by Jayne Castel
The three of them crested the top of yet another hill, weaving in and out of coppicing lime trees—and slowed to a halt. From here they had an unobstructed view west. The trees fell back, and the hill sloped down to a great meadow. And beyond that was a great wall of green.
The Forest of the Fallen stretched west in a dark blanket.
Mira halted and bent double, sucking in deep breaths of air before raising her face to view the way ahead. She’d heard this forest was huge—the largest in all the four kingdoms—but she’d been unprepared for such vastness.
It stretched in all directions for as far as they eye could see, merging with a hazy blue horizon to the west. Beyond that horizon was the western coast of Thûn.
Mira straightened up and glanced over at Asher. “Any idea how far we are from the path through the forest?”
He squinted as he scanned the horizon. “It lies to the south of here … if that map of yours is right.”
“It will be,” Ninia piped up. “My uncle’s maps are all accurate.”
They moved on then, jogging down the hill and onto the open grassland below. In the summer, Mira imagined this meadow would be awash with poppies and wildflowers, but this time of year it was a tawny expanse of tall grass. The ground was soggy, squelching underfoot as they ran, cutting south-west now.
As they traveled, Mira spied rows of grass-covered lumps forming a spine to the east. There were so many of them, rounded with age so that they appeared a natural part of the landscape. After a few moments it dawned on her that they were ancient tombs. She realized then that, despite knowing a great battle had taken place here during the Fifty Year War between Rithmar and Thûn, she knew little else about the event.
“Ninia,” she called out to the girl who walked a few yards in front of her. “Who won the battle here?”
The princess cast a glance over her shoulder. “Neither side. They slaughtered each other. Both kings died in battle. It was the queens that made peace in the end.”
Mira’s attention shifted once more to the rows of burial mounds that rose up against the eastern sky.
War … even a thousand years on the kingdoms are still at each other’s throats.
The green boughs of the forest advanced before them in a great wall, the tree branches entwining like lovers’ arms. Beyond, the forest was silent and shadowy. However, it didn’t have the malevolent feel that Mira had expected. The Forest of the Fallen was the setting of many frightening tales. Perhaps Asher was right after all, maybe the wraiths of the dead no longer dwelt in this place.
Even so, Mira would have preferred to travel around rather than go through it. That wasn’t possible though—for the path north around the forest’s top edge was patrolled by leagueforts, and the southern edge would take them over open country back into the heart of occupied territory. The Captain of Anthor and his men would track them down easily over such land.
Her companions had also fallen silent as they walked south. All three of them had slowed to a walk. Exhaustion had nearly beaten them, and even a steady jog had proved too much. They just had to keep moving as best they could.
The shadows had grown long, the sun slipping beyond the trees, when they came to the forest path at last.
A single signpost marked the way—a grey block of stone with an arrow pointing west and the name ‘Harbor Tiden’ etched upon it. The etching was worn with age, a thick crust of lichen almost obscuring the letters.
“‘Harbor Tiden’, that’s the old name for ‘Aldeport’—our destination,” Ninia said, her voice breathy with relief.
Mira frowned at this. “They changed the name centuries ago … it shows just how long it’s been since anyone passed this way.”
“Aye,” Asher replied, massaging a stiff muscle in his shoulder. “But that’s where we’ll find passage to Rithmar.”
Mira glanced back the way they’d come. There was still no sign of their hunters, although they wouldn’t have given up the chase. The men of Anthor were on horseback, and once they found their tracks again, they would quickly close the gap. “Let’s hope we get there,” she muttered.
“They might not follow us into the forest,” Asher pointed out. “Folk can be superstitious about such places.”
“No … it depends how desperate they are,” Mira replied.
Beside her, Ninia tensed. “They’re desperate,” she murmured. “I’m the last of my line … the King of Anthor wants me dead.”
Mira didn’t have a reply for that.
