Azalea didn’t slow them too much, though, and they arrived at the Hivid Wood a couple weeks after they’d found her. They had entered the Wood on the highway, but it was soon so overgrown that it was impassable. And they had been warned by locals against traveling on the abandoned road.
The terrain was vastly different from that of the Ulves. The coastal forest was dominated by enormous redwood pines, and clover flourished in the shade. The trees towered over them and trapped the ocean mist that permeated the Wood. It was beautiful in the silent, mysterious way of forests.
Azalea still hadn’t spoken, but she seemed more relaxed beneath the cool boughs of the trees. She clung to Sol’s hand whenever Sol wasn’t carrying her, but she permitted Kelan to carry her on his back.
But for all its beauty and tranquility, their travel through the Hivid Wood had been a disappointment so far. Despite all the rumors of Flameskins and wraiths, they had seen nothing but trees. Sol had been following tracks that led them deep into the woods, but it had rained last night and erased any evidence that a trail had once been laid.
She passed by a redwood shoot and plucked at a broken branch with wilting pine needles. She pointed out several deer tracks beneath her feet in the soft soil at the tree’s roots,
“We’re not the only ones here, but maybe the only humans,” she said.
Kelan wasn’t sure Sol was human. But to be fair, he had never really been human, either.
“Do you think there really are wraiths in these woods?” she asked.
He shrugged. “About as likely as a refugee Flameskin camp. All I know are the rumors.”
It was called the Last Haven. The only place where Flameskins were still welcomed and protected.
“Well, if the Flameskins are here, we’ll find them.”
“And if they’re not?”
“Then this could be as good a home as any. Maybe we could hide in these woods until the war is over. It’s easy to get lost in here, and no one passes through here anymore because of the wraiths.”
But if he had heard and believed the rumors about the Flameskin refugees in the Hivid Wood, then he wasn’t the only one. Eventually soldiers would come through these woods, either Tokkens looking to destroy the last of the Flameskin Army, or the Flameskins looking for new recruits. He had heard his uncle mention plans to go to the Hivid Wood a few times.
“I don’t know if it’s the safest place,” he said.
“But if the Flameskins are here, they’re very well hidden. I haven’t seen anything.”
“Which is why I doubt there’s anything here at all.”
“I’m not giving up hope yet.”
She nodded in another direction, and they kept moving through the trees, over fallen logs and around boulders and beneath the whispering pines accompanied by the haunting sounds of the birds concealed in the mist.
Even if they did find the Flameskin camp, would it be a safe place for them? Would the Flameskins be like him, possessed entirely because they had resisted so long?
He hated to make Sol use her emberstone more than she had to, knowing that it would slowly extinguish her ability to feel. Living among possessed Flameskins would require her to wear her emberstone always so she wouldn’t get burned, and she would become heartless like his Uncle Haldur. And if he always wore his manacle, he would be susceptible to burns, as well.
Azalea stopped and sat down on a rock with a sigh, so Kelan lifted her and carried her on his shoulders. Sol paused before the trunk of a large tree and pointed to the pile of pine needles at its base. “Look at that.”
“The leaves?”
She crept forward carefully. “They’re not matted down. They’ve been moved recently.”
How did she notice things like that?
She quirked a smile at him. “I wonder if we can’t find the Flameskins because we haven’t been looking low enough.”
“You think they’re underground?”
She brushed her hand through the brown needles. “This soil’s been turned by a spade. You can see the marks the shovel made.”
She took a step onto the needles and a strange thing happened. One moment Sol was smiling at him, then there was a snap and the hiss of rope, and she was gone.
“Sol!” His heart plummeted even as she was launched into the air. She yelped as a rope net tangled around her and hauled her upward. She swung crazily beneath a branch high above his head. Azalea screamed.
“Hold on, Sol!”
