The Will and the Wilds

by Holmberg, Charlie N.

  I’m so close, I beg them. Please.

  Not even the Will Stone will lend me the strength to go on. Maekallus crouches beside me, silent. I turn my head, refusing to look at him. Nod. The movement is small, barely detectable, but Maekallus sees it and slides his arms under my knees and shoulders. Lifts me like I’m nothing. My body acts against my will and curls close to him, savoring the heat of his skin. My heat, for it comes from my soul. In that closeness, I listen to his heartbeat. It’s almost in sync with my own.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, willing my thoughts to die.

  Maekallus stops moving. “I can’t see it, Enna.”

  I open my eyes and find the glimmer trail to our left. I point, choosing to remain silent rather than speak to him. In part because I believe this punishes him. In part because I don’t know what to say.

  He walks with me in his arms for about half a mile before he slows, though I’m still pointing the way and see no obstacles in the path marked by magic. I lift my head to question him, but he shushes me.

  It’s then that I realize I’m so cold, so distracted, that I didn’t sense the Will Stone’s warning. I feel its deep freeze now, and I clamp it in my hands. The ice it sends through my body hurts. Mystings. More than one.

  Maekallus’s grip on me tightens. He treads more carefully now, ducking to avoid brushing low branches with his shrunken horn. His red hair falls from his shoulder onto my forehead, but I don’t move it aside. I don’t ask the questions bubbling up in me, the most pertinent being How many mystings will the stone control before its power stretches too thin?

  I shudder when I see muted red light between distant trees. When I hear the garbled, cryptic language of mystings.

  Maekallus moves silently. Again I wonder how old he is, how much time he’s had to practice such stealth. He sets me down two dozen meters from the grove of red light and whispers, “Will them not to see us. Not to hear.”

  I sense the mystings through the stone, each its own shiver of warning. I do as Maekallus asked, all the while clenching my jaw so my teeth don’t chatter.

  Maekallus presses his lips together. “Wait here.”

  “I will not—”

  He grasps my shoulders. “Please, Enna.”

  It’s the please that gets me, its imploring tone. It fuels the ache that resonates in my chest.

  I nod, and he vanishes into the shadows. Not long after, the stone turns so bitter I have to drop it to save my hand. Hurry. Please hurry.

  Maekallus isn’t gone long—less than a quarter hour—but the stone never warms. When he returns, he motions me forward. The glimmer of red light before us, so like that of my nightmares, sparks my limbs back to life. Tugging my sleeve beneath my icy bracelet, I follow, matching Maekallus’s footsteps until we’ve cut our distance from the grove by half. We duck behind a pine. If I crouch and lean to the right, I can see into the grove. That bloody light emanates from the odd, round lanterns ringing the space, but the forest floor glows as well—a whitish blue. I spy two short freblon near it, as well as a rooter, one much darker than Attaby. It walks with a hunch, back and forth, back and forth. When I squint, I can just make out the glimmer of the scrying spell, leading right up to that bluish-white light. Dipping down into it.

  As if sensing my thoughts, Maekallus whispers, “Portal ring.”

  I look at him in question.

  He crouches beside me, his mouth close enough to my ear that his breath stirs my hair. “Portal ring. I’m surprised to see one. It’s . . . like a more permanent summoning ring. Used to summon multiple mystings at once. This one is big.”

  And the gobler is just beyond it. I can feel him. I roll the scorching Will Stone between my fingers, but Maekallus grabs my hand and murmurs, “Wait.”

  The portal ring’s light brightens almost enough to hurt my eyes, but I can’t look away. I stare, my legs cramping. My teeth chatter; I bite my tongue to hush them.

  Something is coming through.

  The body emerges, and from its silhouette alone I know it’s not a gobler. Too tall, too lean. It’s a humanoid mysting with dark-blue skin. Broad shoulders and ribs that taper into an alarmingly thin waist. Long black hair. Two thick horns that roll over the skull, crisscrossing like some ornamental plant. An orjan. My grandmother knew less of orjans than she did narvals.

