Forestborn

by Elayne Audrey Becker

  “We can just wait until they leave.” Finley shrugs, then sways on the spot.

  “Or—” I reach out a hand to steady him. Deliberate further, then decide. “Or we stop at Bren and Tomas’s shop. It’s much closer, and that neighborhood will be empty by now.”

  “Bren and Tomas will be at the castle like everyone else,” says Finley, his tone light with feigned ignorance.

  I shift my weight to the other leg. “Their apprentice won’t.”

  Finley shakes his head at once.

  “You must have seen how this works,” I press. “The more you let your temperature rise, the more likely it is you’ll lapse into another episode.”

  “I’ll be fine until the crowds disperse.”

  “And if you’re not?”

  Finley scrapes the toe of his boot through the grass.

  “You know Helos can help, and we can be there in a quarter of the time. Please, Finley.” Visiting my brother will mean disobeying King Gerar’s orders. Neither option is good, but I’m afraid chancing another episode would be worse.

  I can only hope King Gerar feels the same.

  Finley unfolds his arms at last, and some of the tension lifts from my back.

  “Thank you.”

  It doesn’t take long to descend the remaining stretch of woods. Mercifully, sound rushes in and sweeps the eerie silence away as soon as we pass the tree line and cross the grassy strip hugging Roanin’s outer edge. Finley says nothing when I alter my appearance; though I’m required to maintain my natural form on castle grounds in order to be identifiable, and thus held accountable, outside the castle I can look as I wish. The shift is a simple matter of envisioning the person I want to become—not their body as a whole, but the pieces of it. Hair curled and lengthened to my waist; narrow, dark eyes exchanged for doe-like, chestnut ones; my typically tall frame shrunk half a head shorter. I pull matter from the air and direct it to the skin, the eyes, the bones, which each become numb until their transformation is complete.

  Though nothing about my natural form marks me as anything other than human, changing my face when I can has become a matter of course—always safer to have a disguise, should anything go wrong. For most of Alemara’s history, magical and nonmagical people lived together in peace. Forest walkers encouraged timber woods to flourish, and whisperers kept wild animals away from livestock through their powers of persuasion. Humans delighted in watching shifters change form and wished they could do the same.

  But ever since the cursed Prediction deviated from its usual course, tension between magical and nonmagical people has heated to a steady boil. Telyan may not have gone so far as to emulate its neighbor to the far north, where the king of Eradain forges fear into law, but the atmosphere here grew unpleasant enough that most magical people left anyway. Unwilling to live hidden, and tired of the street fights and hurled insults, of new suspicion and centuries-old human jealousy mingling into something nastier, dangerous.

  Most moved across the river, into the Western Vale.

  Helos and I dare not return.

  Stepping into the unwalled city, my nose wrinkles at the sudden onslaught of late summer urban air, staler than the forest breeze and smelling faintly of the horses that walk the wider sections after dawn. It’s a relief to find the stretch of merchant homes and local craft shops are indeed unusually quiet. Finley trails with hunched shoulders and restless hands stuffed into pockets as I lead him through a series of side streets often so narrow that the sapphire sky thins to a ribbon overhead. Around us, russet and gray buildings crouch in silent wait, tight and close-quartered in their impervious brick and granite shells. I force us to move at a fast clip in case any onlookers remain at their windows.

  Around another corner, and the apothecary shop comes into view at last, half-hidden behind the bend in the road. Its wooden door is closed, but I try the handle anyway. Locked.

  “Helos,” I whisper, looking up at the second-story window; he lives in the cramped apartment above the shop, Bren and Tomas’s former residence before they married and moved somewhere nicer. No head pops out. “Helos.”

  At my side, Finley shuffles his feet a little, stealing glances over his shoulder, then at a tear in his dusty black suit, then down at the stones beneath his feet. Anywhere but the door.

  We don’t have time for this. I pound my fist against the wood.

