Chapter 2
Iwouldn’t make it to the village. Hours of trekking through the woods and splitting logs had made me strong, sure, but the tree men were giants.
Giants had giant muscles.
Considering I was of average height, those giant muscles were stronger than mine.
I sprinted in the direction of the village, jumping over most brambles and fallen trees and only going around those that would trip me. Though I didn’t dare look, the sound of racing footsteps told me the men kept pace.
My lungs began to burn as I vaulted over another trunk, wishing the heavy netting I used for trapping wasn’t secured so tightly to my cloak. The men didn’t need to catch up to me. They simply had to outlast me.
It would probably be easy for them.
I wracked my brain as I flew over the ground, struggling to think past the panic that drove me forward. I knew each tree and rock and groove in the woods within the village boundaries, but this land, so far outside of my normal trapping grounds, was foreign to me.
But there was general knowledge I had learned over the years.
Unlike other Territories, Second Territory had no valleys or mountains to hide in.
Only flat, bumpy ground with dead brush that provided few obstacles and nowhere to hide.
There were also rivers, one of which provided the drinking stream our village used.
The river itself was said to run along the border of Second and Third Territory, a natural barrier between the two.
I pivoted sharply to the right, dashing in the direction of my new target.
I’d never seen the river, but for our drinking stream to have its own current, the river had to be big enough to provide me with better evasion options than these barren woods.
“Stop,” one of the men shouted, his voice betraying a proximity that had my arms pumping harder.
I demanded myself not to slow. Rest could happen later when I was captured or dead. Or safe. I just needed to reach that river, wherever it was.
“Stop!” he shouted again, far closer than before.
Dread pooled in my stomach as I ground my teeth together.
Ahead, a gift from the world appeared. Several trees, old and thick, had fallen together into a long wall studded with tangled webs of spindly branches. It was too tall to jump. But in the center, the rotting wood had started to collapse along the ground, creating a small hole.
Please go all the way through.
I adjusted my trajectory for the opening, not allowing the possibility that the hole was too small for me. I would fit, and I would come out on the other side faster than they could climb over the top or run around the obstacle.
In three, two…
Squeezing my eyes shut, I dove forward, knocking the wind from my chest as I slid into the dark tunnel and stopped mere inches from the exit.
Angry shouts and the bark digging into my clothes told me the men couldn’t follow my path, and something like hope sparked as I scrambled forward on my belly until I was out and running again.
“Bitch.”
The corner of my mouth curled as the word hardly reached me, having come from so far away, and my heart surged as I pushed on with new energy. Maybe…maybe I could make it.
You’ll make it. You’ll make it. You’ll make it.
Minutes passed as I repeated the words again and again, growing numb to the ache in my legs and feet which no longer felt attached to my body. A soft hiss emerged in the air, growing into a low growl as I weaved between trees and leapt over rocks.
Green flashed before my eyes. Then again.
Small, verdant patches of green moss speckled the ground, increasing in number as the dirt grew softer under my feet and that growl became a rumble.
The only green I knew came in sparse patches along the shores of the village stream.
There was far more here. It had to be the river somewhere ahead, but I couldn’t see the water.
Another growl, this one human, erupted directly behind me. Then stark, stinging pain shot over my scalp as my neck snapped back and my body followed.
I lay on the ground, stunned.
The man was on me within a heartbeat, hand still tangled in my braid as his other forearm pressed into my throat.
His eyes, hard and unyielding, were green like the moss.
The patchy mud on his face revealed a brutal scar that sliced through his brow and a thick vein protruding down the center of his forehead.
He was livid.
He put his weight into his arm, and I snapped into action, driving the knife still grasped in my hand into the closest flesh it could find.
Those green eyes flared with surprise as I jabbed twice more, slicing deep, and he fell to his side.
His companions, far too close now, yelled as I clawed into the dirt and scrambled to my feet.
The man swiped at my legs but fell short, the dagger embedded in his skin stunting his reach, and I ran.
My legs felt awkward, their energy spent, as I dashed toward the rumble that’d become a roar. But still, I couldn’t see the river.
Then the ground before me disappeared.
