by Katie Cross
She leaned against a tree, head spinning. Her ribs ached. “She had a tattoo on the back of her neck. Did you see it?”
Yes.
“A dragon, wasn’t it? Maybe? I-I couldn’t tell.”
His eyes narrowed. Yes.
The questions choked her. Too much concentrated fear coursed through her like fire to allow her to think clearly. She didn’t even know where to start. Poachers again. She had to warn Daid. Jesse. Elis. All of them. If poachers were already here … It might be too late.
We must be on alert.
“We need to warn Daid. We have to go back. Now.”
He hesitated for just a moment—a moment long enough for Sanna to comprehend his pause. If she ran back and told everyone there was a poacher in the forest, they’d stare at her. Finn would laugh. Daid would listen—but he’d want to know for certain. Without proof, she was the last witch they’d trust. Never mind that she’d saved them from Talis’s tyrannical reign and, given time, the almost-certain destruction of the forest.
They’d never see it that way. Six months had passed since Talis died, and they still hadn’t accepted it.
You would induce panic before we have enough information. I do not agree with this plan.
She couldn’t believe he could be so calm about this. A leaf drifted down from the spires of trees, sliding past her cheek with a gentle caress. For half a second, she thought of pressing her hand into the nearest tree and trying to speak with Deasylva. The fickle forest goddess came and went as she pleased, but sometimes she was around. Sometimes she answered questions.
Sometimes she didn’t.
The unknown behaviors of a vague goddess weren’t high on her priority list. Besides, she’d taken pains to avoid Deasylva ever since she’d forced the title of High Dragonmaster on her—for one night, at least.
Now, it seemed more sensible for Daid to take the title. Everyone followed him anyway, even though he had killed Talis. Sanna bore the burden of upending life in the forest for all the Dragonmasters.
Sanna sucked in another deep breath, forcing herself to calm. Luteis was right. Panic on any level wouldn’t serve them right now.
There is already much panic. His ears perked up. Not even a dragon of his behemoth size could hide his ideas. But Deasylva can help us.
Sanna scowled. Why did he have to think of it too?
“Do we have a choice?”
Always. She may have returned.
With a sigh, Sanna let her thoughts untangle, winding through the paths of her frustration with Finn, Daid’s lacking desire to fly with Rubeis, and the strange fracture of the brood. Although Rubeis had stepped up as the new dragon sire, not all of the dragons wanted to follow him. Sanna could feel their anger simmering in the darkness as she walked by.
Besides, the night Talis died, Sanna had been able to hear all the dragons’ voices in her head. A probable sign that she was High Dragonmaster, although they couldn’t know for certain thanks to Talis erasing history.
But now?
The voices were gone.
“Fine. We’ll … ask Deasylva. But not until tonight,” she said. “We’ll go farther away and speak with her.”
Luteis stared at her through a wide, yellow eye. As you say.
Feeling better, she nodded once. “After talking to Deasylva, let’s look around. See if there are any camps or other signs.”
Tonight.
Later that night, Sanna climbed up the last few branches of a familiar, ancient oak and settled back on her haunches. It was the same tree, the same branch, where she’d first met Deasylva the previous year. Luteis lurked just behind her, his globe-like eyes peering through the thick tangle of trees. Sanna glanced at him over her shoulder.
“Do you think she’ll talk to me?”
Why not?
“I’ve tried, and she doesn’t answer.”
Perhaps you aren’t really listening.
She reached out and stroked the tree trunk with the tips of her fingers to avoid responding. True, Sanna had approached Deasylva mostly out of obligation in the past. Talking with the goddess felt weird. At this time last year, Sanna didn’t even know she existed.
A sliver of light illuminated under her touch, flaring to life like a miniature spark of sun. As quickly as it came, the light faded, leaving a pit in Sanna’s stomach. She frowned.
She is there. I can feel her more than I have recently.
“Now?”