  There’s a noise behind the wall. The door swings open and Helos appears, the dark hair that falls midway between his jaw and shoulders thoroughly mussed.

  “Can I help you?” he asks, fingers fumbling with the top button on what was once a crisp white shirt. I frown at the sight of the worn fabric; his salary is far less than mine, but he refuses to accept money from me no matter how many times I offer it.

  Before I can reply, he catches Finley’s eye and freezes.

  “Hello,” Finley says, sounding a lot more composed than his shuffling feet suggest.

  Helos takes in the face of the friend he hasn’t seen in more than a month, then switches his attention to the stranger by his side. I mutter my name to confirm it’s me, and the floorboards creak as the three of us step into the lamp-lit shop.

  A counter bisects the room toward the back, guarding the entrance to a narrow hallway with rows of cubbies to either side of it. My brother latches the door while I shift back to my natural form, regaining the brown waves, olive skin, and height that we both share. Finley crosses to the counter and lifts a weekly leaflet from the surface.

  “A bit of light reading?” he guesses with a wry grin, holding up the creased parchment.

  His face stares out from the leaflet, along with his siblings’ and his father’s, in a family portrait reproduced near the centerfold.

  “What are you doing here?” Helos says, jostling the question aside. “Is something wrong? Why aren’t you at the ceremony?”

  “We went for a walk in the Forest,” I reply, and Finley purses his lips like I’ve betrayed him. “He had an episode, and now he’s feverish.” I pause. “I saw it, Helos. The sway and the silence.”

  My brother stares at Finley.

  Fallow Throes. Incurable. Fatal. The unspoken prognosis hangs over the room like a veil.

  “Stay here,” he instructs before disappearing down the narrow hallway. Finley scratches the back of his head, sidling idly around the clean-swept perimeter. Moments later, Helos reemerges with a tightly cinched cloth bag in hand. “Sit.”

  Finley sinks onto a wicker bench set against the wall as Helos withdraws a gnarled stem from the bag, tears off two mottled green-and-purple leaves, and places them in a mortar on the counter. I lean against the painted wall opposite Finley.

  “What other symptoms? Fatigue?” Helos asks, grabbing a pestle from one of the cubbies.

  Finley watches him work. “Does it matter?”

  “What symptoms?” he repeats, keeping his eyes on the leaves he’s grinding. “Any pain?”

  The sound of stone scraping stone fills the lavender-scented room.

  “My legs,” Finley admits at last. “And my feet.”

  Now it’s my turn to look betrayed. He never told me he was in pain. My skin tingles when I think of the pace I set to get here.

  I didn’t even ask.

  But then, Helos has always been the better of us. When King Gerar granted an audience a week after his wife’s death, his spineless advisers recounted the ominous circumstances of our arrival and urged execution or exile. King Gerar chose mercy over fear, refusing to inflict punishment in the absence of demonstrable crime. These are frightened children, I remember him saying, running a weary hand along his face. What harm do you imagine them capable of? To the throne room’s barely suppressed outrage, he then offered us a job—only one, since our joint presence in court was controversial enough to endanger us. One job that meant food and coin and all the other benefits that come with being in the king’s favor.

  Helos told me to take it. Just like that. That’s the kind of person he is.

 
So I took it.

  That’s the kind of person I am.

  When Helos has reduced the leaves to a fine powder, he nudges the substance into a glass with water and walks it over to Finley, who has been staring. “Drink this,” he says, crouching in front of the wicker bench.

  Finley accepts the glass with two hands, gaze flitting away from Helos now that my brother is near. His discomfort chafes the cracks in my core. I rub my arms and start to pace.

  “Your father won’t be happy you came here for help,” Helos says quietly.

  I glance at Finley, suddenly reluctant for him to admit that this detour was my idea.

  “He’ll forgive me this once, I think,” Fin says, his gaze softening.

  “Not enough to lift the ban, I suppose.”

  Silence descends with smothering tension, so sharp I can practically taste it. Finley may be able to feign ignorance with ease, but my brother has always been a landscape of earnestness.

