There was a quality of silence to it, even though there were sounds aplenty. It made no sense, but the rustle of leaves, the wind in the branches, somehow seemed clearer here, as if there were no other noises drowning them out.
It reminded him that he should be hearing at least one other sound, the footsteps of Mirabelle following behind him, and he suddenly realized he hadn’t looked back to check on her in a long time.
Too long on his own.
He wasn’t in the habit of looking after anyone but himself.
He stopped, turned back, the packs on his back bumping and swinging, and found nothing but empty wood.
He cursed. Himself, and her.
Why hadn’t she called out to him to slow down?
On a sigh, he headed back, and frowned. He thought he wasn’t far from the stream he’d jumped over, it felt as if only a minute or so had passed since then, but when he rounded the corner, the path stretched out, empty and with no stream in sight.
He was sure it should be there. He felt the tingle at the base of his skull he always did when wild magic was at work, and sped up.
“Mirabelle.” He called her name loudly, but it was as if he were in a strange chamber that sucked sound away.
At the next corner, surely, he would find the stream, but it wasn’t there, and he began to run in earnest.
He heard something, slowed down, and tried to quiet his breathing, listening, and was sure it was the gurgle of water over stones.
He turned the next corner, hopeful, and saw the stream, saw Mirabelle, too. She was walking toward him, head bowed, as if she had something weighing her down.
And behind her, creeping along, a chill smile on its face, was a monster.
It mirrored Mirabelle’s shape and size, as if a glassblower had used her to created a mold of the clearest glass and filled it from the stream, and then somehow enchanted it to make the water move, swirl and eddy within its glass case, and then made it all come alive.
It put out a hand and touched Mirabelle’s hair, lifting it, and drenching it in an instant.
Mirabelle made a sound, put her hand back to feel what was touching her, and her fingers moved through the water in the water nymph’s arm.
She gave a cry of surprise, spun to look, and then stumbled back at the sight of what was behind her.
Soren forced his feet to move, to run again, but the water nymph had noticed him, threw him a laughing glance, and then pounced.
Its arms came around Mirabelle in a tight embrace, before she could so much as lift a hand to throw a spell, and then it pressed its face to hers in a deadly kiss.
Soren reached them, tried to grab Mirabelle back, out of reach, but with a gurgling that sounded like laughter, the water nymph held tight. Soren slid his arms under Mirabelle’s, his hands dipping unpleasantly through icy water that moved against his skin, and swung her, lifting her off her feet and spinning, like his father had done to him and Rane as children.
The move wrenched her out of the nymph’s grasp and she took a deep, shuddering breath, but the nymph was tenacious. With a hard splash of annoyance, it leaped onto her, winding legs and arms around her and claiming her mouth again.
Panicked, Soren set her down as she struggled, her hands passing uselessly through the water, unable to gain a hold.
Soren spun her back to face him, the nymph still hanging on, gritted his teeth and shoved his face through the nymph’s head, clamped his lips over Mirabelle’s and breathed against her lips.
She understood, opening her mouth under his so he could give her some of his air, then he pulled back, took a deep breath, and did it again.
The icy water numbed his cheeks, slapped against him.
All he had was the moonstone and the fire stick, but he refused to watch Mirabelle drown in front of him.
The fire stick.
It had never gone out, never failed to light whatever Rane had put it to, even when they’d been out in the forest in pouring rain. It had given them a warm blaze no matter if the wood was so wet it should never have been able to burn.
He pulled it out, shoved it into the water nymph and it let out a scream that sounded like the pounding of a thousand waterfalls. Steam rose above its head as it jerked back from Mirabelle, allowing her a breath of her own.
Now the thing turned its attention on him. Its eyes were fathomless, but there was a spite and a rage on its face as it threw itself at him, the lashing out of a creature not used to being hurt.
He was ready again, putting the fire stick deep into its body, and again it jerked back, then slapped at him, the water of its hand turning hard as any man’s against his shoulder. He staggered to the side, and the nymph struck a quick backhander, catching his cheek and dancing just out of reach of the fire stick as he staggered again.
They faced each other, and he could see the relish, as well as the rage, on its face. It hissed at him, the angry sound of rapids, and then gathered itself up to launch at him, fists clenched like hammers. As it did, he caught movement from the corner of his eye.
Mirabelle was holding a stick she must have found on the forest floor, and she drew back her arm, shouted something as she hurled a flash of blue light.
The nymph froze to ice as it leaped, and a moment after it did, Mirabelle swung the stick like an axe, slamming it into the icy statue.
There was a sound of shattering crystal, and shards of ice littered the forest floor.
Both of them stared at each other, chests heaving.
“For all I know, it could melt back and reform,” Mirabelle said, her voice hoarse, as if she’d been screaming. She turned her head a little to the side, and he finally noticed the tiny ball of wild magic, shimmering in the light streaming through the trees. The excess magic from her spell.
He was glad she’d called sky magic, so he could hardly object to the inevitable by-product.
He watched her, saw the fresh fear on her face.
The wild magic spun, as if taking in its surroundings, and then it drifted off through the woods.
Mirabelle stared after it.