The thin scales above Luteis’s eyes drew together, creasing his forehead. Well … I am not certain. But she is in all things in the forest.
Sanna quirked an eyebrow. “How long has it been since you last spoke with her?”
I cannot recall.
“Weeks?”
At least.
“Hmm.”
Sanna straightened, grabbed a vine, pressed her feet into the trunk, and used it to walk to the other side of the tree, where another sprawling branch jutted out. She used the uneven edges to stair-step her way higher, then pressed her palm to the rough bark, but no light flared this time. Her brow furrowed.
“Do goddesses die?”
I’ve always imagined her immortal.
“I always imagined her male and a lot less forgiving,” Sanna muttered, craning her head back to peer into the canopy. “It’s amazing how reality changes so swiftly. Can she leave?”
No. She is Letum Wood. He paused. At least, that’s what I have always imagined, but I may err in my assumptions, for she isn’t always here. You pose a worthy question for once.
“I’ll let that one slide. Do you remember last time I spoke with her, after Talis died?”
Briefly.
“She said we needed to prepare for war.”
This I remember.
“Could she be preparing for war, somehow?”
I don’t know how to answer. I am not used to witches asking such astute questions.
“Har har.”
I’ll think on these.
They sank into another silence. Sanna dropped her feet from the tree trunk and grabbed the vine. It swung back around. She alighted gently on the first mossy branch. A flicker of light caught her gaze. With it came a faint surge of heat in the tree, a strange new swish, swish, like a beating heart of sap. The swoop of a letter in a line of light appeared on the umber branch.
“Ah,” Sanna muttered. “There you are.”
Letters appeared in the mossy bark one at a time, so painstakingly slow Sanna almost couldn’t handle it. The threads were gossamer thin, as if Deasylva scratched with the tip of a needle. Sanna pressed close to the tree.
“Avay, Deasylva,” she said.
I am always here, the words said.
“I beg to differ.”
Luteis bumped her with his snout. She scowled at him but continued. “There are poachers in Letum Wood again, and … that’s all.” Luteis nudged her again. Sanna swatted at him. “Fine,” she growled. “And I can’t hear the dragon voices anymore. Luteis wants to know why.”
Luteis’s answering growl rumbled in his throat. New lines appeared in the tree.
They also prepare.
Sanna’s brow furrowed. “What? Prepare for what? Who is ‘they’?”
The light faded, giving way, yet again, to the three letters Sanna feared most.
War.
“I know that already. Why are they preparing for war with silver arrows?” Something cold trickled through her. “Is this a poacher war?”
You have what is required.
“We don’t have anything. We can’t even get proper houses built.”
You have my trust.
The light ebbed.
Sanna floundered, at a loss. What good was Deasylva’s trust? They needed weapons. Certainty. More food.
“But that doesn’t mean anything!” Sanna cried. “That doesn’t make any sense!”
Soon. The word faded, barely legible. Soon.
“But what about the dragon voices?”
No response came.
> Sanna rammed her hand into the trunk once, scowling. Soon, what? The gentle stir of the air faded. The scent of honeysuckle went with it. An edge laced Luteis’s tone.
That was … unexpected.
“This isn’t good, Luteis. We have poachers, lazy dragons, dissenting Dragonmasters, and an apparent war on the horizon that we know nothing about. What exactly are we supposed to do next? She wasn’t any help!”
We plan for war and care for the dragons.
“Talk to Finn. He has some radical ideas on how to take care of dragons.”
Then we must do the best we can to prepare ourselves.
“But prepare for what?” she growled, shoving away from the tree. “What good is a goddess who only stirs up more questions?”
She made that clear. We’re preparing for war.
“Yes, but the war is here now. Poachers have come. That makes it personal.”
She said that they also prepare. Perhaps they aren’t poachers.
“Then why the silver-filled arrow?”
He gave no response.