He set Azalea down next to the tree and searched for a way to get her down. There was a rope knotted to a root at the foot of the tree. The knot was too weather-worn to budge when he tugged at it. He threw down his pack and pulled out the Cassian scimitar he had hidden inside. He sawed at the rough rope as Sol dangled and spun above him.
“Don’t! I’ll fall.”
He stopped and followed the line with his eyes to where she hung above him in the tree branches.
“I’ll catch you.”
“Not if you’re all the way over there. There must be some sort of counterweight, or a way to lower me. I don’t know how this trap works. I’ve never made one like this.”
Kelan searched the ground for more rope, but found nothing.
“They must not like visitors,” Sol said. “This is obviously a trap meant for humans. We must be close to the refugee camp.”
“That or the wraiths have gotten a taste for human.”
“That will be much funnier when I’m back on the ground.” Her voice was strained. Sol never liked being helpless. “I think I can cut myself out and climb onto this limb,” she said.
“Just give me another minute.” He didn’t want to risk her falling. It was too far of a drop.
Kelan paced the clearing, searching the misty canopy for a way to free her.
There. Up in the great redwood were more ropes, and it looked like they could be unwound to lower her. But the nearest branch was far over his head.
He hoisted himself up a foot and put a hand on the bark to test it with his weight. The bark crumbled between his fingers and he dropped to the ground again.
“Kelan.” Sol’s voice was edged with fear.
“I think I’ve figured it out. I just have to get up this tree.”
“There’s something up here.”
He froze.
There were shadows among the mist and the boughs of pine needles, shapes that moved and jumped from branch to branch, shaking dead leaves onto their heads.
“Cut me loose!” she shouted. “Now!”
He ran for the rope at the foot of the redwood, but an arrow thudded into the trunk beside it. He whirled around. The shadows had taken shape. Human-shaped forms with cracked, brown skin the color of the earth, and clothes made of leaves and grasses. Their hair was formed of dead leaves that trailed over their shoulders and faces, obscuring everything except their bright eyes.
Azalea screamed and ran to Kelan’s side where she clung to his leg. “I want mommy!”
Kelan lifted his scimitar. “Let my wife go.”
The wraiths in the trees cackled, and the leaves shook around them.
“Cut her loose,” one crooned. “Watch her drop. Break her bones.”
Laughter rustled through the treetops above him, seemingly everywhere at once. He couldn’t tell how many wraiths there were. Five? Twelve? Twenty? Two of them remained stationary with their feathered bows drawn, one arrow aimed at Kelan and one at Sol.
“Please,” Sol pleaded. “We are friends of forests. We mean no harm.”
“No harm, no harm,” sang a voice from atop another tree, and the others laughed.
Kelan slowly edged forward until he was standing beneath Sol. “Drop the key,” he said, staring at the wraith archers.
How long would it take his pyra to return? Too long. He’d need to hurl two fireballs at once to take out the archers, and before they realized what he was doing. But who knew how many more wraiths had arrows pointed at their heads.
“Kelan.”
“You made me promise.”
He let out a shaky breath and swore. Either way they were dead. But if he kept his shackle on at least he wouldn’t be the one to kill her. He tightened his grip on his scimitar.
“You come to leave the child with us,” one of them crooned. “They always give us the Flameskin children.”
Kelan put one hand on Azalea’s head. She had burrowed her face in his leg. “We’re not giving her to you.”
One of the wraiths descended to a lower branch and hung upside down. “We’ll take good care of her.”
“Such good care,” another added and cackled.
A chill ran down Kelan’s spine. All those rumors about children being left at the doorstep of the Hivid Wood . . . . This was what happened to them? Taken and devoured by these creatures?
“Is there a Flameskin haven here?” Kelan asked. “Can you take us to it?”
The wraiths hissed in the trees.
“Flameskins,” one spat. “There are no Flameskins in these woods.”
“They’re soldiers,” another said. “The man has a sword.”
Kelan slowly lowered his sword to the ground. It wasn’t doing him much good anyway, when his enemy was so high above him in the trees.
“What do you want from us?” Kelan asked.
