Chapter Thirty Adela
The trip home is uneventful. Despite my mounting anxieties, my exhaustion grows larger.
Tani and I sleep in the back of the bumpy wagon, buried beneath the rough-spun blanket and pinned tightly by crates, barrels, and sacks, until we get to the edge of the forest that separates the countryside from the valley.
We roll to a stop, and after some muffled conversation, Kian lifts everything off us. “Still well?”
Tani pops her head up and snorts at him, and I move off her. I keep her lead wrapped around my wrist, just in case. While she seems comfortable enough with me now, it’s safest not to trust creatures too thoroughly.
Kian reaches to help me out. All I want is to fling myself into those arms. Have them wrap around me and tell me everything is going to be okay and that he love—I stop the thought as I sit up, groaning.
My body hurts, having lain in one position against the wooden wagon bed. And my heart hurts, too. The thought pops back, unbidden. I want him to tell me he loves me. Because I love him.
But if he did, would he have hidden who he truly is from me? Surely, he should trust me to know and understand that his family are smugglers and he wanted to help them with their endeavors. I would also do anything for my family. It doesn’t change anything between us.
“Can I help you down?” he asks, his hand still outstretched. Tani jumps out of the wagon, and I climb stiffly after her without his help. I grapple with my feelings.
A flash of something like hurt crosses his face, but he says nothing. I walk away, unable to face him.
Ujvala gives both Tani and me an apple, encouraging me to eat mine. “You’re going to need the energy.”
Then she hands me a skin. I take a large swallow, then splutter, not expecting a swig of brandy first thing in the morning. She grins, so like her nephew. “Woke you up, huh?”
I cough, thankful for the distraction from my looping thoughts. Love and reciprocity aren’t things I can deal with now, and so I tuck the complexity of my feelings for Kian deep inside myself, getting out of my head and into my body.
We unload the wagon of as many goods as Kian, Ujvala, and I can carry in the packs she brought. Books and spices and decadent pastries, candied fruit and dried beans and even a bolt of fine lace—things we don’t often have in the valley. Practicalities but also little luxuries to enjoy.
I wish we could bring in so much more.
But Ujvala assures me that if everything goes well with her talks with the elders—and I firmly believe it will—she will come back with more. And frequently.
We say goodbye to Jamie, and start the path into the valley. It’s winding and strange, and I try to memorize it. I don’t know how anyone could and suspect it’s marked in some way, but I don’t spot the markers and Ujvala doesn’t share them with me.
The forest grows thicker and quieter the deeper we walk.
Tani grows restless. She pulls on the rope. She wants free; she wants to run.
“Have we crossed into the valley?” I ask.
“Not quite,” Ujvala says. “But soon. I’ll let you know when we get there. It’s not something you can feel.”
I trust her.
Tani does not. As we move deeper into the forest, she begins to get more agitated. The branches rustle with a slight breeze, and shadows start to grow as the sun begins to come up. She tries to shy away from every new sound and walks farther and farther from us, straining on her rope.
When a red-tailed hawk swoops low on the way to catch herself a chipmunk, Tani rears, and a small bolt of lightning blooms overhead. A rain shower starts.
“Well, that’s annoying.” Kian pulls his tunic over his head to protect himself from the rain.
I tilt my face up to the dark, angry sky, letting the rain wash over me. I laugh. This is not annoying. It’s amazing. I check around us to confirm. Everywhere else is clear, pink morning sky. Outside of a small area we stand in, the trees and ground are dry.
This storm is Tani’s creation. I’ve never known a baby creature to utilize their magic.
Ujvala is looking around, alert, holding the straps of her pack tightly as if she might need to run.
“It’s Tani,” I explain, hoping to ease her nerves. “She’s afraid.”
I turn to the alicorn. “You’re okay, little one. We’re taking you home. We’re almost there.”
And then I feel something else marvelous. A response of sorts. It’s not the voices of the skull, but something subtler. As if the want is my own. I find myself wanting to let her go now. To release the lead so that she can run, be free.
I spent my childhood alongside Cecelia, reading about unicorns, asking elders for stories, studying the paintings in the great hall, wanting to know anything and everything about Etana.
Which is how I know that influencing emotions is a magic they used to possess.
