Imber

by Tyffany Hackett

  “I know.”

  “I heard you two talking—no, I didn’t listen, but I could hear your tones and they sounded pretty serious. If he’s letting you in, be careful that you know what that means.”

  “I won’t hurt him, Jyn. I promise.”

  “Maybe not intentionally.” Jyn sighed, his eyes trailing the pair in front of us. “But to be honest, as long as he’s letting you dress those wounds I’ll take what I can get.”

  “Jyn, I don’t want to hurt him. I want—” I paused. What did I want? And how did my wants fit into the kingdom’s needs? I sighed. “How is your leg, anyway?”

  “Fine. Sore, at most. My cuts were fairly shallow; they’ll probably scab over in the next day or two. We’re lucky that thing didn’t bite us.”

  Camion staggered slightly and guilt poured over me. “Yeah. Lucky.”

  Chapter 28

  We made steady progress the next day, sleeping only briefly in the morning before we moved on. The situation wasn’t ideal, especially since we were all already tired and Camion and Jyn needed to heal. The alternative, however, was moving faster at night and the slower we moved in the dark the less we seemed to attract.

  The woods changed the further in we ventured. During the day, the woods remained silent, absent of even the chirp of birds that would have been a comfort. At night the trees came alive. Mostly, the forest didn’t seem to want to bother us, but we were still surrounded by a terrifying barrage of moans, growls, and screeches that echoed from between the trees as we passed. Jyn disappeared more than once, and when he returned, he was always splattered with dark liquids that none of us were brave enough to question.

  All around us, the trees seemed to reach out. The path narrowed, shoving us almost shoulder to shoulder as we walked. Meryn kept her lights up, but we could see the toll the prolonged magic was having on her every night. Her eyes were tired, her steps slow, and I knew she had begun to burn her own energy the moment she’d run out of berries. I didn’t know exactly how the magic exchange worked, but I knew that certain sacrifices were required for certain types of magic. When I mentioned that she take a break, she simply shrugged.

  “We need the lights up. They repel some of the more nasty creatures.”

  “Can’t we get you more berries to use?”

  “We don’t have the time to go berry hunting.” She smiled. “I’ll be fine with a night’s sleep.”

  “But Meryn—”

  She shook her head and stalked further ahead on the path. That was that. She wouldn’t hear my protests. I was still concerned for her and Camion, whose fever still lingered at the edges, and for Jyn who had clambered up a tree to hop along branches for a better vantage point. If the forest taxed us so, what were we in for ahead?

  Two days we went on like this—minimal sleep in the morning, Jyn protecting us from creatures we didn’t see, and Meryn draining her powers on light. Mid-afternoon on the fourth day, a tree in front of us rustled, and we all froze. I nocked an arrow immediately, pressing into Jyn’s side as we waited. There were no friendly creatures in these trees that we’d seen, no squirrels or chipmunks. When the tree rustled again even Meryn seemed surprised by what stepped out.

  Before us was a tall woman, tall even to Jyn who stood above us all. Her slender form would have been bare but for the branches that circled around her, strategically wrapped around her torso. Even they seemed alive though, shifting and slithering over her green skin. Her dark hair seemed mortal enough but fell long, longer even than mine, and danced gracefully around her as she stepped toward us.

  Camion and Jyn had frozen completely, hands on their hilts like they were locked into a stupor. Their eyes were immobile, fixated on the woman, but Meryn had begun to mutter under her breath. The creature looked to her first and tilted her head in confusion.

  “Why do you mutter curses against me?” the woman asked. Her voice was haunting, melodic, and seemed to echo from her chest. “Do you not know who I am?”

  The creature’s eyes burned into Meryn’s face, staring, searching. When Meryn didn’t answer, she paused her approach and stood still. The branches on her body coiled themselves down her arms, wrapping her like migrant bracelets.

  “I know you, little one,” she tried again. Her eyes hadn’t left my friend’s face, but she didn’t move any closer this time. “Do you not know me? Why do you hide?”

  Meryn swallowed. “I don’t know you and I don’t wish you harm, but I demand safe passage.”

