She rolled back on her legs, stretched to her full height, and lifted her head to the sky. Her mouth opened.
Violet flames curled from a column of fire. Her wings spread wide, beat once, and she was gone, lost in a swirl of clouds.
Nikolas held out the scale to me. I touched it and looked into his eyes, the color of myth deeper. His fingers locked with mine as we took one last look at the valley, the mountain, and the sky.
A bee guided us away. We crossed the realm’s threshold and carried its mystery through to the other side.
OUR JOURNEY HOME WASN’T THE idyllic one Aoife and Wyl shared generations before. While their travels took them through miles of wild forest, the animals often guided us into villages and towns. Each time a creature led us into a hollow tree—there was always one not too far from the boundaries of a place—we found ourselves in a different kingdom or another region of the same one.
If I couldn’t forage and Nikolas couldn’t hunt enough for us to eat, we used what coins we had left to buy food. Unless the village was small, we could often walk among the people with little notice. In the large towns, we encountered the familiarities of home—shops and teahouses and businesses bearing the same names, goods, and interiors as ones from our land. This was evidence of Fewmany Incorporated’s reach, well beyond Ailliath’s borders.
During those weeks, I developed a new sensitivity. I received messages from the ground which I couldn’t interpret, no images or words, only feelings, sometimes sensory, other times emotional. I called upon the creatures and plants to explain.
Here, once, there was a quick stream from a distant river, a toad said.
Where you stand was once a deep well into a sweet spring, an ancient yew said.
A wide road much traveled once passed here, an owl said.
This place mourns its barrenness, a grasshopper said.
Here, this place rages for its pillage, a bear said.
There is grief for the pain of those who once lived here, a crow said.
The earth itself remembers, I thought, then recalled what Old Woman told me after my beloved Fig Tree was cut down years before. She said the tree and I were witnesses for each other; we shared the other’s story. I pondered then, could it be Nature held what we’d forgotten, what we didn’t want to remember? If so, did our blood hold a tale primordial? A balance of chaos and order that humans discovered they could destroy?
Attuned to me as they were, the creatures and plants sensed my wonder, then revealed the horror. From hollow tree to hollow tree, untold distances among them, the animals led us to holes in the earth where adults and children emerged black as shadows, coated in soot. The creatures showed us to mills and factories where the smallest crawled among grinding machines and young and old stood at saws, looms, kilns, and forges, breathing gray noxious air.
They guided us to mountains with empty veins, valleys where nothing grew, forests leveled to stumps, rivers and lakes stagnant and foul. The life stripped away. Scorched, barren, laid bare.
They took us to villages reduced to smoke and ashes, towns with breached walls and fetid streets, fields covered in blood. Where there were people, the survivors went through the motions of living with the blank eyes of the dead. When I heard them speak, I recognized the clipped inflections of Kirsauan in some places, the burr of Giphian in others.
Look, the creatures and plants said. Look at what your kind does to itself, and us.
The creatures and plants gave no explanation why they took us to see those things, but I understood, in some way, they revealed proof of the pestilence.
As Nikolas and I made our way back home, we were ready for the journey to end, but neither looked forward to the return. I’d have to confront what I promised Fewmany and now, without a doubt, couldn’t deliver to him. Nikolas had to contend with the farcical quest on which he was sent and what he discovered when he strayed from the path.
We also had a choice to make—whether to accept our call. Some nights, we discussed what had been tasked to us. How could we decide when we had no idea what would happen? Could we bear the responsibility if our decision led to ruin? Other nights, we hardly spoke at all. He held the scale, brooding in a way I’d never known him to do. I’d sit next to him with my satchel, aware of the manuscript, vials, brooch, and amulet within.
The closer we came to Ailliath, the more I felt a reversal in each step. A thousand years before, as war spread throughout the land, Aoife traveled through a winter of exile to find refuge with the Guardians, at last finding a peace she had never known.
We were returning to the very place that war began, a war based on misunderstandings and lies. I felt no peace, only dread tinged with hope, aware Nikolas and I carried a power to correct what we didn’t understand.
ROTHWYKE DAILY MERCURY.
21 December /37. Page 2, Column 3
RIFT BLAMED FOR TOWN’S ILLS—Geologists have yet to explain the cause of the crevice widening in New Wheel, first noticed in February. There is speculation the instability is significant and responsible for mounting problems throughout our town.
Buildings in almost every south and central ward has mild to severe foundation damage. Some shopkeeps and residents state that cracks in exterior and interior walls appeared within a matter of days.
Forty-eight blocks to date have been barricaded to cart traffic due to holes and cracks in the cobblestones. Recent closures are listed on page four of this edition.
Concerns mount regarding the condition of the town’s drainage system, which once reliably cleared after routine street cleanings and rainstorms. Based on reports from physical inspections, more than half of the underground pipes are compromised. Some sections are so decayed that water pools in those areas. Diversion pipes and ditches are being built to allow for excavation below the streets and replace what is damaged.
Mr. Beardsley, lead officer at Rothwyke Services, stated his men are repairing the most severe areas first. Engineers are studying where the failures might occur next, but doing so, he noted, proves difficult because the town’s drain system map has a number of inaccuracies.
