“Are you seriously going to call me that?” she groaned.
Guess that answers my question.
“Yes, I am,” he said.
“Fine, what?”
“Can’t sleep,” Will said. “Figured you couldn’t either.”
“And?”
“And,” he said, drawing out the word, “I thought we could talk. You know, pass the time.”
“What’s more to say?” she grumbled.
“Tell me more about your childhood,” Will said, staring up at the stars.
“Why would you care about my childhood?” she asked, rolling over again to face him.
“I know what it’s like,” Will said. “To have so much inside of you and no one to talk to.”
“Sounds like you’re the one who needs to talk,” Red said softly.
It was about as good an invitation as she would give him, so he said, “You ever feel like everything you do ruins someone’s life?”
She paused. “No.”
“Thanks,” Will said with biting sarcasm.
“Sorry, go on,” she said.
“I don’t want to talk about it now,” he said, rolling onto his side.
“I said sorry, okay?”
But it wasn’t okay. Will lay there until sleep took him.
It got hot in a hurry the next morning. Any chill from the previous night washed away with the rising of the sun. Walking in the desert lasted for all of five minutes before Will and Red once again retreated to the safety of the wood.
After an hour or so of silence, Red said, “It was lonely.”
“Excuse me?” Will said, confused.
“My childhood,” she explained. “You asked about my childhood last night.”
“Oh,” Will said quietly. After a moment he asked, “Why?”
“Why, what?” Red asked. “Why am I telling you this? Or why was I lonely?”
“Both, I guess,” he answered.
“Well, I figured if we’re going to be spending a lot of time together, we might as well get to know each other,” she said, “and it was lonely because there weren’t many children my age where I grew up.”
“No one?” Will asked, incredulous.
The look on her face told Will she was debating the answer. She finally said, “There was a boy the same age as me.”
“Boyfriend?” Will asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Gods, no,” she said in a hurry. “He is such a brat, and incredibly annoying. You’re lucky to have siblings.”
“I’m not sure you’d like them,” Will said.
“Your brothers?” she asked.
“No,” Will said, shaking his head. “Siblings. They can be rather annoying, too.” He sighed.
“You miss them, though, don’t you?” she asked in a soft, kind tone. Kinder than he’d ever heard from her.
“I miss John, my younger brother,” Will admitted to her. “He’s the one who died.”
She didn’t say anything, but her expression said enough. If Will didn’t want to talk about it, she wouldn’t press the issue, but she’d listen when he was ready.
“It’s my fault he’s dead,” Will said.
“Why do you say that?” she asked, furrowing her brow.
“I talked him into something foolish, and now he’s dead,” he explained.
“You didn’t kill him, though, did you?” Red asked.
“I might as well have,” Will said, sullen.
“What happened?”
“The king killed him,” he said.
Her step faltered for a second as if taken aback by the gravity of what he just said. She didn’t speak for a minute then said, “I’m sorry.”
“What for?” Will asked.
“That you lost your brother. I know what it’s like…” she said, trailing off. “To lose someone that is.”
“Who?” Will asked. “Your mother?”
“No, she died when I was young. I barely remember her.” She paused, conflict showing in her eyes. “I lost my father.”
Will made no comment, not wanting to pry, granting her the same comfort she gave him.
After a moment of silence she said, “What about the other one, didn’t you say you had two brothers? You don’t miss him?”
“Robert? He hates my guts,” Will said. “Blames me for what happened.” He didn’t know if it was true, but Robert hadn’t shown him any sympathy or remorse that day in the square.
“But it wasn’t your fault,” she said. “You aren’t responsible for other people’s actions.”
“Tell that to Robert,” he said at length.
“Sounds like you need to tell it to yourself, too,” she said.
Maybe she was right. John wanted to go with them. Will didn’t force him. And Drygo was the one who killed John, not Will. But if it weren’t for him, John wouldn’t have gotten caught. And what about Sebastian and Blake? Will did kill both of them.
He couldn’t possibly explain that to her. She’d be horrified. Will didn’t bother to reply as they continued their northward trek.
At midday, they stopped for a meal. Will sat there, eating yet another piece of bread that had long since gone stale, staring out through the trees at the desert beyond.
There must have been a vacant expression on his face because Red asked, “What’s on your mind?”
“How can a forest and desert exist next to each other with such stark contrast?” Will asked. “I mean the wood just ends and the desert begins. It doesn’t make logical sense.”
“Do you remember what I told you about the Wandering Wood being created by magic? Well, supposedly, the desert is also a creation of magic. None are alive who remember it, but they say the Dhelgur Desert used to be a savannah teeming with life. Animals of all shapes and sizes called it their home.”
“What happened to it?”
“The magic collapsed. The stone that sustained it was destroyed. Some life managed to spring back, but it can never reach its former beauty without the power of a soul stone.”
“No one has tried?” Will asked.
“No one cares,” Red said. “Memory of the stones faded from history. It wasn’t until—”
“Until Drygo found one,” Will answered for her.
