. “She’d never have been caught if not for you.” She turned her gaze away from Ling to stare at all of them in turn. “What is wrong with you?” Fern screamed at them, face flushing to a shocking red given her general paleness. She turned her eyes on Drake. “She loves you, and you just walk away from her and let her die alone?” She shifted her gaze, pinning Dreskin. “And you. She took you in when no one else would. She gave you a home, gave you a family. What is the matter with you? You’re not even talking about going after Fariss after what he’s done? He’s killed her!”

  “She’s not dead, Fern! She is not going to die. Please, just listen to me. Think back, she’s been in much worse condition before and come out of it just fine; you know that! Besides, she made it very clear—” Dreskin tried again to reach out but Fern slapped his hand aside.

  “You didn’t see her!” Fern screamed in Dreskin’s face. “You didn’t carry her body out of that place. I did!” Fern stepped back away from them and hunched downward. “If you won’t do what’s right, I’ll do it alone.” A thin light shimmered around her before fading suddenly away.

  Ling recognized it; she’d read about it in the grimoire. Fern was trying to change, to take on her dragonfly shape and fly back to Alyssum. To fly away from her, from what they had set out to do, what she’d convinced Ling they had to do.

  Fern screamed wordlessly, hands clenched into fists at her sides. With tears sliding down her cheeks she spun away, vanishing into the darkness.

  In the silence Ling could hear Drake’s choked breathing and Dreskin’s exasperated sigh.

  “Alyssum is going to be
fine,” Dreskin repeated. “She has been grievously injured before. The magic has always healed her and it will heal her this time too. Fern knows this, but it’s hard on her, being away. She is lashing out, but she will come around.” He sighed again before moving across the room to the door. He turned back to them. “Don’t take it personally. People say things they don’t mean when they are upset. I’ll go after her; I’ll talk to her. She’ll be okay. This is a good plan. We need to stay the course.” He waited until he saw her faintly nod agreement before closing the door tightly behind him.

  Ling stared at the door for several minutes. She had never seen Fern so upset, so rattled. From her writings in the grimoire Fern was always steadfast and calm, focused on the end goal of sealing the breach, and lustful for life. Fern had taught her to laugh again, had convinced her she could be a part of something bigger than any of them individually, but now all she could do was look back and had convinced herself of the worst possible outcome for Alyssum. She’d never realized Fern had such capacity to hurt others with her words that way. Her aggression was unnerving.

  Ling turned to look at Drake. Drake’s eyes were red, streaming, and even from where she sprawled on the floor, Ling could see the tremors rocking the captain. “Sh…she didn’t mean it,” Ling said, climbing to her feet. “Dreskin is right. She’s scared; she didn’t mean what she said.” Ling said the words to Drake, but she was saying them for her own benefit as much as for Drake’s. She needed to believe Fern didn’t blame her for all of this, that she was still a part of something bigger.

  Drake settled herself into a chair, running fingers through her short hair. “Yes she did. She meant every word of it. And she’s not completely wrong. We left her there, Ling.”

  “Dreskin says—”

  “I know what he says, but even if he’s right, it doesn’t change what we did.”

  It was true. Ling had felt the agony of that choice as much as the rest of them had, in her own way. Her only memories of Alyssum were from the book; she’d seen Alyssum on the Courser in the very beginning. They’d never actually met, but Ling knew how important she was to the others and to the task before them.

  “Desperate people do desperate things,” Ling said, thinking back to the words she’d exchanged with the old man in the harbor of Malach. Only a few hours ago, she had read about how he had seen something in her and had turned away, out of fear or disgust or something else altogether she could not say. The words felt even truer now than they had then. As bad as she’d thought things were at that point, they’d only gotten worse. How much further down the rabbit hole would they go before this was all over? She found she really did not want to know the answer to that question.

  Chapter Four

  “You are right about that, and Fern is desperate. She has friends in all of us, but if Alyssum dies, she will be alone in a way none of us can even imagine. The last Mari.” Drake sighed and leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table and resting her forehead in her palms. “What a terrible burden to carry.”

  Ling pulled herself up from the floor and settled onto the bed. She rubbed her head where she’d cracked it against the bed frame. There wasn’t even a sore spot. Not being mortal did have some benefits. She looked up to find Drake’s eyes on her.

  “That’s a burden you both carry, I suppose. I’d never considered what it must be like for you, being the only one.” She leaned back in her chair, her gaze steady. “How is it you came to be here, Ling? It’s well known the people of your country hate and fear magic, and you said yourself they considered you a curse, so they must have known you weren’t human. I can’t imagine what they must have done to you. How did you manage to leave there?”

  Ling dropped her gaze to her lap. She didn’t want to talk about any of that. But her mouth opened anyway.

  “I had a friend there, a Bremen. She’d been in Meuse as long as I can remember, and she was like a grandmother to me. I called her Witch because everyone else did—an outsider even after all those years of living there. She never told me not to, but she should have. I’m ashamed I called her that now. She risked her life for me—maybe even died for me—and I don’t even know her real name. Can you believe that?”

  “When spoken in the tone of love and affection, even the ugliest words can become beautiful,” Drake said. “It’s not the word that matters, it’s the emotion behind it.”