It can still be accessed in tiny amounts through skulls by the most powerful priestesses, but a living creature hasn’t manifested it in generations.
“Is she—” Kian stares at Tani, then at me. “Is she making me feel this way? Like there’d be no better thing in the world than to convince you to take her off her lead and let her run.”
“She is.”
“Well then,” Ujvala says, “let’s get her all the way into the valley and let her have her way, shall we?”
We walk quickly through the rest of the path until there is a small opening in the trees. There are splotches of dark color splashed up on some of their trunks, and the ground is disturbed. I suspect that this is where the priest was eaten by Enkidus.
Tani calls out. The call is less aggressive than her terrified scream when she was caged, but still sounds like nails against glass.
Nearly instantly there is an echoed response and the rush of wings above us.
Ujvala flinches, but I turn my face up to the sky again. There, skirting between the trees, moving quickly, is the dark outline of Lathai. The storm lightens up and then stops as Tani spots him, but the rush of her will through me intensifies until it is almost painful.
Let go. Let go. Let go.
Lathai lands heavily and stomps at the ground, lowering his head and snorting at me. Ujvala moves halfway behind a tree. I don’t blame her. Lathai is large and angry, and he doesn’t know her.
But he quickly sees there’s no need for his threats. I slip the bridle off of his little one.
As I suspected, the moment I let Tani go, they run to each other, nuzzling their faces into each other’s necks. Without even a backward glance, they disappear into the morning together.
Something deep inside me relaxes. She is well, and with Lathai. Safe.
She will be safe.
Now, to get me to my family.
The trip across the meadows and fields feels like I’ve moved through time, as if I’ve crossed into a world that is somehow both familiar and foreign. It’s unsettling, the dissonance between what I left and what I see now, in such a short period of time.
The meadows look like they do in my springtime childhood memories.
The air has lost it chill. The grasses are growing.
The sky is a bright, cheerful blue with fluffy clouds dotted across it.
Wildflowers in the meadows have buds and small blooms, and the wheat is poking up through the tilled fields.
I’d almost thought I misremembered these perfect spring days until now.
And the creatures are active. Pegasi and gryphons fly overhead, going from their hunting grounds back to the cliffs where they nest, and jackalopes are farther from their territories than I ever remember seeing them. There’s even a gytrash trio loping over the hills far off in the distance.
Ujvala gives the jackalopes in particular a wide berth, but they ignore us, stockpiling food for their impending herds of babies.
When we get to the village, I see tulips and the first sprouts of eager vegetables beginning to poke up from garden beds.
I blink hard, trying to make sense of it all.
Everything feels so right and so wrong at the same time.
The valley is brimming with life, where it was struggling so recently.
A flicker of hope in my chest whispers her dangerous song that the valley can return to itself, despite its struggle and loss.
Maybe I can, too.
I hear my name being called and see no more of the suddenly verdant landscape surrounding me.
Cecelia is running toward me across the square.
I drop the pack of Ujvala’s trade goods so it doesn’t weigh me down and take off at a run myself.
We collide in a giant hug, her arms around my neck and mine around her waist. She squeezes me so tight I momentarily lose my breath, but neither of us let go.
I have missed her desperately. And here she is.
I inhale deeply, enjoying the scent of her hair, which smells like peonies and home. I tuck my face into her neck.
I am happy to hug her as long as she’ll let me. Finally, we release our grips on each other and step back slightly.
Her palms are gentle on my cheeks as she cradles my face, her eyes scanning me from hairline to chin. “I missed this face,” she says, her voice thick. “But where’s your phoenix?” I point to my pack, which Kian now holds. “Stashed in there. It’s more comfortable without.”
“No doubt,” she replies.
I am laughing or crying or possibly both. “How did you—”
She answers before I finish asking the question. “I saw Lathai with the foal fly overhead. And I just knew—”
Her voice cracks. I’ve never seen her so emotional. Not that she doesn’t feel. She’s sensitive and empathetic; she’s not demonstrative. If my feelings sit on the surface like lilypads, hers are nestled amongst the base of the seaweed in the lake floor.
I wipe the wetness from under her eyes.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” she says in a small voice.
I huff a laugh. “You sent a message to come back!”
“But I didn’t think you really could.” She sniffles. “And you returned the foal. I was so worried for her. Is she well? What did they want with—”