The Forest King’s Daughter

8

Sylvans have no sense of history. They live in the present,

flitting among flowers and sipping morning dew.

—G AXIX, D RACU PHILOSOPHER

H OURS LATER, C ASSIA SET THE BOOK DOWN AND rubbed her eyes. The meandering history had a few references to artifacts and famous weapons of the Ancients, but she’d seen nothing about the Solis Gemma. She looked up at the walls, the shelves so full they were practically bursting. This would take an age. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since the night before. She’d sat in the great hall with her sisters, barely able to eat a few bites because she’d been so nervous about the coming battle. It seemed so long ago now.

Zeru said without looking up, “What have you found?”

She wondered if his tone would improve if she threw the heavy codex at his head. “Nothing. I’m going to look for food.”

He slammed his book closed, looking up with a suspicious glare. “You’re not going anywhere alone.”

She reminded herself he couldn’t hurt her. “You don’t dictate my movements, Dracu.” She was halfway down the stairs when she heard his footsteps behind her. As she pulled the entrance door open, she felt him crowding her back and turned to face him. “We need food and water. Surely you can see that.”

His face was drawn in hard lines. “A brief search for water, then.”

Not needing any more encouragement, she descended the steps to the courtyard, Zeru keeping pace. As they went through the archway into the withered garden, the bare fruit trees mocked her hunger. The haze in the sky made it seem later than early afternoon. Shadows seemed to pool in corners. There was a strange quality to the emptiness, as if creatures might be hiding, ready to spring out at any moment. She reminded herself they didn’t know anything about Welkincaster, and she should remain on guard.

“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked as they crunched along the path. She hated how close he kept to her, crowding her, forcing her to remain on edge.

“Land folk don’t need to eat every day,” he scoffed. “A Dracu can go a week without food. You told me yourself a Sylvan can go longer with only water and sunlight.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to.” She wagered he was as hungry as she was. “There’s not even a kitchen here,” she added, following the path beyond the archway. “No storage rooms for food.”

“Stop talking about food.”

She smirked. “I’d love a mushroom pasty.” She watched his nostrils flare, and added, “Or maybe a spit-roasted boar seasoned with parsley and thyme.”

He looked sidelong at her, annoyance darkening his eyes. “You are pathetically obvious.”

“Grilled pheasant,” she went on cheerfully. “Honey cakes. Do Dracu like sweets?”

“No,” he said through gritted teeth.

She leaned toward him. “Your face when I said honey cakes . I bet you like those the most.”

He said nothing, but she was getting to him. She could tell.

She smiled, considering how far to push him. Did this work toward her plans or against them? Tormenting him was too satisfying. She touched a branch on one of the fruit trees. “An apple would be welcome right now.”

“So you can throw it at me?” Zeru said. “There’s nothing here. We’re going back.”

But she’d caught sight of something. “Look.” She pointed to where a silvery glow wove between trees. “A river?”

Zeru paused, stepping forward. “We must have walked past it in the dark.”

His eagerness was apparent, and she shared it. She imagined drinking, bathing, washing her clothes. She quickened her pace, but with his longer strides, Zeru soon left her behind. His form was swallowed by a mist that thickened into fog. She slowed her steps, treading carefully.

She didn’t see Zeru until she nearly stepped on him. Or rather, his hand, which was clinging to a tree root, his fingers white. The rest of him was somewhere below, presumably, lost in the mist. He must have stepped over a cliff. She would have, too, if he hadn’t gone first. Pulse thudding jerkily at the near miss, Cassia knelt, waving the mist away with one hand. It dispersed in little swirls, enough that she saw Zeru’s ashen face turned up toward hers, its harsh lines drawn tighter in shock.

He was dangling off an edge, but an edge to what? Maybe the river had carved a gorge into the land, and its waters were rushing below him. She couldn’t hear it, though. The place was eerily free of sound.

Even Zeru made no noise. His eyes were wide as they stared up into hers. And it occurred to her: She could… let him fall. She would be free. She had wished for revenge, and here it was, wrapped like a gift. She only had to walk away.

Then again, if there was a river below him, it could break his fall. “Can you swim?” she asked, wondering if there was deep water in the Cryptlands. She had never thought about it.

His eyes were wide as they clung to hers. “Not a river. Nothing below me but sky.”

She watched his fingers as they gripped the roots, waiting for one of them to slip.

He grunted in frustration or pain. “You’re going to let me fall?”

She reminded him of his own words. “Someone once told me, ‘If you die by your own stupidity, no one else is responsible.’”

“You’re misquoting me,” he said, but his voice lacked its usual contempt. He seemed to be struggling to breathe.

She took a seat on the rocky ground, crossing her legs.

“This must be a great spectacle for you,” he snarled. Though he tried to cover it, he sounded afraid. He might have realized that his fingerhold on the roots was not enough. She was glad, once again, that he had rushed headlong ahead of her.

“Can’t you pull yourself up?” she asked. Dracu tended to be stronger than Sylvans.

“Too slippery. The mist.”

She had an impulse, a natural tug of conscience, to help him. Her mother used to tell her, “If you see a creature in need, you should always try to help.” She had probably meant forest creatures, though, not Dracu. Not an enemy.

“Cassia.” Zeru’s eyes met hers with a force she could feel. “You don’t have to come any closer. Just grab a vine and throw it to me.”

