“That is the Crown. Just beyond lies Thiara. Just beyond Thiara lies the Sunset Sea. It is the sea you smell.”
“Then that is the Jhor Forest,” Grei said, looking north at the tall, lush trees. His father had often talked about the richest forest in the empire, said he longed to hunt there as a young man. There were said to be immense predators moving through those thick trees, giant wolves and tree-traveling cats, but also more game than could ever be hunted. It was sport for the young nobles, and they had contests each year. To hunt alone in the Jhor and emerge alive was a test of manhood.
“That is the Jhor,” she agreed.
“Have you been inside?”
“Yes.”
“Is it as dangerous as the legends say?”
“No one would look for us if we approached Thiara through the Jhor, and it would put us within running distance of the wall.” She glanced at him. “But we will follow the Fairmist River.”
Grei heard what she did not say. Better to face the Highblades than the Jhor.
He looked back at the bumpy darkness of the forest’s canopy, barely visible as the sun disappeared.
“Wow,” he said, wondering what it would be like to slip through those lush trees, to see wondrous creatures he had never seen before.
“Many young men are seduced by the Jhor,” she said, watching him.
He caught her gaze and grinned. “I have other forests to navigate,” he said. “First things first.”
Her scar bent a little, a nuance he had come to know as her smile.
“I’m wondering if there was ever a time in your youth that you laughed a lot—”
“Hsst!” She grabbed his shoulder and shoved him flat against the ground.
Fear spiked through him. Then he heard the voices approaching just above the bank.
Selicia’s face was shadowed, but he saw her motions clearly. She tapped her chest, and nodded imperatively at him.
He understood and opened the doorway to her heart. It was easier this time, and vivid images came to him. He saw the two of them swimming across the river.
He nodded and took a deep breath. They rolled into the shallows, and the water seeped into his clothes. She draped one arm across his chest as the current pulled them toward the center of the river.
“Lie flat,” she whispered in his ear. “Float, don’t swim. Keep your head back, face up.”
Splashes of river water jumped into his mouth, and he coughed. Instinctively, he tried to put his feet down, tried to swim.
Selicia’s arm tightened across his chest, and she kicked his legs out from under him. She held his head still, and he found that he could breathe. She pointed them downriver and propped him up so that his head rested on her shoulder, just above the water.
“Relax. Lie on me. Float.”
After a rigid moment of panic, he realized he wasn’t sinking, and he relaxed against her. Her body was tense underneath him, her muscles working as her free arm paddled hard beneath the water.
The voices he had heard suddenly became louder. He couldn’t understand them, but they certainly weren’t farmers.
With Selicia’s expert guidance, they drifted to the center of the river, and then to a large tangle of driftwood and debris on the north shore.
She dumped him into the water, caught his bad arm just above the elbow and snagged the tangle of branches. They swung into the shallows, and she rolled silently to her feet. He crawled after her as quietly as he could.
She sat down, pulled off her thin boots, then undid the laces at her breeches and removed them, slipping her boots back onto her feet.
“What are you—”
She put a finger on his lips and shook her head sternly. When she had the dripping bundle wrapped up tight in a ball, she crept to the edge of the river, keeping herself concealed by the tangle of driftwood.
She watched upstream for a long moment then, cocking her arm, flung the bundle over the river. It arced low, splashing just south of the middle.
She returned and grabbed his wrist, led him up the bank, over the top and back down a little slope on the other side.
She grabbed his head and put it next to hers.
“Run low,” she whispered, so quiet he could barely hear her. “Head down until I tell you. Quickly. They are on us.”
They ran, and he tried to keep his fear controlled. They had been spotted. The Highblades knew there was someone here. They would pursue. He could only assume that tossing her pants into the river was supposed to serve as a decoy. He had a dozen questions, but if not for her quick thinking, they would already be caught.
