“Ow!”
Bran’s voice jolted Gwen out of the haze of the moment. She tore herself away from Aidan, who twisted to look at Bran. Bran sat in a pile of leaves, where he rubbed his bottom gingerly and peered owlishly at them.
“You dropped me,” he said to Aidan. His eyes lit on Gwen’s burning face and he grinned. “Oh, I see. You thought you’d take a little—break, and lose your concentration. Don’t mind me, I’ll sit here and wait.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at them, but immediately dissolved into a fit of coughing, green and orange sparks forcing out of his mouth in fitful bursts.
Gwen touched Aidan’s elbow.
“You take the backpack for a bit. I’ll hover Bran.”
Aidan didn’t argue. He slung the pack over his shoulder.
“Here, let me show you the spell.”
Aidan brought his hands up to touch her temples. Gwen bit her lip nervously. She’d seen Bran “teach” a spell to Aidan in the past, through some kind of magical transfer, but had never had it done to herself. Come to think of it, she’d never seen Aidan transfer either. He narrowed his eyes in concentration, staring directly into hers. She gulped.
Her vision fogged over, even though her eyes were wide open. She stiffened, but immediately felt a presence at her temples, a strange and yet familiar warmth that was not hers. It ran through her body and wrapped itself around her core. It squeezed once, twice—then knowledge exploded in her head, a dazzling burst of light that left a vague imprint of a memory, of performing a lightening spell on a heavy bag of flour in a kitchen with shifting patterns of sunlight that danced over brown linoleum.
The sensation of being overtaken by another presence was too much for Gwen. She felt naked, exposed, letting someone deep into the center of her core. She sprang away from Aidan’s fingers on her temples. The fog in her eyes cleared and Aidan stood before her, looking puzzled.
“Did you get it? What’s wrong?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I got it.” Gwen tried to calm herself. Aidan seemed fine—what was wrong with her? Why was she so jumpy? It was just Aidan. She took a deep breath and turned to Bran. “Okay, let’s get going.”
***
Bran slept while Gwen hovered him down the path. He occasionally sighed, his breath a blue cloud. He was so pale. Every time Gwen looked at him, she found herself walking a little faster, willing Bran to hold on, to not get any worse. Her limbs ached and her head pounded with the effort of the spell, but Bran was in no shape to walk by himself. Aidan trudged silently behind her. They hadn’t spoken much since the spell transfer, and Gwen wondered what Aidan thought of her behavior. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed. She grimaced. It was unlikely he had missed her abrupt leap away from him.
The trees continued to thin, and a breeze brushed against Gwen’s bare legs and across her cheeks. Was it warmer here? The maples they now walked under had denser foliage than the trees of yesterday. Only an occasional leaf drifted down from the canopy, which was filled with brilliant crimsons and golds that fluttered in the gentle winds around an odd pine standing straight and tall.
The path widened imperceptibly, until Gwen stopped watching for errant roots along the flattened, well-maintained trail. When the path was wide enough for Gwen and Aidan to comfortably walk side by side, Bran stirred and stretched.
“Oh, it’s nice to be home.”
“What? Are we at your house already?” Gwen looked around, but there were no dwellings in sight.
“No, no. We’ve entered the old Silverwood realm, that’s all. Father took it over when Mother died, so it’s under Wintertree protection now. It’ll be a while yet,” Bran said sleepily. He turned on his bed of air and fell back to sleep.
Gwen’s shoulders slumped. The leap of hope at Bran’s initial words drained out of her and left only the tired weight of the spell on her body.
“We’re well on our way,” Aidan said. He slid a hand into hers. She grasped it tightly, thankful for his presence, for his ability to forget her twitchiness earlier.
Within an hour, larger and larger meadows divided the forest, which eventually petered out. They were left staring at a vast expanse of rolling hills covered in dry waving grasses. The sun shone brightly overhead, gilding the grass in a welcoming golden light. It smelled heavenly to Gwen, like summer and harvest and fresh open spaces.
“Well, this is different,” Aidan said finally. “I can actually see farther than twenty feet. No offense to your mother, but I think I like what Faolan has done with the place.”
Gwen squeezed his hand.
“I agree. If I never seen another mist-covered tree, it will be too soon.” She squinted across the grassland to a thin trickle of smoke that rose beyond the nearest hill, almost invisible against the brilliant blue sky. “Is that smoke? Do you think someone lives over there?”
She and Aidan looked at each other with identical expressions of concern. Aidan said, “That’s where the road goes, so I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.” He looked around with an appraising eye. “I wonder where we are, in England, I mean. We must be halfway to the seaside by now, but it looks so different.”
“I guess the land is mostly the same, but humans and Breenan have done different things to it.”
“Yeah, it’s a lot more peaceful here. Strange we haven’t seen anyone.”
They struck out along the path, which had turned into a road of fine round pebbles. It wound up and down tiny hillocks and alongside a burbling stream for a time before it leaped across by way of an arched stone bridge, small and tidy. Gwen was tired from the effort of hovering Bran—her core pulsed with a continuous heat and she felt very hungry from the energy loss—but the road was so much easier than the forest that her burden was bearable.
