Books of Bayern Series Bundle

by Shannon Hale

  Rin nodded, and made her expression brave. She’d wanted to see if going out in the world could change her as it had changed Razo, if following Isi could make her more like the queen. Now it was time to leave the wood. No matter that Rin felt made of paper. She would see it through.

  Chapter 20

  The sun was scraping the western curve of the sky when Tusken woke from his nap. Rin shouldered her pack, now slightly heavier with the roots and nuts she and Razo had gathered throughout the day.

  “Win go?” Tusken asked.

  She nodded. “I’ll be back.”

  “I go.” Tusken held up his arms. “I go, Win. I go.”

  “You’ll stay with me, little man,” said Razo. “We’ve got games to play.”

  Rin was on her knees, hugging Tusken. “Razo will keep you safe. I’ll see you soon. And I’ll bring your ma too,” she added recklessly. She looked at Razo, who was burying the remains of their fire. “If I’m not back the day after tomorrow—”

  “We’ll inch our way to Bayern and send a message to Geric.”

  “And not try to come after me?”

  Razo groaned but nodded. “Tusken’s life is first priority. Don’t worry about us, little sister. You just stay safe yourself. And when you see Dasha, tell her . . . tell her . . .”

  His brow furrowed.

  “They’re smart,” Rin said, echoing his earlier words. They’ll keep themselves nice and safe. They’d better. “Two days.”

  Razo took Tusken’s hand, and the little boy waved goodbye to Rin until she was out of sight.

  “Keep him safe,” Rin whispered. “Be safe, both of you.”

  She walked as quickly as her trembling legs would take her. Wound with worry and aching for the peace of trees, she kept one hand outstretched and let her fingers glance off trunks in passing. She tried to imagine how they were murmuring of deep water, the satisfaction when the roots were nestled in good soil, the urgings to dig ever deeper, the peaceful swaying of leaves as they rested in dim light, waiting for the sun to return again. She tried to pull that peace inside her and let it strengthen her core, imagined it surrounding her like the toughest bark, making her strong and fearless.

  The afternoon cooled, and she could not hear anything over the crackling and clicking of cicadas, the storm of rasps and croaks. The wood teemed with insects so noisy her ears rang, though she could not see a one. What else was out there that she could not see?

  She had to hurry, directing herself by slant of sunlight. Twice she thought she heard the rhythm of hoofbeats or footfalls, so she hid, then ran, losing time and direction. So little sleep, so much toil was wearing her down. When she began to stumble more than step, she stopped for a rest, curling herself into the leggy roots of a large tree, feeling as tiny and vulnerable as she had as a little girl climbing onto her mother’s lap.

  Evening sunlight grazed through the canopy, slashing at an angle into her eyes. She closed them, just for a minute, just to hide from the brightness.

  Rin startled and opened her eyes.

  Darkness. She felt odd, as if someone had dropped a heavy blanket over her head, and she could barely see or move. Her arms ached, her face was sore from pressing against the bark of the tree, her legs were cold from being scrunched up beneath her. She moved. That hurt. She sat upright, stretching her legs, and felt the painful pricking of blood rush through her. The lack of light was confusing and frightening. If she did not ache everywhere, she would have feared she was dead.

  An owl called a warning, and only then did Rin understand that the world was dark because it was night. She had fallen asleep.

  “No,” she said. “No, no, no.”

  She lurched to her feet and began to run, her body still waking up, her legs feeling like straw sacks. It was not long before she admitted that she had no idea where she was going. She tripped, felt against a tree, and stayed there, breathing hard.

  Stop it, she scolded herself, taking her ma’s tone. Calm down and do what you need to do.

  She did not have time to panic. The girls were locked up. Razo had bet on her to succeed. Maybe it was not too late to find her way to night, if she could just think it through.

  She found herself remembering another time she’d been lost in a wood. After Nordra and the stick, after Ma had turned her back, seven-year-old Rin had gotten lost. That was the first time she’d opened herself to listen to the trees. After, she’d known her way home.

