Nett paused. “I don’t either.”
Claire took a deep breath as the stories she’d heard over their journey came back to her.
“Do you think … Am I a Gemmer?” she asked so quietly she barely even heard herself.
Nett was slow to answer the question. “I don’t know what to think,” he finally admitted. His eyes crinkled in thought. “It’s possible that a long time ago a Gemmer found your world and stayed.”
Stones replaced Claire’s heart and stomach. “I don’t want to be a Gemmer!” she said. “They enslaved the Forgers. They hunted unicorns!”
“All the guilds did evil things during the war,” Nett said. He sat down, dangling his legs over the deck. When he patted the wooden planks beside him, Claire thumped down next to him.
“The Guild War was a terrible time,” Nett continued. “And don’t forget, there’s Queen Estelle. She was a Gemmer. She’s a hero for all of Arden. Even if she didn’t save the unicorns, she tried. That’s more than anyone else did.”
But misery had hooked its teeth into Claire and wouldn’t let go. Without thinking, she reached for her pencil for comfort, but, of course, it wasn’t there. She slammed her hand down on the wooden planks.
“What’s wrong?” Nett asked.
“My pencil,” Claire said. “I know it’s silly, but without it, I feel—” She broke off as Nett’s eyes widened. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Your pencil,” he said, “it’s made from letter stone.”
Claire shook her head. “It’s graphite.”
“Maybe it’s called that where you come from,” Nett said, a new seriousness in his voice Claire had never heard before. “But I saw your drawing. It’s called letter stone here. It’s not exactly a rock, but it’s a mineral on its way to becoming one. How do you feel when you draw?”
Claire pulled her knees to her chest, and stared out at the swamp. “Like all the levels of my brain are working at the same time, but not thinking at all. I lose track of everything except what is right in front of me.”
“That’s how Tilling is for me,” Nett said. “Only, I hear a kind of song coming from my plants. And I can hear when the tune is flat or sharp, and I work to make it sweet again.” He shrugged. “But it’s different for everyone, even people in the same guild.”
With a groan, Claire lowered her head onto her knees.
“Even if you are a Gemmer,” Nett said softly, “you’re still Claire. A name doesn’t change that.”
They were quiet, though Claire’s mind was a whirl as she ran through the possibilities. Could Dad know about Arden? Did Mom? But if they did, they definitely would have protected their daughters from passages into other worlds masquerading as chimneys.
Great-Aunt Diana, a voice whispered to her. Great-Aunt Diana with her treasures would know. But she was dead.
“There,” Nett said suddenly. “It’s starting!”
Claire lifted her head. “What—?” But before she could finish her question the answer came in a spark of orange. A single firefly, an ember in the night, flashed in the bushes below.
Soon another joined its pinprick of light, and then another, and then another, until the air around Nett and Claire was bursting with the dazzling pattern of firefly dances.
It was beautiful. It was glorious.
“Do you know if a group of fireflies is called anything?” Claire asked. “You know how lions live in prides and oysters are in a bed?”
“I know that a bunch of crows is called a murder, but I don’t think anyone has a name for a gathering of fireflies,” he said. “Why, do you have a name for them?”
And for once, she had an answer. “I think they should be called a glory—a glory of fireflies.”
Nett didn’t say anything, but in the scattered bursts of light, Claire saw him smile thoughtfully.
“A glory of fireflies. I like that. Countess Molly, a poet from the Golden Age, once said that to call a group of unicorns a ‘herd’ is to liken a diamond to a brick. A gathering of unicorns should not be compared to a herd of cattle. Rather, more than one unicorn at any time is a blessing.”
“A blessing of unicorns and a glory of fireflies,” Claire said out loud. The words sounded pretty and protective somehow, though she didn’t know why.
“Sophie would like that,” Nett said.
“Yes,” Claire said softly. “I think she would, too.”
They watched in silence together as the fireflies swirled up from the ground to eventually rest on branches.
“Are you feeling better?” Claire asked.