  “Where is your tribute?”

  “What do you demand?”

  The green woman paused. “Engrave upon me your wards of protection. Aid my survival and the survival of my siblings, as you did those in the clearing before.”

  I glanced at Meryn who said, “You’re a dryad. I didn’t know there were dryads in these woods.”

  “Didn’t you?” The woman stared hard at Meryn, tilting her head, then lifted a hand toward the path ahead. “No matter. If you wish to move on, I have named my price.”

  “Those wards weren’t meant to protect the trees. I don’t even know if they’ll help.”

  “They will. Please, tiny one. Honor me with your runes.”

  I stared hard at Meryn. The dryad knew something she wasn’t saying, and the secret of her words bothered me. Meryn seemed utterly sincere in her confusion. I didn’t understand. I stepped up beside her.

  “Why do you call her tiny one? How do you recognize her?”

  The dryad smiled, her teeth as brilliantly white as her eyes were blue. “I have seen her in my dreams.”

  Lies. I pressed, “In your dreams?”

  “The dryad see—not all, but we know when someone is coming. I know what you seek, Your Majesty. Your journey will not be easy. I do not wish to impede you.”

  “Then why are you doing so?” Meryn spoke up again as she pulled the dagger from her waist.

  “For your runes, tiny one.”

  “Fine.” The red-haired witch bounded forward. She paused within inches of the dryad. “Where?”

  The woman motioned to several trees and then to her own arm. Meryn set to work. She carved the patterns over the bark of the indicated trunks before moving back to the dryad to scratch a rune into her arm. The dryad bled slightly, an amber substance that resembled sap, but she didn’t flinch. Instead, she bowed at the waist when Meryn finished and vanished into a puff of butterflies.

  “What was that about?” Jyn asked, shaking himself. He looked at Camion. “Could you move?”

  Meryn glanced up, and when Camion shook his head she said, “Dryad’s voices can enchant men, whether they intend the effect or not. Likely, your immobility was a side effect of her speech. Either way, I carved the runes. We can move on.”

  “Couldn’t she have done that herself?” Camion looked bewildered.

  “She could have, but the marks would have held no magic. They would have been useless to her and her family. Dryad magic is limited; she can’t help herself with it. In this forest, I imagine a protection rune could do a great deal for her.”

  My eyes hadn’t left Meryn. What did that dryad know that we didn’t? Meryn seemed to think nothing of the creature’s words, but they still bounded around my mind.

  I didn’t ask though, merely fell into step behind her. Later.

  ***

  We woke very late the next afternoon. Meryn’s maps indicated that we might reach the area we sought by morning, if we moved briskly and didn’t upset anything.

  I still carried Camion’s pack, a fact that seemed to drive him crazy. He walked beside me this evening. He’d led last night, but Jyn offered to help Meryn with the maps tonight so she could focus her energy, which left Camion free to move about. The Elderberry flowers seemed to be doing their job well—his color had returned to normal and his skin was cool to the touch. I checked him regularly like he was going to collapse, but he didn’t seem to mind, ever patient with my fussing. Every so often, he’d look in my direction, like he needed to clear his mind, but he always
stopped himself short. After the eighth or ninth time I asked, “What are you thinking about?”

  “Nothing,” he said quietly. “Listening to the trees.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?” Camion didn’t answer. “How does your side feel?”

  “Sore,” he finally admitted. “I would be a lot worse off without you.”

  The softness in his voice surprised me. I reached out and squeezed his arm gently. He started at the touch, but grabbed my hand as I started to pull away and opened his mouth to speak.

  “So, I think we found the place.” Jyn’s voice echoed back, a loud sound against the whispers Camion and I had been exchanging. Camion jumped and released his hold, clamping his mouth shut. I wanted to ask him what he’d been about to say, but Jyn and Meryn were closer now.

  The sky through the trees was faintly pink. Meryn extinguished her lights and gestured behind her. “Here we are.”

  And there it was.