  Rin wrapped her arms around the tree, closing her eyes and resting her head against its smooth bark. She did not demand of the tree what she wanted, as she had after Wilem. That was foolish, she realized now. And tree-speaking was an odd phrase anyhow—it was more like tree-listening. She could not tell the trees anything, only think through their calmness to understand her own thoughts better.

  Her breathing slowed, she entered into the greenness, or perhaps it entered her, and there in the tree’s depths she met again the tightening fear that she was a people-speaker.

  Enough. She’d had enough of being chased away by what she’d done to Wilem and she felt angry enough to chew a stone to dust. I know I’m bad. This can’t shock me anymore. I need to do this task, and I need to be calm and able to think. I need a way to find where I’m going.

  Ignoring her own circling thoughts, she focused on the tree. With no sunlight to lure the tree up, the leaves curled slightly for the night, the center of the tree pulled downward. Her thoughts followed that motion into the roots, thousands of tips that touched other roots, leading to another tree, and another, the trees of the wood connected as if holding hands.

  Her mind burned, her heart raced. All those trees, all connected. She followed the net of roots, finding a place where the trees stopped.

  There. That was her direction, she hoped.

  She had opened her eyes and was just about to push herself away from the tree when a horse cantered by.

  Rin froze, not moving, her body still tight to the tree. The horse stopped. She closed her eyes and waited, her arms shaking in the effort to hold still.

  Please, please, please . . .

  The sound of hoofbeats continued on.

  After that, she traveled cautiously, scurrying from tree to tree, weaving her way to avoid detection. When she discovered a spring, she took a little damp earth and packed it into her ears. The sounds of the night wood dimmed, and she missed the vibrant rattle of crickets, but she hoped the precaution would save her from the danger of Selia’s voice.

  Twice she scrambled up a tree to get out of the way of horse men galloping toward the castle. Once she dropped to the ground, huddled behind a trunk, as two soldiers passed by heading east. She inched closer and closer, until at last there was the castle. She could see the gates now, and she moaned at the sight, thinking she might as well try to swallow a pumpkin whole as get inside. The gates were shut. She’d fostered a delirious hope that she could sneak inside without trying to scale the wall, but that hope withered away.

  Keeping her distance, Rin made her way around the castle, searching for a spot where she could climb. Soldiers moved everywhere like ants crawling over dropped meat. Her heart was thudding so hard it made her head hurt.

  Calm, she told herself. Be calm. But just the narrowest thought of trying to scramble up those sheer walls under sight of armed sentries made her nearly whimper in fear. After circling the perimeter, she retreated into the trees. She’d taken herself so far the castle was out of sight before she realized that she was running away.

  Rin climbed a tree, wrapped an arm around the trunk, and whispered to the tree, to the night, to herself, “Please. I need to do this. I need some courage. I need to bring Tusken his mother and keep Razo safe. And I need to believe I can do something of my own, because Razo’s the only one who does.”

  The reality of her situation came down on her like a hard rain. She had to get in to night. It would be a three-hour walk at least to get back to Razo and Tusken, and no chance Razo would send her back a second time. He would w
ait for the next night, then try to scale those impossible walls, an easy target for a crossbow. And in the meantime, what would happen to the girls? No, to night. It had to be.

  Anxiety was taking her farther away. Rin closed her eyes and opened herself inside, listening to the tree. For the first time in months, the dark remnant of the Wilem memory did not accost her. Instead, she was buoyed and floating on ideas of rain and soil, warm air hovering on a leaf. Soothed, she focused her thoughts into the first soft layer that ran with sap, down into the roots, and then out.

  It was like a game, letting her thoughts pump through the network of roots and trees, her trail a dizzying maze of growth. Following the lattice of roots, she hunted for trees near the wall, hoping to approach the castle under shadow of the wood.