They entered The Forest of the Fallen, stepping out of the last of the daylight into a damp, shadowed world, where the whistles and chatter of blackbirds and nightingales greeted them. Mira inhaled the rich smell of damp earth and greenery, her gaze traveling over the forest floor either side of the path, where green shoots were pushing up.
The path was narrow, overhung in places by low branches and creeping vines. As such, their way was often blocked. Spongy moss and dead leaves carpeted the ground beneath their feet. Asher led the way. Ninia followed a few steps behind the enchanter, while Mira brought up the rear.
As she walked, Mira kept stealing glances behind her. She was alert to any sign of pursuit: the snap of a twig in the undergrowth, the rumble of men’s voices in the distance, or the heavy thud of hooves. Yet none came. This overgrown path would slow their pursuers down too, should they venture here on horseback.
They traveled for as far as the light permitted. To Mira it felt as if they’d journeyed deep into the forest, yet she knew it was barely a league since they’d left the meadows behind. Time lost all meaning in a place such as this. Despite that she was city born and bred, and was at her happiest in crowds, Mira was surprised to find herself liking this forest.
It was ancient. She breathed in the age of the earth here, her gaze tracing the trunks of massive oaks that had stood for hundreds of years. Because of the legends attached to this forest, the world of men and women had left The Forest of the Fallen alone. Nature ruled here, and she found a strange solace in that.
They eventually stopped when evening settled over the forest in a dark shroud. The moon would rise soon, although it would be merely a white sliver against the night sky, for the new cycle had just begun.
Asher led them to a spot a few yards from the path, hidden from view by a growth of brambles. Here, they sat down upon moss-covered logs and consumed a supper of bread and boiled eggs.
“Shouldn’t we move farther from the path?” Mira asked between mouthfuls.
“If we ever got lost in here, we’d never find our way out again,” Asher reminded her. “Even if wraiths don’t bother us on the path, we’d best be careful.”
“So no fire then?” Ninia sounded depressed at this.
“Not unless you want to light a signal for those men chasing us,” Mira pointed out. Like Ninia, she would have welcomed the warmth of a fire. The damp inside the forest drilled deep into the marrow of her bones. She’d insisted on a fire the night before, against Asher’s advice, but after their narrow escape at Horncastle, she wasn’t game to try again.
They ate the remainder of their supper in silence, before Asher did some training with Ninia for a short while. He kept his voice low as he explained techniques and rituals that would help her manage her power. Like the night before, Mira didn’t pay much attention. Only, tonight her mind wasn’t racing ahead, planning her escape. Instead, she was in the present, and oddly content to be so.
It was a strange sensation—not to be chafing to run, to be anywhere but where she was.
Much had happened in a day. Her gaze shifted to where Asher was moving his right arm in a fluid arc and asking Ninia to follow his lead. Although her gaze had adjusted to the darkness, Mira could not make out the details of his features or the expression in his eyes. Yet she could not stop watching him.
Yes, much had happened in a day—and it had all started with that kiss.
25
After Dark
MIRA STRETCHED OUT her legs before her, cro
ssing them at the ankle. She leaned back against the mossy log, trying to ignore the damp rising up from the forest floor through her layers of clothing. She'd be sore by morning after lying on the ground and could feel her joints stiffening up already.
Ninia had stretched out on the ground, her cloak wrapped around her. She was breathing slowly and deeply, asleep already. Asher sat a few feet away. Unlike the night before, he hadn’t bedded down. Instead, he sat silent and watchful. And although she could not see his eyes, or his features in the darkness, Mira knew he was watching her.
“You should get some sleep,” he said finally. “There’s no point both of us keeping watch.”
Mira’s mouth curved. “Don’t you trust me?”
“No … not really.”
Mira’s smile faded. She glanced back over at the princess. Ninia’s breathing hadn’t changed; their talking wasn’t keeping her awake.
“I don’t know how the girl does it,” she murmured. “She can sleep anywhere.”
Asher huffed. “I don’t even sleep that well in a soft bed.”