It would have seemed idyllic but for evidence that a large number of people had recently walked this way. Broken arrows, discarded shoes, even a small straw figurine which looked like somebody’s forgotten doll, lay abandoned on the borders of the road.
“What happened here?” Gwen said to Aidan quietly. There was no need to whisper since they were alone, but the discarded evidence of people’s lives prompted a hushed response.
“It looks like a migration of some sort. A lot of people trying to get somewhere fast.”
“Or get away from somewhere,” Gwen said. Her heart sank when she realized what she saw. “This is from Breenan leaving Isolde’s realm. Refugees who couldn’t find food, or were invaded.” She only realized that she was clutching Aidan’s hand tightly when he covered her white knuckles with his other hand and stroked the fingers in an attempt to relax her. She released his hand and hugged herself. “I wonder how many passed this way.”
Aidan was silent for a moment. Gwen wondered what he was thinking. Finally he said, “Come on. We need to keep moving.”
Twenty minutes later found them cresting a small mound in front of the stream of smoke. Below, in a valley nestled between three hills, lay a village. Stone huts surrounded a central open area dotted by small figures, moving about their business. Children played a game with a long rope, next to a field beyond the huts. Even from this distance, Gwen recognized ripening orange squash scattered haphazardly among drying vines. They didn’t appear to be planted in any kind of order or row. Gwen wondered how they farmed, especially since there were no domesticated animals that she could see. Even so, it was much more recognizably a village than the warren in the forest had been.
A crinkling of plastic drew Gwen’s attention to Aidan. He had dropped the pack to the ground and found a package of chips. He offered the bag to her.
“Crisps? I can’t possibly face another village without something in my stomach.”
“Thanks.” She rustled around in the bag and extracted a small handful. “We didn’t really do breakfast, did we? I was so focused on leaving the craziness of the forest that it slipped my mind.” She carefully lowered Bran to the ground. The release of the spell made her dizzy with relief for a moment. Bran woke up with a moan.
“Ti
me for food,” she said.
“I’m not hungry,” Bran said without opening his eyes. His fingertips glowed with an eerie red light that flickered faintly. Gwen exchanged a worried look with Aidan.
“Come on, mate,” Aidan said cheerily. “Spot of breakfast, then we’ve a walk through a village. You’ll need your strength for that.”
Bran blearily opened his eyes, pushed himself upright with a groan, and looked down the road toward the huts.
“Right. I don’t know how far I can walk, but I’ll try.”
“At least if we can hover you in an upright position, it might not be that noticeable,” said Gwen. “And you can keep your hands in your pockets.”
Bran looked down at his glowing fingers and shut his mouth tight.
“Right,” he said again, looking queasy.
“Unless we ask for the villagers’ help,” Aidan said, looking brighter. “This is your father’s realm, which makes you some sort of prince, right? Let’s tell them who you are. Surely they’d help their prince.”
Bran was shaking his head before Aidan had finished speaking.
“Not like this. My symptoms—they’re too similar to spellpox. It’s highly contagious. One sparky cough, and we’ll be run out of town before we can explain. Or worse, locked up and quarantined.”
“All right, fine. We walk through town, quickly, and hope no one bothers us. Cover your mouth with your sleeve.”
“Do you want to hover Bran for a while, and make it look like you’re supporting him while walking?” Gwen said. “You’re better at it than I am. I’d still make it look like he’s floating on a cloud.” After last night’s attack and Bran’s warning, Gwen was keen to appear confident and strong in front of the Breenan.
Aidan passed her the backpack and floated Bran with the spell so his feet barely cleared the ground. Gwen nodded in approval. It looked like Bran was walking with Aidan’s help, as long as she didn’t look too closely at his motionless feet. It would have to do.
It took another ten minutes to reach the village, by which time Bran was visibly limper than at the top of the hill. He rallied when a few of the villagers turned in their direction. Wariness was etched across the villagers’ faces and suspicion in the stiff way they held themselves, waiting to see who the newcomers were.
“Nice and confident, now,” Aidan said before they were in earshot. “We walk through as quickly as possible. Don’t engage.”
Gwen nodded and straightened her shoulders in an attempt to portray assured self-reliance. More and more villagers stopped what they were doing to glance their way. When the trio was close enough, Gwen tried to smile and nod. This seemed to appease the watchers, who nodded back and relaxed their vigilant stances.
“Look friendly,” she hissed to Aidan. He adjusted Bran on his shoulder for a more realistic look, then eyed her slantwise.
“What, I don’t look friendly normally? I thought that’s what you liked about me,” he said with a grin.
“Very funny. Come on, let’s get out of here in one piece. You’re doing great, Bran,” she added to the barely functioning Bran, who looked on the verge of unconsciousness.
The villagers watched them, but made no move to approach nor speak to them. Gwen preferred this. The warren people had been creepy enough. She didn’t need a repeat.
They passed through the circle of stone huts, eleven in total, each one containing a solid wooden door carved with insignias of foliage and curling vines.
“Do you think the doors say something in their leaf writing?” Gwen whispered to Aidan. “I wonder what they mean.”