He kept his head low and ran, though he thought the squish and thump of his wet boots and breeches must certainly bring every Highblade straight to them. Selicia moved silently next to him and did not comment.
When his lungs were burning and his back ached from bending over, she finally pulled him to a stop. They dropped to a crouch between the rows of cotton. He tried to control his breathing. Selicia seemed as calm as ever.
“We crouch to the end of this field,” she said. “Then I want you to stand and run as fast as you can toward the Jhor.”
“Are they still...” he huffed. “Behind us?”
“Go, Grei,” she said, pushing him in front of her.
He did as she asked, crouching to the end of the row. He could see the dark edge of the Jhor Forest ahead, blotting the northern horizon. The crops ended a few hundred yards before the forest, as though the farmers refused to till too closely to it. The moonlit field sloped upward to meet the trees. A figure running up that would look like a black bug on a silver blanket.
“Run!” Selicia whispered harshly from behind him, and he sprinted, hoping his legs would hold out, hoping his lungs wouldn’t burst.
He hadn’t gone more than a hundred feet when he heard a thump and something tumble behind him, and he risked looking over his shoulder. Selicia was gone.
Fear gripped him. He stopped, gasping for breath and putting his hands on his knees. He searched desperately for her in the grassy slope. She rose, some twenty feet back, and he felt a wash of relief. She reached under her arm and snapped off the arrow that had sunk into her side.
Behind her, four Highblades ran through the rows of cotton. A high whistle went up from the group.
One of them nocked another arrow while running and let fly. Selicia watched it come, swayed to the side like a tree in the wind, and the arrow missed her by inches, sinking into the ground.
She opened her wet tunic, slipped it off her arms and whipped it to the side. It sprayed water droplets in the moonlight. Her dagger glowed silver in her fist, and she sauntered toward them in her small clothes, as though she was preparing for one of her morning dances.
Grei froze in indecision, wanting to shout at her to run, but it was obvious she wasn’t going to.
“Baezin’s blood,” he cursed. He hesitated one more second, then ran down the slope toward her.
Selicia broke into a light jog as the running bowman nocked another arrow. He shot, but she spun in a neat pirouette and the arrow missed. She rolled out of the spin in perfect form, arms winging out to the side, never breaking stride. Something silver flew from her hand.
The bowman reached for another arrow, but he suddenly gurgled, her dagger in his throat, and fell to his knees.
Then Selicia was among them. She leapt high into the air, over the side-strike of the first, kicking him in the face. His head snapped back, and he crumpled.
She landed slightly off balance, stumbling as the next Highblade thrust at her heart. His sword sank deep into her side. He yanked the blade out, and she fell to one knee.
“Selicia!” Grei shouted, barreling into the Highblade, taking him bodily off his feet. They crashed to the ground.
The Highblade growled, head butting Grei with his helmet. Stars burst in Grei’s vision, and suddenly his arms felt like limp reeds. The Highblade threw Grei off and rolled on top of him, letting his sword go as he drew a dagger.
Grei reached up weakly with his hand, touched the helmet. “Melt,” he murmured, and the metal dripped over the man’s head. “Steel!” he said, and it hardened.
Grei felt that thick feeling in his head that he’d felt at the Dead Woods. It disoriented him.
The Highblade shouted, muffled and blinded by solid steel. In panic, he reached up to grab his head, and Grei threw him off. But the Highblade recovered himself and slashed out with his dagger, just missing Grei’s belly.
Grei kicked at the Highblade’s encased head, but barely connected, and he stumbled past. The man rolled to his feet, swinging blind, and missed again.
Then Selicia was there. She swung a longsword into the Highblade’s encased head. It rang like a bell, and the man dropped. He gave a muffled moan, struggling to rise. She clubbed him again, and he lay still.
Her shoulders stooped. The big sword fell into the grass.
A thin stream of very dark blood ran down her right side where the arrow protruded from her ribcage. An even larger swath painted her left hip and thigh red from the sword wound.