  “Maybe.” Ling shrugged. “But I’ll never know her real name now. She’s very likely dead, and even if she isn’t, I’ll never go back there.”

  Drake leaned back and placed her palms flat on the table in front of her. She tilted her head back and looked up at the ceiling as she spoke. “Fern’s words were true, but they painted an incomplete picture. We did leave Alyssum behind, but she would have wanted us to do exactly that. She asked Fern to search you out, to help us find a way to seal the breach. She’d warned me this day might come, and asked me to mourn her, but to honor her life by doing whatever I could to stop Fariss and seal that damned breach. Whether she is alive or dead, we owe it to her to do whatever we can to bring her greatest wish to life.”

  She tilted her head downward until her eyes met Ling’s once again. “Dangerous people become even more dangerous when they are backed into a corner. Fariss took Alyssum because he thought she’d gained a powerful weapon in you, but his actions are his own. You have no part in them.”

  “If I didn’t exist, if I’d never come to this place…”

  “If it wasn’t you it would have been something else. It was inevitable that something would push him to act. We are fortunate it was you—you have showed us how to achieve the very thing we most desperately need. Because of you, we know how to close that breach, or at least we’ve got a good shot at it anyway. Because of you, we may be able to stop this war. Fariss has neither you nor Alyssum, and that’s because of you too. All life comes with good and bad, Ling. It’s foolish to focus overly much on one over the other.”

  Ling climbed to her feet and moved to the door of the cabin. “You may be right,” she said as she pulled it open. “But Fern looked at me much the same as my mother did when she tried to torture the changeling out of me. It’s not so easy to get such a thing out of your mind. Even a mind so littered with holes as mine.” Their eyes met for several seconds, but before Drake could say anything more Ling walked out and closed the door firmly behind her.

  Ling knew she started every morning reading the story of her mother’s attempt to murder her. It had hurt at the time, the despair in her writing made that very clear. But, maybe as a result of distance and time, her mother’s actions made a strange sort of sense when you considered that she’d grown up in a world that feared and despised magic.

  But Fern’s anger was not the ignorant result of the culture she’d grown up in—it had cause behind it. Regardless of what Drake said, Fariss did what he did because he believed Ling tipped the scales of war in favor of the Mari. Whatever good came out of her being here, it didn’t change the fact that she was at least partly responsible for Alyssum’s fate.

  Ling thought she could bear that truth when taken on the whole, the good and bad. She had friends here who accepted her for who she was, who didn’t care whether she had magic or blood running through her veins. She was a part of something bigger than herself, and as Drake had just said, they had an idea now of how to close the breach because of her. She couldn’t regret any of that and all the lives that might save. But Fern’s rage tipped the balance. She couldn’t deal with all the horror she brought to people she cared about and the loss of Fern as a friend.

  Drake was right: Fern understood what it was to be alone. Not just away from people, but truly, completely alone. Knowing someone else knew what that felt like and sharing the burden had made it so much lighter to carry. Maybe if she’d never met Fern she could still carry it. But Fern’s blame was too heavy, too bitter, too hollowing. It ate at her like acid and left her weak and grasping. Fern, it seemed, couldn’t imagine going on without Alyssu
m. But Ling couldn’t imagine going on without Fern.

  Ling made her way to the cabin she had been sharing with Fern and stopped at the door. She put her palms flat against the sea-roughened wood and leaned an ear against it. She could hear muffled voices, but couldn’t make out any words. She moved around to the side of the cabin where one small window punctured the wooden wall. She sat beneath it in the dark and listened.

  “…as I can. I’m not going to just sit here and let her die alone. And I’ll tell you another thing,” Fern said. “There is no way to close that breach. Alyssum knew it, and you know it too, whether you choose to admit it or not.”

  “If you believe that you are lying to yourself as much as you are lying to me. Alyssum sent you after Ling for a reason, Fern. She wanted you here, wanted you involved in this. She believes in what we are doing, always has, and I don’t care how badly injured she is, nothing would change how she feels about this. You are deluding yourself if you think—”

  “I’m done talking to you, Dreskin. After all we’ve been through…I never figured you for a coward.”

  Ling tilted her head up. She could hear Dreskin breathing long, steady breaths, and she could imagine him red-faced, trying to rein in his temper.

  “Fern, I understand you are upset. But we have never been closer to ending this thing than we are right now. Ling is the key. She had the information we’ve been missing all this time. There are navire with the ability to contain more power than we ever imagined was possible. Alyssum has always felt certain a large enough influx of power would close it, but they’ve never been able to muster enough of it, not since the tear. But now we can. We know it, and we know where to find it. Just imagine, everything Alyssum has worked toward, everything you’ve fought for, all right there for the taking.”

  “The only thing I’m interested in taking is revenge. I’m going to kill that bastard, and then I’m going to figure out how to unmake Ling. I don’t want to see her face—I don’t want to hear her voice—ever again. Not after what she’s caused.” Fern’s voice hitched as she spoke, but the venom never lessened. “It’s what she wants anyway. Death. I felt sorry for her about that before. Now I just want to give her what she’s looking for. If I could do it now, I would.”