I slipped onto my ass, feet inches from the cliff and the monstrous, roiling water a few yards below it.
No wonder I hadn’t seen it before.
Hope shattered as I took in the wide, cavernous opening that was simply un-jumpable. Racing rapids shot plumes of mist into the air.
This had to be a joke.
The river wasn’t safety or an escape; it was death.
If I survived the fall, I would be bashed against rocks, held beneath the surface, and my body would be found limp and swollen with water. But when I turned to see the men paces away with malice in their eyes, I rolled toward the edge of the bank.
Fear widened their eyes as I felt the ground’s edge along the side of my hip.
“No!” yelled the green-eyed man.
The shout was hardly perceptible over the deafening sound of the water.
I knew what would happen in this river, but I didn’t know what would happen if those men trapped me in that rope.
Death was difficult to fear when life was so inconsequential.
But capture could make this vapid reality more painful and horrible than I knew.
So I rolled and fell.
The water came faster and harder than expected.
Stark cold engulfed me as my body slapped the surface and was pulled under, flipping and turning like a limp doll.
Air left my body in an instant, and agony licked up my leg as I spiraled, flying with the current.
My cloak and the attached netting dragged me down like lead, trapping my arms as they wrapped around my body.
I needed to find the surface, to breathe, but I couldn’t tell which way was up or down as the water accelerated and dragged me like I was no more than a broken tree limb.
It would be so easy to give into the water.
Merelda would be crushed.
Sanity returned, and I fumbled with the clasp of my cloak until it released, taking the netting with it. Now, I could move.
I opened my eyes to see white foam above and another boulder in my path.
Calling on all that was left, I readied my body before my feet slammed into the stone.
Muscles bunched and pushed, and I surged to the surface.
One gasp of blessed air was all I managed before being dragged down again.
I curled my body into a ball, and I sank even as I was pulled by the currents.
Perfect.
My knees brushed what seemed like the bottom, and I planted my feet and sprung up to the surface. I breathed once, sank, became a ball, and did it again.
I continued the exhausting cycle, hardly feeling the bruises and cuts from jagged edges, invigorated by my newfound ability to work with the water as it carried me far away from the men.
Time blurred, and at some point, the river became shallow and calmer.
I surfaced for another breath and was gently swept into another boulder.
Relief flooded me as my feet easily touched the bottom.
Leaning fully against the rock, I stood, finally feeling the coldness and aches pervading every bone and muscle and ounce of skin. I wanted to stay there for ages, resting forever, but the cold was deadly.
After all I’d just survived, I couldn’t die from mere cold. That would just be pathetic.
Holding on to the rock, I took a few tentative steps toward the bank, only letting go when I felt sure enough in my footing. The caution wasn’t necessary. In the relaxed current, walking was easy, and the water was at my ankles soon enough as I waded toward the bank.
I collapsed onto my hands and knees in the mud. The small, still puddle before me was filled with silt. As tempting as it was to drink, the risk of disease was too high. I’d have to collect water in my flask and boil it later.
My focus shifted away from the debris in the water and to my reflection.
Braid long gone, my dull blonde hair, streaked with light browns, hung in dark, twisted cords down to the puddle. Small cuts dotted my forehead, and I followed their trail down to my nose—
And then I saw violet and gold.
I lurched away, landing on my ass. The lighting—the lighting had to be playing with the colors. Scrambling to another puddle, I thrust my face above the water.
In this one, too, purple was a thick ring that gave way to gold by my pupil.
Not lighting, then, but minerals reflecting their shades into my eyes. It had to be.
But no other coloring was changed. My skin was still light, my brows still curved and dark, my lips still small and pink. It was only the dull brown of my eyes that was different. Unnatural.
The same eyes as the woman with the violet cloak, who had made me see brightness and shapes as her gaze drilled into mine.
“Her eyes,” that tree man had said.
Laughter bubbled.
This…this was insane. Utterly mad. Completely impossible—this entire day.
A sick woman with black blood changed my eyes to a two-toned rainbow, giant men chased me through the forest, and I threw myself into monstrous rapids only to walk out in calm waters.
The laughter stopped.