Chapter 5
Chapter five
Ravenwood forest smelled perpetually wet. It was a different sort than what Lux had grown up with. She breathed in the scents of bark and dirt and did not lament the absence of Ghadra’s underlying hint of marsh mud. Here, she thought, I would tolerate the rain.
According to her reluctant company, they’d at least a few hours more to reach the forest town of Verity.
“Unusual,” Magda had called it.
“The people love the trees more than each other”, had griped Lars.
Lux could see why. She’d been too desperate in her fleeing to pay attention to the details of the wood, but now that she walked a steady road, she admired the striated trunks and lofty heights.
The canopy was thick, and the leaves were lush.
She reached upward and dragged a finger along one, slowing to a stop when it unfurled.
Drops of captured water dripped onto her palm.
“They’re like little clenched fists,” said Sven, passing her by.
Sven and Lars carried Viktar between them, and every so often, Lars would walk too quickly, folding the dead man up like a book until his bottom dragged on the ground.
Sven hated this and would shout so loudly each time, Lux had to block her ears.
She watched them move on ahead. She didn’t know how these four had ended up together, and she didn’t care.
So long as they saw her safely to the town as promised and didn’t attempt a second robbery, she would be genuinely ecstatic to be rid of them.
Magda led their party. Short and grim, with greying hair and harsh hands, she seemed their leader. Which irritated Lux more that the woman hadn’t reined Viktar in when he’d gone after her. Maybe it’d actually been Magda’s idea.
She admonished herself harshly over her predicament. Twenty-eight days you’ve not gotten into trouble. Now here you are one less fingernail and following a dead man.
She glanced at the body ahead of her and rolled her eyes before hurrying to catch up.
Four weeks. It’d been only four weeks since she’d left the shattered city of Ghadra to make out on her own. And while the towns and cities had felt like a blink, here in a different forest, it felt like a decade gone. Already, she’d seen landscapes she’d only dreamt of.
Lux groaned over her aching finger. She’d aggravated it while clawing at Viktar’s face. If only Riselda were here, she would—
Lux scrunched her eyes closed, disgusted with herself.
Where had that thought even come from? Of course she shouldn’t wish for Riselda, the woman who’d brought a plague upon Ghadra only to immorally revive those fallen and set them against the living.
Her proclaimed aunt may have been a healer, but she was mostly a monster.
Lux lifted her left hand, examining the pointed nails she kept filed into miniature daggers, and to the one appendage now left bereft and reddened.
The botanist had applied a salve. When he’d wiped it clean a moment later, it’d come away easily—the salve and the fingernail both.
She shouldn’t have refused his bandage. Her attempt had been amateurish and was now lost.
Her fits of pride didn’t often benefit her. Maybe someday she’d learn.
They followed a winding road through the wood.
Not wide, but it did seem well-traveled.
She supposed it made sense for the town of Verity to remain connected to Loxlen by a maintained route.
That city had been her first large one since leaving Ghadra, and it was the opposite of what she’d grown up knowing.
Rather strange, perhaps, when considering the bookshop, but strange did not mean corrupt.
Now, if she’d known she was being observed. If she’d known she’d been followed…
“What’s that sour face for?” asked Sven, his own wrinkled with effort.
She turned the full force of her scowl upon him until his eyes widened and he glanced away.
Lars huffed behind them. “Uppity city girl, are you? Well, let’s see what you think of Verity.”
“Lars—” came Magda’s warning growl.
“Verity isn’t so bad,” argued Sven. “It’s got a nice air to it.”
“It gives me the jeepers, is what it does,” muttered Lars. “But maybe if you have enough goldquins—”
Lux could take no more. “You blathering idiot,” she snarled. Spinning on her heel, she stomped over to him. “You know quite literally nothing about me. Keep what little thoughts are in your head to yourself, or I’ll pry it open so you’ll never have another.”
A burbling sound drew her attention from Lars’s paled features. Sven’s face wrinkled further beneath her scrutiny, his attempts at stifling his reaction a struggle.
“How much farther?” she demanded of Magda.
The older woman glanced down the twisting road. “Not far at all.”
Deep in the wood, sat the forest town of Verity. Or maybe “sat” was the wrong choice. Now that they drew closer, it might make more sense to say, “Here grows the town of Verity.”
Wooden buildings rose red from the leaf-strewn ground, camouflaged with green moss having crept to seal the cracks.
Whoever had built them had taken the natural curves of a forest as inspiration, being as the thatched roofs were quaint and sloped and covered by as many leaves as the forest floor.
Even the doors were rounded at their tops.
Viktar’s body rested amongst the sparse toadstools at the roadside—a reprieve for both Lars and Sven, who’d carried him the entire way. Magda perched silent beside them, though Lux wasn’t oblivious and could tell from her periphery the woman watched her.
“They’ll have marsh snapper eyes? Here?” Lux surveyed what she could see of the town. The evening light cast everything into shadow, and the trees were extraordinarily tall.
“They should,” said Magda. “I told you it’s an unusual mix.”
Lux huffed a dismissive laugh. More unusual than the Dark Market? I doubt it. “There’s about an hour yet until I can perform a revival,” she said to the group. “We’ll need to find a private place.”
“What for?” said Lars.
“How private?” asked Sven.
“Somewhere he won’t be bothered at having all his parts exposed.” Lux darted a quelling look at them each.
“Oh, Viktar wouldn’t care a whit. He’s not a bashful sort.”
Lux curled her lip. “Fine, then. A private place for me. I need to concentrate or else the attempt will be a failure.”
She swiveled toward Lars’s derisive snort.
“Serves. I wondered when you’d start hinting at not being able to do as you promised. Bring back the dead… No such thing.”
Lux contemplated wringing his neck but instead pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes.
“Lars, my darling. If you cannot control yourself, I will leave you at home next. With your aunt.”
Magda’s threat had its desired effect as Lars shuddered. Lux looked between the pair of them and realized they did look quite alike. Same eyes, same mouth. But where Lars’s fractured nose had been clearly mismanaged at some point in his life, his mother’s was straight and upturned at the tip.
“Up he goes then,” said Sven. He groaned, hauling the body into his arms. Lars grabbed at the feet.
“He’s getting stiff!”
“That’s the point, imbecile,” Lux griped to herself. She pulled her cloak tighter around her. The hood came up and over, hiding her hair and her irritated expression both. Then she said louder, “Not for long.”