Chapter 20
TWENTY
Make them sick, little bird.
Irose from bed as the skies began to flicker with twilight, unable to endure my own restlessness any longer.
I fed a log to the hearth and wrapped myself into Adrik’s discarded cloak before I stepped onto the balcony. At the edge of the forest, amid a gathering of tall spruces, flashed a speck of copper-red. The little fox scurried nervously about, nose pressed desperately into the snow in search of food.
The poor thing. Had no one else noticed its plight? Had no one gone to feed it, taken it inside to warm at the hearth? It would not survive another night, thin and starving as it was—
“Evana?”
I shivered. The warmth of the castle chamber had vanished as sharply and suddenly as a doused fire. Around me was nothing but glaring white. I stood among the spruces, snow rising to my hip and higher.
“Evana!”
I yanked, desperate to free my arm of whatever held me tightly back. The voice had startled the little fox. I had to make haste, to follow it deep, deep, deep into the dark winter woods. To the ancient oak.
“Evana!”
“Be quiet,” I snarled, flinching at the wrongness of my own voice. I shook my head to clear the daze and found a frantic, moss-green gaze piercing mine.
“What happened? Come, Ana. You’ll catch your death out here.”
Adrik led me back along the path I must have trampled into the snow when I’d run blindly outside. I could not tear my eyes from the trees, desperate to catch another glimpse of copper-red.
“The beasts are starving,” I murmured. A veil hung over my thoughts. A fog that made it difficult to speak, to think.
“I know.”
No, he did not know what I knew. He did not feel that terrible cold in the depths of the earth, the shuddering roots. He did not feel the weariness of the little fox, or that of the birds huddled close on naked branches, keen to save a little warmth, a little strength.
“They will all die,” I sobbed, tears burning my frozen skin. “I can help them. Let me go to them. Let me save them.”
“No, Ana,” Adrik said, pulling me forth. His voice sounded strange; full of fear and cold and almost a little cruel. “Nothing but death awaits in the forest.”
I must have fainted.
The darkness lifted slowly and I found myself in the teahouse, wrapped in a thick blanket and tucked into a fireside armchair. Adrik kneeled beside me, so close I could count the flecks of gold in his eyes.
“Evana,” he whispered, and the ice in my veins thawed. “What happened?”
“I wanted to feed the fox,” I murmured. “It’s starving.”
“We have feeders,” said Adrik, “In the meadows and in the clearing and near the farms. We refill them every morning.” I took a deep breath, but the tightness refused to ease.
Adrik's lips tilted into that teasing smile, but his face remained guarded as he said, “It seems you do have a particular interest in foxes, after all.”
I did not laugh and neither did he. A tension lay in the air—one we had banished for just a fleeting moment up there on the castle balcony beneath the stars.
Down here, where the wind howled furiously through the street, where snow piles stole the view from the window, where cold slithered through gaps in the brick…
Down here, there was no forgetting our burdens.
There was no forgetting that time was slipping from our grasp.
Whatever had blossomed between us in the night withered in the frosty air; like a budding flower in a late-winter storm.
How foolish of me to let a simple kiss on the cheek—meant only to comfort a friend—rattle me so.
How foolish to blur a line that existed for good reasons: To guard my feeble heart.
To keep my mind sharp and unblurred. To ensure I never bound myself willingly to another cage, like my mother had when she met my father and mistook him worthy of her devotion.
“You look ghastly,” said Zora, emerging from the withered thicket with a curious glance between us. “Both of you.”
Adrik raised a brow. “Not all of us have time for a honey and flower bath every morning.”
“It is a self-made misery, Adrik. You have a gilded bath in that castle of yours, and friends begging to take the odd task off your hands.” Zora turned to me, a fiendish sparkle in her eyes.
“And where did you spend the night? Is Emond not still at Lorell’s?
Adrik did not make you go back to that attic, did he? ”
“I have to go,” said Adrik hastily, mumbling about rations and horses and insolent mages as he rose. I observed the teapot with great interest to hide my flaming cheeks.
“If you are so concerned about saving time, I’m certain that bath of yours is large enough for two,” Zora called after him, cackling.
The bell rang shrilly as Adrik fled the teahouse.
Zora directed her gleeful attention to me.
“Oh, he’s been wonderfully easy to rile since you came.
