Chapter 30 - Meryn
MERYN
Horses are baffling. They’re slow and can’t talk and won’t stop shitting everywhere. In the middle of walking, they’re shitting. Why?
Anassa growls her agreement as she steps around another stinking pile. We’re both on edge, and our slow progress is making everything worse. Even when Elias urges the horses into a brisker pace, it’s nothing compared with how fast we’d move at a direwolf’s natural speed.
I’m uncomfortable enough as it is, but I also have to keep reining in Anassa’s urge to sprint ahead or to kill and eat a few of the horses just to punish them for not being wolves.
It’s a bit of a feedback loop in my head, my frustration triggering Anassa’s and back again. It doesn’t help that my senses keep screaming that we are surrounded by our enemies.
My hand itches to take my sword from its sheath and decapitate Elias. We can make our way south on our own.
Saela shifts in front of me, and I remember that I’m hoping to keep relations relatively civil. At least until we can hear out their king and uncover everything we can about her condition.
I take a few calming breaths. It does jack shit. I’m going to bounce out of my skin.
For the first several hours of our journey, the landscape remains bleak and desolate as we travel over the wasteland separating our two kingdoms. My brain is constantly telling me I need to be ready for Siphon ambushes even though we’re literally riding with a few of them up ahead.
But we meet no resistance, even as we delve deeper into Astreona. Mostly because there’s nothing left to resist us, really.
Centuries of warfare have scarred the land here. There are only dried-up, ghostly trees twisting from the barren land and the burned-out husks of buildings every so often.
It matches everything I’ve been taught about this nation. An empty, inhospitable realm of death and darkness where Siphons lurk. No wonder they’re desperate to escape this place and take what we have.
It’s strange, actually being here. I spent months hoping to cross the border into Astreona while I was in the Trials, and now that it’s happened, nothing about the journey is unfolding the way I would have expected. Disorienting unreality settles over me.
The traveling atmosphere remains tense. No one speaks.
Eventually, we reach a small circle of ruined buildings. They look like little cottages. Cradled in the semicircle of their remains lies a small pond.
Elias reins in his horse. The creature’s tail flicks toward Anassa’s nose, who bares her teeth and rumbles. Elias glances at her, then at me.
“The horses need water. Do your wolves require the same?”
“I’d rather eat the horse and save us the time,” Anassa grumbles.
I snort, which clearly perplexes Elias, but I’m not interested in catering to his confusion. “Tell us when we’re moving again,” I say, and guide Anassa away from him.
We end up squaring off across the small, muddy oasis Elias found. Venna watches the Siphons like a hunter.
Stark lingers close to me, still silent, still avoiding my gaze. I’ve tried prodding at him mentally a few times, but he’s erected a wall against me, the prick.
He’s lucky we’re surrounded by company, because the moment we’re alone, I’m going to throttle him.
I catch my father glancing toward us as he strokes his horse’s nose, but he looks away quickly.
When we get back on the move, I start to worry about an entirely new threat: dying from boredom.
Then Anassa’s nose twitches.
“What is it?” I ask.
She pauses and bows her head, sniffing. I lean forward on her back, bending around Saela to see what Anassa is investigating. It’s… a tiny green sprout. A tuft of grass is struggling up through a fissure between two craggy stones.
That’s how it starts.
Soon, it’s all around me. The air becomes clean, fresh. Coolness gives way to a gentle press of warmth on my skin.
Heat. I’ve never felt anything like it before.
It builds as the clouds part, making way for the sun, and I start to sweat in my leathers.
The ground becomes greener. It’s only patches of grass at first. Then bushes. Saplings. Life reaches up out of the ruins and toward the increasingly hot sunlight.
We pass another ruin, but this one is covered in vines, a tree growing right up through the collapsed roof.
Nature is suddenly everywhere, the smell of life hanging in the moist air.
My lips part in wonder as a stream glints on the horizon, and Elias acts like it’s nothing as he guides his horse to slosh through the shallow, sparkling waters.
We crest an incline, and a hot breeze rushes up from below. My silver hair spins into my eyes as the valley below us emerges.
There are rolling green hills and lush vegetation as far as the eye can see. Continuing down the winding dirt road, it becomes clear that it isn’t all wilderness. The fields are cultivated, with distinct rows of crops and plateaus leveled out in some sort of irrigation system.