  Before us stood a massive iron gate, tall enough to reach into the higher tree branches around us. The size wasn’t the unnerving part though—the gate was open. A heavy chain laid heaped in the grass, and the rusted iron padlock nearby was shattered into a dozen pieces. I cast the others a wary look, reflexively reaching for Jyn’s hand. He pushed at the gate, listening cautiously after the iron squealed loudly in protest. If anything knew we were there, we heard no response.

  A few timid steps past and I wished once more I’d made us turn back. The gate stood as the guardian to a massive graveyard. Large headstones of marble and granite, in various states of decay, peeked out from the folds of heavy fog that enveloped the area. Trees sprouted all over, even inside the graveyard, though somehow they didn’t seem to be disturbing any of the graves. I ran my eyes over the stones, sought names, but I couldn’t make any out. A forgotten, abandoned graveyard lost even to the forest. This didn’t bode well. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know who—or what—was buried here.

  Meryn paused long enough to take a long breath. A shiver raced through her when she exhaled. “There’s so much death here. And much that should be dead isn’t.”

  I swallowed. Instinctively, we all reached for a weapon. None of the gravestones seemed particularly unique, but Meryn ran her hands over several of the hefty stones. She paused.

  “Touch things, Natylia.” I blinked at her, and she rolled her eyes. “Touch the headstones, the padlock, the ground. Touch things. My magic is natural, I’m not picking up on anything. Arcane magic—well, yours isn’t trained but you might at least create a reaction that could lead us on. The Elves use arcane magic, so Jyn—”

  “If you leave Eythera, you lose your magic,” Jyn interrupted. “I’ve never heard of an exception.”

  “That’s why you don’t have magic?” I asked. “I assumed that not all Elves had magic, I guess. Or that you avoided using it, like bows.”

  Jyn shook his head. “When my parents decided to leave, we lost all of our abilities and our immortality. I can reclaim all of my gifts once, but if I do, I’m stuck in Eythera forever.”

  “You can’t forfeit the powers again?”

  He nodded at me. “You can, but you’re marked as an outcast. There’s no getting them back at that point; you get one chance to change your mind.”

  “So how does Tyli have arcane magic if it’s Elven in origin?” Camion asked.

  “The Elves can gift arcane abilities to mortals. They don’t do so often, but if they do the power can be passed to the recipient’s offspring.” Meryn jerked her chin in my direction. “Natylia must have gotten them, and Annalea seems to have not. For our purposes I’m glad Nat has them.”

  “Even untrained?” I frowned at her small nod. “Alright then, I’ll touch things.”

  I moved to the nearest gravestone and ran my fingertips over the icy stone. A small shower of sparks burst from under my touch. Jyn circled anxiously and pulled my hand up to his face so he could examine the skin. My hand was unscathed. I paused for a second and tried to cast out an awareness, to feel any echoes of the magic around me. I must have looked ridiculous, eyes closed and fingers dancing at my sides. Training probably would have helped, but I found nothing. No magic, no ripple of static. I ran my fingers over another stone—this one warmed slightly to my touch before the sparks flew and I looked up.

  “The scepter’s not here. Or, not here directly. This magic is . . . cold?” I struggled to explain. “The stone warmed at my touch, but the magic itself felt old. Stale.”

  Meryn nodded. “If this is the right place, and the stories are true, no one has been here in a very long time. The residual magic would be ancient.”

  I wove my way between the stones, brushing each lightly. We followed the ones that warmed slightly—the sparks grew with each one and after a dozen or so stones my hand began to tingle when I touched them as well. Toward the center of the graveyard, the headstones stopped suddenly and curved into a circle around a massive white marble statue. I heard Meryn’s small intake of breath behind me.

  The figure in front of us was angelic with wings spread wide and arms held open as though welcoming us closer, but the expression on her face was guarded and warned of trouble. The thrum of power poured from the statue in waves, and the hair on my arms raised over tiny goosebumps.

  “Princess.” Jyn’s jaw was tight. His eyes scanned the massive figure warily. “Don’t touch that.”

  I circled the angel cautiously but the figure seemed to be solid. I had no doubts that this was the most powerful structure in the graveyard. Meryn put a hand on marble tentatively and flinched away.

