A fair, noncompetitive person would probably say that Ari has made a smart observation. I am not that person. “Whatever. I guess we can look for a minute.”
Leaving the fairy clovers behind, we circle around the clearing, not wanting to trample the flowers, and reach the tree line. A tangle of trees towers ten feet above our heads. Beyond them is nothing but darkness.
Ari and I exchange a glance, but he looks sharply away. Without a word, we step forward at the same time and enter one of the forests of the Realm.
ELEVEN
There are sounds in this forest that I’ve never heard before. In the woods near the village, we might hear the occasional rustle of a rabbit in the brush, the chirps of a bird, a snapped twig or two. But here in the Realm, there is so much more. It seems as if every tree branch, every bush, every leaf is rustling as the creatures of this forest move through it. These woods are brimming with life.
I’m tempted to cast my gift out wider, to see if I can figure out what kinds of creatures are nearby. But I’m already tired from using my magic so much tonight, and now Ari and I have to use our gifts to cast some light. We both hold our hands out in front of us to illuminate as much as we can, the yellow of his magic and the green of mine casting strange shadows on the ground in front of us. I shiver in the cold night air, my wet clothes still sticking to my skin.
“Do you recognize any of these plants?” Ari asks as we wade deeper into the trees. “Seeker Agnar hasn’t discussed plants at all in training yet.”
I smile, hoping Ari can’t see me in the dark. While Papa mostly draws magical creatures in his sketchbook, there are a few pages devoted to plants, too. I can already recite the magical properties of half a dozen. I shouldn’t say that, though. Better for my rivals not to know my strengths. “It’s hard to tell what anything is in the dark,” I say, which is the truth anyway. “The trees look mostly like birches and poplars. Nothing interesting there. But those thick clumps of bushes look like briarwood, and I think those flowery vines are figroses.”
“What do those do?”
I hesitate, ducking under a low-hanging branch. I suppose he’ll learn all this in training anyway, but I don’t want him to know what I know. “Briarwood is a prickly shrub, just like ordinary briars, but it’s called that because, here in the Realm, its long wood branches soak up magic. It’s both stronger and lighter than ordinary wood, and…” I stop myself before continuing. It’s hard not to share all the things that I know, but I need to be careful. “I think it has other properties that woodcarvers like,” I finish. “It’s hard to collect in large quantities, though, since briarwood bushes are so small. I think.” In my head, I recite the rest of its properties: naturally smooth, responds well to gifts, easy to carve, durable, sturdy…
“And the figroses?” Ari asks. “I’ve never heard of those.”
I’m pretty sure he’s looking right at me, but I can’t stop myself from smiling. “Figroses are more interesting. Their fruits are sweet and can be used in medicines.” I deliberately leave out the most important fact: There is one magical creature in particular that loves to eat figroses. One of the most magical and mysterious of all. But I’m not about to give Ari any help in tracking them.
“You know a lot about plants,” he says. I can’t tell whether he sounds impressed or not.
I shrug, then remember he can’t see it in the dark. “My papa taught me a little.”
“Must be nice,” Ari says. “To learn about being a Seeker from him.”
Again, I can’t read his tone. Is he jealous or being snide? Is he suggesting that I couldn’t become a Seeker on my own? That I’m getting an unfair advantage? “Must be nice learning about being a Seeker in training every day,” I say curtly.
Ari’s head snaps toward me. “I didn’t mean—”
Something prickles at the edges of my gift, and I stop abruptly. “Shh,” I whisper.
Ari stops too, and the sparks of yellow around his fingertips glow more brightly as he increases the use of his magic. I do the same, drawing on more of my gift so I can get a better sense of what, exactly, is in front of us.
It’s a soft energy, but it isn’t faint—in fact, it’s really strong. Strong like Lilja’s, but calmer. The sensation reminds me of the taste of Mama’s bilberry pies, which are just the right amount of sweet and sugary. But underneath that, there’s something deep and wild. This is truly a creature of the Realm: strong and untamed.