  Maekallus’s grip on my hand tightens until I hiss in pain. He lets me go.

  “This is bad.” His words are heavy, almost solid.

  “Why?”

  Maekallus points toward the portal ring. “Because that is the previous owner of the Will Stone.”

  CHAPTER 25

  A portal ring is made of three summoning circles sealed together inside an outer ring. Portal rings act as a more permanent door between realms for mortals and mystings alike.

  I stare at the mysting haloed in light and forget to breathe.

  I am far from him, too far to make out his facial features, but I see from the breadth of his shoulders, the confidence in his stance, and the cowering of the other mystings that this creature is powerful, strong, and ruthless. At the same time, I am struck dumb with awe that this is the mysting my father stole from.

  My father is an even greater hero than I had realized.

  But Scroud is here to take back what was stolen from him.

  The orjan turns, and Maekallus jerks me back by the shoulder, putting his body between me and the glade, though the pine hides nearly all of us.

  “Don’t breathe,” he whispers, soft as the breeze. I don’t. I squeeze the stone.

  His hand comes over mine again. He shakes his head.

  I wait a long time, until my lungs begin to burn. Maekallus relaxes a fraction, and I let air run slowly out my nose and back in. Maekallus backs up so he’s fully behind the tree. There’s no space between us.

  “Don’t use it,” he warns.

  “Why?” I mouth the word more than I speak it.

  “He owned it a long time. The stone. I don’t know if . . . he might sense its power.” His breath washes over my brow. “The trail?”

  “Into the portal ring.”

  He considers. “That must mean he’s close. Just on the other side.”

  “Does the ring work both ways?”

  He hesitates, his shadow stiff. “Yes. But we can’t risk using it. Not with—”

  A voice like shattering granite washes over us. “Maekallus.”

  My heart seizes in my chest, and even with the protection of my sleeve, the bracelet burns my flesh. Maekallus jerks up to his feet, but the orjan still looms over him, nearly the same color as the shadows. My entire being jolts with fear. I can’t breathe, I can’t move. I am nothing more than an erratic pulse waiting to be snuffed out.

  Scroud’s large dark eyes look over Maekallus, but never once do they stray to me.

  “You look different.” His thin lips curl at the word, like Maekallus’s humanified traits disgust him. “Fitting, for a deserter.”

  Maekallus is tense, a hare ready to spring. He does nothing to give me away.

  And it’s at that moment I realize I’m not being ignored. I am invisible. I’d willed it without even realizing. As far as Scroud is concerned, I am not here.

  It offers me only a fraction of courage.

  Maekallus bows his head in deference. “I am what I am,” he answers. Exactly what he once told me.

  Scroud snorts. “You are untrustworthy. Why have you come here?” He takes in the thread of light leading from Maekallus’s chest. “What—”

  He pauses, finally dipping his head to look in my direction. I could swear my heart stops under that gaze. Don’t see me. Don’t see me. Don’t see me. Perhaps he’s noticed the indentation in the wild grass where I sit. Perhaps—

  Maekallus had told me Scroud might sense his Will Stone. Does he sense it now?

  Panic stricken, I do the only thing I know I can. I will the mysting to go, to forget, to vanish back into the portal from which he came.

  Not a noise escapes
him when he turns and does just as I’d silently ordered. But even when he leaves—even when I can no longer hear his footsteps, and the stone warns only of his minions—I am paralyzed with terror. Maekallus, too, is afraid. He takes a moment before facing me. His shoulders, his chest, even the muscles in his face are tense. It makes me think of a corpse, after the hardening has set in.

  “He sensed it.” His word is more wind than whisper. “I know he did.”

  I manage to swallow, to wet my tongue enough to speak. “I willed him to forget.”

  Maekallus nods, but doubt shines in his amber eyes. I can’t help but mirror it.

  We sit there, alone for a time. I sense another mysting vanish into the portal. I wait for the gobler to come up, but he doesn’t.

  After what must be another quarter hour, Maekallus says, “We have to move forward. Scout the circle.”