“Yes,” she said, distant. “No one knows how he found it. His conquest of Aralith distracted him for a time, but he found another one. Then it was stolen from him.”
Will swallowed and his heart beat a little faster. “Who stole it?”
She looked down at her feet and said, “Some boy. I don’t know. They killed him for it. I watched his execution.”
“I know,” Will said. He remembered seeing her there, pretending to sell flowers. He assumed she was pretending anyway. She didn’t seem the type.
Her head snapped up and she said, “What?”
Will’s heart pounded in his chest. “The execution,” he said, thinking on his feet. “I know about the execution.”
“Then why ask me about it?” she said, annoyed.
Will improvised and said, “I thought maybe you might have known who he was, that’s all.”
“No,” she whispered. Then she blinked and looked at him, accusation in her voice as she said, “Was that your brother?”
“No,” Will said, snapping at her. It wasn’t a lie, but she was getting too close to the truth. He needed to change the subject. “How much farther?”
“How am I supposed to know?” she said, snapping back. “Every minute we sit here, though, we’re wasting time. Let’s go.”
They finished their meal and kept walking. The hours turned monotonous. Trees on the left, desert on the right. They never seemed to get any closer.
That evening, their situation got worse. When they stopped for dinner, they ran out of water. Red suggested they keep moving through the night, and Will agreed with her. It was a lot cooler at night, so they wouldn’t be as thirsty.
The sun went down and they moved out into the desert. The desert was far more agreeable at night
, though it was cold, the effort of walking kept them warm and the terrain was bearable. During the day, the mere sight of the desert was excruciating, the reflection of the sun on the sand blinding them.
Red pulled the hood of her cloak tighter around her face to protect from the biting wind.
“It’s… so… cold,” she said.
“It’s not that bad,” Will said.
“Speak for yourself,” she said rolling her eyes.
“Where did you say you grew up again?” he asked.
“You’ve never heard of it,” Red said.
“Try me,” Will said. He wasn’t going to let her get out of it that easy.
“Dahlshwood,” she answered.
“You’re right,” Will admitted. “Never heard of it.”
“It almost never drops below freezing,” she told him. “Even in the middle of winter.”
“I can’t imagine that,” he said, trying to do just that. “In Celesti, it seems like six or more months out of the year are cold. It’s not unusual for it to stay cold until almost the beginning of summer. Then by mid-fall the temperature dips once again. We get maybe four months of nice weather, if we’re lucky. Even then, it’s overcast most of the time.”
“Merva’s blessing on you, I’d hate that,” she said. “I could never live there.”
“You’d get used to it,” Will told her.
“Maybe I don’t want to get used it.”
“With all that warm weather what type of things did you do for fun?” Will asked, changing the subject yet again before she got grumpy.
“Fun? Are you kidding me? There was no time for fun in my life,” Red said. “It was always studying or training or…” Her voice drifted off.
“What?”
“Maybe if you’d have spent more time reading you wouldn’t have to ask me so many dumb questions,” she spat.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Will asked, but he didn’t give her time to answer. “And just because I didn’t keep my nose pressed in a book doesn’t mean all I did was goof around. I can hold my own in a fight. I took out those two guys chasing you.”
“I already told you those guys were dumb as rocks,” Red said, unimpressed. “And I helped you with the first one, or did you not notice I positioned his back toward you?”
“I noticed,” Will admitted, snorting.
Just after midnight, the terrain changed. The desert suddenly ended and grass stood in its place. The night air warmed considerably.
“I guess that’s where the stone’s magic ended,” Red said, speaking Will’s thoughts.
Lights dotted the horizon to the east. Red caught him staring and followed his gaze.
“That’s Tikani,” she said. “One of the eastern cities. It’s self-governed, though it technically belongs to the kingdom. The lord regent rules here, since the king rarely visits.”
“Yes, I know about Tikani,” Will said. “I do know my geography, thank you very much. Let’s stop there for the night. We can stock up on—”
“No,” she said.
“Why not?” Will asked, taken aback by her intensity.
“Because, the guards still belong to the king, and they’re bound to recognize us,” she reasoned.
“No way,” Will said in disbelief. “If no one travels through the wood, they probably don’t even know—”
“I said no, okay?” she said, stepping in front of him to make her point.
“Fine,” Will said, walking around her.
“Come on,” she said in a half-apologetic tone. “We can refill our water at the lake just north of the city.”
As they drew closer, Will noticed the city was not as large as he thought it was. Half of the lights he had seen were actually reflections that sparkled on the lake.
Something else became apparent as they drew closer. From farther away they were invisible, but now that they were just outside the city, the farmhouses and barns appeared in the dim light of the moonless night.
“If we can’t go into the city, let’s at least knock and see if a farmer will give us some food,” Will said.
“Are you out of your mind?” Red said. “They’ll report us to the guards first thing in the morning. Just steal some vegetables from the garden and let’s be on our way.”