WEEKLY POST.
21 December /37. Page 1, Column 1
WALL BEHIND SCHEDULE—Unexpected difficulties have thwarted faster work on Rothwyke’s wall yet again. Residents will remember the mortar used in the first weeks began to crumble after setting and required all work to be dismantled and rebuilt. Late this summer, torrential rains saturated the ground, rendering it too unstable to transport materials, in spite of the trackway. Now commerce colludes to slow progress. An unnamed source reports the cost to acquire and move the necessary stones is far more than estimated. Negotiations with the Council’s defense committee are expected to resume.
“SOME WELCOME FOR ANYONE,” NIKOLAS said when we neared Rothwyke and our fox escort ran off across the meadow.
Some welcome indeed. Deep ruts marred the east road. The standing stones, which held advertising placards, had sunk into the ground and leaned at precarious angles.
Two men stood guard at the entrance, where none had ever patrolled in recent memory. They gave us wary looks but left us alone.
As we walked through the wards, the newsbox clamor was familiar, but a faint raw odor stirred and we had to be careful of the streets, dangerous for us but worse for horses and carts.
We looked unkempt. Nikolas was unrecognizable with his beard and laborer’s clothing. Some people were unkind, sneering at us. Go back to your side of town. Where are the street cleaners when you need them? Lazy riffraff.
Old Wheel was no more. The buildings that were supposed to be constructed in its place seemed far from complete. We ignored the warning signs and trespassed. We walked to the alley to see the grate where we once entered the tunnel to the woods. The cobblestones above it had collapsed. My soles ached as I felt a groan rise from the ground.
When we reached the green on the west border, we saw the piles of stones and soil, the workers’ camp, and the wall’s low rise.
/> “How is it possible so much hasn’t been done?” he said.
At the woods’ margin, we found a dense barrier of tangled bare branches and vines, which hadn’t been there before. We crouched through an opening large enough for a deer. In the high reaches of the trees, crows perched.
We take turns at watch, a raspy voice said.
Cyril crept down a trunk to Nikolas’s offered hand. The squirrel indulged a few scratches before he vanished into the trees.
“You still intend to stay with Old Woman?” Nikolas asked.
“I’m not ready to face my father, or Fewmany.”
“That will make it difficult to see each other. You don’t want to be seen in town, and I doubt you want a guard following me here.”
“I mean to protect her, too.”
“I’ll do what I can to slip away, but it won’t be often.”
“Then in between, we’ll write. I’ll find some four-legged messengers.”
He smiled. “Do wings count? Because wings are faster.”
“Wings count.” I paused. “We haven’t made a decision.”
“We were given no indication we have to rush. There’s time,” he said.
After all that had happened in the two months we traveled together, our parting felt abrupt. He held his arms open. Without a hesitant thought, I clutched him around the neck. We stood there for so long, my muscles ached, but I didn’t want to let go.
He released me and wiped his fingers across his lashes. “With appreciation for your reliable escort, Miss Riven.” He bowed dramatically. “Good day.”
When I arrived at the cottage, Old Woman was tending her animals. The sheep, goats, and hens looked up. Cyril chattered, and she turned around. As soon as she was through the gate, she embraced me and led me inside. I placed Aoife’s manuscript on a high shelf with Old Woman’s handwritten texts full of plant lore and the old log I kept as a child when she taught me her knowledge. Old Woman insisted I rest as she prepared the ritual of care—a shallow tub of hot water, a full kettle, a pot of beans and savory herbs, the table set for dinner, an extra pillow placed on the bed.
From the chest where I’d stored my belongings, I pulled out a clean nightgown, a pair of slippers, and my carved stag, the last of which I set on the mantel.
Well into the evening, I told her of the journey, what I learned from Aoife’s text, and the call we’d been given. I showed her the vials and what the dragon gave me—the brooch, the amulet, and the flower, which I’d pressed within the manuscript.
“What’s happened here since I was gone?” I asked.
“Something I’ve never seen before,” she said.
Not long after the first work began on the wall, she told me, there was an assault on the woods to expand the open space between it and the stones. At first, men armed with saws, axes, and scythes came at the bosk, bramble, and branches. Each night, the trees and plants grew back faster than was possible, and more men were sent to chop it away. Next, the men tried fire, but each time, the wind stalled and heavy rains doused the flames. The plants rallied and grew more impenetrable than they’d ever been. Then when the men came with sacks of salt to poison the ground, the animals and insects gathered in defense. The creatures chased, kicked, gored, and stung those who dared to approach the margin. Now, Old Woman said, wolves, bears, and boars prowled the area day and night while swarms of bees and hornets watched from the air.
I looked at Cyril. The plants and creatures aren’t doing this only to protect the woods from the wall, are they?
No, he said. There’s a greater purpose, but we don’t know why or what it could be.
“Surely, there’s a connection with what’s been asked of you,” Old Woman said.
“I think so,” I said.