  “I’m sorry, Helos.” Finley’s shoulders droop. “My hands are tied.”

  “Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.”

  Helos takes the empty glass and tidies up behind the counter, while Finley studies the lines of his palms. Though I’ve ached for things to return to the way they once were, when conversations were effortless between us, I suddenly find myself longing to be anywhere else. It’s not that King Gerar seems to have given into the court’s suspicions at last, though the notion that my brother and his healer hands could ever cause someone harm is absurd. It’s the stifling awareness that Finley, a person so willing to flout the rules he would skip a Prediction reading, has made no attempt to break this one.

  “You should go home,” Helos says at last. “The city’s always a madhouse after the reading. Everyone floods the taverns and streets for ale and gossip. It isn’t safe for you.”

  “That sounds more fun,” Finley drawls, resting his head against the wall and closing his eyes. “And the people love us. I bet they’d welcome the sight.”

  Helos and I exchange a look. The Danofers may still retain the majority of their people’s favor, but King Gerar’s military tax has hit farmers and even the merchant class pretty hard in recent months. Magic’s recession east of the river may have made the land here quieter and more predictable, but the soil has undeniably suffered as a result. Telyan is largely farming country, and fields just aren’t as fertile as they used to be. And while the army does have a reputation for giving its soldiers a good life, it can be difficult to sell those who haven’t enlisted on devoting already limited income to weaponry and supplies instead of clothing and food.

  Not for the first time, I wish that Finley’s joy in learning extended more to the present, not just the future.

  “My point still stands,” Helos argues. “It would take you hours to get through a mob. What if you have another episode?”

  Finley doesn’t respond.

  “We’ll go back through the Forest and wait it out,” I say. “Now that you’ve treated the fever.”

  “Spoil sports,” Finley grumbles. But he doesn’t object.

  Likely he, too, knows my brother’s concern is well-founded. Despite the crown’s efforts to stem panic among its people, the spread of a mysterious illness has everyone on edge. Seeing a prince with the symptoms would only stoke the flames.

  “I’m coming back with you,” Helos says abruptly, looking to me, then back at Finley.

  Finley’s eyes snap open, and my heart sinks. “Helos.”

  “The royal healers are idiots. I should be the one tending you.” He takes one step forward, then stops. “Come on, Fin. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

  No one knows what they’re doing, because no one knows how to fix this. “You’re still just an apprentice,” I remind him gently. I’m resorting to the arguments I know the healers in the castle will make, even if King Gerar decides to lift the ban. “You don’t have enough experience.”

  “I managed to keep us alive, didn’t I?” There’s no bitterness or accusation in the statement. Just truth.

  “That was different,” I mumble.

  He waves a hand. “Let me see if I can help.”

  “Look, you know his stance on this. The Prediction—”

  “The river take the Prediction,” he says. “It means nothing. You’ve said so yourself.” He glances to Finley for backup, but Finley’s looking away.

  When I don’t respond, Helos crosses to the window and slumps against the ledge, helpless.

  “It doesn’t matter what we think,” Finley says at last, running a hand over his neck. The feverish flush is clearing from his cheeks. “The court fears the Prediction, and my father is not immune to the pressure they exert on him.”

  Helos’s knuckles are turning white where he grips the ledge. “At least let me walk you back. Just to the door, and then I’ll leave. I promise.” Finley’s bent with his arms resting on his legs. He’s watching Helos intently. “Please.”

  Though I’m still shaking my head, Finley seems to fracture under the strength of my brother’s plea. He drops his chin.

  “I could lose my job for this,” I remind him. “I’ll be in enough trouble for not delivering you like I said I would. Helos can’t come.” I know my brother. He doesn’t hide behind borrowed forms like I do.

