The look upon his face told a hundred tales. She glimpsed love in his eyes, but worry, doubt, and fear just the same. Is something the matter with me? She wondered. Did I die in Furyon, and am now nothing more than a ghost haunting him?
“I would do it,” he said.
“But?”
“Mother changed her mind.”
Her heart sank into the bottom of her belly. “But Sara said she loved me. I do not understand. She gave us her blessing.”
“She does love you, Ande. But she said I should wait until my return from Thillria. ‘The girl will soften you,’ she said. ‘You will drown in the good life she gives you and forget about your duty.’ And she might be right. Why should I care about Thillria if I have you?”
“You already have me. Ring or no, it is true.”
In the silence that followed, she might have died. Rellen sat beside her, near enough to touch, but in her mind he felt a world away. He gazed to the window, his eyes glassy. He became so still she feared him ill, for it seemed the quiet stole his breath away.
“When I return,” he said at last, “I will marry you. I swear it. Mother be damned, I will do it. But not until then.”
So his mind is made, she thought. He will go to Thillria. He knew even before he came to me. What did Jix tell him? What did Sara say? I should tell him everything, but…
“You will not marry me now, you say.” She rose before him, fierce as the storm wailing beyond the window. “Well and good, Rellen Gryphon. I accept it. But on the matter of Thillria, your word is not law. Throw me from the keep if you will or exile me from Graehelm, but I mean to go with you.”
“Ande…”
“No.” The thunder crackled with her words. “I will not be swayed. Were I your wife, you might command me, but we are not yet wed. I claim my own fate. Since I know you will not let me come to harm, you will feed me and shelter me on the long road to Thillria. If you will not, Garrett will, or maybe one of the others we bring.”
“Why do you want to go?” He looked wounded, and she pitied him.
The truth thrummed in her heart. I should tell him because of Jix. I owe him that much. But if I do, he will lock me away in some dungeon. “Because I would not be parted from you.” Her words were mostly true. “Put me in a wagon with iron bars or strap me to your shoulders; I do not care. I go where I will, Rellen, and if you are bound for Thillria, so am I.”
The Voices
Summer wanes, Andelusia sensed. By the time we get to Thillria, autumn will be upon us.
Twelve days into the far grasslands of Graehelm, she hunkered in the saddle of her painted mare and wound her way through a thousandth field. The breeze caught in her loose, azure-hued tunic, and the earth passed swiftly beneath her smooth black boots. To keep her hair from flowing too wildly, she wore a white strip of cloth about her forehead, holding back her abundant red cascades. She drove her mare between the other riders as though she were the wind and they were mountains, though in truth her backside ached and her thighs hurt so hard she wondered if she might die of it. Her years spent walking instead of riding served her poorly here in the southern Dales, but for all her pain she showed the world nothing but smiles.
Rellen and Garrett, dressed in blue tabards and burdened with heavy bags, rode ahead of her upon two of Gryphon’s finest steeds. And oh, how handsome are they. Rellen’s was a white stallion, Garrett’s a black destrier. Each of them had a sword. Rellen’s was wrapped in a blanket and tucked alongside his saddlebags, while Garrett’s was slung over his shoulder, the tip of the blade protruding from a half-scabbard, the steel the same color as moonlight. The finest sword in Mormist. She liked to look upon it. Rellen jests that it looks like glass and deserves a prettier scabbard. But Garrett would not keep it were it not deadly sharp.
Rellen and Garrett were not alone. Trotting nearby was Saul, his destrier’s saddlebags bursting with books, blankets, and small chests stuffed with gifts and documents for the Thillrian king. Thank goodness we convinced him, she thought with a smile. I will take the credit for that. She reckoned Saul was uncomfortable, laden as he was, but like her she knew he would never complain. Most impressive was his weapon, newly-made in the days just before leaving Gryphon. The battlestaff, fashioned of fired Grandwood oak and capped with smooth, shining steel, swayed in his grasp with every bounce of his saddle. As deadly as any sword, she knew. I heard Garrett tell how many Furies he felled with his original one. I wondered what happened to it.
Yet another rider kept the pace, though he was a far sight from the other three. Jix, herald of Thillria and ambassador to King Orumna, sat atop a mount larger than hers, and yet he looked rather like a boy plunked in his oversized saddle. He seems nothing like a king’s man, she thought of his shabby red raiment, his rotting boots, and the faded brooch on his collar. He must have won his station by intellect alone, and for that Rellen should not hate him so much. Jix wore no expression, she noted, no indication whether he was pleased or displeased with Rellen’s decision to come to Thillria. She knew what lived behind his mask, however. Our secret. The Nightmare Forest. A task for the world’s last living sorceress…me
Her secret hurt to hold inside. It was a daily pain she lived with, and though she hid it well it was ever on her mind. I am a liar, after all, she punished herself often in her mind. Though if I told Rellen the truth, Jix might be dead and we on our way back home. She wore her smiles well, beaming whenever Garrett looked back to her, guiding her horse in merry circles around Rellen and Saul, but in her heart she worried a dark seed had been planted inside her. And if Rellen digs it up, he may never trust me again.