“I’m not afraid of the edge,” she snapped. “I have no reason to help you.” But it occurred to her that she did have leverage. She stood and searched until she found a sturdy vine that held when she tugged on it. She returned to Zeru, staring down at him with the vine in her hand. “However, in the spirit of Sylvan generosity, I’ll offer you a bargain. If you vow to let me and the ring go forever, I’ll help you up.”

His terse reply came without hesitation. “I can’t do that.”

He hadn’t even considered the offer. “Maybe you need more time to consider your situation here.”

His eyes closed. After a moment of silence, his voice came out harsher than before. “If you have any scrap of feeling, you will tell my family what happened to me.”

“I don’t see how I could.” She heard the hoarseness of her own voice. She hadn’t thought about him having a family, and how they might feel if he died.

His eyes opened. “Next battle. Just tell… any Dracu. They’ll get word.”

Cassia nodded. “I can do that.”

He stared at her, and she stared back. At any moment, he would lose his grip and be gone. She waited for some lie, some manipulation to try to get her to help. But none came.

“Keep your word, Sylvan.”

It was said in a breath, no more. But it acted on her like the shock of jumping into the Scar River on a cold morning. Maybe it was the fact that he’d mentioned his family. Maybe it was some flaw in her character that made her weak to an enemy’s distress. She didn’t know why, but she found herself throwing the vine. He grabbed instinctively, his palms wrapping around the thick cord. He slid before the vine jerked taut. Cassia only had to pull him forward a few inches before he was able to get a better hold on the edge. When his upper body gained solid ground, he hauled himself to safety. His eyes opened, meeting hers. His skin was waxy, his dark hair and clothing a stark contrast to the frothy mist all around. He was breathing heavily, and she was, too.

Finally, he spoke. “We’re on a cloud.”

That didn’t make any sense, so she turned to peer down, but it was impossible to see past that white veil. “I don’t know what you mean.” She moved toward the edge, her heart slamming her rib cage.

“Have you no sense?” he growled.

But she was careful to keep her knees on solid ground. Finally, she saw over the edge. Her mouth went slack. Sky. Nothing but sky. An endless wasteland of sky. Birds wheeled about below them, a mountaintop in the distance. It was breathtaking and awful. Her head spun. It did appear as if there was nothing beneath them. And this mist… it was like…

“We are on a cloud,” she confirmed. Slowly, carefully, she crawled backward.

When she found her feet, Zeru was glaring around as if he wanted to destroy everything he saw. “I’m going to kill Selkolla.”

“I don’t think you can kill your way out of this.” Cassia turned in a circle, looking back to the abandoned castle—an abandoned castle in an impossible realm. “Welkincaster,” she said, testing the word and the idea. “The welkins.” She put a hand to her head. “How could I forget?”

“What are you babbling about?” He toyed with the hilt of his dagger, some of the color returning to his cheeks.

“Don’t you remember?” She gestured all around them. “The stories? A sky realm of floating kingdoms made by the Ancients. I told you when we—”

When we were children , she’d been about to say . When he was her friend. When she used to tell him stories.

She hated that she remembered that. More, she hated that he knew she remembered.

“So.” His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t forget me.”

“Not entirely,” she admitted, turning her back on him. “Not for lack of trying.”

“Wait,” he said as she moved toward the trees. “We should follow the mist. It marks the edge of this… place. Then we’ll know the perimeter.” He hesitated, his eyes sliding to hers and away. “Maybe we’ll find something to eat.”

Was that a small concession? Her stomach was so painfully empty, she would take it.

They walked along a narrow area between forest and mist. With careful steps, they traversed the entire edge of the cloud in less than three hours. It was small, smaller than she’d thought when they first arrived. They must have arrived in the center of the forest. The trees felt too close together, the shadows too thick. There was a sense of waiting that she couldn’t understand. She found herself turning her head, trying to catch things out of the corner of her eye. When she reached out to the trees, they shivered like neglected things that had gone too long without touch. There were no flowers, no evidence of new growth. An air of stagnancy permeated these woods. A heavy sadness crept into Cassia’s heart. The forest was ailing. She wished she could help.

Zeru was silent the entire time. She wondered if he was still rattled by his brush with death or if he was more thrown off by this place than she was. Things were certainly not going as he’d planned.

As they returned to the garden of withered fruit trees, she stopped in her tracks. A flash of bright color caught her eye.

An apple. A red, ripe apple.

“Was that there before?” She pointed and turned to Zeru.

He swept the orchard with a narrow-eyed glance. “I don’t think so.”

“How could we have missed that?” It easily stood out among the gray-brown branches.

Zeru reached up and plucked the apple from the tree. He sniffed it, examined it, then shoved it at her. “Take it.”

She took the apple, regarding him warily. Why didn’t he want it?

He left her and went up the steps. “Hurry. We’ve wasted enough time.”

Cassia weighed the apple in her hand, wondering if giving it to her was an act of generosity or sabotage, and whether it was worth the risk. Her hunger won the argument. She took a ravenous bite. The fruit was sweet and delicious. She chewed thoughtfully as she entered the castle.

And almost ran into Zeru’s back. He had stopped inside the entry hall, his drawn dagger catching rays of sunlight that slanted in from between the shutter slats.

“You dare threaten me in my own home?” a voice demanded.

Cassia saw green and brown, the colors worn by Huntsmen, and her heart did a double beat.

But the person wearing them wasn’t a Huntsman, or even a Sylvan. And he did not look happy to see her.