” She waved her hand to beckon a floating plate of chocolate-stuffed pastries close and said, “Now that he’s gone, I have breakfast and a proposal for you.
” I took a careful sip of tea, cheeks still horribly heated.
“I was thinking it’s undue to have you live any longer in Lorell’s study.
I have a spare room upstairs. I spent much effort decorating it and it’s been collecting dust. I mean, I cleaned it just this morning.
I’d not offer you a dirty room—” She paused for breath, gaze slipping to the far hills.
“I know it’s not for long, but I wanted to offer it, still. The room is yours if you want it.”
I found my throat too tight to speak, from sorrow and from gladness.
Until the moon has waned and waxed again.
Until we’d made it into the wastes—or turned into wild half-dead.
“Thank you,” I whispered, voice thin with shame. “I have not much coin. I fear I cannot afford what is due for a room.”
Zora only laughed. “I’d not even thought of asking for coin! What am I to do with such a thing here in Wildemire? The room is there whether you live in it or not. I’d rather see it put to good use than collect cobwebs for another half-decade.” She added hastily, “I cleared them, of course.”
I hurried, once Zora and I had sealed our agreement, to the burrow. I had no time to lose, not a second to waste.
Almira was sleeping, huddled into herself in her carved rocking chair, and I took so long to wake her, I feared for a few panicked heartbeats that she might not wake at all—her face was as white as her hair, her hands stiff with cold and a whisper of death.
She seemed not to recognize me at first, gaze distant as if still caught in a dream.
While I waited for her to return to this side of the veil, I warmed a bowl of mushroom soup for her on the earthen stove.
I jumped when a cold, stinging finger travelled over my palm. Almira had come quietly to stand behind me. Her eyes were hollow and dark, her wrinkles deep as craters.
“You must learn quickly,” she snarled. “I feel the weight more today than I did last night, and I felt it more last night than the night before. The storm slips from me. It draws near.”
“I do not know how,” I whispered. “I do not think I can—”
“You must.”
Another sting—it was not a finger, but the blade of a handknife. I watched in horror as Almira took it again and again to my palm, drawing forth a droplet, then a trickle of blood. I tried to shake her off, but strength had returned to her as she clutched my wrist.
“Please,” I breathed.
She flinched. The knife fell with a clatter from her hand. “Forgive me, girl. It wears on me…”
With a firm shake of her head, she took my hand in hers and pulled me to a collection of withered plants on her kitchen table. “The baker has a hand for pastries, but not much patience for the green. Let your blood nourish the earth. Let it be the tether. Heal them, girl.”
My pulse throbbed quickly and painfully in the cuts. I pressed my lips reluctantly to them, the taste of blood sharp on my tongue. A droplet trickled from my palm and seeped into the packed dirt of the potted soil.
The monster within pricked its ears.
A shiver slithered over my back, like claws dancing over the ridges of my spine. The plants shivered as I mustered them, as if they knew that I’d come to deal their death-blow.
“Calm,” said Almira. “Your magic is a river. It is not good nor evil. Feed it well, and it will do well.”
I drew breath and I buried my fingers in the dead, dried soil. Roots had spun a web of death into the earth, withered and lifeless. Pain swept sharply through me, from the heart of this forgotten plant into mine. The darkness deep inside me stirred. The monster clacked its claws.
I held a sob between clenched teeth and forced myself to delve deeper. A darkness sprawled there, amid the roots. A writhing thing that whispered of rot and death. Black-clawed hands rose from the depths, coiling around my neck, pulling me down, down, down.
The darkness devoured me.
The lordling cackled. His fervid breath dampened my neck. We stood near the creek. Poison from water, he whispered. Make them ache down in the vale. Make them sick, little bird.
I shrank back with a shriek—but I could not retreat. He held me fast, the monster that lived in me, and I drowned in his cold, cold darkness. There was no life here, not a sliver of warmth.
Hello, little bird.
I splintered.
Dark magic bled like tar from my aching hands and seeped into the earth.
“Stop it, girl. Stop.”
I returned with a gasp to the burrow, frozen to the bone, fighting for breath as if I’d been drowning in a moorlake. I clasped the table with white knuckles. The plants were black with death.
“You cannot fight it,” said Almira sharply. “Whatever thought poisons your mind, let it come. Let it come, make peace with it, let it go. It is a part of you. You must accept it. Once you accept it, it will cease its power over you.”