“Blood and bones, blood and bones!” one cried and the others laughed.
“Pretty bracelet! We want the glowing bracelet,” said another.
Kelan had rolled up his sleeve and his emberstone glowed red against his skin. “You can have it if you let her down.”
The trees rustled, and the wraiths whispered to each other.
One wraith stepped forward. His cheeks were streaked and cracked like bark on a tree. “We’ll take only the child.” His voice sounded more human than any of the other wraiths.
“We stay together,” Kelan said. He hadn’t saved Azalea from a mob just to hand her over to hungry wraiths. He couldn’t imagine a worse fate.
He glanced up at Sol dangling above him, and dust fell into his eyes. She was sawing at the ropes that bound her.
The wraith slid down a trunk and then swung from branch to branch until he reached the ground. “Why do you wear the manacle, Flameskin?”
“I don’t want to hurt people anymore.”
The wraith was tall and willowy, and beneath the dirt and the leaves there was matted hair and a pair of curious, violet eyes. From afar, his skin had looked covered in bark, but now Kelan could see it was nothing but cracked mud.
The wraith touched Kelan’s emberstone manacle and then Kelan’s skin with one dirt-caked finger, then peered up into Kelan’s face. Kelan shifted and tried not to flinch away as the wraith inspected him.
“Turquoise eyes,” the wraith murmured. “Interesting. What’s your name?”
“Kelan Burke.”
“Not Bruun?”
“What?” Kelan asked. That was the surname of the royal family.
The wraith patted Azalea’s head. “Is she your daughter?”
“No, but we’ve been taking care of her.” Kelan frowned. Beneath the dirt and the grime this boy looked human.
Another wraith dropped to the ground, this one female. “What are you doing, Silas? Slit their throats and be done with it.”
Silas sighed and unslung a coil of rope from his shoulders. “I’m sorry about this, but we have rules here.”
The girl snarled as she snatched the rope from Silas, and one of her hands sparked with angry fire.
Chapter 48
Sol
Sol and Kelan were marched through the Wood with their hands bound in front of them and their eyes blindfolded. The wraith named Silas, who she was fairly certain was human, gripped Sol’s sleeve and pulled her forward. She stumbled over a root and Silas tugged her sideways.
“Oh, root there. Sorry.”
“Kelan?” Sol asked.
“I’m here,” he said, somewhere to her right. Azalea clung to the back of her tunic and didn’t say a word as they hiked through the forest.
The blindfold scratched against her eyes and her face. The crude rope chafed her wrists.
Sol had nearly cut herself free from her rope net by the time they had lowered her to the ground, but it wouldn’t have helped. She wouldn’t have been able to climb to the branch above her, and they would’ve shot her down if she had tried.
Her feet scuffed on the ground as she walked. The world was conspiring to tear her and Kelan apart. Kelan was right. There was nowhere safe for them. Life was so fragile, as easily extinguished as a candle.
“We’re going to the left. Walk carefully here,” Silas said, pulling on her sleeve.
“This would be much easier if I could see,” Sol said.
“Would you rather we gouge your eyes out?” asked the female wraith.
Sol pressed her lips together. If she got a glimpse of the night sky and could get her bearings, she’d be able to find a way out of the forest. She was a huntress. She’d get them out alive.
At the end of their long march, Silas stopped Sol and removed her blindfold. The wraiths, who were really just dirty adolescents, had halted at the base of an enormous tree. There were a dozen of these wraiths, with leaves and wildflowers and twigs laced through their hair and mud smeared artfully over their skin. It was a convincing disguise, from a distance.
Silas looked to be about her own age, but the other wraiths were younger. One boy looked no more than twelve. A few of them wore shards of emberstone set into rings or around their wrists like Kelan.
They were all Flameskins.
Silas pulled aside a curtain of leaves to reveal a hollowed-out trunk of an enormous redwood.