Soon, we retired for the night. When I settled next to Old Woman, I braced against the sudden memory of sleeping with my mother in the bed at my grandmother’s house long ago. She’d kept a space between us, a breach I didn’t cross. I listened as Old Woman fell asleep with soft snores, Cyril’s little whiffles echoing her, and I wished for Nikolas’s quiet. As I waited to drift off, I didn’t expect how much I missed him.
NIKOLAS VISITED THE TWENTY-SEVENTH of December, long after dinner, fully shorn and well dressed. In all the years we had played and strolled in the woods, he had never been introduced to Old Woman.
“A pleasure to meet you at last,” he said with a bow.
Old Woman curtsied. “For me as well, although I’ve watched you from a distance since you were a small boy.” She kissed his forehead, then sat to mend a skirt.
He checked to make certain his horse was tethered and we set out for a walk.
“How did you get away?” I asked.
“My parents left two days ago for a trip. No one will be looking for me. I told the guard I needed a ride alone and bribed him with a bottle of brandy.”
“It’s that simple?”
“Depends on the guard.”
When I asked what happened when he returned to the castle, Nikolas said his parents were happy to see him alive—and clearly surprised he’d come home so soon. When he showed them the dragon’s scale, they congratulated him but asked nothing about his encounter and little about the journey itself.
As for the damage in Rothwyke, he said no one yet understood the cause of the holes and cracks in the streets and buildings. As for the wall, there had been problems for months. Nikolas said when he suggested to his father and several Council members that there should be a halt to the wall’s construction to assess the delays, he was told, “Time is money. The longer the building takes, the more it will cost.”
Unsatisfied with their responses, Nikolas made inquiries of his own. The residents were frank with complaints, the builders unwilling to say much, and those accountable had only pat answers, empty apologies, and eager assurances. He learned, too, several residents and workers had been injured—tripping into holes, debris falling on their heads—and there were at least nine attributable deaths.
“No one I’ve spoken with, with the power to do something, seems that concerned for people’s safety. There’s blood on multiple hands—Rothwyke officials, Council members, my father, Fewmany,” he said.
The mention of his name made me flinch.
As we continued our walk, I told Nikolas about the attempt to cut, burn, and salt the woods’ margin and how the plants and animals had joined in defense. We stopped when we came to Reach. Nikolas sat at the ancient tree’s roots. I placed my hand on his twisted trunk and felt his low drone rise into my feet.
“Remember the places we saw on our way home, the ruined land and villages? I wonder now if we were shown that as a warning,” I said.
“Ingot and Incant—” Nikolas paused, as if saying their names was an invocation. “They told us whatever we face is already here. So something has started. Still, we don’t have any idea what will happen if we open the vials.”
“The ground itself is opening up. How could it be worse?” I asked.
“Everything becomes abysmal?” he said.
I smirked at the pun.
“I know I sometimes make light of things, my obligations included, but I do take this seriously. I have the people of this kingdom to consider,” he said.
“Not only Ailliath. Remember we were told, ‘Whatever you choose, your world will never be the same again.’ ”
“Then it’s an even greater responsibility.”
“Now think about Aoife’s manuscript. Leit told her about the darkness in the world, that after the war he feared its spread and even the Guardians wouldn’t be spared its effect. Our ancestors instigated that war. You aren’t Wyl, Nikolas, but his legacy is yours, as Aoife’s is mine. The decisions they made affected more than themselves and Ailliath alone. Had they chosen differently, we wouldn’t be standing on this land, or exist at all.”
“We’re supposed to do what they didn’t.”
“Yes, I think so.”
“What’s that?”
&n
bsp; As I embraced Reach, I felt a groan rise from a deep core in the ground and flow into an unfathomable center in me. The groan spoke my name. A wisdom older than my body, older than the great tree, opened the hollows of my bones and filled the marrow. Until then, Reach’s voice had always been too low for me to hear, but for the first time, I received a message he had to give.
“Tend what’s within,” I said.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Neither do I, but that’s what came through Reach. A feeling more than a thought.”
“Within what? Our own borders? You mentioned war. Well, there’s no trouble here—yet—but we know there is beyond us. Giphia and Kirsau are battling Haaud and have been for months. Or did the message mean tend what’s within Rothwyke? The streets, the buildings, the wall—either there will be compromises to fix things, or some disaster will force a decision.”
“No, that’s too literal, I think. Remember what else we were told: we’re to ‘usher in a release,’ ” I said.
“Or not,” he said.
“Again, we’re back to the vials’ mystery and what could happen if they’re opened.” I sat on one of Reach’s roots with my arms crossed over my knees. “And then there’s Fewmany. He’s connected to all of this, somehow. I have no choice but to contend with him.”
“He asked you to find the hoard. That’s it. All you have to do is tell him you couldn’t find what he wanted. He won’t know any differently.”
“He might not, but I can’t do that. Egnis gave me the brooch for him. His proof. Proof of the hoard? But that can’t be the only reason. I must see something through. I have to—” I paused, stunned by the clarity with which the words came. “I’m meant to stop him.”
“From doing what?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Secret—”
“I can’t explain. I simply know this.”
Nikolas exhaled a sharp breath. He looked up through a gap among Reach’s limbs. “The moon isn’t quite full.”
The Plague Diaries Page 20