  “I’ll tell my father this was all my idea,” Finley says, pushing to his feet. “He will just have to blame me instead.” He smiles, but there’s a trace of pain behind it. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  After the miserable morning we’ve had, the walk back through the woods feels almost like a gift. The tension in Bren and Tomas’s shop, so heavy with the weight of unspoken things, softens a little in the fresh forest air. Helos offers an arm when Finley proves shaky on his feet, and the added support seems to steady Fin in more ways than one. The gloom recedes from his expression, familiar warmth blossoming in its wake. Soon enough, he has lapsed into a smug recounting of some horse he raced to victory the other day, and the coin he won off the Royal Guard who failed to beat him, because Finley has always been good at finding the light.

  As always, it draws in Helos and me like moths to a flame. Whether he’s in denial or simply desperate for distraction, Helos finds a smile and points out the questionable ethics of a wealthy royal making bets with his hapless, overworked Guard. Fin insists he was simply proving the strength of his word by honoring their agreement and elbows me in the side, waiting for me to back him up. I don’t, because Helos is probably right, but the weight pressing against my chest eases all the same. Soothed by the tug of friendship, the old rhythm between us temporarily restored. These precious moments of dappled sunlight and birdsong on the breeze in which we can pretend that nothing has changed.

  For many seasons following our arrival in Roanin, Finley would call for my brother and me. Almost all disapproved, particularly given the Prediction, but no one would challenge a prince. So the three of us spent countless afternoons wandering the wilder parts of the gardens and grounds—the groves of red maple and sycamore trees, and dogwoods laden with blue jays. Around the stream that cuts through the carefully tailored grass, partially shrouded in the shadow of the mountains beyond. Finley is keen with charcoal and parchment, and some days he would ask me to alter my features so he could replicate them on paper. Helos, he never asked to change.

  Those days ended with a few simple strokes of King Gerar’s pen.

  The midday sun has curled around the mountains north of the city by the time the grounds empty and we reach the castle wall’s secret door. Fin pulls the heavy key from his pocket and gestures for Helos to step through first—newly reluctant, judging by his frequent glances, to part ways once more. At the sight of the door, however, my mood has sobered, falling back to grim reality. I watch my brother go, nerves blazing.

  Ahead, Castle Roanin’s northern face is kindling in the light. The building is a complex collection of sloping walls and narrow turrets topped with spires. Wings stretch east and wes
t, encasing a vast interior that took me weeks to learn to navigate. Mounted high on a post along the roof’s crenellation, Telyan’s standard catches the wind—a gray cut of cloth, and at the center a green oak encased within a broad purple mountain.

  As the rear entrance comes into view, so does a handful of men and women gathered before it, all but one wearing the purple-accented gray uniforms marking them members of the Royal Guard. My stomach curdles when I see the figure heading the pack.

  At sixteen, Fin is still very much a boy, but with only four years on him, Weslyn seems to have stamped out the remnants of youth with a vengeance. He studies our hesitant approach now with a broad stance and crossed arms, forever Finley’s opposite in so many ways: sturdier, steadier, stronger. He is also harder—to read, to talk with, closed off to the point of absurdity, considering the world seems to fall at his feet. In fishing harbors and community halls, the people of Telyan whisper that one look from his red-brown eyes will give strength in the darkest of times. But I know that is a lie.

  I have seen the way he looks at me.

  “Where have you been?” he demands of Finley, having shed his suit jacket since I saw him last, but none of his gloomy mood. He walks toward us, away from the guards, his enormous, wiry gray deerhound named Astra close on his heels. “You do know what today is, I assume?”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.” Finley hovers a couple of paces before him, hands in his pockets. Our brief attempt at levity at an end. “There was something I needed to take care of.”

  “Today?” Weslyn’s eyebrows arch in disbelief as Astra wags her tail at us, tongue lolling.

  Standing side by side, the two brothers could not look less alike. While Finley is fair-haired, pale-skinned, and blue-eyed, his brother is everything darker. Loose brown curls crown a tan face lined with stubble. If Finley is a sail, then Weslyn is the ship. Finley is an ever-flowing river; Weslyn is an oak, rooted to the ground.