“Marta, tell Master Rask that I’m bringing him a present,” Silas said, nodding to the girl who had tied them up. “And someone go find Ingrid.”
“Rask is going to tear your head off for this. No one’s allowed to see the haven,” Marta said. She crossed her arms over a tunic covered in crow feathers.
“But look at his eyes,” Silas said, pointing at Kelan’s face. “Turquoise!”
Marta shrugged. “The last ones you took pity on ended up running off and we had to hunt them down, or did you forget already? I say we end them now before they cause us any trouble.”
“If they do try to run, they won’t get far.” Silas directed this comment at Kelan.
Sol stepped in front of Azalea. “I thought you would be better than this. How can you kill a child?”
“We’ll take care of the child,” Marta said. “But adults we kill on sight.”
“I won’t let you touch Sol,” Kelan growled.
Marta grinned wickedly. “Try something. See what happens.”
“They’re our own age,” Silas said. “And I’d hardly call you an adult, Marta.”
He shoved her into the hollowed-out tree, then extended an arm to Sol. “Shall we?”
He laughed when she held up her bound hands and gave him an annoyed look.
He leapt into the fire-blackened interior of the redwood, and Sol peeked inside. The tree had been hollowed-out by a fire, and a spiraling staircase had been built around the interior edge of the trunk. Slits in the tree had been cut to make windows, and faint light filtered through the dusty space, illuminating a staircase into the mist.
Sol climbed the uneven steps behind Silas. As they ascended, the mist surrounded and embraced them. It muffled the sounds of the wraiths, and droplets clung to Sol’s black hair like a crown of dew.
Marta stood guard at the top of the staircase, fingering the handle of the knife on her belt. Behind her was a platform built out over the tree branches, but the mist was too thick to see beyond it.
“I told Rask you’re coming,” Marta said. “He told me to make sure your pets don’t piss on the rug before you wring their necks.”
Sol shot Kelan a look. He stood close to her, and brushed her waist with the back of his bound hands. His lips were pressed into a grim l
ine.
They had taken Sol’s knife and her emberstone and her bow. She had nothing to defend herself with. Though their kidnappers were young, they were all armed. And if the stories about the wraiths of Hivid Wood were true, they knew how to use those weapons. Many of them had scars on their arms and faces and their bare calves. These children were dangerous.
Silas rolled his eyes at Marta and waved Sol and Kelan forward. At the end of the platform they found a rope bridge that spanned the gap between their redwood and another tree. The bridge swayed crazily beneath Sol’s feet when she stepped onto it. She grasped hold of the railing with her bound hands as her stomach dropped and rolled with each movement of the bridge.
She and Kelan slid sideways and clung to the rope supports as the children bounded and ran around them, laughing and chattering. Silas took Azalea by the hand and led her across, and Sol’s heart lurched at the dizzying distance between them and the ground. How was this a safe place for children?
Sol caught glimpses of the tree city around them as they traversed various bridges. Impossible-looking dwellings had been built out onto branches and limbs, with ladders and precarious scaffolding connecting the trees. Children lazed and played and patched clothes and fired arrows among the leafy treetops. None looked to be older than Silas, and she spotted only two adults among them. Some of the younger children were tied with harnesses to the railing of their platform, and several of them came dangerously close to the edge to wave at Sol.
“If this is a refuge for Flameskins, how can you kill people who come to you seeking asylum?” Sol demanded. Her wrists were still tied in front of her. She had to balance carefully as she walked across a creaking wooden platform toward another bridge.
“It’s not up to me. We’ll take you to our leader, Master Rask, and he’ll decide what happens to you,” Silas said.
Sol whirled around and yanked on Silas’ leafy shirt with her bound hands. “That’s not good enough. We didn’t risk our lives to come all the way here just to be slaughtered by children.”
Silas ripped his shirt free. “I’m eighteen. And I take offense to that. I’m also the one who saved your life, so I’d appreciate it if you were a little nicer.”
Firefrost: A Flameskin Chronicles Novel Page 25