“A little. Still hot, and I’m so …” A soft snore punctuated the end of his sentence. Claire smiled, and gazed at the moon. It looked so round and ripe, she half-wondered if it might break off from the sky and fall into her hand. With Nett by her side, she slipped into sleep.
But in the morning, Nett was worse.
CHAPTER
24
Gray edged Nett like frost on a leaf. His chest rattled with each breath and his eyes, though open, didn’t seem to look at the others.
Sena placed her hand on his forehead. It came away slick with sweat. She pushed his sleeve up gently, and Claire gasped.
His skin had risen in lumps, swollen as though the razor mud rash from before had settled beneath his skin onto muscle and bone. And maybe that’s exactly what had happened.
“He needs a Tiller, maybe even a master Tiller,” Sena said grimly. “There’s no plant or poultice I know of that will stop him from—I mean, that will help him make it through.”
The air was suddenly impossible to breathe. It hurt to breathe, as though all the oxygen had turned into a fine glass dust. The memory of IV drips and clear tubes surfaced, its snapping jaws threatening to pull Claire down. The doctors had said the tubes that linked under and through her sister were there to help Sophie stop hurting, but the hospital hadn’t done anything for Claire’s pain.
Yet Sophie had healed; nothing was impossible. Claire forced herself to take deep breaths and focus.
Sena had pulled her hair into a single thick braid over her shoulder, and she tugged on it as she thought. “Dampwood, the Tiller village Nett mentioned, isn’t too far from here. It’s the best chance we have.”
Claire clamped down hard on her disappointment. She knew they must be close to Sophie. She could feel it. But she couldn’t abandon Nett.
“Let’s pack up and get him there,” Claire said. She gave Sena’s cloak a hard flap and a cloud of dust billowed in the sunlight.
“No.” Sena’s yellow eyes met Claire’s. “You need to find Sophie. I know what it’s like to have lost your family. Don’t make my mistake and wait too long. There’s only one more lighthouse between here and the Petrified Forest. Do you think you can manage?”
Claire’s answer came to her swiftly: No.
She didn’t know Arden, didn’t know how to avoid all its dangers. And even if she made it to the Sorrowful Plains, how would she get back home? She didn’t know the way to the well. But even though Claire knew the impossibility of what Sena was asking, it didn’t mean she wouldn’t try.
“Wraiths, wyverns, and Malchain?” Claire smiled nervously. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”
Sena laughed, but it was a hollow sound, like a door closing on an empty room.
Claire looked down at Nett. His eyes were thin crescents on damp skin. Her small courage fumbled. “Let me help you get him to Dampwood first,” she said. “He’s too heavy for you to carry all the way.”
But Sena was already lifting Nett up by his armpits. “I’ll be fine. If I put him on one of those giant lily pads we saw, I can drag him, like a sled. It won’t be fun, but it’s the quickest way. You need to leave now. You cannot be on the Sorrowful Plains when the sun sets, got it? The plains are the location of one of the bloodiest tragedies in Arden’s history, the Unicorn Massacre. More than a hundred unicorns were killed that day. There are more wraiths on the plains than anywhere else in Arden.”
Suddenly, Sena
’s strong arms shot out and wrapped Claire into a hug. She let go just as quickly and began unbuckling the belt around her waist. “This is just a loan,” she told a stunned Claire as she handed over her sword. “But by accepting Fireblood, you’re promising to return her to me. Do you understand?”
“Sena, I can’t—”
The belt was suddenly around her waist, the strap pulled tight. “Too late. She’s in your hands, and now you’ve made the promise.”
Scared that her voice would be as high as a mouse’s squeak, Claire just nodded. The blade was surprisingly heavy, and she felt herself listing to the side. Sena tugged Fireblood, spreading the weight evenly across her hips.
Claire wrapped her hand around the hilt, her thumb and fingers barely meeting. Would she even be able to lift it if—when—danger came for her?
Sena nodded her approval and gave Claire a gentle shove. “I’ll take care of Nett. Now go.”
