Chapter Seventeen One Hundred Acorns
Chapter Seventeen
One Hundred Acorns
Where Kell Waits Until the Last Second
Kell had to forget the way Saeldian ran out of Hearthaven’s Repose. It didn’t matter. He already knew what would happen if they knew. He just never meant to tell them. But once they realized that they couldn’t say anything that wasn’t true, it was too late.
He loved Saeldian. Hopelessly. Eternally. And once he’d said the first truth, there was no point in holding back the rest. Even if it was in front of the circle of fey who had gathered to hear every word.
Ilondrel tilted her chin up, puzzled, and sniffed at the air. Kell sniffed too, but it was just fresh and a little chilly, carrying a hint of apples baking somewhere.
“I’m sorry,” Kell said. “I’ve disturbed your peace.”
“The Repose is for healing,” Ilondrel replied. “If skin grows over infection, it has to be lanced. You have done no wrong in healing, Kell Redsong. You are welcome to rest.”
“I can’t.”
He didn’t have time to drift around healing.
His crushed heart had to beat. Saeldian had fled into the truewild, and with those feelings racing through them?
Fear? Guilt? Shame? The truewild would bend itself to be the perfect place for those feelings.
They would run straight into whatever their feelings said they deserved.
He picked up the pack Saeldian had abandoned and set off.
“Wait!” Dylstra caught his arm. “You’re not in your wisdom, Kell Redsong. You’re in the heart of the tangle, and the wrong step will make the trap spring shut.”
Kell stared. “Why do I know you? Where did I meet you before, even though I only met you this morning?”
She dropped his arm and stepped back. “Be careful. Be wise. The webs and the weaves are layered by choices. Each strand has a purpose, but understand me: Each strand placed was placed with purpose.”
“Why do I know you?” Kell repeated.
“I tell you what you must know,” Dylstra said. “Don’t be distracted. I can’t stop you from running to the one who cannot love you, but be wise, Kell Redsong.”
He couldn’t ask a third time. That would be rude, and she would have every right to answer an insult. He knew her; she wouldn’t say how. “I will.”
The air shivered, hearing.
Ilondrel stepped forward. “One last word, my guests.”
Ilondrel was all in white, bedecked in glittering icy gems. Her armor gleamed silver between tiny enamel snowflakes, and cold glowed all around her.
There was no time. Kell held still and nodded. “The starless days are here?”
“When the night falls, the sky will be empty,” Ilondrel said. “But I would have words.”
The gem was in the side pocket of his pack. The drawstrings could be poking out of it. Saeldian was running farther away every moment.
Kell bowed his head to listen.
Ilondrel pulled out the sword whose hilt poked over her shoulder. She leveled it at each of them, and Kell’s heart jumped screaming into his throat.
The blade swung and pointed at Jubilee, who quailed under that point. “Jubilee Righthoof. There is a difference between a rogue and a criminal, and you know where that difference lies in your heart.”
Jubilee nodded.
“Trust your sense of where that line falls. Never step over it again, and healing will come. Lorzok.”
Lorzok squared himself toward the blade. “Yes, my lady.”
“Belonging in a place is the dance of what you give to it and what it gives to you, not a list of the actions that will make you fit. Where you are the most yourself, where you feel safe to be corrected when you’re wrong, where you feel giving to that place and its people brings you joy—that is where you belong.
Be purely yourself, and healing will come. ”
Lorzok bowed his head.
The blade swung to point at Kell. “Kell Redsong.”
Kell lifted his chin, clearing the way for the point of Ilondrel’s blade. “Yes.”
“The truth is a balm. But do not fall to the belief that pain is healing, Kell Redsong. The truth lies in your heart. Listen to it, and healing will come.”
She didn’t know. Kell bowed to accept it.
“The Impatient Made Small Under Moonlight,” Ilondrel said.
Timtim bore himself up on his hind legs.
“No heart is so strong as the hare’s,” Ilondrel said, “and yours is mending already. Whatever you do, trust your strong heart, dear Timtim.”
Timtim nodded and hopped over to Lorzok, who picked him up and put him in the muslin Lorzok had wrapped around himself as a sling.
“Peace to you in the starless days,” Kell said. “Everyone, let’s go.”
He didn’t look behind him as he ran after Saeldian. Their presence was there, but he couldn’t point to it until he ran past the ash and the almond…
There. They weren’t far away. Did they stop to wait for the rest of them to catch up?
“They didn’t get far,” Kell called.
Jubilee ran abreast of him on his right side, and Lorzok did so on his left. Saeldian was there, their presence bright and strong—he could find them anywhere, no matter how far. He would be able to point to them at a moment’s notice. He would always know where they were.
Every step took him closer. Around him, the wide-trunked firs gave way to fragrant mossy green humped over fallen logs.