I’m practically holding my breath as I inch my gift a little closer, trying to sense more. Whatever this creature is, it’s shy. Unlike Lilja, who lets her magic run right up to me, this creature is pulling back, like—
Of course.
I know exactly what kind of creature is shy and sweet, lives in wooded territories, and loves to eat the figroses that are currently growing all around us.
It’s a unicorn.
Ari sucks in a surprised breath at the same time I do, but neither of dares to speak. Unicorns are notoriously wary of humans and even make themselves invisible in the presence of strangers. We have to be very careful not to scare it.
But I’m not about to let this opportunity go to waste.
I pull some of my magic back, trying to give the unicorn space so it doesn’t feel threatened. At the same time, I reach slowly into the damp pocket of my coat, rummaging around.
“What are you doing?” Ari whispers, barely loud enough to hear.
“We need an offering,” I whisper back. I’m not sure how much Ari knows about unicorns, but I don’t dare explain further in case our voices scare it away. Papa’s told me how to approach one dozens of times. Make an offering, he would say. Unicorns will only approach humans if you offer them a gift. Even then, they may vanish rather than approach. They won’t go near individuals they deem to be unsavory. You can always tell the quality of a person’s character by whether a unicorn trusts them.
I don’t have anything in my pockets except a few bilberries that managed to survive the plunge into the lake, my knife, a single knitted glove with a hole in one finger, and a spare strip of cloth I use to tie back my hair. But none of those would make a good offering. Beside me, Ari is checking his pockets too, but he withdraws his empty hands and shakes his head.
I’m about to grab the bilberries and see if they’re as popular with unicorns as they are with baby dragons when the answer occurs to me. Moving slowly, I step toward the nearest figrose plant. My foot snaps a twig and I wince, but the life force of the unicorn doesn’t fade or disappear. I think it’s watching me.
I channel my magic into the plant, until it grows larger and its petals unfurl. Carefully, I draw my pocketknife and cut one of the figrose blooms from the stem. I peel the petals apart gingerly—they might be worth something to the village herbalist if they’re intact—and pluck the small round fruit from inside. Pocketing the petals and my knife, I let the fruit rest in the palm of my hand and take a few slow, slooow steps forward.
“Careful,” Ari whispers unnecessarily. I hardly dare to breathe. I take another step. Two. Three. Judging by its life force, the unicorn can’t be more than four feet in front of me—
A shape materializes out of thin air. I see its body first—the same size and shape as an ordinary horse, but with a gleaming silver coat that reflects the moonlight shining through the trees. Its mane is just as silver, the hair thick and tangled. Finally the rest of the head appears: bright, beautiful eyes the color of the ocean after a storm, a long snout, and a single, polished silver horn protruding from its forehead.
It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I’ve completely forgotten how to breathe, let alone what I’m supposed to be doing, but the unicorn hasn’t forgotten. It tilts its head in my direction and sniffs, fixing its gaze on my open hand, which is still cradling the fruit. Slowly, I extend my arm closer to it, letting it sniff the fruit a few more times.
I don’t know if unicorns understand speech, but Papa says they’re highly intelligent, so I whisper,
“A gift for you.”
I don’t dare step any closer to the unicorn, but then Ari says, “It’s okay, Bryn. With my gift I can tell she’s calm. She’s decided not to run now.”
I take one last, tiny step and hold my hand up to her snout. The unicorn blinks, lowers her head, and snaps the fruit from my hand in one bite.
As she chews, I take another step closer to her side, glancing at her beautiful mane. Unicorns have a lot of magical properties, including in their horns and their blood, but of course it isn’t possible to collect those things from a living unicorn without harming it. There is one item Seekers can collect from unicorns, though.
“Is she still calm?” I whisper to Ari as the unicorn finishes chewing.
“Yeah. It doesn’t feel like she’s going to run.”
I just have to hope his empathy gift is right. Unicorns are very reluctant to let people touch them, especially people they just met. So what I’m about to do is really stupid.
