Chapter Eighteen #2
Elm’s riding was much the same as his overall demeanor. Pitiless and abrasive.
By the time we entered the Black Forest, I felt so battered and winded I might have fallen off the horse a dozen times more. When we dismounted, the Prince let out a wheezing breath.
“Trees!” he coughed. “Grip tight enough? It felt like I was wearing a corset.”
“Everyone all right?” Jespyr called up ahead.
“Marvelous,” Elm said through his teeth. “Best ride of my life.”
“I wasn’t asking about you.”
“Who else is there?”
Ravyn dismounted in a gust of black. “Your bickering isn’t impressing anyone,” he called. “Get your charms. Best we keep quiet from here on out.”
The Black Forest was a dense collection of poplar trees and bramble. The horses were nervous to leave the path, but we coaxed them with sugar and stepped, apprehensive, into the mist.
It felt strange, not needing my crow’s foot. For the others, the need for a charm was more dire. I could smell the salt in the air. The Spirit of the Wood lingered in the mist, invisible, watching, held at bay by only our magic and our charms.
The Ivy brothers carried identical hawk feathers. Jespyr tossed a small femur bone between her palms. Thistle twirled a dog’s canine tooth on a leather string. Elm wound a tight braid of horsehair around his knuckles.
I followed behind Ravyn, his burgundy and purple lights purposeful as they moved through the mist. Next came Jespyr, fitted with a Black Horse. Thistle and the Ivys were Cardless. Elm—who had left the conspicuous Scythe behind, fitted with a second Black Horse—took the rear.
Thistle passed bread and cheese up the line, and we ate as we walked, like travelers in one of my aunt’s old books. At twilight the crickets sang, waking owls and other creatures of the night.
The mist grew heavier, so dense it swallowed the fading daylight, casting us into darkness.
Rock or bramble, hill or dell, it did not matter—Ravyn moved on sure steps. His boots were silent, his pace unflagging. Only once did he stop, holding up a hand to halt the group, his eyes trained on the mist.
I slipped on crumbling poplar leaves, the Nightmare’s vision the only thing keeping me from blindness. “How can you tell where we’re going?”
He shrugged. “Practice.”
Up ahead came the distant rustle of leaves. A moment later, a doe and her fawn ambled across our path. Ravyn watched them, his shoulders easy, his face untroubled. Only when they’d cleared the path did he signal us forward.
The temperature in the wood dropped. I shivered and rubbed my twinging nose, the air dense all around us. “The salt is strong,” I said.
“It’s the Spirit of the Wood,” Ravyn replied.
My aunt had told me many stories about the Spirit of the Wood. She’d said the Spirit could take the form of animals, but never an exact replication. There was always something other about the animals the Spirit pretended to be. Their bones were too long—their teeth too jagged.
Their eyes too knowing.
My gaze darted across the mist. But the doe and her fawn were gone. “Do you think,” I whispered to Ravyn’s back, “if we manage to collect the Deck—to lift the mist—that the Spirit will remain in Blunder?”
The Captain pondered this. “ The Old Book says magic sways, like salt water on a tide. I believe the Spirit is the moon, commanding the tide. She pulls us in, but also sets us free. She is neither good nor evil. She is magic—balance. Eternal.”
The Nightmare whispered behind my eyes, his claws sharp. But the Spirit was neglected, no matter her plea. The Rowans erased her, as they once did to me. But she keeps her own time, and I keep a long score. The tide that comes next will blot out the shore.
I shivered. But it had nothing to do with the cold.
“So, no,” Ravyn continued. “I don’t think the Spirit of the Wood will disappear with the mist. But perhaps she will no longer be a danger. Perhaps she will rest.”
A few moments later, he stopped. “Tether the horses here,” he called to the others. “I can see the road twenty paces beyond.”
I moved aside, clear of the horses. When Ravyn joined me, he held a knife.
“It’s no garden shear,” he said, offering me the blade. When I hesitated, he smiled. “You won’t need it. But it’s a poor disguise without a weapon.”
I looped the hilt of the knife through my belt. “Now what?” I said, a slight tremor touching the edge of my voice.
“We wait.”
Apprehension built like soil tossed upon a new grave.
An hour later I was fighting to keep still. The others milled quietly, scattered in the mist among trees and rocks and shrubs. Only Ravyn remained unmoving, his eyes forward on the road ahead.
When a twig snapped beneath my foot, he broke his stillness, casting me a sharp glance.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
Reaching into his pocket, Ravyn extracted a dark, silky fabric—the cloth he’d blindfolded me with on Equinox.
I bit my lip. “What’s that for?”
Ravyn pulled a second cloth from his pocket and secured it to his face just below the eyes, obscuring his nose, mouth, and jaw.
A mask.
So vividly returned the memory of that night along the forest road, the men in masks—the violence and fear—that I recoiled, tripping on bramble.
Ravyn must have understood because a moment later, he took off the mask. “I’m sorry,” he said, stepping to my side, his voice no more than a whisper. “Miss Spindle?”
I ran my hand over my face and did not look at him. “I never thought I’d be dressed as a highwayman,” I managed. “With the same men who attacked me, no less.”
Ravyn sucked in a breath. “Had I known who you were—”
“You would have—what? Been a bit nicer?” My nostrils flared. “I was alone on the road. You were awful, the both of you.”
He did not deny it. After a long, uneasy pause, he sighed.
“I came back to the road—alone—the next night. I kept to the forest for three days, hoping to catch a glimpse of you, to speak to you if I could.” He looked off into the distance.
“The Prophet Card leaves holes in our understanding. Yes, my mother predicted where you’d be—your connection to the Cards.
But the rest was conjecture. We had no idea what we were stepping into.
Had I known you carried magic—” He paused again, his brow furrowed.
“There are so few of us, Miss Spindle. You are more special than you know. And it pains me to think I might have hurt you. I’m—sorry. ” He paused. “Trees, I’m sorry.”
I listened to the wind through the wood, the lull blending with Ravyn Yew’s voice. He seemed different dressed as a highwayman—changed. Gone was the austere, controlled persona he displayed as Captain of the Destriers. Here, in the wood, he was just a man in a black cloak seeking repentance.
I extended my hand. “You’re forgiven. On one condition.”
The invisible string tugged the corner of his mouth. “What’s that?”
When our hands touched, heat moved into my cheeks. “Call me Elspeth,” I said. “We’re about to commit treason together, after all.”
The elusive half smile, cautious though it was, overtook Ravyn’s mouth. When he shook my hand, his calloused skin caught along my palm.
A shrill whistle ripped through the trees, echoed by another, then another.
The signal.
Ravyn froze, his hand still in mine, the noise of approaching horsemen rumbling in the distance. “Best put that mask on, Elspeth,” he said. “It’s time.”