The way before them was wide and flat. Between those trees in the distance, Saeldian stood unmoving, their arms clasped so tightly to their sides, he could nearly see the magic binding them still, and the witch they had run from on their first morning in the Feywild raised her hand as if she held a leash.
Too far. Kell leapt, and the ground pleated underneath him, Lorzok, and Jubilee, just as he needed it to.
The witch looked up. She raised her staff. Saeldian broke free, shouted, “And elsewhere!” and vanished.
“Ha!” Kell shouted. He pointed, and a puff of dust blew into her face. She flinched and tried blinking the dust out of her eyes. Jubilee raised her hand, and a little bolt of fire launched itself from her palm, but the woman batted it away even while trying to rub at the dust.
Lorzok smacked the ground with his staff, and vines wrapped around the witch’s ankles, but she disappeared out of sight after shouting, “And elsewhere!”
Kell spun around just in time. She had stepped to land right behind them, but Jubilee had been as ready as he was. Only Jubilee had a crossbow raised and aimed.
“No!” Kell knocked Jubilee off-balance, but too late.
She shot a bolt at the witch, and Kell watched in horror as it sped forward and crashed to a stop in midair, one foot shy of the woman’s heart.
She watched it fall before lifting her terrifying attention to Jubilee.
She clicked her tongue behind her teeth.
“Rude,” she said, and Jubilee vanished.
“Hold!” shouted Lorzok.
Kell stopped his lunge at the witch. Lorzok bent and scooped a toad off the path.
Kell swallowed his sickness. She’d been right underfoot. “Jubilee?”
Lorzok nodded.
Kell turned to the woman. “My apologies. My friend is a stranger who saw her friend in peril. She acted in defense.”
“Where is your friend now?” the woman asked. “Seems like they’re gone.”
Saeldian materialized beside them. “Let her go.”
“Not until you give me what I want.”
“This?” Saeldian touched the amulet at their breastbone. “Why do you want it?”
“It’s mine.”
“Why couldn’t you take it from me?” Saeldian asked. “You said I didn’t know something. What?”
“Why do you think I’d tell you?” the witch said. “And it doesn’t matter. The bargain’s changed. Give me the amulet, and I’ll restore your friend.”
“There has to be a reason why you couldn’t take it from me,” Saeldian said. “Osalor gave it to me years ago.”
“Do you believe him incapable of stealing? Cheating? Lying?” The witch laughed, but lightning sparked all around her. “That’s adorable. But it’s not cute enough to spare you if you don’t hand it over.”
Saeldian shook their head. “I don’t know if he stole it, but I can’t give it to you.”
The woman shrugged. “You have a new pet, then.”
“She’s not part of this.”
“She wasn’t part of this. Until she attacked me. Am I supposed to forgive that?”
“I won’t try to hurt you if you let her go—but if you won’t, you owe me revenge.”
The woman tutted. “Revenge? Against me?”
Saeldian shrugged. “I’ll do my best. But Jubilee isn’t part of this. If you let her go, I’ll be happy to listen to your story.”
“You’re in no position to bargain.”
Saeldian shrugged their right shoulder. They shifted their weight to their right foot. “Time for a different position, then. And elsewhere!”
Kell broke right immediately. Lorzok followed. Ahead of them, Saeldian ran, leaping over a fallen log. The world around them shifted, forming a path between the trees.
Saeldian sprinted down the path. Kell followed Saeldian; Lorzok, carrying Jubilee and Timtim, kept on his heels. Saeldian’s pace slowed—not to something more manageable, but to the best they could muster, until they were only walking as fast as they could.
“Can’t run anymore.” They looked back. “No path, though. No trail. You, Lorzok?”
“Me,” Lorzok agreed.
“But she’ll find me,” Saeldian said.
“Don’t say that,” Kell interrupted.
In the distance, voices howled.
“One day, I will learn to shut my mouth,” Saeldian groaned.
“She conjured backup,” Kell said. “Run.”
“Where?”
All around them, blackberry canes choked the trees. Only a wide-limbed oak stood free, its branches spread across the clearing it claimed. Only one opening, headed back the way they came.
“Blackberries,” Saeldian said. “Just to make sure we know we’ve been herded into her pen.”
The howling sounded again, closer.
“Lorzok. How well do you know the trees around the grove? Did you spend time with any of them?”
“You want to know if I can cast the spell that will allow us to pass through this oak to a tree in the village.”
“Yes.”
Lorzok shook his head. “I have tried. I’m not strong enough.”
Trapped. No. The Feywild became what you felt it was. There had to be a way out.
“We’ve got to do something,” Saeldian said. “We need time.”
Saeldian stepped away from the trunk. They pointed at the blackberries and whispered, “Flourish.”