“Perhaps they’re names, or family crests.”
“Like a totem pole.” Gwen considered the carvings with renewed interest, then looked away hastily when she caught the eye of a Breenan man who glared at her suspiciously. She gave a vacant smile and kept her eyes forward.
A small pond lined with trees lay within sight of the huts, past the last field. Aidan managed to stumble behind a graceful poplar before Bran fell off his shoulder onto the pillow of air. Gwen hurried to Bran’s side.
“He’s glowing even more now,” she said to Aidan. Bran’s whole hands pulsed red with fiery orange highlights, visible after slipping out of his pockets. “I hope we’re almost there.”
Aidan opened his mouth to speak, but before he could make a sound a great commotion burst out in the direction of the village. Mouth dry, Gwen scrambled around the tree to get a better look.
Four people ran from the village, holding their arms over their heads for protection. One, who looked like the father of the group, slowed and chivvied two smaller figures along, putting himself between them and the village. Gwen soon found out why. A knot of villagers had banded together and were throwing objects at the retreating family. Gwen couldn’t tell what the objects were—perhaps some rotten food, from the way they squashed on the road when the villagers missed their targets. The villagers watched the family run down the road until the four reached the pond where Gwen and the others crouched. Then the villagers dispersed, and the family slowed to collapse at the water’s edge.
Gwen sat frozen, petrified. Why had the villagers attacked this family? What could they have possibly done? Were Gwen and the others now in danger?
Gwen had a closer look at the four Breenan and breathed a little easier. These people did not look threatening in the slightest. The simple skins they wore were ragged and dirty, and the children had no shoes. Only the mother carried anything, and it was simply a small sheet flung over her shoulder with a few lumpy items inside, the bundle no larger than her head.
Aidan cleared his throat to announce their presence. All four jumped with fright. The mother grabbed the children in her arms and the father stood in front, poised for a fight.
Aidan threw his hands up to show they were weaponless.
“It’s all right. We’re travelers. We don’t mean any harm.”
A moment of stillness passed while the father’s eyes flashed back and forth between Gwen, Aidan, and the sleeping Bran, looking for threats. When he didn’t find any, his shoulders slumped and he relaxed his stance.
“Are you also from Queen Isolde’s realm?” He looked at them quizzically. “You are dressed very strangely.”
Gwen looked down at her shorts.
“No, we’re travelers from another land. Did you—did you leave because of the troubles?” She didn’t want the answer, not really, but she had to ask.
“Yes. We live in the borderlands where the forest is thin. Our village was invaded a week ago. We left the realm—there was nothing to hunt, nothing to forage. We’ve tried begging in this realm,” his mouth twisted around the words as if they tasted bitter. “But the people here do not take kindly to strangers. They fear being overrun, perhaps. Many of us have come before.”
The guilt that had been eating at Gwen’s insides ever since they had spoken to Isolde flared up into an acute pain. She vowed not to mention her connection to the queen—she was sure Aidan would follow her lead.
She bent down and opened their remaining backpack, pulling out a bag of chips and a package of pepperoni sticks. Aidan made an almost inaudible grunt of dissent, but she ignored it. She held out the food to the man.
“Here. It’s not much, but it’s something.”
The man took the food gingerly, and examined its plastic packaging with curiosity. Gwen smiled briefly.
“You need to take off the clear stuff. Don’t eat that. And rip open the bag—there’s food inside.”
“Thank you.” The man looked up with clear eyes, his gratitude at the small gesture making Gwen feel worse that she couldn’t do more. “We thank you.”
Gwen nodded, finding nothing more to say. The man turned to share the chips and meat with his family. The children held out their hands eagerly and the woman nodded in thanks to Gwen. Gwen turned back to Bran and Aidan. Aidan’s mouth was set in a thin line, but he said nothing. Gwen picked up the backpack.
“Ready to go?” she asked Aidan
, who nodded. He hovered the sleeping Bran with a groan of effort and they left the pond’s edge. One of the children pointed at them and his parents turned to watch them go. The man frowned.
“You are very skillful.” He waved at the floating Bran. “Where did you come from, did you say?”
“A long way away,” Gwen said hastily.
“And your friend—is he ill?”
“Yes,” Gwen replied, thankful to leave the topic of their magical abilities. “He did too much magic at once. We’re taking him to his father to be healed.”
“Oh,” the man said. The single word carried such a sense of finality and compassion that Gwen winced. “I am sorry for your loss. May the road treat you gently.”
“He’s not gone yet,” Gwen snapped, then composed herself. The man was only being kind. “Thank you. I hope you and your family find some peace, somewhere.”
The man nodded, and Gwen and Aidan left the pond to find the road once again—the road that would hopefully lead to Bran’s cure and the realm’s healing.
Chapter 7
Aidan was silent as they walked. Gwen peeked at him. His face was set in grim lines and he stared ahead without looking at her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, puzzled.
“If you keep giving away our food, we’ll be the ones begging soon.”
“What?” Gwen was taken aback. How could she have not given some of their food to the family by the pond? “They were starving. They had nothing. I had to do something.”
Breenan Series Box Set Page 30