As Claire squelched away, she turned back, only once, to see Sena straining against a swamp-vine harness, Nett unnaturally still on the lily pad.
The Petrified Forest had once been called the Hollow, a small strip of towering pines, feathered warblers, and furred creatures of all types that had edged the Sorrowful Plains—or so Nett had told Claire yesterday as they’d navigated the swamp.
The Tillers of the Hollow had been the most skilled of all, even, legend said, coaxing four living trees—oak, sycamore, pine, and hawthorn—to bend and grow together into the throne of Arden.
Nett’s eyes had gleamed when he spoke of the throne, the thought of such a wonder overshadowing the tragedy of its demise. In the midst of the Guild War, Tillers had persuaded the throne to grow thorns, piercing deep into the flesh of the unsuspecting Gemmer king, Estelle’s father, and leaving him badly scarred.
In retaliation, the king had the throne burned to ash, and the Gemmers attacked the Hollow, turning their homes into rock. Like winter’s first frost, stone crept over the forest, suffocating life from it.
Claire knew that Arden was full of monsters—wraiths, chimera, even wyverns—but the Gemmers seemed to be their own kind of monster. They had killed an entire forest for revenge, not caring about the innocent lives of those who had made their home in the Hollow. The Gemmers sounded evil. She thought briefly of her conversation with Nett last night and then shoved it away. She didn’t want to think about Gemmers anymore.
Claire gripped Fireblood’s hilt as she moved past the seventh and final lighthouse. Fog was descending and she was worried about the possibility of losing the road or getting turned around. But soon she felt a change in the air. The ground beneath her began to harden, and stagnant puddles gave way to saplings. Pushing aside a last fern, Claire knew she’d finally reached the Petrified Forest.
In front of her was a forest of red—not the cheery red of fire engines, but a red that had been mixed with brown. What was that shade of paint called? Russet? Carmine? Whatever it was, it was the color of dried blood.
You’re stalling, she heard Sophie in her head. Stop looking—do!
She pulled Fireblood out of its sheath. She didn’t know how to use it, but Sena’s blade made her feel less alone. With one glance back at the swamp, Claire stepped into the Petrified Forest.
It looked like someone had brushed stone glue onto everything in the woods, cementing branches, twigs, and brush to the forest floor. A single narrow path cut through the trees like a scar, and Claire followed it. She couldn’t hack away at the rock-hard undergrowth with Fireblood, and instead had to clamber over bushes and crawl under low-hanging branches.
As she was keeping her eyes on her feet, it was only luck that saved Claire from walking straight into a vine with a flower as round as a fist. Instinctively, she tried to push it aside, and her hand slammed against rough rock.
“Ow!” she yelped. She looked at the stone flower. If she were a Gemmer, wouldn’t she be able to sense the magic within the rock?
Cautiously, she reached her finger out and brushed a stone petal. There was no hum against her fingertip, no tingle in her bones. Closing her eyes, Claire strained to feel something.
But there was nothing.
She drew her hand back, not knowing whether to be pleased or disappointed. She didn’t want to be a Gemmer, of course, but it would have been nice to have magic—and even nicer to be able to do something other than run away if anything terrible showed up. Though, so far, nothing seemed too unusual, except for the amount of rock.
Turning away from the stone vine, Claire resumed walking. Had Queen Estelle gone through this path to reach the last unicorn? Had she seen this stone-barren place and wanted to return it to its green glory with the help of unicorn magic?
She wondered how much time it had taken her to get to the Petrified Forest, and how much longer she needed to go until she reached the plains. The light that managed to trickle through the stone branches was dull and unchanging. Any amount of time could have passed. Remembering Sena’s warning, Claire broke into a jog.
Her breath became ragged as she pounded down the stone path. Sweat dripped in her eyes. The air was hot and still and quiet, except for the rustle of leaves.
She stopped short.
There was no wind. So how could the leaves be rustling? Could stone leaves even move? It didn’t seem possible, and yet she was definitely hearing something.
Straining her ears, Claire listened.