In the distance are small settlements. Towns. People, probably, living off all this greenness, tending to the land, breathing in all this nature.
This isn’t Astreona. It isn’t. It can’t be. It’s meant to be a wasteland. Desolate. Hideous. Inhospitable to humans.
Kryptos spies have infiltrated this country, pushed far past our border to collect vital intelligence. They’ve never reported anything like this.
But I’m seeing it with my own eyes: This place yawns wide with welcoming potential. The land is vast and verdant. It’s a damn pastoral dreamscape. Prosperous and beautiful.
I’m not the only one disoriented. Stark’s jaw is clenched hard, his eyes moving over the scenery. Saela keeps letting out little gasps as she takes in new sights. Noemi is literally slack-jawed.
Venna is the only one not staring around at the landscape, marveling. I urge Anassa forward until we’re riding beside her and Skaia.
“Not impressed?”
She turns to look at me, cocking an eyebrow. “Say again?”
“Not impressed?” I switch to mental communication, kicking myself for forgetting that this is easier for her when possible.
Venna looks surprised. “Impressed? By the barren wasteland populated by our enemies? Or do you mean by the scorching sun?”
What?
“But the… the greenery… don’t you…” Something is wrong, and I can see when Venna realizes it, too. A whisper of sweetness hits my nose.
These fuckers are using their magic.
Ahead of us, two of Elias’s Siphon attendants whisper back and forth. One of them cackles, the sound of his laughter grating on my nerves.
I still my expression and ride forward with Saela until we’re among the Siphons.
“Whatever you’re doing, stop it immediately.” I don’t have time for games, and I don’t think whatever is happening is funny.
One whom I’ve heard called Davide looks back at Venna’s confused face, and his lips twitch in a sneer.
“We thought you might like a little, ah, demonstration.” He gestures around us. “That girl is one of your little spies, isn’t that right?”
“If he doesn’t cut this condescending bullshit, this is going to be the shortest diplomatic mission ever attempted,” I say to Anassa. I don’t deign his words with an answer aloud, just raise my eyebrows.
He sighs. “Forgive us our little joke. It’s just that Hanlen here,” he indicates one of Elias’s other attendants, “is in the habit of showing a certain side of our land to your spies who think they’re hiding from us.
Fooling their wolves is a particularly interesting challenge, since our powers only extend to visuals and not smells. ”
Hanlen nods, and then his expression goes focused.
Behind me, Venna shouts and stabs at nothing with a dagger. She and Skaia whirl around as if fending off invisible enemies.
Now the entire party of Siphons is laughing.
“Illusion magic,” Anassa reminds me grimly. “It must be how they’ve kept this verdant land a secret from Nocturnans all this time.”
I turn toward Hanlen in rage, but Cratos is one step ahead of me.
He and Stark swoop in toward the Siphons and their horses. The next thing I know, Hanlen is on the ground. His horse gallops away from our group in terror, mouth frothing.
Hanlen’s right shoulder spurts blood where his arm used to be. He bellows in pain, convulsing.
Cratos tosses the mangled arm into the sky before devouring it in a single, sickening swallow.
Faster than my eyes can track, the rest of the Siphon party has dismounted, weapons drawn. Stark gives a shout as one charges toward him and Noemi, and Noemi sends a blast of Phylax shielding magic up in front of them.
The Siphon rebounds off the invisible barrier, then whirls around, looking for a way through.
Venna and Skaia have shaken off their confusion fast, coming to stand guard in front of me and Anassa.
Anassa’s ears are back, and she’s poised to run, should we need to protect my sister.
Skaia snarls at the handful of Siphons who stare us down.
I wrap my arms firmly around Saela, taking in the Siphons’ locations. Wondering how best to keep her safe in this mess. The shadows stir, and I reach for them, their slithering darkness coming to wrap around my arms.
“Peace!” my father shouts. He moves forward toward me and Venna, arms outstretched. “This is a truce, remember?”
The air is tight with tension as each of us looks to the other side to see who will move first.
Then Elias remounts, pointedly sheathing his sword. His authority curbs the Siphons, and they fall back, weapons returning to scabbards, though none of them looks happy about it.
My father kneels, tending to Hanlen, who moans in pain on the ground.
“Stop whining, we all know that a missing limb won’t kill you,” Venna snaps.
The one called Davide seethes next to Hanlen, staring at Stark and Cratos with obvious loathing.