I lift my hand again, making sure her eye is fixed on me so she knows what to expect. I lightly touch her mane, prepared to back away if she gets scared, but she just watches me calmly, so I stroke her mane, letting my fingers brush over the silvery strands. It’s the softest hair I’ve ever felt, softer even than the wool of Runa’s lambs. I try to run my fingers gently through the strands, but it’s so tangled that I don’t have much luck brushing it. It doesn’t matter, though. My plan works.
A few of the twisted strands break off, leaving me with three short, silver unicorn hairs in my hand.
The unicorn has lost patience with me, stepping away and tossing her head. I move back, and the unicorn vanishes in a blink, making herself invisible. I sense her life spark fading into the distance as she trots away, disappearing into the darkened woods.
I wrap my fingers around the silver hairs and walk back to Ari, who’s standing openmouthed a few feet away. “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” he says, and my cheeks flush warmly again, but this time with pride.
“I can’t believe that happened,” I say, but I’m grinning. I tuck the precious strands of hair into my pocket. I can’t trade them right away—Ari’s right about people in the village being suspicious if I suddenly have items from the Realm I shouldn’t have—but they’ll be worth a lot someday, once I become a Seeker. Unicorn hair is so rare and magically powerful that even these few tiny strands are valuable.
“Her magic…,” Ari says. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
“Me neither. I can’t wait to tell my little sister. She loves unicorns.” As soon as I say it, I stop smiling. I can’t tell Elisa, at least not yet. No one can know that Ari and I went into the Realm tonight. “We’d better head back,” I say, glancing up at the sky. I don’t think I’m imagining that it’s getting lighter.
“We haven’t found your starflowers yet.”
“I know, but I don’t think we’ll find any here. These aren’t the kinds of plants they usually grow with. We need to try one of the northern forests.”
“I’m surprised we found a unicorn this far south,” Ari says. “Don’t they prefer the northern forests?”
“Usually,” I say, “but they tend to travel a bit farther south in the summer. The icefoxes in the northern forests come out of their dens at this time of year and eat more of the plants, so the unicorns tend to migrate to the south to find more food.”
“Really?” Ari says. “I didn’t know that.”
Oops. I bite my tongue. I really need to stop giving the enemy information.
But for some reason I’m having difficulty thinking of Ari as the enemy.
As we walk, it occurs to me that it would be useful to learn more about how Ari’s gift works. I’ve seen him use it now, but I’m still not totally sure what the extent of an empath’s abilities are. And that will be good to know during the competition.
“Hey, Ari,” I say, trying to sound casual as we duck under a tree limb, “how much did you know about what the unicorn was feeling? Like, when you told me she wasn’t going to run, how did you know?”
Ari takes a second before answering. “How much do you know about empathy gifts?”
“Not much,” I admit.
“It’s similar to your gift, really,” he says. “But I can’t make plants grow or use elements or anything like you can. And when it comes to animals and people, it’s more… I guess you’d say the empathy gift is really focused on emotions—I mean, obviously you know that already, but…” He stops, flustered, and takes a second to think before starting again. “What I mean is, being an empath is like being a specialist. We do exactly one thing, but we do it well. Being a naturalist means having a broader range of powers, but not being as aware of nuances in life forces.” I frown, and he adds quickly, “I don’t mean that as an insult to naturalists. It’s just… I don’t think you sense life forces in the same way that I do.”
“So how do you sense them, then?”
Ari clears his throat, stepping carefully around a clump of thick briarwood bushes. “I think, from what I’ve seen of naturalists, that you guys see each life spark as all one thing. Like, Lilja has a distinct life force, right? You can know she’s nearby without seeing her.”
“Yes,” I say, “but so can you.”
