by Sarah Dalton
“Have you got a better idea?” Casimir replies with a shrug. His eyes bulge out in terror.
I glance behind me, wondering if we can outrun the fog, but when I turn back, it has almost descended on us. With my heart in my mouth, I move closer to Casimir and remove the dagger from my belt. It has to be better than nothing. Gwen backs away, tossing her mane, churning the forest floor with her hooves.
“Maybe we should go back.” Casimir’s voice trembles as he talks.
“There’s no time.”
The fog slows down when it is just a foot away. Then it creeps forward, almost languishing on its journey towards us, inching closer like a dare. Challenge me. It seems to say. I’m here. Come to me.
Casimir strikes with his sword, slicing through the fog. He moves in agile arcs, controlling his weapon with both hands. A high-pitched squealing sound comes from the fog. It crackles like a burning fire. I join in with the prince, swinging my dagger in jerkier, more frantic movements than him. For a brief moment it seems to work, but then the fog darts forward to coat our skin.
The chill begins in my fingertips and works its way up my arms, making every part of my body feel heavier. Casimir exhales in rasps. My boots are touched by the slow spread of the fog as it swirls up around my legs like smoke, making me feel as though I’m rooted to the floor.
“What is it doing?” Casimir whispers. “Can you move?”
For some reason I don’t feel like I want to move. It’s not that I can’t move—it’s that I have no desire whatsoever to move at all. I shake my head.
“Me neither,” Casimir says dreamily. He sways from side to side. Watching him makes my eyelids feel heavy. Maybe I can have a rest… One little sleep… If I close my eyes…
Anta snorts and rears up, kicking out his front legs. Gwen neighs, and it echoes through the trees like a pealing bell.
“What’s wrong with them?” Casimir’s voice sounds far away. When I look at him, he is almost completely covered in the fog.
“I don’t know. Maybe…” The words are difficult to form. My mouth doesn’t want to work anymore; it wants to be still. My body longs to be still. “Maybe they don’t want us to go to sleep.”
“Why not?” Casimir says. “It would feel so good…”
“So good…” My eyes begin to close. The cold worms its way around my arms and legs the way that a poison seeps through blood.
Anta paws the ground with his hooves, snorting steamy breath into the cold air.
The fog cushions every part of my body, and I long to lean into it. I long to fall back into the fog like a soft, feather pillow. An old memory of my father pops into my head: the day I was sick and I had the flu, he lifted my head towards the spoon so I could eat my soup. That’s how the fog feels—it is a parent embracing my head, so I don’t have to do the work anymore.
But that isn’t right. I don’t have parents, and I don’t have anyone to lean back onto—certainly not a freezing cold fog, the tendrils of which are beginning to tickle at my nose. I move my head from left to right. Everything is so much slower than before. My neck… It’s as though it’s made of ice. My eyelids are stuck, with the lashes fusing together. My lips are the same—sewn shut by some mysterious force.
The most sound I can make is a muted humming in my throat. My fingers are stiff around the hilt of my dagger, and despite moving my eyes as much as I can, I can’t prise them open. It’s pointless. I’ve failed already by letting my father’s memory down. Norton was right; we never should have come to the Waerg Woods. I think of the prince frozen next to me and think of what I’ve robbed from the realm. I’m nothing but a selfish girl for letting him come with me. I lean into the fog, ready to let it take me.
Just as I find my body shutting down from the cold, a warm tongue licks the back of my neck. Anta. He hasn’t given up on me yet. The sensation ignites a fire inside me. That fire spreads through my muscles, awakening them, and suddenly I have the ability to fight again.
It begins with my eyes. I flutter my eyelids, concentrating on my need to see the forest again. When they are open, I realise that the fog has almost completely surrounded us. Prince Casimir is covered with a shimmering blue frost from head to toe.
“Mm… mmm… mmoo… C… as-im-ir,” I say, forcing my lips apart. The sound begins in my throat but I push it out, finally finding my voice. “Casimir! F-f-fight it!” Beneath his lids I make out a slight movement. He’s conscious—that’s a start.
