by R.K. Ryals
Chapter 5
I was curled up on the wagon floor, my eyes on the space between the wooden bars when the carriages finally stopped. People called out to each other as horses were unsaddled and small campfires lit. The smell of food wafted through the modest cart, and I brought my knees in closer to my chest as nausea overcame me.
“Wretched business this,” a servant said in hushed tones as she walked by.
There were other voices then. Mareth's laughter and Taran's lilting speech. And still I lay, unblinking at times, my wrist raw, my chest tight with anger and grief. There were eyes outside the spaces, brief moments when someone would glance in at me. Even Mareth stopped once, but I was unseeing, my chest hollow. I think I kept expecting my father to find a way to save me, but the mark on my wrist said it all. Garod could do nothing now. I was branded.
“Food?” a voice asked.
These eyes I knew. I didn't answer.
“You should eat,” Kye tried again.
I let my gaze move to his eyes beyond the bars. The dark made everything eerie, made the visible parts of his face look severe, pale, and dangerous. Only his voice saved him, made him different.
“No food,” I managed.
The words were barely audible, my voice so hoarse I could barely speak, but Kye walked away as if he'd understood.
I went back to staring, watching as the shadows from the fires outside played wicked tricks on the wagon's wooden beams. So many shadows, so many stories told by spectres of the night. I saw Aigneis in the shadows, and I stared as I heard the forest around me whisper its own language—bugs trilling, a falcon's call, distant howling from preying wolves.
It seemed like hours before dirt was kicked onto smoldering fires. The voices outside grew quieter, less merry. Still, I stared. I stared until there was only silence, until every light source had been extinguished, leaving me in a darkness plagued with nightmares.
And then I moved. A faulty lock, he'd said.
My left wrist protested—the skin tender and tight where blood had dried against the design—as I inched my way silently across the cart. The distance from the bars where I lay and the door wasn't far, but I stopped often, my body noisy against the debris littered across the wagon. Even my breath sounded loud, the noise of my skirts deafening.
I was on edge, my grief still too raw, and my fear overwhelming when my right hand finally fell against the brass latch on the cart's wooden door. It was cold against my palm, comforting, terrifying. A faulty lock, he'd said.
I ran my fingers over the metal, my eyes blind in the darkness until I felt the latch's release. I jiggled it carefully, pausing when it came open, the clinking sound making me hold my breath, my head spinning. A horse whinnied nearby, and there was a rustling noise among the brush, but no one approached the cart.
I was faint by the time I exhaled, my trembling fingers clinging to the door. The lock wasn't faulty. The door had been left unbolted.
Gratitude flooded me as I pushed the door open slowly, carefully lowering myself to the ground before stepping away. My legs and feet tingled as I moved toward the trees. I was afraid I wouldn't make it far in the dark, but I had to try. For Aigneis, I had to try.
I was just inside the tree line when a hand closed over my mouth. My eyes widened, my heart beating furiously, and I twisted in an attempt to break myself free. An arm went around my waist, tightening cautiously.
“Whoa there! No harm done. Three days to the Ardus, I said, but you won't make it far without food or water.”
Kye's voice was harsh in my ears, and I shivered as his arm fell away. A parcel was forced into my right hand, and a water skin was forced into the other. I took them, my eyes battling the shadows. I felt the boy behind me, but I could barely see him.
“Why?” I whispered even as he pushed me forward, away from him.
“Don't stay to the trails. They'll look for you there. Just keep traveling in this direction,” Kye said as he turned me gently, his hands on my shoulders for only a brief moment before they fell away again. “Walk, sleep, and eat facing this direction. Understand? This forest is a confusing place, a dangerous one. Sleep high if you can. Go.”
I didn't turn to look at him. I was afraid it would confuse me if I did. I faced the dark forest instead.
“Why?” I asked again.
Silence and then, “Because death comes too easy for our king. We suffer.”
I didn't have to look behind me to know he was gone as fast as he had come. Kye, a soldier I'd never forgive because the same men he fought with killed Aigneis. A soldier I'd never forgive because he had helped hold me down while another man branded me. A soldier I'd never forgive because he was giving me freedom marred now by terrible images. I cradled my parcel and water in the crook of one arm.
“Walk, sleep, and eat facing this direction,” I told myself as I stumbled forward, my free hand out in front of me.
The dark was a barrier I did not know how to overcome. It was full of insects and spider webs. Trees and thorns. Each step I took had my heart in my throat.
I felt the ground carefully with my thinly slippered feet, the damp seeping into the soles. The air was not cold, it was sticky and cool. Flies buzzed past my head, and I gritted my teeth to keep from crying out as more wolves howled. They sounded closer to me, but I was afraid to stop, afraid to find a high place to sleep that faced the direction I needed to go.
Fear was a new ally of mine. It painted pictures in the gloom that weren't really there, created sounds I wasn't sure were real. I could hear the captain's voice. I even thought I saw him once, and I stopped in my tracks, my pulse a beating drum in my neck.
“Not real,” I told myself as I moved forward, leaves breaking apart beneath my feet. Something slithered next to me, but I refused to look down and I didn't stop again. I was afraid if I stopped, I wouldn't continue forward.
The brush was getting thicker as I moved, and I batted at a large bug as I pushed my way through the dense foliage. I kept waiting for something to bite through my slippers, but my feet met only brambles. They dug into my soles, and I winced.
“Step lightly, child. They follow.”
The voice made me stumble, and I reached out blindly, my hand grasping the sturdy trunk of a nearby tree. Rough bark scraped my palms.
“Who are you?” I breathed.
The voice was crude . . . abrasive, almost like listening to wood being rubbed against wood. I wanted to flinch at the sound, but I didn't.
“You recognize us not, child? How disappointing.”
I started to answer, but something slapped me from behind, sending me hurtling forward, and I cried out.
“No time, child. No time. Men follow you. Run.”
It was then I heard the shouts from behind me, and I lifted my skirts, the darkness suddenly less terrifying than the men following me. I'd watched Aigneis burn. I wanted to be as brave as she was when they led her away, but I'd also heard her screams. They echoed in my head as I ran. Fire. Pain. Death.
“Run. We will not let you fall.”
The rough voice was insistent, and I picked up speed, the blurry, ebony shapes of trees and branches closing in around me, pushing against me, lifting me, even carrying me. It was then, as coarse, almost brutal hands seemed to grab me in the darkness, propelling me ever forward that I recognized the voice. Listen to the forest, Aigneis had said.
“The trees!” I gasped.
Laughter suddenly surrounded me, raspy chuckles that sent chills down my spine.
“You acknowledge us now, child.”
The voice sounded proud, smug. I should have been disturbed by the realization. I should have been afraid of the branches that still brushed me, thrusting me onward. I should have been confused by the way they protected me. But I wasn't. I wasn't afraid because Aigneis had prepared me for this.
While running through a dark forest being chased by the men who had murdered Aigneis, I had come into my magic. And the only thing t
hat managed to cross my weary mind was one thought,
“They've given me the wrong mark. I carry the mark of the scribe.”