Mira watched him, wishing she could see his expression. In all the days they’d been traveling together, he’d revealed little about himself. Asher was in many ways still an enigma to her.
“You have trouble sleeping?” she asked.
“Aye … busy mind, I suppose,” he replied. “Sometimes I wish I could shut my thoughts off.”
Mira sighed. She knew the feeling. After a pause, she spoke once more. “Back in the marshes, you said you lost your father to The Grey Ravage.”
There was a long silence before Asher replied. “Aye … my father caught the plague from a whore.”
“And your mother?”
“She turned bitter after he died. She didn’t like having me around … I look too much like my father.” Asher paused there. “As soon as I started showing signs of enchantment, she was only too happy to lose me to the order.”
“And now?”
“She still lives in The Royal City, but I haven’t seen her in years.”
Silence stretched between them, before Asher broke it. “You hated being a Swallow, didn’t you?”
The question caught Mira off-guard. She’d forgotten just how sharp this man was. It made her feel dangerously exposed.
“Yes … every day of it,” she admitted quietly.
“You didn’t try to run away?”
“For years I thought of nothing else. The day before Veldoras fell, I’d planned to leave … only Reoul of Anthor ruined my escape.”
Asher gave a soft, sympathetic laugh, and the low timbre of it sent tingles over Mira’s skin. “That was poor timing.”
The air between them grew charged; a tension rose that hadn’t been there moments before. Mira longed to reach out and trace the lines of his face with her fingertips, to read his expression. Yesterday he’d awoken a sleeping hunger within her, one that had grown greedy and demanded more.
She held her breath as he shifted close to her, kneeling before her. Neither of them spoke as he reached out and touched her face, his fingers sliding down her cheek to cup her jaw. He then traced the swell of her lower lip with the pad of his thumb.
Mira inhaled sharply.
Asher leaned in and kissed her. It was different to the night before; that embrace had taken them both by surprise, had swept them both up in a wild madness. This kiss was gentle, exploratory. Yet it aroused the same hunger in Mira as before.
She choked back a groan and leaned toward Asher, reaching for him. Her hands slid over his chest, her fingers digging into the thick leather of the vest he wore under his cloak. Her mouth opened under his, and she melted against him. Under her right palm, she felt the pounding of his heart. A thrill of power went through her—like her, Asher was holding on to his control by a thread.
Frustration welled within Mira. She longed to give herself up to this, to forget the rest of the world existed. Yet they were in the middle of a cold, dark forest, with Ninia sleeping just a couple of yards away. Abandon would have to wait.
Still Asher continued to kiss her, his hands cupping the back of her head while he explored her mouth and traced her lips with his tongue. Mira responded in kind, enjoying the rasp of his jaw against her sensitive skin.
A noise intruded: the cracking of a twig snapping in the undergrowth, giving way under something heavy.
Mira and Asher froze.
Lifting his mouth from hers, Asher pulled back. Mira held her breath, her ears straining in the silence. The forest around them had gone eerily still. She wanted to believe they had heard a badger or fox in the undergrowth, but instinct told her that wasn’t the case.
Danger lurked in the shadows.
Asher silently gathered the Light, readying himself to fight, while Mira reached her hand down to the pommel of her sword.
Ears straining she continued to listen—and then she heard it. The gentle rasp of a man’s indrawn breath. Just a few feet away, behind the wall of brambles and ferns that shielded them from the path.
Mira’s heart lurched. How many of them were hiding out there?
She rose to a crouching position, her gaze scanning the darkness. Ninia was still sleeping soundly, blissfully unaware.
They must have heard us talking, Mira thought. She and Asher had kept their voices low, but sound carried at night. We should have been more careful.
Mira was just about to reach for Ninia and gently shake her awake, when the flare of torchlight blinded her. Undergrowth snapped and crunched underfoot, and a semi-circle of dark-clad figures emerged into the small clearing where they had made camp for the night.
