Chapter 35
Flint
It must’ve been a quick death, for I don’t feel a thing. I wonder briefly whether I’ll be made whole again in the afterlife, or if I’ll be half-blind and have an axe sticking out of my face.
I suppose there’s only one way to find out.
Cautiously, I crack open my eye, expecting a fanfare, golden streamers and fireworks, angels drinking merrily from a river of wine.
The reality, however, is quite a bit different.
I’m not dead, as it turns out. I’m still in the Greenwood, surrounded by the Bandits, who appear to be engaged in conflict, screaming and shouting, stabbing their fingers in the air or brandishing their weapons. Only, I can’t hear them. It’s as if I’m behind glass.
I frown, puzzled, and glance around for my companions.
Spinner’s eyes are wide and frightened. Beside her, Sheen is on his feet, one hand raised defensively towards the Bandits, the other directed at me.
And at last I understand.
The moment he drops the forcefield, a deluge of voices comes pouring in.
‘I knew it,’ snarls Darrow, retrieving his hatchet from where it must have rebounded and buried itself in the trunk of a tall maple.
‘All of you, stay back!’ Briar hollers.
‘Etheri!’ Posy shrieks, recoiling from Sheen, Spinner and me as if we were her nightmares come to life. ‘Etheri! Etheri!’
I stagger to my feet, my arms raised in surrender. ‘Easy.’
‘Not another step,’ Darrow warns.
‘Look,’ I say, gritting my teeth. ‘Yes, we’re Etheri. No, we didn’t declare ourselves.’
‘Why not?’ Briar moves to stand protectively in front of Posy and the little ones.
‘We thought we’d be less conspicuous travelling as Fidra. And because you made it quite clear that you despise our kind, which, I might add, is rather generalizing.’
‘Flint,’ Spinner hisses.
‘What? It is. Holding hundreds of thousands of people accountable for the actions of only two.’ I take a deep breath, watching Sheen’s violet eyes flick among the Bandits. ‘Listen, I’m not going to stand here and defend the Earth Cleaver. The boy’s a sadistic prick –’
‘Harglade,’ cautions Sheen.
‘But as for the Storm Weaver,’ I continue brazenly, ‘I can promise you that she did not drown the empire deliberately. How could she? She was only a baby. It wasn’t her fault, but believe me, she still hates herself for it. She carries it with her every day.’
There’s a long, stunned silence. Even the trees seem to be staring at me.
Sheen half closes his eyes. ‘Let me guess,’ he mutters. ‘Oops?’
Briar’s voice is barely a whisper. ‘You know her?’
I square my shoulders, resolved. ‘Yes, I do. Rather well, in fact. And I know that she’d be devastated to learn of your situation.’
At that moment, I hear a voice.
Her voice.
It’s unmistakable. As familiar to me as my own.
‘Flint?’
My heart races.
But for some inexplicable reason, Briar shakes her head in warning. ‘No. Don’t listen. It’s not who you think it is.’
‘Flint?’ Blaze calls eagerly. ‘Flint, is that you?’
My feet kick into gear before my mind does, propelling me forward. I have to get to her. I have to find her, now.
‘Stop!’ Spinner yells. ‘Somebody grab him!’
But the Bandits seem reluctant to touch me and shrink back as I pass.
‘Let him go.’ I barely register the smug smile in Darrow’s voice.
‘No,’ wails Spinner as I duck among the trees, the light from the firefly lanterns fading with every step.
Branches tear at my arms and face as I plunge through the darkened forest, stumbling blindly, tripping over roots in my haste to reach my sister.
‘Blaze!’
‘Flint!’
I can’t see a thing. Twice I fall headlong, then pick myself up and charge on.
All of a sudden the way ahead is illuminated by a series of tiny green orbs. They sputter to life amid the gloom, lighting a path through the trees. I follow them, not stopping to question what they are or who might have sent them. My thoughts are all for Blaze.
‘Flint, where are you?’
Her voice sounds so close and yet far away. I whip my head round frantically, straining my ears.
‘Hold on!’ I call. ‘I’m coming!’
The trail of lights leads me deeper into the forest, driven on by my sister’s voice. What is she doing here? Did she manage to track us as far as Heathcross and then lose her way? Or has she been stuck in the Greenwood for days, terrified out of her wits?
‘Blaze!’ I scream again. ‘Bla– Argh!’
Something slams into my back so hard that I’m sent sprawling in a patch of moss. The air is knocked from my lungs and I begin to cough.
‘Blaze?’ I roll over, blinking dazedly. ‘Is that you?’
The something – or rather someone – pins me to the ground, the hard lines of their body pressing into mine.
‘Of course not, you fool.’ Sheen’s violet eyes flash furiously in the pale-green light.