  “We don’t have time—”

  He clasps my face in his hands. His fingertips are cold—not the cold of a mysting, but of a man shaken. I lean into them, yet the intimacy of the gesture pulls at my most broken pieces, like a knife cutting across burned skin.

  “We have time. I promise. Two days. One for me to watch, one to make our move.”

  My gut sours. “But if you’re caught . . . Scroud—”

  Even in the darkness, I can see the glint of his smirk. “I won’t be. I’m still a narval. And Scroud won’t be looking for me, if you made him forget. Hopefully he was checking on his troops, nothing more. I’ll stay to the south and keep the spell out of sight.” He sounds like he’s forcing himself to believe the sentiment.

  I’m not sure if narvals can mask themselves from other mystings like they can with mortals, but I’ve no other realistic options available to me. I nod, and he drops his hands, and I hurt all over again.

  We’re motionless for a few minutes more. The portal ring activates again. Maekallus uses its flash of blinding light to scoop me up and move away from the red-lit grove. I don’t ask him to carry me, but he does, through the depths of the wildwood, until even his breaths are short and his skin moist. He carries me all the way to the trees by my home and sets me down.

  I think I feel his lips brush my temple, but when I turn back to him, he’s already gone.

  I spend the following day with my father.

  He’s well enough to sit upright in bed, and even gets up late in the morning to take a bath. I play fell the king with him, read to him, and listen to his stories. I chat with him while I darn one of his socks, and when weariness pulls him to sleep, I harvest mushrooms from the cellar farm and take them into town. It is Mrs. Lovess who mans the booth today. I’m grateful for that small relief. My heart has been stretched and knotted, and I can’t pick my way through it for Tennith’s sake. Not even for my own.

  Maekallus is always there, lurking in my thoughts. I think of him in the half seconds between my father’s breaths, in the spaces between sentences in my books, and in the silence between footfalls when I walk to and from the house. Maekallus isn’t at the edge of the wood today—he’s deep in the thick of it, watching the portal circle. I find myself searching the edge of the wildwood for him, and even trick myself into thinking I spy him, but the red glint is only the tail of a fox.

  I grip my Will Stone and think, Stay alive. It might be too much to ask, however, for the stone doesn’t tingle at my command. It flashes cold on and off, signaling the arrival and departure of mystings. Between flashes, it is cool, so I know Maekallus is alive enough to be considered a threat, if only a small one.

  My body shivers with unnatural cold, and I continue to have moments of blankness as I work about the house. Feeling has not returned to my fingertips. Maekallus’s betrayal still burns in my belly. Yet the kinder parts of me—perhaps the parts fueled by what bits of soul I possess—warn that I’m too harsh a judge. That I’m faulting a soul-filled Maekallus for the actions of a previous, soulless version of himself, and they are not one and the same. Yet even when I lean toward that reasoning, my heart aches. A rusted stake has been hammered between my breasts, and I’m without the tools to pull it out.

  Perhaps what bothers me most of all is the fact that I feel so strongly about a mysting, whether or not he has a soul. I’m so sick with this that I can’t even bring myself to write in my book, though I have so much information to record.

  The day ends without event. My father complains about the fire being too hot, so I keep it down during the afternoon. As soon as he turns in for the night, however, I stoke it until smoke chokes the chimney, and I lie before its flames, willing my chills away.

  I stay there, tortured by my thoughts, until dawn nears the horizon. Then I sleep for an hour or so, only to wake in a puddle of my own perspiration, the images of teeth and red, violent light seared against my eyelids.

  My father is up and about again, much to my relief, though it will take another couple of days for his full strength to return. I chide him when I find him washing dishes after breakfast. He insists on working, so I set him to checking the oon berry for holes and steal away into the wildwood. Maekallus has had his day to watch, and I’m overeager to know what he knows. I clutch the Will Stone as I walk.