Now the rustle sounded more like whispers. Voices. She looked around wildly, but no one was there. The skin on the back of her neck prickled. Holding Fireblood tight, she turned and plunged into the thickest part of the forest. Her feet slammed against the ground as she darted from tree to tree, her entire being screaming at her to put as much distance as possible between her and whoever was out there.
She heard footsteps behind her—someone was following her!
Her breath came in tearing gasps as she willed herself to go faster. But the pounding of her heart was soon replaced by something else: the pounding of hooves.
She would never be able to outrun a horse!
With growing horror, she realized the hooves weren’t just coming from behind her—they were also coming toward her.
Had Fyrton’s inspectors come for her?
Though she was hot, Claire’s blood went cold. She pivoted left, but instead of getting softer, the hoofbeats only grew louder, as though a herd of a hundred horses was racing through the forest.
And above the bass of hoofbeats were equine screams of fear, the treble of dogs’ whines, and human voices:
“Don’t let them escape!”
“Beware their horns …”
“Sound the hunting bugle!”
Tucking Fireblood under her arm, Claire covered her ears. With her elbows close to her chest, she tried to outrun whatever horrible thing was happening.
“In the name of the queen …”
“They’re on the plains!”
“For the Gemmer queen!”
The screams pulled at Claire, wanting to smother her in their terror. Blinded by panic, she didn’t realize she’d come upon a stream. Tumbling, she fell into the water—
—and into blissful silence.
Claire stood up in the ankle-deep water, hands on knees as she gasped for breath. The screams, the hoofbeats—the fear—were all gone. The only sound now was the rush of water flowing over rock.
Looking toward the rocky shore, Claire expected to see an army of men and hounds burst out from the trees at any moment. At the very least, she thought she’d see a flash of mane.
But there was nothing.
Claire wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep from falling apart.
Scanning the russet forest around her, she held Fireblood out in front of her and cautiously walked out of the stream.
As soon as she took a few steps away from the water, the whispers stirred.
A few more steps, and the whispers turned again into the clear sound of screams and hoofbeats.
Claire fled
back into the stream.
Peaceful quiet, again.
Confused and overwhelmed, she sat down on a rock that poked out midstream. Her boots grew heavy with water, but she didn’t care. She was sure about one thing now: the hoofbeats and the voices weren’t really there.
At least, not there in the same way she was there.
There was magic at work here—she just had to figure it out.
Splashing cool water on her face, Claire tried to remember what Nett had said about Arden’s magic. Magic was in the raw material; it wasn’t housed within him—or any of them—but in all the possibilities of what a seed could eventually be, or a thread, or a scrap of metal, or a … a pebble.
A curious thought sparked, then glowed.
In a way, rocks in her world spoke, too—through echoes. Claire vaguely remembered a science teacher once mentioning something about sound waves reflecting off surfaces. She wasn’t really sure how it worked, but why couldn’t the same principle be applied here?
What if, when the forest had been newly changed to rock, the sounds of the past had somehow gotten stuck here, reflecting and bouncing endlessly, never to fade?
And if that were true, it was no wonder the Tillers and the rest of the guilds avoided this place. It was haunted by horrible deeds of the past.
The hoofbeats hadn’t been from horses at all, but—her stomach twisted—from unicorns.
Claire had heard the sounds of a unicorn hunt.
Only that could explain the anguished braying and snarling dogs.
“Okay, Claire, okay,” she muttered to herself. “Get a grip.” She didn’t want to leave the safety of the stream, whose running water must somehow disrupt the echoes, but Sophie needed her.
“It’s just sound,” Claire told herself firmly. “It’s like thunder; it can’t hurt you.”
But as she waded out of the stream and away from its protective babble, the wailing sounds of the hunt slammed into her again. Her knees trembled. She pushed on, and the voices began again, clearer this time.
“We’ve herded them into the plains, Your Majesty.”
“Then do what you must.” A cool, light female voice drifted between stone branches.
The Unicorn Quest Page 19