After my eyes and mouth are free, I concentrate on moving my fingers. But I need Casimir to stay with me, so I find myself chattering to him, saying anything and everything I can think of.
“The fog is trying to freeze you. It’s trying to stop your muscles from working. Keep moving. Keep trying to move. Think about how much you want to move. Work on your eyes first, Casimir. You can do it. Don’t give up. Don’t let the cold take you.”
My fingers flex against my dagger. It’s small, but it’s a start, and I strain to move my forearm. If I can move that arm I can stab the fog. Something about the incisions from my dagger makes the fog retract. Perhaps it is a living organism, even though it looks like nothing of the sort. Either way, our only hope is to try and fight back.
“Casimir, I can move my arm again. I think I can attack the fog. Keep trying to open your eyes. I… I can push my arm forwards. Maybe I can stop it.”
My eyes stay focussed on the prince. I can’t let him give up and be taken by the fog. Anta moves towards Casimir and rests his muzzle against the boy’s neck.
“Anta is helping you,” I say. “Let the warmth of his breath awaken your muscles again.”
With Anta helping the prince I can concentrate on getting the fog away from us. My arm moves—albeit slowly—meaning I can make thrusting motions with my dagger. I continue doing that, not really knowing if it can cause any damage to the strange, smoke-like vapour. The fact that it felt solid gives me hope. There must be something I can attack. Something that will make it retreat.
My arms are an ice I’m afraid to snap, but I try to ignore it and slash at the fog. Anta moves away from the prince and shoots forward with his antlers low, butting against the fog, driving it back. Gradually my shoulders loosen, and I can lean forward, jabbing out my arm, slashing at the dark vapour. I find purchase against the tendrils, and when I pull my knife back, I see a splash of shimmering blue along the blade. It has a life force. The fog has blood, and that means we can hurt it. The crackles and squeals turn my stomach, but I slash forward, ignoring them.
“I’m fighting it, Casimir, I’m really fighting it,” I say. The prince forces his eyes open. Those pale grey eyes are a welcome sight. “We’re going to live!”
I keep working my dagger at the vapours until the tendrils fade away from my body, beginning with my face and neck, until there is little more than a puddle at my feet. Casimir forces his lips open and manages to turn his head to me.
“Y-you did it,” he says.
I nod. “I really did.”
The effort and the strain on my muscles cause me to collapse to the floor. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. It was bizarre and terrifying and exhilarating all at once.
Gwen nuzzles Casimir’s neck with her muzzle and the prince laughs. “It felt so good for a minute there.” His laughter stops and he sighs. As his body thaws the blue shimmer leaves his skin. “I… I almost gave up.”
A pregnant pause lies between us. If it hadn’t been for Anta, I may have given up as well. Have I lost the will to live? My fingers rise to the locket around my throat. The image of Father in the tavern comes flooding back, and it ignites some fire in my veins. I can never feel like that again. I will never let anything weaken me. My purpose is to find the Wanderers.
“We should build a fire,” Casimir says. “We need to warm up.”
I blink to remove the mist from my eyes. Of course, we need to heat our bodies, I had forgotten because of my anger. When my hand drops from the necklace I find Casimir observing me wi
th an odd look on his face. His mouth opens, and I think he is about to say something, but then he thinks better of it and collects a handful of sticks from the forest path.
I crouch down to place my hand over the embers of our fire. They are as stone cold as I expected. We have work to do.
We crouch down together, arranging the fire and creating a spark. Casimir may be a pampered prince, but he is also a quick worker who never once complains of aching knees, even when mine begin to throb. When the fire lights, I could swear a glint of something shines in his eyes. Hope, maybe?
*
Our first night in the forest is a tense one. Neither of us says it, but we are both afraid that the fog will return. I’m not sure we have the strength to fight it away twice in one night. Even as I lay on my bedroll, the tang of sore muscles works its way through my arms and legs. I finally manage to close my eyes and drift away, but I’m all too aware of the fact Casimir is standing watch, and I’m not sure how much I trust him to keep us safe. He has shown that he is more capable than I thought, but even the best men are taken by the Waerg Woods. I’m not sure I trust myself anymore.