“You’re hurt,” he said stupidly. He fought the fog in his mind, and suddenly remembered there had been a fourth Highblade. He looked frantically across the field, then spotted the Highblade’s crumpled body over a cotton plant behind her.
“You did it,” he said.
“My thanks,” she whispered, drawing a rattling breath. She sank to one knee.
“Selicia,” he jumped forward and held her up.
“You must run,” she grunted. “Brave the Jhor. Do not go back to the river. That whistle will bring more.”
He glanced up the hill, then back at her. “And you?”
She let out another gurgling breath and leaned against him. “I told you how this would end, Grei. But you don’t listen...” She leaned her head on his shoulder, her body slowly going limp.
He glanced back the way they had come. He didn’t see any Highblades, but if Selicia said they were on the way, they were. The fog in his mind was slowly beginning to clear.
“You’re saying I should leave you?”
“Only one way this can end.”
“Everyone wants to tell me how it’s going to end,” he muttered to himself, leaning down. She gasped, and he lifted her onto his shoulders. She seemed so light, a wisp of a thing, not the unstoppable woman who had just felled four Highblades.
“You keep the blood in your body,” he said grimly. “I’ll do the rest.”
He started up the hill.
Chapter 36
Grei
Grei heard another shrill whistle when he was halfway up the slope. He staggered toward the trees, so close now, but Selicia grew heavier with each step. Sweat ran down his forehead. He huffed, sucking each breath.
The grass rustled next to him and he looked down. A gold-and-red fletched arrow quivered where his foot had been.
He spun to look back at his attackers, and Selicia’s weight threw him off balance. His ankle turned and they both went down. Another arrow whistled over his head. Selicia tumbled out of his grasp, hitting the ground in a limp tangle. She moaned.
A triumphant shout went up from down the hill. They thought they had hit him.
Get up, he thought. Get up!
He gathered Selicia into his arms, but she was slick with blood and hard to grip. He managed to cradle her, hooking her knees over his burnt and bandaged arm. Her head lolled to the side.
With a grunt, he staggered to his feet and managed a pathetic lumber up the hill.
A shout went up behind him, frustrated this time. He heard swords being drawn, and he pushed his legs forward, forcing them to give everything they had, waiting for the sharp bite of steel in his back.
An arrow whispered by his ear and sank into the trunk in front of him. He plunged into the trees, which blotted out the scant moonlight. The thick undergrowth immediately tripped him, and he stumbled sideways, slamming into a gnarled tree trunk and spinning around. He clutched Selicia to his chest, managed to stay on his feet, and staggered into the dark.
The Jhor spoke to him like the Dead Woods, except the voices were light singing instead of insidious whispers.
There were no pines here. The trees were fat and massive, the leaves wide. The burly limbs grew so low to the ground that he had to duck under them.
It was even warmer in the forest than the field, as though something breathed wet life into this place. Sweat rolled down his face.
Wet brown leaves covered the floor. Moss grew on exposed roots, and the forest swallowed all sound. The noise of the approaching Highblades, the ocean breeze, the night creatures of the field vanished. All he could hear was his own rasping breath, the squish-shuffle of his boots, and the vibrant voices of the forest, alive in his mind.
He tripped again, and this time he couldn’t manage to stay upright. He and Selicia fell into the hollow between two roots as thick as his waist. She slipped from his grasp and slid to a stop, curled in on herself like a sleeping child.
He gasped, trying to regain his breath. Selicia’s blood covered his arms and chest and had smeared on the roots below her. He had to stop the bleeding. He had to bind her wounds.
He pictured himself getting to his feet, tearing strips from his tunic to use as bandages, but his arms and legs were thick and useless. He remained crumpled between the two protruding roots and gasped for breath.
He strained to hear his pursuers, but there was nothing.
With a grunt, he scooted to Selicia and leaned over her.