Will walked up to the fence around the house and hopped over it. He knelt down in the dirt of the garden and opened his sack. Pulling potatoes and plucking a few tomatoes, he placed them inside. As Will crept over to a nearby cornfield, he tripped over something on the ground.
Will grunted as his body slammed into the dirt. A dog’s bark broke the silence. He scrambled to his feet. A moment later, a voice yelled out, “Who’s there?”
He ran.
The clang of metal sounded and the man’s voice drew nearer as he said, “Get off my property, you rotten kids. I’ll tell your parents about this. No… better yet, I’ll report you to the guards. Think you can steal from me and get away with it?”
Despite the man’s bluster, he couldn’t match Will’s speed and he was out of the cornfield and off the man’s property a few minutes later. It took Will a while to find Red, but when he did she said, “What did you do? You’re going to wake the whole countryside.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Will said, shaking his head. “Let’s get out of here before someone finds us.”
They made straight for the lake. It was huge. Larger than anything he had ever seen. He would have sworn it was the ocean if it weren’t for the fact that he’d seen it on the map. It stretched as far as the eye could see. Which, if truth be told, wasn’t very far in the middle of the night.
They followed its shoreline to the west, back toward the Wandering Wood, putting the little farm far behind them. Once the beating in Will’s heart slowed, they stopped to fill their waterskins and get a drink.
Will sat down against a tree near the edge of the lake. He only meant to rest his feet, but a heartbeat later he fell asleep.
“Wake up,” Red whispered as she shook Will.
“What? What happened?” Will asked.
“You fell asleep,” she said. “They found us. We have to go.”
It was still dark. Will looked around. “I don’t see—”
“Shut up and trust me,” Red said. “I heard something. We need to go now.”
Will grabbed his things and they ran. The moment they left the water’s edge, shouts rose up behind them. The twang of a bow sounded and an arrow sailed past Will’s head and dug into the dirt a few feet ahead.
“Don’t shoot, you idiot,” a familiar voice said. “The king will kill you if either of them dies. Iket’s bones, I will kill you if either of them dies.”
It was Shaw.
And he didn’t want to kill them.
Good to know, Will thought.
“How long was I out?” Will asked Red as they ran.
“About an hour.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?” he asked.
“I thought we were safe, and you looked peaceful,” she admitted.
Will wasn’t sure if he should be thankful for the break or uncomfortable that she was watching him while he slept.
“You’re not going to like this,” she said, “but we need to go back into the Wandering Wood.”
“You’re right, I’m not going to like it,” Will said. “Are you insane? It’s the middle of the night.”
“That’s exactly the reaction I’m counting on,” Red said. “They’d be idiots to chase us in there right now.”
“We’re idiots for going in there,” Will added.
“We don’t have much choice,” Red said.
“That’s becoming our motto,” he said.
At full stride, they burst into the Wandering Wood. The light equalized and the dull glow returned. At least they wouldn’t have issues finding their way. But if they got lost again, they might end up Lotess knows where.
“Please let us find this temple,” Will offered as a prayer to whoever would listen.
&nbs
p; Will led the way as they vaulted over roots and ducked under branches. Each and every move they took had to be calculated. One wrong step and Shaw could be on them in an instant. Will’s heart pumped harder than ever.
“There they are!” someone shouted.
Will turned to see how close they were.
“Will!” Red shouted.
A low hanging branch almost took his head off as he spun around. He ducked at the last minute.
“Thanks!” he yelled back to her.
They kept up their pace for several minutes when Red tripped and she tumbled down a small ravine.
Her cloak got tangled in a mass of limbs and shrubs. She yanked and pulled but it wouldn’t come free.
“Leave it,” Will said. She shucked it off and they climbed up out of the ravine. The shouts were drawing closer when a small hawk appeared on a stump in front of them. They ignored it and ran.
The hawk followed them and swooped in front of Will, causing him to halt. He swatted at the bird, but it flew away. He tried to continue forward, but it wouldn’t let him. Instead, it was pushing him to the right.
“I think it wants us to follow it,” Red said.
“That’s ridiculous,” Will said. “Who would follow a bird?”
“Over here,” Shaw shouted. “I can hear someone.”
Will looked at Red, eyes wide. “All right, we follow the bird.”
The bird took off and so did Will and Red. Will’s legs were on fire, his lungs burned, and his side ached. As they ran, the trees changed. Gone were the impossibly tall trees of the Wandering Wood, replaced with typical oak and maple. After what felt like hours, feeling safe at last, they collapsed in a heap on the forest floor.
18
Will opened his eyes to find blue sky above him. In all their time in the Wandering Wood, never could he see the sky above him. Will blinked.
They were no longer in the Wandering Wood.
He tried to remember what happened last night, but it was all a blur and a rush of adrenaline.
Red lay asleep beside him, pinning his left arm to the ground. Will patted her back with his other hand. Her eyes opened to stare into his.
Upon realizing Will’s arm was beneath her she pushed him away and said, “Get off me.”
“You were on me,” Will said.
Soul Render (Soul Stones Book 1) Page 16