Today was their sixth in the Dales. Once, the great stretch of green meadows, thriving farmlands, and river-striped wilderness had been among the fairest places of Graehelm, but no longer. Even now, as she spurred her mare to catch up to the others, she caught glimpses of ruin. The Furies, she remembered. The Pale Knight’s legacy. Far to her left, she saw some twenty blackened husks of wood, the remnants of houses looming like gravestones in the grass. Tombs were clustered here and there, small mounds of shattered stone and broken bricks gazing like dead eyes up to the heavens. What had once been a thriving hamlet was now a ghost city, the fallow, weed-strewn paddocks closing in on all sides. It was at least the dozenth such place she had seen. The sight of it wiped her smile away.
“This place chills me,” remarked Saul. “Could we not have picked a better way?”
“There is no way faster, friend,” answered Jix. “Were this a pleasure ride, we might have picked a prettier path, I will grant you. But the treaties between Thillria and Graehelm cannot wait.”
Rellen heard them and shot a glare over his shoulder. “Treaties…” He grimaced. “I read the things your king proposes. The other councilors must have been twenty cups deep when they honored these…treaties.”
“You may be right, Lord Rellen,” replied Jix. “But your sovereign insisted, and even we Thillrians know Jacob does not drink.”
I must intervene, she decided. Lest it come to blows. Prancing upon her mare, she rode up beside Rellen. “Still glad you brought me?” she asked.
“I suppose.”
“You suppose?” She put on a phony pout. “You would rather be out here, just you and these dour lads? Am I so great a burden?”
His frown broke. “I am glad. You know I am. But I am worried for you.”
“No reason to be. There is nothing out here, not for a hundred days in each direction. Soon we will be in Thillria, where Jix says there are only gardens and good wine.”
Her optimism did not sit well with him, she knew. He glanced again to Jix and he shook his head like a slow, sad pendulum. “Our King surprises me,” he said. “To pact with men such as that.”
For the rest of the day, she rode beside her love. She tempered his irritations when they became too hot and foiled his frowns when they turned too deep. The worst of the ruined villages fell behind her. The grass turned gold, then green, then silver by late afterno
on. Dusk crept into the world, the clouds like claws prying at the cover of day. The five riders, hungry and weary of gazing upon the deadness of the Dales, slowed their mounts and halted at the edge of a grove of broad-leafed trees.
And here it comes, she thought as Jix, self-appointed guide of the expedition, dropped down from his mount.
“See there, beyond those trees.” Jix pointed south, where sat a rotting fence. “Beyond that lies Triaxe, and beyond Triaxe is Thillria. We will ride the west path along the Molesh Mountains. The roads are safe there. Triaxe lost its knights, but not its vigilance.”
“Good,” Rellen said as he stripped his bags off his stallion. “In that case, we can take our time. I have always wanted to explore Triaxe. We can walk the Gallen Underhalls, where the old knights used to barrack. We can climb the Stair of Molesh. As I hear it, we will be able to see a day in each direction.”
For once, Jix looked less than content. “We had best hurry.”
“Hurry?” Rellen smirked. “Why? We have all the time in the world. Run ahead if you like. We will catch up.”
Rellen does it to annoy him. She dropped down into the grass with a wince. I wish he would not.
To his credit, Jix said nothing else. The little man tied his horse off on one tree and slumped against another at the grove’s edge.
One by one, they settled in the grass. By the time the stars sprinkled their gazes upon the world, their camp was assembled. There were five tents, five beds, and a crackling fire. Saul’s stew bubbled above the flames, the smells of spices drifting through the night. Near the fire, Saul stirred the pot and nosed in his books, Rellen polished his sword, and Garrett lay in the grass, observing the moon. Jix meditated by himself, and although she wanted to approach him with questions, she did not dare. For Rellen would be angry. They spent every night in a similar way. Routine is the way of the road, she had come to believe. And the silence our tonic for a day spent riding.
In the shallows of night, she sat beside her tent and basked in the moonlight. The pale radiance made her skin look like milk and the blades of grass like silver spears. The troubles of the day felt trivial. Jix’s promises fell out of her mind and Rellen’s gloom could wait until tomorrow. All she desired were a few bites of stew, a long pull of Rellen’s wine, and sleep enough to make my legs stop hurting. She shut her eyes and breathed the night in.
And then, after so many years of absence, the voices returned.