‘Get off!’ I protest, wriggling frantically beneath his weight. ‘I have to find her.’
‘She’s not here, Harglade.’
‘What do you mean, she’s not here? I may be half-blind but I’m not deaf. Listen!’
Yet to my dismay the forest is silent.
‘Blaze? Blaze!’
Sheen covers my mouth with his hand, smothering my cries. I scrabble furiously at his fingers, scratching and tugging until he snatches both my wrists and slams them into the ground above my head, his face just inches from mine. ‘Shut. Up.’
I’ve never hated him more than I do in this moment. ‘Let go of me.’
‘Not until you stop.’
‘But Blaze –’
‘It’s not her, Flint,’ Sheen hisses, my name uncertain on his tongue. ‘It’s not real. Don’t you see? Were the will-o’-the-wisps not clue enough? We were warned about the spirits that dwell in the Greenwood, but as always you were too arrogant to listen.’
Iris’s words come back to me.
If you hear your name, don’t respond. Turn and walk away in the opposite direction.
Ice-cold dread lines my stomach.
And why’s that? I’d asked sceptically, when Briar told me the dryads did not interfere with the Bandits.
Because we don’t fall for their tricks, she’d replied.
They might not, but I certainly did – and what a cruel trick it was.
Blaze isn’t here.
Disappointment barrels into me, barbed and stinging. To my horror, tears of frustration prickle in response, but I banish them before they can fall.
Sheen scrutinizes my face for a long moment, then relaxes his grip.
I keep my voice light, trying not to wince as I rub my wrists. ‘You know, when I said I enjoyed being manhandled, this is not what I had in mind.’
He makes no reply, only rolls his eyes in disgust. Yet perhaps it’s just my imagination, but his smooth russet skin seems to flush a shade darker.
Slowly, we get to our feet. I clutch the stitch in my side, still panting. Sheen, meanwhile, appears barely out of breath.
‘Where’s Spinner?’ I ask, staring past him into the gloom.
‘She couldn’t keep up.’
My tone is accusatory. ‘So you left her behind?’
‘She can handle herself.’
‘And I can’t?’
Sheen shoots me a particularly withering look. ‘Evidently.’
I grind my teeth together. ‘Let’s go. We’ll find Spinner and head back to the Bandits’ camp. I’d rather risk another axe to the face than stay here with only you for company.’
‘And how d’you propose we do that?’
I gesture at the greenish orbs. ‘We’ll just follow the … thingamajigs.’
‘Will-o’-the-wisps.’
‘That’s what I said. Come on, what’re you waiting for?’
A muscle in Sheen’s jaw pulses. ‘Take a look around, Harglade.’
So I do, and what I see causes my heart to nosedive.
The flickering lights that lit my way are gone. Or rather, they’re now entirely indistinguishable. For they have been joined by countless others – hundreds of them – spreading out in all directions and casting ghostly shadows across the forest floor.
‘Ah,’ I say, grimacing. ‘In that case, you’ll have to flit us out of here. This counts as an emergency, surely?’
Sheen sighs. ‘Fine. Take my hand.’
‘I never knew you cared.’
‘Just shut up and do as I say.’
I shut up and do as he says. His hand is stiff in mine, as cool and smooth as marble. After the red-hot panic of my chase, it feels … soothing. Oddly familiar too – the tight rigidity of his grip, the grooves of his palm, though I can’t explain why.
I clear my throat and brace myself for that strange squeezing sensation and the deafening whoosh as I’m transported through the air. But it doesn’t come.
I click my tongue impatiently. ‘Any time today.’
Sheen frowns. ‘I … can’t do it.’
‘What’re you talking about?’ I ask, a note of alarm creeping into my voice.
‘My magic,’ he says. ‘It’s not working. Something’s … blocking it.’
‘What? What could be …’ My brows knit together as the realization hits me.
Those blasted nymphs.
I slip my hand out of Sheen’s and glance at the trees as a phantom breeze whispers through the leaves. ‘Well played.’
I gasp in astonishment as the will-o’-the-wisps flare even brighter than before, turning purple, then blue, then back to green.
Sheen’s cold mask is beginning to crack, his forehead creasing.
Fear tugs at my edges, but I push it away.
I nock an arrow, take aim at a gnarled old oak and let it fly.
It lodges deep in the trunk, dead centre.
‘You’ve had your fun,’ I snap. ‘Now let us be.’
Somewhere high in the canopy above, I hear the faint ghost of a giggle.
They’ll try to trick you, lure you in so deep you’ll never find your way out again.
I swallow hard as the Greenwood presses in from all sides, dark and ominous and swarming with troublesome spirits.
Just my luck.