Chapter 10 #2
So it was like a castle. We had one of those at the center of our kingdom, visible from atop the wall. My eyes darted to the empty throne where so many had stood last night. “Why is your citadel empty?”
He scoffed and turned toward the doors. He set his palm to one and stepped back as it swung inward. “Missed those fuckers, have you? Well, you’re in luck.” Light streamed in—as did voices. Familiar, deep ones.
Dorian stepped out and disappeared into the glare.
I came into the doorway, shielding my eyes. Before me lay the same gardens and trellises, but in this canopied daylight they took on a beauty I could not have imagined. All around the flowers were in technicolor, dappled by shafts of sunlight through the trees.
The empty benches were occupied. Some faces I recognized, and some I did not. Men and women, all of them tall and lithe and wild-haired sat and strolled through the grounds. A child’s laughter surprised me, and my eyes darted after it.
There on the bank of the moat, a little girl splashed at the water like it wasn’t as precious as gold.
“There she is,” a male voice said; it was one of the jeering men from last night, but this time with his arm around a grown woman. He reclined on one of the benches. “The pettifey off to see the stag.”
Beside him, the woman with black hair as bountiful as a bouquet gazed at me with pure curiosity. She was heavily pregnant.
“This way,” Dorian called back to me, already halfway to the bridge.
I sensed eyes watching me. Men, women, even the little girl at the water.
Let them think you’re obedient. For one like me in the southern district, it was better to be underestimated until you had your bearings. Rabbits had to choose their moment.
I started forward as voices murmured around me. For as much as I wanted to stand here and stare—to step into that glorious, clear water alongside that child—I kept my eyes ahead, on Dorian’s back.
Did these people have any idea the luxury they had? They’d attacked my kingdom, so they must… or at least the ones who’d ventured that far from this land. But why would a people who had all this be bothered to attack our walls? We had bare plains and acid and some stacked stones.
And yet.
Above me, a tree branch creaked in the breeze. It brought back that noise, the shrieking of that night, metal on stone—
Renewed rage rose in me as I crossed the bridge behind Dorian. I stared at the place on his neck where I’d nicked him, visible above his cloak, and took pleasure in the spot of red illuminated by the sunlight.
We came onto the forest path, and I expected us to follow it, but he soon veered off to the left and into the thick foliage. Here a narrower path offered itself amidst the trees, the lush plants and trunks burnished by sunlight as we walked.
It was at once lovely and terrifying.
The voices from the garden had long faded, and it was just Dorian and me making our way into Sylvanwild.
In daylight, this forest was even more curious and miraculous.
Green leaves as fat as my head grew freely from trees as wide around as the wagon I’d ridden here in, rising so high I lost their tops to the sky.
Around us, flowers dotted the forest floor in startling reds and purples and blues. Vines hung low and languorous. Rustling stirred all around, but I never could lay eyes on anything I heard.
The scent here was almost overwhelming, sweet and earthy and drugging. This place was gorgeous and wild. And as I passed through it, I wondered if this was the last walk I’d ever take.
“Keep close to me,” Dorian said without turning his head. As we walked, I had fallen a few steps behind.
I was startled by the break in our silence. “Why?”
“You’ll be killed.”
Anxiety curled in my chest. My eyes shifted over the trees and saw nothing. “By what?”
He didn’t answer. But even if I didn’t know what would kill me, I knew he spoke truth. Something lurked out there. Something I couldn’t quite put eyes on, couldn’t hear, like my senses were too dull.
I moved closer to him.
“Tell me, at least, what became of my kingdom,” I said. “Did you break down all the walls? Is everyone dead?”
Dorian snorted. “You have a high estimation of our ambition. That’s more than fifty thousand people.”
So he knew the population of our kingdom. “Yes, and you destroyed an entire section of our wall in one barrage.”
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. Finally, without turning, he said, “It was just the one district we attacked. As for your wall, they’re probably already as busy as ants.”
Ants. He’d compared my people to insects. And yet at least he’d given me an answer; whether it was truthful or not, I had no way of knowing.
I would have to live in the belief the kingdom was otherwise intact. That I might someday return to it and find it more than just rubble.
“You mentioned a stag,” I said.
Dorian’s stride didn’t slow. “The spiritstag.” He sounded disdainful.
A beat. Then, “Am I a sacrifice?”
He let out a one-note scoff. “Humans. Everything is a drama—it’s either grand love or terrible violence, gods or sacrifice.”
My heart sounded in my ears. The downright arrogant gall. I forced my voice to stay level. “You attacked us. You took me from my home. You killed my mother.”
His step caught. He came to a stop, and so did I, a few paces behind. At first I thought he might turn on me. My hand reached for my absent sword. Then for my knife.
But he didn’t turn. In a quieter voice, he said, “What do you mean, your mother?”
“Her house.” I paused, breathing fast. I had to slow down or my voice would crack. “It was crushed.”
He remained still a beat longer. Two beats, and I wondered if sorrow had crept into his dark heart. Then, his voice so low I could barely make out the words, he said, “A mercy.”
A mercy? A fucking mercy?
“So you are a monster,” I said, my voice foreign even to me. “Whatever you are, you’re also that.”
He absorbed my words in silence. Sunlight shifted over his shoulders as he breathed, raven hair glinting as the leaves moved. Then, with a small nod, he started walking again. Like he knew. Like he didn’t even care.
I considered not following. Turning and sprinting. Except… Keep close to me.
Eventually I fell into step again. My feelings shifted and circled—fear to anger to grief to bargaining and back around—as we walked.
After half an hour, Dorian slowed. He pointed ahead, through the trees. “The spiritstag will decide your fate.” Was that forlornness in his voice? Or something else, less certain.
I stepped forward, past him. We had arrived… somewhere.
The trees opened up into a clearing, the sun shining unfiltered onto grass; at its center a pond glinted with crystalline perfection. I was drawn to it like all daughters of scorn are drawn to clear water.
Dorian followed me and joined me at the pond’s edge. We were alone here.
I stepped up beside him, staring down at my flaxen reflection.
Fish darted beneath it, real fish. I had seen fish in drawings, but thought them only inventions of stories and dreams. The fish in our pictures were dark and small; here they flashed silver and black and orange, glinting like gems as they moved, their fins taking them on sinuous paths.
Despite everything, I was mesmerized. I had never thought to see a real fish.
“This is the grove,” Dorian said, voice low and almost reverent, as he knelt.
With a flattened hand he dipped his fingertips into the water. Black hair slipped forward, shrouding his face as he murmured words I didn’t recognize.
As he spoke, the air changed—moved over my skin like fine cloth, cooled, whisper-thin, but I didn’t see anything. I only felt the shift across my cheeks and hands.
Dorian lifted his hand, droplets trailing from his fingers. He stood and backed to one of the shaded trees, where he dropped to a crouch against its trunk.
I remained where I stood, staring back at him. “What now?”
“Now”—he folded his arms over his knees—“we wait.”