Soren saw the ice was already melting into the forest floor. “Let’s go.”
Mirabelle dragged her gaze from the disappearing wild magic, lifted the stick in her hand as if she were about to toss it away, and then tucked it under her arm.
“You were looking for a staff, weren’t you?” he asked her.
She gave him a strange look, looked down at the stick again and shrugged. “Yes.”
He held out his hand. “Let’s go, then. And this time, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MIRI STUMBLED the first few steps, her heart beating hard in her chest, but she let Soren pull her along, his big, calloused hand warm and comforting over hers.
“I can’t believe . . .” she took a sweet, clear breath of air, shuddered, “I can’t believe you put your face through it, gave me your breath.”
He squeezed her hand. “I wasn’t going to let you drown, Mirabelle.”
“Thank you.”
He looked across at her. “You’ve done the same for me. Stayed with me at Halakan, instead of taking the secret passage. And you’ve lost the silver pear because of it.”
His cheek was red and swollen where the nymph had hit him, but his eyes were clear blue, and although his face was thin after his time in Jasper’s dungeon, she realized he was beautiful.
The thought made her light-headed, made her heart flutter like a trapped bird in her chest.
He frowned. “We need to get a little further away, and then you can sit down, get your balance back.”
She gave a mute nod and let him set the pace.
“It’s not true, you know.”
“What isn’t?” He still hadn’t let go of her hand, and when he turned to her, she felt a flare of heat at how close he was.
“I did stay in Halakan to help you, but if I hadn’t come to rescue you, William and his new sorcerer would have taken me by surp
rise. I’d have lost the silver pear, and my life.” She tried to pry her hand from his; it was getting difficult to walk together as the path narrowed more and more, but he wouldn’t let go.
He shrugged. “You nearly died, anyway.”
She opened her mouth to protest, and he lifted a finger to her lips, just as she had done to him in William’s prison as they listened to the chains rattling as the guards raised the portcullis.
“So we’re in each other’s debt.” He turned back to the path as if there was nothing unusual in that statement.
She wasn’t used to this.
To alliances and life debts and fighting for her life.
Her father had seen to that, but she hadn’t stopped him, content to stay tucked away and safe in Halakan, bespelling as a sorcerer, but, Soren was right, behaving like a witch. Using her magic for small things that helped those around her, rather than large, flashy spells that boasted of power and brute force.
She realized she liked it, liked that life, and if she had a choice, she would return to it. But right now, every sorcerer had to decide whether to flee from the war Eric the Bold was stirring up, make an alliance, or challenge Eric and whoever else wanted to control the small, flourishing countries of Middleland.
Running was not an option. She was the mysterious sorcerer who was, amazingly, a woman. Eric wouldn’t leave her alone. Her father had known it, had been working for months on ways to protect her, and she knew the gem that had brought Soren to William’s stronghold was one of the tools he’d created to help her win.
She only knew about the gem at all because she’d seen it, questioned him, but he’d been tight-lipped, and secretive.
He’d told her she’d be safe. Safe with her dragon’s advantage.
She stumbled over a root. When he’d disappeared, she’d been worried, but then, one day, she’d simply known. Known he was dead, and not in a easy way. She’d mourned, but now pain lanced through her, grief and a sense of waste, of loss for no good reason for it.
She looked at Soren’s back; broad, strong, strapped down with bedrolls and their pack. He was part of her new reality, now.
She walked more forcefully, no longer letting Soren simply pull her along. Back straight, she took more notice of their surroundings, keeping an eye out for trouble as she noticed Soren had been doing all along.
The stick she’d picked up off the forest floor to use as a club against the nymph felt rough in her hands. When they made camp, she would have to see if she could find some river sand, smooth it a little.
It wasn’t a staff, but it had felt good in her hands when she’d cast the spell, had proven strong and sturdy when she’d used it to shatter the nymph.
That brought her mind back to the wild magic she’d created with her spell, and suddenly, instantly sick with fear, she tugged at Soren’s hand. “I forgot about the wild magic.”
He looked back at her, eyebrows raised. “What about it?”
“It hates sorcerers.” She fought him as he tried to keep moving ahead, clasping both her hands over his and pulling back. “It attacks us. That’s why it’s always a risk for a sorcerer to go into the Great Forest. Although . . .” She’d been weak-kneed and out of breath when she’d bespelled the nymph, had barely had any energy to be afraid of the wild magic she’d created, but it had floated away. Uninterested in her.
“My father told me never to use sky magic in the Great Forest. Any wild magic I created there would come straight for me . . .” He hadn’t been lying to her. She had never seen her father so deadly serious as when he’d told her that.
She also knew that the Great Forest had become a dumping ground for wild magic. Sorcerers banished it there and the idea of it, of its uncontrolled power, had always worried her. Disturbed her.
It had always struck her as irresponsible.
Soren moved his shoulder in a half-shrug. “Wild magic used to take an interest in anyone who was foolish enough to wander into the forest, but it has something better to do, now.”
She lifted her head sharply. “Something better to do?”
He laughed, and it transformed his face, lighting his eyes and smoothing the lines of worry and tension away. “Don’t sound so put out.”