I wake at intervals, and even though I’d rather it didn’t, my mind wanders back to the night my father died. Sometimes I imagine the fight in the Fallen Oak. I picture shadows attacking Father and dragging Ellen away. They are never people. Those monsters could never be people to me. My fingers grip the locket around my neck.
There are a few things that don’t add up. If the Wanderers were looking for the prince, why didn’t they follow us into the woods? Someone was watching us that night. Surely that wasn’t a coincidence. Could it be possible that the watchers and the attackers were different groups? No, that wouldn’t make sense. So why aren’t they interested in the prince? He’s the most valuable person in the realm, well, except… except for the craft-born.
Unless their motive is the craft alone. Word of Ellen’s abilities has spread far and wide. The prince coming to marry her is big news. It will be the talk of the realm, whispered about in taverns and markets from the Haedalands to Cyne, maybe even the Benothalands. Through the realm, excitable peacekeepers will toast to their health and fat future children. Ellen will be transformed into a gifted young woman with indescribable power. They will say how she can heal the sick and mend the broken. That’s why they took her. They need her for something. The thought makes me queasy. They don’t know she’s lying. Whatever they need, I’m the only one who can give it to them, but I never will, not now. Now I go to deliver them to their gods for what they’ve done to me.
“Mae! Mae!” I’m shaken awake by a rough hand. For a moment I think it’s Father, and the pain comes rushing back.
“What is it?”
Casimir pulls me to my feet. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Shh!”
I rub the sleep from my eyes and listen to the forest. Anta chews on grass, and Gwen lets out a snort. The wind has calmed to a gentle breeze, and it allows me to hear creatures move through the branches, I don’t know what kind of creatures, some sort of nocturnal bird perhaps, but they are far away overhead so I don’t care.
“I don’t hear anything,” I say. “Let me sleep.”
Casimir raises his eyebrows and shoots me a stern glare that I imagine his servants receive when they disobey an order. I sigh, fold my arms, and wait for this mysterious sound.
Then it comes.
At first it sounds like the wind-up toys the carpenter made children back in Halts-Walden, the kind where you twist a handle to make them dance. The clicking drifts through the trees in such a way that you cannot tell which direction the sound comes from. One moment you snap your head to the right, but then the clicks sound louder to the left. It is as though I am being circled by an enormous wooden snake.
“What is that?” I breathe. When the clicks speed up I notice how my skin prickles into goosebumps.
“See,” he says. “I told you there was something.”
We stand, listening, for what must be ten minutes, but whatever is out there doesn’t come any closer. Every now and then, Anta raises his nose and snorts into the night sky, his eyes rolled back, and great jets of steamy breath coming from his nose. He knows that something is wrong.
“You should get some sleep,” I say eventually. “Whatever that thing is, it’s not going to attack us.”
I sit back down on the leafy ground and lean against a rotting log. The clicks are beginning to fade into the night. They still make the hair stand up on the back of my neck, but it doesn’t seem interested in attacking us.
“Don’t you want to know?” Casimir asks. His eyes shine in the moonlight, and his fists clench at his side. There is a rigidity about his features, a combination of utter fear and compelling curiosity. He wants to explore yet is afraid of what he might find. “Don’t you want to go and see what’s out there?”
“You want to investigate the wood in the pitch black?” I reply. “Not knowing where you’re putting your feet? Not seeing what’s dangling in front of your face?”
Casimir’s body ripples in a shudder. “Well, when you put it that way…” He settles down on the bedroll and props up his head to talk to me. “But have you ever heard anything like it in your life? Whatever that was, it wasn’t normal. It wasn’t flesh and bone like you and me.
“The way it moved, the way it sounded… It was bizarre. There are so many things in this place that I don’t understand. Do you understand them, Mae? How deep have you gone into the woods?”
Give me strength. I roll my eyes. This is going to be the longest night ever. If the Waerg Woods don’t kill me, Casimir’s incessant chatter will put me into a coma. “Would you please stop talking?”