Her chest tightened at the thought of what a silver-filled arrow could do to Luteis. Sanna grabbed a vine and plummeted down, branches, leaves, and mossy clumps whizzing past her in the dull wind. She landed in a crouch, glanced around, and straightened. With a glare at the canopy, she clapped her hands, shaking bits of vine free. Luteis landed next to her, and the two slinked through the forest without another word.
Chapter Four
The stench of the marsh lingered in Isadora’s nose, though she’d scrubbed her body for an hour with rough salts and heavy soap.
Late winter sun streamed into the room with a blunted light when she woke up after a heavy sleep. Her entire body ached, but especially her calves, which had borne the brunt of slogging through the murky water. When she slipped out of bed, she grabbed Daily Incantations for Busy Mothers from the shelf, flipped to the back, and found a smell removal incantation.
After working the magic, she stumbled into a dress, wrapped her hair in a bun, and left her room. The smell of coffee permeated the air as she advanced into the kitchen. Sunlight streamed through the tall cottage windows, illuminating frosty designs.
Isadora yawned and sat at a rickety wooden table. Three skinny windows overlooked a section of rolling fields that eventually led to Letum Wood in the distance. She soaked the beautiful sight in, lost in the undulating lines of field and grass. Something about the openness of the world outside Letum Wood thrilled her.
“She awakens!” Pearl cried, bustling into the kitchen. Her apron bow, large as ever, bounced with every movement. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired.”
“As you should be.”
An edge of … something bothered Isadora. She couldn’t name it. She slipped into the paths to find the answer there. The magic stirred with a sigh inside of her, as if pleased she’d returned.
Something was different.
She studied the wide sprawl of the familiar, ancient trees. Was the landscape brighter? Maybe a little, but it was … humming. As if she could hear the magic. Her blood buzzed. She felt saturated with magic. This had happened before. Her power had seemed to grow by the day since she joined the Advocacy and began using it, but sometimes it exploded, expanding by massive amounts.
Three paths appeared on the ground, infused with strands of light. Herself, Pearl, and Sanna.
“Show only my path.”
Now only two paths disappeared into the quiet, lush forest. A meandering trail cut through the trees, populated with colorful wisps. The most distant of them—an untold number of days, weeks, or months away, she could never tell—seemed innocuous enough. Letum Wood in the spring. Smelling flowers. Standing on top of a building, peering at the edge of an expansive, rippling body of water. A storm lingering on the distant horizon. The ocean.
The wisps were mere representations of future possibilities that never ended. Future-gazing was a capricious art. Some paths revealed the strangest things, like Isadora wagging her finger at a troll or Maximillion grimacing—perhaps attempting to smile and failing magnificently.
She reached out, touched one of the trees, and felt a thrill zip through her hand. Power built inside her, then eased. She closed the magic and blinked out of her daze. The powers were a bit different, but nothing concerning. She put it off to think about later.
“Any plans for the rest of the day?” Pearl asked when she returned, unbothered by Isadora’s minutes-long mental absence.
“Meet with Maximillion. Then study Ilese, I suppose.”
Pearl’s gaze darted to a pile of laundry, then hastily looked away.
Isadora reached for her teacup. “Of course, it will feel so good to do the laundry when I return. There’s nothing quite like it for relaxing.”
Pearl beamed. “Lovely idea!”
A copy of the Chatham Chatterer newsscroll lay on the table. It shifted as its articles updated, sometimes with more sentences, sometimes fewer. With so many battles in the Networks and so much political tension, the scroll never calmed.
War left little breathing room.
“It’s a wretched time, isn’t it?” Pearl asked, as if reading her mind. “Maximillion so busy he can hardly exhale. Berry in ruins. Things escalating against the East. The Southern Network building a wall to keep everyone out. Madness, I tell you. I’ve never heard of such unrest.”
Isadora pushed the newsscroll out of sight.