She smiled back. “What could be better than attacking and killing sorcerers?”
The laughter left his face abruptly, like she’d punched him in the gut. “Don’t joke about that.” He hunched his shoulders.
“What is it?” She thought there was color high on his cheeks, and for the first time, he avoided looking her in the eyes.
“You’ll probably find out sooner or later, so I may as well tell you now.” He let go of her hand, turned to face her fully on the path.
“What?” Fear slid, sly and smooth as a snake, down her spine.
“Until now, for the last year and a bit, the idea of attacking and killing sorcerers is the only thing that kept me going.”
She blinked. “All sorcerers?”
He shrugged. “To me, then, one was much like another. Although my specific target was Nuen.”
“Why?”
He shrugged again. “Wild magic. Nuen’s wild magic killed my father. My brother and I have lived on the edges of the Great Forest all our lives, we’ve seen the results of wild magic, and while Rane spent his time trying to understand it, to work out a way to reverse it, I’ve been focused on ending it at its source.”
“Sorcerers.” She bit her lip. “And yet, you saved me, even though you must have realized what I was when I fought with that sorcerer in the courtyard. You could have left me at William’s, in the dungeon, but you didn’t.”
He shook his head. “You haven’t ever harmed me or mine, or anyone else for that matter.”
“But without the silver pear, I’m the same as all the others, Soren. You saw the wild magic I created when I froze that nymph.”
He nodded. “It doesn’t matter now. In fact, the more wild magic sorcerers make, the better.”
She stared at him, worrying her bottom lip. “What’s changed?”
“As I said, wild magic has better things to do now than make mischief or attack sorcerers, although I never knew about it hating sorcerers, I have to admit. No wonder Nuen never set foot in the Great Forest. He knew how much wild magic he’d banished there.”
“What is it doing now?” She was almost afraid to ask, expected him to sneer at her, at what new terrible thing sorcerers had leashed on the world. Instead, he grinned.
“Now,” he said, “it follows my brother’s betrothed around like vicious, purple puppy dogs, doing whatever she asks.”
She looked at him carefully, so sure he must be joking. “Wild magic can’t be controlled.” If it could be, her father would have known.
Soren held her gaze. “Yes it can. If you happen to be a wild magic witch.”
* * *
They saw no-one for the rest of the afternoon.
Only a few, hardy souls who made their living as woodcutters still lived within the Great Forest’s boundaries, and in recent times, more and more had fled.
He liked the solitude. Liked the silence.
Perhaps he’d become used to it, in Jasper’s dungeon.
He especially liked the sunlight. It streamed in through the trees, illuminating Mirabelle in a diffused, golden light.
Ever since their talk on the path, she’d kept her hands close to her sides, so he’d had no choice but to step aside and let her walk ahead to keep her in sight.
His eyes kept catching on the way her pale hair seemed to absorb the sunshine, reflecting it back so it glowed.
He didn’t know what was going through her head.
That he wanted to so badly made him edgy. He felt jolted awake in her presence. The last year had been long, dark and there hadn’t been a moment of lightness or joy in it.
Even Rane couldn’t pull him out of the anger and despair that had descended on him and sucked him under.
The sight of his father—smooth wood, rough bark a
nd now, after more than a year, green leaves, standing in the position he’d been in just as the wild magic had rolled over them—had fueled him, helped him plumb the seemingly bottomless pit of black rage within.
The long, solitary darkness of Jasper’s dungeon had been his first nudge out of the undertow. Knowing Jasper was using his capture to get something from Rane had scared him for the first time. He’d put the only person he loved in danger with his recklessness.
Being rescued by Kayla, realizing there was more to wild magic, to all of it, than the simple black and white he’d boiled it down to, had given him another hard shove.
Now he’d met Mirabelle, and he felt as if the current had finally thrown him, weak and water-logged, back into something resembling his old self.
It was uncomfortable.
But it was better than the numb rage he’d lived with for so long.
He was so deep in thought he nearly ran straight into Mirabelle’s back.
She’d stopped, half-turned, her eyes fixed ahead.
He followed her gaze and saw a small village in a circular clearing, sitting in a patch of light, surrounded by deep green shadows.
She took a step forward, and he put a hand on her shoulder.
He didn’t trust it.
“What’s wrong?”
“Too many things to count.”
Someone cried out, the sound coming from one of the steep-roofed wooden houses.
Soren tightened his grip as Mirabelle tried to go toward it, and when she looked at him, anger snapping in her eyes, he lifted the moonstone to show her. “I’ll go first. Wait here.”
He closed his fist over the stone, and walked toward what had now become a long, sustained wail, but he looked back at Mirabelle.
She stepped off the path, standing deep in the shadows thrown by the late afternoon sun, and satisfied, he focused on the trouble in front of him.
There were six houses in the clearing, arranged in a horse-shoe around a tiny green covered in small wildflowers. The wail was coming from one of the houses in the center, and Soren walked slowly toward it. The houses all had an abandoned air to them. Sticks and leaves, fallen from the trees surrounding the clearing, lay on the roofs in a messy tangle.
The Silver Pear (The Dark Forest Book 2) Page 9