She heard them at the edge of sensation. They were softer than whispers, no more than a few chilling waves lapping at the shore of her consciousness. They spoke no words, but rather rumbles, murmurs, and shapeless suggestions of dreadful things. The voices echoed in her skull, a ghoulish black broth sloshing between her ears. She looked to the others to see if they heard, but none of them do. She shook with horror. Am I asleep? Am I dreaming? Have I lost my mind?
She sat up, her gooseflesh rising. She swallowed, shivering so hard she thought her bones might fall apart, and she clambered to her feet.
“I need to take a walk,” she announced to the others. “I will not be long.”
Saul stayed deep in his book, Garrett nodded his approval, and Jix seemed not to notice. If Rellen was worried for her, she could not sense it in his voice. “The stew will ready soon, love.” He glanced up only briefly from his sword. “Smells like one of Saul’s better efforts.”
As though pursued, she strode away from them and wandered into the grove. Using starlight as her guide, she slid through the trees until she came to a pool of water, a pond whose black surface made a mirror for the moon. Just like in Grandwood. So deep in the woods, the voices began to fall from her mind, and for a few breaths she hoped that was the end of it. But it is not, she knew. No. Not here. Not now. Not ever. Please…go away.
Hurriedly, she ripped off her boots, rolled up her white sleeves, and dunked her head beneath the water. Her Mirror in Grandwood had always soothed her, and she hoped this pool would do the same. It might have been a lake for all she knew, or the sea gone utterly still, but it made no difference. Her head fell into her hands, and as the water dripped from her hair, the voices stayed away.
At length, she calmed. With her legs dipped beneath the water up to her knees, she lay upon the shore and gazed into the darkness as though held in a trance. What will I do? She trembled as a waking dream washed over her. What are they? What do they want?
Visions of strange and fantastic things began to run like dark rivers through her mind. She shut her eyes and imagined herself as a sleek-winged owl, hunting the darkness for a high place to perch. She was a black bird, then an ancient oak, then a storm cloud, and finally a worm roiling in the loam. She felt at one with the wilderness, at one with the night. What is the matter with me? She mouthed the words. Go away! These thoughts are not mine.
How long her dream lasted, she did not know. She snapped her eyes open, and when she did the world was not as she remembered. The shadows were thick, almost tangible, and the trees shuddered at the beck of an otherworldly breeze. The night was too quiet. She heard nothing from the camp, not even the fire crackling. Even the crickets were as silent as the dead. She waved her hand before her, and the darkness moved with every swish, as though she could shape the shadows by whim alone. Where am I? What is this place? She wondered. Where are the voices?
Entranced, she rose and walked farther across the pond. She expected the water to swallow her up to her hips, but to her amazement she did not sink. The dark liquid shivered beneath her toes, and she knew she walked not in the pond, but atop it.
The voices swam back into her mind. The whispers felt like tiny lights erupting in the darkness of her head, only this time her horror failed to claim her. They spoke and she listened. Floating like a leaf atop the water, she stretched her arms outward as though they were wings. She felt the air move beneath her toes. Her skin felt pleasurably cold, her heartbeat hard and steady, and as she began to rise into the night, she felt certain she could fly. I can, she knew. If only the wind would…
All at once, her senses went black. Her heart beat wildly, her exhilaration jarred her, and she opened her eyes to the real world. She was earthbound, still sitting at the pond’s edge, her legs still in the water up to her knees. The night was the way it should be, and the crackling of the men’s campfire audible in the distance. The voices were gone. The crickets were chirruping. As though nothing had happened at all.
She pulled her feet from the water. She was cold, even though summer’s warmth still lingered. She tucked her knees under her chin and tried to make sense of what had happened, but the sound of footsteps behind her cracked her concentration. Thank the stars, she thought. Someone is here.
“You picked a good spot.” Garrett’s voice drifted over her shoulder. “I did not know this was here.”
Had it been Rellen or Saul, she might have leapt to her feet and fled to the campfire, but Garrett came as a pleasant surprise. He brought no questions, no prying about why she had wandered alone into the forest. He had only his usual calm, and when he kneeled next to her, he offered a bowl of warm stew.
“We thought you might be hungry,” he said. “Rellen would have brought it, but Saul has him tangled in one of his books.”
She took a single bite and set the bowl beside her. She was not hungry, not after the dream.
Garrett rose and dusted the soil from the knees of his pants. His black raiment was as dark as the night, but the moonlight made him seem far less than fearsome.
“Leaving so soon?” she asked him.
“A nice night, this.” He squinted toward the campfire. “You must be tired of us men. I told the others to leave you be, and so shall I.”
Before she knew what she was doing, she reached out and snatched his hand. “No. Stay. I have had enough of my own thoughts. I need someone to talk to. You will do nicely.”
Garrett glanced once to the moon and sank to the earth beside her. “My ears are yours,” he pledged.
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