He labored to pull his tunic over his head, and it seemed to take forever. But he had no knife, and he suddenly realized that ripping the oil-treated leather with only one hand was laughable. He tried to use his teeth, but then stopped, panting, teeth aching.
The magic. He had to try. Could he slow her bleeding? Turn the wound to flesh?
Breathing deep, he opened his mind to her, tried to hear the whispers of her body.
The song of the forest became a dozen voices singing in harmony, so loud he cried out. It was like the Faia at the waterfall. Bells rang and dozens of sweet voices rose together, intertwining.
The darkness peeled away, and suddenly he could see everything as though the sun was just setting. It was as though he had been given night vision.
“I need to help her,” he said, trying to speak into the song, but his voice was an ugly intrusion.
He cleared his throat, tried to speak softer, tried to find the heart of the song. He felt its power flow through him, and he turned his attention to Selicia. She could only have a few moments left, if she wasn’t dead already. She had lost so much blood—
Limbs cracked and snapped, and a Highblade emerged from the undergrowth, his short sword drawn. He had not seen Grei yet, but his gaze searched methodically through the darkness. This man was still almost blind, while Grei now saw with the eyes of the forest.
The Highblade approached, moving through a veil of thin vines that dangled from the branches of the tree under which Selicia and Grei hid. Grei didn’t remember pushing through them when he entered the canopy of the tree. The Highblade reached up and batted them out of the way.
A new voice joined the song in Grei’s mind, low and loud, as though closer than the others.
The swordsman’s gaze swept left to right, then focused. He gave a chuckle, and a grin spread across his face.
“End of the run, you little bastard,” he said, spying Grei.
A long, inhuman arm descended behind the Highblade as the last strand of vines fell away from him. It was black as night and as thin as bones, the joints thick and glistening. At the end, instead of a hand, was a single, curved claw.
The Highblade pointed his sword at Grei even as he grabbed the whistle around his neck.
The black arm wrapped around the Highblade, burying the wicked claw in his belly. The Highblade gasped, dropping sword and whistle, and was hoisted straight upward. He disappeared into the leaves overhead and gave one ragged scream. Th
en, silence.
Blood fell like rain.
Grei wiped the gore from his face. The little veils of vines descended everywhere now, all around him, apparently seeking other warm bodies that might be resting under its branches.
Something whuffled in the blackness, and to Grei’s left was an answering snort.
His heart beat in his throat, and he opened his mouth to breathe. A dozen enormous wolves slunk into view, their silhouettes barely visible through the dangling vines, which now almost brushed the forest floor. The nearest was inches from Grei’s hand, and he forced himself to remain perfectly still.
The giant wolves circled, staying beyond the tree’s reach. They were as tall as Grei, their paws as wide as serving platters. Their dark eyes glinted, and their muzzles pulled back to reveal long teeth as they sniffed the air in his direction.
He didn’t know where the frightening black arm was, or if there were a dozen such arms in the darkness of the tree overhead.
He glanced at Selicia. Her skin was pale, and she wasn’t breathing.
Enough, he thought. I can’t just sit here and watch her die.
He knelt down and picked Selicia up. She had been a true companion to him these past days. If they were going to die, they’d do it together.
He let his mind flow into the song and listened, searching for the words, but they still escaped him.
“I am here to help,” he murmured to the forest. “I will stop the Lord of Rifts.”
He walked into the vines. They slithered against him, light as paper, sticking to the blood on his body and clothes.
The long, black arm came down to his left, slowly like it had before. It dripped with the Highblade’s blood. Grei tensed, but he kept walking, skirting it, waiting for it to snatch them up and turn them into red rain.
“I am the Whisper Prince,” he said, louder this time. The vines tickled his neck, his ears. He kept walking. Another arm slid down to his left, and another in front of him.
He clenched his teeth and walked past it, leaving the last veil of vines behind as he stepped beyond the canopy of the tree. The wicked claw-arms didn’t stab him.
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