  There she found a bundle of roots hunkered down under stone. Long ago, someone must have axed its trunk to make way for the wall, but the roots survived, sending up shoots, unfurling new, thin leaves to wave at the sun. Years upon years its shoots were cut away, but it lived on, and slowly its growth eased rocks loose, cracked mortar, made room to stretch.

  Rin opened her eyes. A tree might have opened a hole in the wall.

  She’d felt safe for the moment, and exposing herself again to the night was almost painful. But she kept breathing, and picturing herself in the tree, imagining that she was that peaceful, with roots deep and branches high. And the panic held off for the moment, as if she were tucked away in her ma’s house with the shutters closed against a storm.

  She approached the back side of the wall from the northeast along a worn footpath. Guards walked the battlements, looking out. If they spotted her, she hoped a lone girl approaching from the direction of town would not warrant much suspicion.

  Two guards met in the middle of the wall and spoke a few words, then turned their backs to each other and ambled forward, their eyes looking out. Now, Rin thought. Go now! She hesitated, then stumbled forward, took a deep-as-knees breath, and forced each foot to feel the ground beneath her before letting her weight pull herself forward. Best to be quiet, best not to draw notice, to be slow and easy as if she were nothing but a shadow.

  “A night forest dreaming,” she whispered to herself. “Nothing to ponder but years and rain.”

  She felt so aware of everything, the stick that might snap beneath her foot, the breeze about to rustle some leaves. The walk seemed to take days, but she reached the wall before the guards turned back again. She pressed herself against the stones, allowing herself now to shudder, cold prickles of sweat trickling along her neck and back.

  She dropped to her knees and found it—a very old tree, its stubborn roots still living, still growing, right through the wall. Rin yanked out a few stones, pushed her pack in before her, and crawled through, shoulders and hips scraping rock.

  The castle courtyard was empty and dark and gray, a hollow skull. No cover, no trees to hide beneath. She sat by the arching roots of the old tree and listened to its thrumming thoughts, trying to pull that peace inside her. The tree did not mind that its trunk had been cut away, that it was not tall and beautiful as it once had been. It was still alive, and it would just keep on drinking water through its roots and shooting out new leaves as long as it could. The rhythm of water and sap, soil and growth circled through. Rin hummed it to herself like a song.

  “Deep water flowing,” she whispered. “Leaves curled and resting under the moon.”

  Her pace was casual, her steps quiet. She kept breathing, kept that silent hum rumbling through her, kept her body relaxed, walking along the inside of the wall, passing a stable, until the five joined towers of the castle were before her. But first she had to go around the garrison. Through the open doors and windows she could see the building was stuffed with soldiers, many spending the night on the floor. Others slept on the ground outside, while those awake sat playing quiet games of stones.

  Move like you belong, she reminded herself. Like you couldn’t sleep and came out for the privy. Nothing to worry. No trouble at all.

  No one stopped her. She was in the moon shadow of the castle now.

  She followed pig prints to one of the four smaller towers. Just as Razo had said, there was smoke on the air and a pile of kitchen scraps emitting rot.

  And there was laundry drying on a line.

  She slipped between two lines of laundry, stripped out of her Bayern travel clothes, and pulled on a white shift in the Kelish style with sleeves dangling from her forearms. Over that she donned a yellow sleeveless dress, tightening the lacing at the bodice. They were both a little short and the dangling sleeves felt cumbersome. She pulled a string loose from the hem of her discarded tunic to tie back her hair, then hid the dirty bundle under a slop bucket.

  The kitchen door was narrow and low, meant to discourage invaders, she figured. It was also unlocked. Rin stooped and ducked inside. The kitchen fires were banked, and children her age and younger slept on the floor, waiting for dawn and the work day to begin. She tiptoed around their bodies and ducked through another door where the wall was as thick as her leg was long. Now she was in the large open chamber of the central tower. It was adorned as a banquet hall, with long wooden tables still scattered with the remnants of dinner. In the center of the chamber, stairs wound to the upper floors and deeper into the ground. She was so close. Over to her right was the huge wood door to the castle, shut and bolted, a dozen soldiers on the inside, standing, yawning, slumping. Her body yearned to hide, but she forced herself to keep moving casually through the chamber toward the stairway.