Casimir regards me with narrowed eyes. “Fine.” He rolls over on his side so that his back faces me.
I find no peace in the silence. The mysterious noise has made me alert to every rustle and every animal call. My eyes roam the woods, looking for the shadows between the trees. The campfire and tavern tales come to me like dreams, the stories of the leftover magic in the woods, magic that has created half-beings, not quite magical or mortal—twisted and sick creatures that lurk in wait for you, ready to consume your soul. I hadn’t truly believed the stories until we encountered the fog. I only hope that we make it to morning without being attacked.
I sit and wait for dawn. In the distance, the clicking continues. It’s so far away, it’s hardly audible. Yet it continues as though it lies in wait for us. A hunter waits for the perfect moment to strike. That’s what the creature is doing. It’s waiting for the perfect moment before it strikes us. I feel it deep down in my bones.
*
The first light of dawn is a welcome sight. It filters through the trees and warms everything it touches; shades of yellow and gold dance on the forest floor, mingling with the green and brown leaves, turning dull grey tree bark into glittering gold. Casimir’s sandy hair becomes tinted gold, and his skin warms from its usual pale complexion. As I sit by the fire, I find myself wondering what his eyes look like in the sunlight. I’ve seen the pale silver of them at night and the warm grey of the daytime. I’ve seen the way fire can turn them to an orange gold. I wonder what early morning sunshine turns them to. Amber? Gold-flecked grey?
He stirs, and I look away, embarrassed by my thoughts, and I busy myself with the task of creating a breakfast from our rations. We have berries and goat cheese.
“Did you sleep well?” I ask.
Casimir rolls over and assesses me with a cool expression and firm lips. His face is in shadow, and I try not to stare for too long, aware of my thoughts from a few moments ago. It wouldn’t do to get soft on the prince, not after everything. Not when I have something important to do.
“Considering I’m stuck in an evil magical forest with a surly urchin girl for company, I can’t really complain.” He takes a handful of berries and examines them.
I don’t reply for a while. The apology is there on my lips,
but to utter it would feel weak. I hate that feeling. And then I leave it too long to apologise without feeling foolish, so I clear my throat. “We should leave soon. We need to keep pace with the Wanderers so that their tracks do not go stale.”
“Sure,” Casimir mumbles. He runs a hand through his hair. “Plus we should find a stream or river. I could do with a wash. So could you.” He wrinkles his nose at me.
My cheeks warm, and I move away from him, gathering our belongings from the campsite. Is he trying to get back at me? Or do I really smell? I don’t know. When he isn’t looking, I try to angle my arm so I can sniff my armpits, but I’ve lived too long without caring how I smell. How do I know if that scent is bad or not? I don’t smell any different to the forest or to Anta or Gwen. I guess I’m more like them—a wild thing—than anything else. I will never be refined or perfumed. I’m destined to always belong in the forest.
“I thought you wanted to leave?” Casimir asks.
His question jolts me from my thoughts, and I realise I’ve been leaning on Anta, gazing into the distance. I turn and pack my bedroll and some of our food into Anta’s saddlebags.
“The tracks lead this way,” I say, examining breaks in low branches and clotted earth where horse’s hooves have pulled at the ground. The boot prints and the number of horses indicate these are Wanderer tracks. Unless there is another group of people travelling through the woods, but it is unlikely, considering the reputation of the Waerg Woods. We’re lucky it hasn’t rained yet. When it does, we will lose the tracks altogether. “But we need to listen for water as we ride.”
Casimir mounts his horse and nods. “Yes, my lady.”
I climb onto Anta’s back and ignore him. He can use his sarcasm on me all he wants. I’m not rising to it.
We ride in silence. The forest seems quieter in the daytime, perhaps because we don’t listen as intently in the day, and my thoughts are distracted by tracking the Wanderers. There are bird calls up ahead. The odd rabbit flits through the trees. I should nock an arrow on my bow, but every time, I let the moment pass. Truth be told, I was never a good hunter or particularly talented with a bow. I’ve only ever caught one rabbit, and I’ve let many more go. Father always handled that side of things. I never had the stomach for it.