“Right, but… I don’t only sense that. Lilja’s life force isn’t all one sensation to me; it doesn’t feel the same all the time. There’s something about it that’s distinctly her and that stays the same—that’s what you sense. But I feel more. When she’s afraid of something, her force gets all spiky and alert. Most of the time she’s excited, with her energy flying around all over the place, but I can also tell the difference between when she’s hungry and sleepy and calm. And sometimes she’s more than one thing at once—both hungry and excited, for example, when she wants some bilberries. Being an empath means picking up on all those tiny little feelings that make up her larger life force. And it also means being able to shape those feelings if I want. Like, if she needs to be calmer instead of scared, I can try to smooth the spiky parts of her energy so that they’re calm instead.”
“Wow,” I say. “You’re right, naturalists don’t sense any of that stuff. I can pick up on things about her energy—like, I can tell that there’s a lot more energy when she’s excited than when she’s tired. And I can try to direct her energy in one way or another, like how I was nudging her with my gift when we flew. But I haven’t ever felt any of that other stuff.”
We’re both quiet for a minute. I’m not sure how much further I can push Ari—he shouldn’t be telling me all this about his gift when we’re going to be competing against each other. But it’s useful for me to know, and anyway I’m really curious. “Can you do all of that stuff with people, too?”
“Some of it,” he says, sounding wary. “People are harder. But the better I know someone, the easier it is to pick up on their emotions.”
“Naturalists are kind of like that too,” I say. “We can identify people’s unique life forces if we spend enough time around them. But it’s more like sensing their gifts than their emotions. And it’s hard to even detect other people’s magic unless I concentrate and cast my gift out really far.”
After a second, the meaning of what Ari just said hits me. The better I know someone, the easier it is…
The more time I spend with Ari, the easier it’s going to be for him to sense—and maybe even manipulate—my emotions. The thought makes me shiver. I still don’t know him well enough to really trust him, and I have no idea what’s going to happen during the competition. What if he decides to take me out of the running by using his gift against me? Could he affect my emotions during the auditions? Make me too tired to run, or too confused to focus, or too sick, or…
He’s even more dangerous than I thought. I need to be careful. In fact, I should probably call this whole thing off and not meet with him in secret anymore.
Except I can’t do that, because Elisa needs starflowers, and Lilja needs supervisi
on in the afternoons, and I need to learn what I’m missing in training. If I hadn’t teamed up with Ari in the first place, I wouldn’t be standing in the Realm right now with unicorn hairs and figrose petals in my pocket.
But we can’t stay a team forever, because only one of us can win.
TWELVE
By the time Ari and I emerge from the forest, the sky is definitely getting lighter as the first ray of dawn creeps over the mountains. We find Lilja sitting at the edge of the lake beside a pile of fish, which she snaps up one or two at a time and swallows whole.
“Well, guess she figured out how to hunt here on her own,” I say.
“Let’s just hope that isn’t some kind of magical endangered Realm fish or something.”
I laugh. “Pretty sure they’re just trout.”
“We can only hope,” Ari says, grinning.
“Okay, Lilja, snack time’s over,” I say, clapping my hands to get her attention. She glances up at me, a fish tail dangling from her mouth. “Time to go back to the beach.”
Lilja slurps the tail into her mouth.
“I’m not kidding, Lil. Time to go.”
She pauses, looking at us, then turns away and snaps up another fish.
I look at Ari. “Maybe we should climb on her back again so she’ll get the hint?”
He shrugs. “Worth a shot.”
Only now does it occur to me that we might not be able to get Lilja to leave the Realm. What do we do if she doesn’t listen to us? We’ll be stuck here with no way to get home. Our families won’t know where we went. I suppose the Seekers might find us eventually, but the Realm is a big place, and they wouldn’t even know to look for us here.
Possibly we should have thought this through a little bit better.
There’s nothing to be done about it now, though, except try to convince Lilja to leave, so Ari and I climb onto her back once again. Reluctantly, I let him sit in the front this time, since it’s only fair.
Lilja huffs when she feels us sit on her spine, but she doesn’t stop eating her fish. “What are her emotions right now?” I ask Ari. “Is she confused, or just being stubborn?”
Seekers of the Wild Realm Page 10