  Someone was coming down the stairs—a thick woman with a square face, wearing a long-sleeved gray tunic with draping sleeves. Instead of a sleeveless dress over the tunic, she sported leggings like Kelish men. Around the hem of the tunic and sleeve, a pattern was worked in orange and red thread, loops with pointed tips. Flames, Rin realized. The woman was staring at her.

  The stairs were there. There. Rin tried to lift her foot, to walk that insignificant length, to disappear into the darkness below. But the stare of that woman held her. Sweat was thick on Rin’s forehead, itching down her back, across the palms of her hands. I’m nothing, nothing, don’t look at me. Please. I’m nothing.

  The way her mouth opened suddenly, the woman might have gasped, though with the mud in her ears Rin could not be sure. She flew to Rin, seizing her wrist. Rin made a small noise of pain.

  The woman’s voice was loud enough to push through the mud, though Rin did not understand the questions in Kelish. Rin thrashed and squirmed and tried to get free, but the woman’s hand was strong. One of the guards charged forward, hefting his sword.

  Rin grabbed the woman around the middle and pushed her hard to the ground. Though large, the woman was soft and awkward, and Rin managed to put her foot on the woman’s throat and twist out of her hold in a dirty move forbidden at the homestead. But she was free, and she darted for the stairs, pulling in air to shout to the fire sisters and hope her voice carried. All she had time for was one breath before hands were on her, yanking her arms behind her back. The force of her capture knocked the wind from her chest, and she could not squeak a word.

  It had been a desperate move anyhow. No chance she could have made it far. The horror of her failure engulfed her.

  They took her pack and tied her hands. The woman noticed the mud crammed in her ears and scraped it out with her fingers.

  She said something in Kelish that sounded like a question, and when Rin did not respond, she switched to the Bayern tongue. “Why putting dirt in the ears?”

  One of the soldiers looked uneasy, speaking in Kelish and gesturing to Rin and toward the wood outside the castle walls.

  The woman shushed him. “The queen asking questions next. You answering.”

  She had the soldiers drag Rin farther from the way to the dungeon, then ran up the steps to the higher levels of the keep.

  The sweat that lay over Rin’s face and under her tunic felt freezing cold, and she shivered. She thought if she could
just see the soldiers’ faces, perhaps she could figure out how to trick them into letting her go. But they held her arms at an angle, her back hunched so she could not twist enough to see. Her mouth was as dry as a fallen leaf, everything seemed hopeless. And Selia was coming.

  Chapter 21

  Rin heard the Kelish woman’s voice echoing down the stairs before she emerged, a shivering circle of candlelight descending before her.

  “I not noticing her at first. I was seeing of her heat before seeing of her, Your Majesty.”

  Then, a second voice—Selia’s. “What an enchanting mystery! Do you think we should keep her alive to figure it out? Or shall we kill her now?”

  “She could be dangerous.”

  “Mmm.”

  The candlelight grew brighter, then in the circle of light Selia emerged from the stairs, flanked by the woman and two other men, also dressed in gray tunics with orange markings. Over her white nightgown, Selia wore a red velvet robe, the color of a very ripe berry, and her dark yellow hair was long and loose. Selia stepped daintily off the last stair, took in Rin with the soldiers, and smiled. Rin could not help thinking her lovely.

  “My wonderful guards!” Selia extended her arms, as if embracing the soldiers from a distance. “Flann, Imchad, Conall—you are so fine, so strong. What good work you do keeping my little home safe. How I adore you!”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” each one mumbled in voices that sounded sheepish bordering on lovesick. The other soldiers who remained at the gate watched intensely. A few shuffled closer, their faces eager, as if hoping Selia might notice them next. But her generous smile had turned to the woman beside her.

  “And beautiful Nuala. Ever watchful, always brilliant. Your days of going unnoticed are long forgotten. You shine like a full moon.”