Mira grabbed Ninia by the arm and hauled her up. The girl cried out and started to protest, before she saw the ring of tall figures surrounding them. Ninia then went still.
Asher stepped back, shielding the two women behind him.
And as they stood there, poised to fight, a man stepped out from the midst of the group.
The Captain of Anthor’s face was a stony mask. His features were chiseled, his mouth finely drawn; yet the severity of his expression told of a man who rarely smiled. His was a face that did not yield at all.
The captain didn’t carry a torch. Instead, he held a broadsword in his right hand. He moved with a heavy tread toward them before stopping a few feet from Asher. His eyes were hard as he observed them.
“You led us on quite a dance,” he said quietly. His voice was low and pleasant, at odds with his severe appearance. “But now the chase has ended.” His attention shifted from Mira to Asher. “Give the girl up.”
“We can’t do that,” Asher replied coldly.
The captain raised a dark eyebrow. “I won’t ask twice.”
Asher drew his right hand in a slow arc. A column of flame shot up from the nearest pitch torch behind the captain. It flared high into the air before dropping onto the palm of Asher’s hand, where it burned bright. “Are you sure you want to fight us?”
The soldiers behind the captain shifted. Mira studied them, and saw that unlike the man who led them, some of the others were nervous. They would have seen the destruction of the leaguefort—and they all thought Asher was responsible for it.
These were hard men, but Mira saw the shadow of fear that flickered across some of their faces. They were wary of the enchanter who stood before them.
Not their captain though. That man stood as immovable as a boulder in the clearing. He brought his free hand down, so that he gripped the hilt of the heavy broadsword with both hands. “I’m ready to shed some blood if it’ll get the job done,” he growled.
Mira heard the note of bitterness in his voice then, a glimpse at the frustration just beneath his granite exterior. She knew bitterness well, having tasted it daily for years. Despite that he had hunted them since Thornmere, the Captain of Anthor didn’t want to be here. This was not an errand of his choosing.
Mira let go of Ninia’s arm and stepped up next to Asher, drawing her sword. The long blade gleamed in the torchligh
t.
The captain’s gaze swiveled to her. “The last of the Swallows,” he drawled. “Ready to die?”
Mira smiled, her heart thumping as adrenalin surged through her.
The Captain of Anthor moved then, swift for such a big man. The broadsword arched through the air, and the clang of steel cut through the forest’s hush when Mira’s blade swung up to meet it.
Asher let out a yell and launched a whip of fire across the clearing, knocking two men who rushed at him off their feet. Yet still more came. Mira remembered seeing a large company riding toward Horncastle, and they revealed themselves now, crashing through the undergrowth, swords unsheathed.
Mira ignored them all, her attention focused on the man who fought her. He was good. Mira had been taught by the best, but so too had this man. She recognized the training in the way he fought.
He knew all her tricks, anticipated them. Mira’s advantage was her speed and agility. She avoided any move that required strength to gain the upper hand. It was difficult though, for her opponent fought with a broadsword, a weapon made for cleaving through flesh and chopping off limbs. She wielded a longsword, which was lighter and longer, with a slender blade.
Around her, she was aware of Ninia crying out, of men shouting, and the crackle and hiss of fire as Asher gathered the Light once more. However, she dared not take her gaze off the Captain of Anthor.
Just once she managed to get under his guard, and her blade’s tip scored the top of his thigh, slicing through the thick leather of his breeches. The man barely flinched, instead bringing his sword down in a vicious arc that would have sliced her in half, had she not ducked out of the way.
Mira rolled and bounced to her feet to meet her opponent once more. He came at her relentlessly, his face expressionless.
Sweat now trickled down Mira’s back. She remembered her training and kept her breathing deep and even, her limbs loose. He was better than her, she’d realized that shortly after they’d begun to fight, yet they fought in a cramped space, and she was quicker and lighter than him. She just needed to keep him at bay while Asher and Ninia dealt with his men.