  The Will Stone whispers of Maekallus’s closeness long before I reach the glade; perhaps he is seeking me out, just as I am seeking him. I press my numb fingertips to the stone as I trek slowly through the wildwood and focus on keeping my breathing even so I might not tire so quickly. I change direction twice, the Will Stone guiding me, and find Maekallus near a brook. He scoops cool water into his hands and drinks before raising his head and noticing me. The sun shines off the point of his horn. It doesn’t look as sharp as I remember it being. Black spots mar his body, some as small as a particle of dust, others as large as a grown man’s hand. The right side of his chest and right shoulder are more black than peach, and a black smudge engulfs his left eye as though someone had hit him there. It makes the amber iris look especially bright.

  His pants are dirty and torn, and his now-human feet are entirely mud stained. When I near him, I say, “I should have brought you clothes. And shoes.”

  “Won’t matter soon.”

  He seems nervous, which prompts my question. “What did you find?”

  He glances over his shoulder. Standing under sunlit trees, surrounded by bird and insect song, it’s hard to believe anything evil could reside in the wildwood. Yet we both know better. Maekallus is tense; the melodies and brightness have no effect on him.

  He says, “They’re scouting. Just a few now, but there will be more.” He glances to the Will Stone. “Let’s hope it’s only scouting.”

  My stomach tightens. I think of his stories of Scroud, of the War That Almost Was, and glance to my bracelet. What will happen if Scroud manages to reclaim the stone? Will he attempt to resume his battle with the human realm? Half of me wants to sell it or find someone to cast it into the sea. The other half is terrified of being separated from it.

  “If we’re to strike”—Maekallus breaks me from my thoughts—“sooner is better.”

  “G-Good. Our time is limited.” Rubbing my thumb against the stone, I try to focus on our immediate problem. I look at the blackness around his eye and frown. I hope we resolve this quickly. I have so little left to give.

  “They have fewer guards during the day. More likely to run into mortals, I suppose. If we’re going to find Grapf, the best time would be near sunset or tomorrow before sunrise.”

  “Tonight, then.”

  He presses his lips together for a moment before saying, “We’ll go—”

  “I’ll go.”

  His eyes narrow. “You don’t know these mystings like I do. You don’t—”

  “I don’t have a telltale red thread announcing me wherever I go.” I point to his chest, almost touching it. “I take it that even if your invisibility magic is up, they can still see the binding spell?”

  His frown deepens, and I know I’m right.

  “If we don’t want Scroud to fi
nd us, we can’t draw attention to ourselves. I can’t merely tag along with you, willing others to look away.”

  Maekallus growls in response. “If you were a more docile mortal—”

  He couldn’t possibly be worried about my safety. I have the Will Stone. Still, doubt creeps into my chest. “How many can I control at once?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not sure. Several. Scroud . . .” He pauses, and I wonder if his memories are painful, even now. “He had a method to it. Shifts, clockwork, something. I wouldn’t feel his pull constantly—it ebbed and flowed, but not consistently enough for me to find an easy way around it. Once I did, I ran beyond the reach of his influence. But Scroud’s army was substantial, twenty years ago.” He meets my eyes. “I doubt the numbers are the same now, without that rock’s power, but . . .” He offers a half-hearted shrug.

  “So he couldn’t have controlled his entire army at once, only parts of it?”

  “I don’t know.” He pauses, running his knuckles along the underside of his chin. “Don’t go into the Deep. Bring Grapf to you. The scrying spell could sense him over the threshold . . . perhaps the portal ring will let the stone’s power extend through the barrier between our realms.”

  I look away, gooseflesh rising on my arms. “Don’t worry, Maekallus. I’ve seen enough of your realm to know to stay away.”

  “Nightmares again?”

  I nod.

  He sets his jaw. Silence stretches for nearly a minute before he speaks again. “Enna, had I known—”

  I glare at him, and his words die beneath my scrutiny. For some reason, I feel the weight of each individual letter panging beneath my breast. A sore lump presses into my throat, and I swallow it down.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers, crouching by the brook.

  I sigh. Consider. “Maekallus.”

  He lifts his head until his horn points at my crown.

  “What does it . . . feel like? My soul?”