  “There’s a shock, but not a painful one.” She shook her head. “I can’t suggest you touch this one, Natylia.”

  I glanced at Camion, who shook his head. “I wouldn’t.”

  I turned my eyes back up to the statue. We’d come this far and the only hint to what we sought was this marble figure. There had to be something I couldn’t see. I pulled out a dagger and tapped the tip against the statue. Nothing, and nothing still when I prodded the base with the toe of my boot either. I had to touch the angel then, and with bare skin. I shook the packs off my shoulders, leaned them on a headstone nearby, and lay my bow and quiver on top of them.

  “Princess, what are you thinking?” Jyn’s voice was tight.

  “Well, I’ve got to do something.”

  “I really don’t think you should touch that.” He grabbed my arm and tugged gently, but I shook him off.

  “Whatever happens is on me. I’m okay with that.” Before he could protest again I took a breath and pressed my palm to the angel’s gold-veined skirt.

  Chapter 29

  A blast of energy shot through my arm. My spine locked before I was thrown backward into a headstone nearby. The granite shattered under the impact, and I was flung through the debris into the trunk of one of the trees. My head slammed into the bark. Everything around me blurred. I couldn’t make out the others, but I saw their shapes moving. I knew Jyn’s hand when his fingers wrapped around mine. Meryn was nearby, quickly murmuring soft instructions. There were notes of panic in her voice that I didn’t understand, but as I tried to stand, to move toward her, my body shook and writhed against the effort. Pain splintered through my head, and I froze. My vision snapped into place. Jyn knelt beside me, a dagger in one hand and my hand clasped in a death grip in the other. My hand. I lifted my free hand, my eyes drawn to the purple and blue that shimmered across the surface of my palm—across every surface, I realized. All of my skin sparkled with that strange arcane light.

  The pitch of Meryn’s voice rose, and I turned. Everyone seemed to be moving incredibly slowly. I couldn’t make out the words that fell from her lips. Camion dug through her bags, his expression the frantic equal to the other two, and I wondered what I hadn’t noticed. Why were they so worried about the sparkling magic? We’d seen this before, the effect would wear off. I was missing something. I tried to sit up. Another wave of pain split my vision and everything fell dark.

  ***<
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  “ . . . you hadn’t encouraged her!”

  “She was going with or without you. Did you want her to go alone?”

  “I would never have let her go alone.”

  “So, why are you trying to blame me for this?”

  I squeezed my eyes tighter. My back ached—I was leaned against what I guessed to be a tree, but at a strange angle. I shifted slightly. A warm weight pressed into me, and if not for the fact that her voice wasn’t involved in the loud argument, the soft scent of sweet cloves would have told me it was Meryn.

  “They’ve been bickering like this for a while. I can tell them to stop,” she whispered to me.

  “Please,” I said. My voice wavered.

  “Quit your nonsense. You’re disturbing my queen,” Meryn snapped, her tone laced with challenge. She clearly enjoyed telling them off. Both men audibly froze, and I tried to open my eyes. I immediately regretted the attempt—late afternoon sun still bled through the trees. My head throbbed. I blindly reached a hand up and ran my fingertips over a linen wrap.

  “You took a hard hit,” Jyn’s voice said, near to my ear. When I dared to open my eyes again, I saw that he now knelt at my side. The dirt on his cheeks was streaked.

  “Jyn—” I reached tentative fingers up to brush the marks, fingers that no longer sparkled, and he scowled.

  “I’m fine. What hurts? We couldn’t ask you before.”

  “My head is throbbing.”

  “Anything else?” Jyn asked.

  “Does there need to be anything else?” I winced. “My head is trying to split itself in half.”

  “I can imagine,” Camion’s voice was soft but the frown on Jyn’s face grew.

  “Oh, lay off you two. She needs rest.”

  I shot Meryn what I hoped was a look of gratitude and not a grimace. The two of them stopped though. Jyn offered me a waterskin. I sipped at the cool liquid for a moment before I glanced at the treetops, at the slowly fading light between the leafy branches.