“I’ve been reading like a madwoman to distract myself.” Pearl gestured to piles of books and scrolls all over the floor. “Can’t get myself to stop. Those romances are so … whew … exciting. Better than focusing on what’s happening here, anyway. Or what’s not happening here. Oh, I almost forgot. A letter came from your sister last night. It’s, ah … quite unconventional.”
She hadn’t visited her family in a month. Lucey had been teaching her transformation, which proved to be distracting magic. A leaf the size of her hand, folded into four, fell into Isadora’s palm. Purple ink covered the velvety backside. Babs’s ink, no doubt, made from the boiled remnants of a rare mushroom. She recognized Sanna’s awkward handwriting immediately.
WHERE ARE YOU?
Isadora sighed. Pearl stared at her, eyebrows high.
“That is a—”
“A leaf? Yes.”
“Hmm.”
“I should go visit them after I report to Maximillion,” Isadora murmured with a pang of guilt. “But I’ll probably go before, just so I have an excuse to leave if I need one.”
All the strange stares she’d drawn at home the past six months returned to her mind. Her shorter hair, no doubt, caused some of them discomfort, even though she tried to pull it into a bun. Never mind that she’d chosen to live away from Letum Wood but still returned to visit frequently. Something else unheard of unless she was learning a trade to bring back to the families.
She wasn’t.
Pearl motioned to a plate of bread with a wave of her hand. The plate rose into the air. Five slices of bread flew into the napkin, which folded over itself, and zipped to Isadora’s side.
“Take the bread. I’m sure they’re still quite hungry.”
Isadora almost refused. Pearl was as hungry as they were, but seeing the challenge in the older woman’s eyes, Isadora accepted the gift with a smile.
“Thanks. I better get going. I’ll be back this evening.”
“Mam, you must eat.”
Isadora set a cooling bowl of mashed tubers on the table, next to the bread. Without the bread, the meal would hardly have been big enough for Mam and Daid both. Mam stared out the window at the faint rays of the waning sun. Daylight diffused through the thick canopy overhead.
Mam sighed and reached for a spoon with her thin fingers. Isadora nodded once.
“Thank you.”
Mam’s bony shoulders stuck out from her long-sleeved dress, which hung on her like an old rag. Some of the color had come back into her cheeks, banishing the pallor that had appea
red after Talis’s death. Months later, it still seemed as if the life had ebbed away from Mam’s countenance. The drastic changes had taken a ragged toll on many Serv—Dragonmasters, and Mam was no exception. Every time Isadora returned home, the change seemed starker than before.
Perhaps the change was really greatest in herself.
“Where is Sanna?” she asked.
“Meeting with the other Servants,” Mam said.
“Dragonmasters, you mean.”
Mam frowned.
The dishwater had cooled by the time Isadora dunked her hands in it, rubbing bits of food off a plate. Daid opened the door and stepped inside. Their crude, makeshift hut had been thrown together five months ago, before winter settled in. She hadn’t told them she’d used magic to reinforce several gaps in the walls. Mam wouldn’t appreciate the help.
Isadora drew in a deep breath, forced a smile onto her face, and turned around. Soapy water dripped from her hands as she faced Daid.
“Avay, Daid.”
He sank into a chair without looking at her. “Avay.”
She set a bowl of food—and two slices of bread from Pearl—in front of him. “Eat up. You’ll need your strength.”
“Sanna already gone?” he asked Mam.
“Yes.”
Dinner passed in strained silence while Isadora bustled around the kitchen. Mam and Daid said little around her anymore. What could be said? Her hair was shorn like a wild thing. She wore dresses more elaborate and wasteful than any they had ever seen—even though they were considered modest and simple in the Network. And she actively practiced magic.
A confirmed heathen.
A gentle knock sounded on the back door. She grabbed a towel and dried her hands on it as she crossed the dirt floor. Babs Chandler stood outside. She glanced at Isadora’s hair, swallowed, and extended a basket.
“I brought this for your parents.”
“Thank you, Babs.”