Chapter 11
C old rain had worked through the gap above my knee and soaked the bandage beneath my thigh guard, each step pulling at my stitches.
Mud clung to my boots and released them with wet sucking sounds as we made our way down the eastern road. Bramble moved through the ferns beside me, his body low and his tail straight. Every few paces, he stopped with one paw raised and head turned down toward the earth.
Unease echoed through our bond.
Caelan had put out the watch-shelter fire before dawn. Four hours later, we still traveled in the same formation we had kept since leaving the Grove. Ivy and Sula led while Perrin, one of the Thornwardens who had helped carry Rhian home, searched ahead for Marred tracks.
Four Thornwardens kept Xandros and me surrounded.
One of them, Jalen, kept a hand clamped over what remained of his food pouch. Bramble had already stolen half of it before sunrise.
Xandros walked inside the ring of guards on my right. Whenever the road narrowed, heat reached me through the cold rain. Droplets slid from his pale hair and along the sharp line of his cheek.
My right hand curled around the star beneath its bandage.
He had returned Torren and helped keep Rhian alive. He had also hidden the king’s command behind every careful answer. My jaw clenched whenever I tried to decide which truth mattered more.
Last night, while I lay beneath the watch shelter trying to sleep, I had opened my eyes and found Xandros watching me across the dying fire. Gold had moved beneath the constellations along his fingers. His gaze had stayed on mine until heat gathered beneath my skin.
He had looked away first.
Was it me he had been watching, or the cause his king expected him to bring home?
A wet branch swept across my shoulder. I pushed it aside and continued down the road.
We gave it something to answer.
The prince’s words stayed with me as the forest thickened around us, pressing against the comfort of familiar ground.
The road rose beneath my boots before curving around two broad trunks. I moved toward the firmer ground near them without slowing.
The ache in my thigh remained, but some of the pressure across my shoulders eased. My breath sank deeper into my lungs. The Wild moved through the soaked earth around me, as familiar as my own heartbeat.
Something inside me settled. I didn’t know whether the land had welcomed me home or my vow had eased now that I was standing guard again.
Still, Xandros' warning turned through my mind until his voice reached me through the rain.
“You know this part of the forest well.”
My pulse shifted. I looked at him before I could stop myself. Water clung to his lashes as he watched me choose the firmer ground.
“Every turn.” The trail curved beyond a stand of white birch. I ducked beneath a low branch and caught it before it could swing back toward him. “My parents made sure of that.”
Xandros took the branch from my hand and held it aside as he passed. “They taught you the route?”
The question pulled at memories buried beneath years of patrols without them. My mother’s hand guiding mine over a patch of new growth. My father waiting farther down the path, certain I would find my way.
“They brought me on patrol before I could carry a sword.” I stepped over a stream of rainwater cutting across the trail. “My mother taught me where we could harvest without weakening the land.”
A fallen branch cracked beneath Xandros' boot.
“My father made me walk every path backward whenever I claimed I knew it.”
Xandros arched an eyebrow. “That sounds unpleasant.”
“It was.” The corner of my mouth lifted before I could stop it. “I told him often.”
A small grin tempted the corners of his lips, softening the sharp lines there. Warmth caught beneath my ribs, and I turned my attention to the trail before he saw how easily it had reached me.
“The real question, I suppose, is whether it worked.”
I stepped over a stream of rainwater cutting across the path. “I could find the marker blindfolded. But I told him that less often.”
A deep chuckle rumbled through him, sending pleasant shivers whispering across my skin.
“Then he likely considered your suffering worthwhile.”
I smiled before the ache beneath it returned.
“Do they still guard this land?”
My next step landed harder than I meant it to.
“No.” I swallowed once. “They died a long time ago.”
The sound of rain pattering against the leaves filled the silence. When the path widened, Xandros moved beside me.
Oren stayed close behind, never allowing more than a few feet to open between him and the prince.
“Both of them?” Xandros' voice lowered, the playfulness gone.
I nodded.
He faced the trail instead of searching my face. The small mercy loosened something beneath my ribs.
“This was their charge before it became mine. The villages, the settlements, every patrol through this part of the Deepwood.” My fingers brushed the wet leather covering my thigh. “And the Cedarstone marker that gave our family its name.”
“Did they know about the road?”
My breath caught.
“I thought I knew everything they taught me.” I flexed my fingers at my sides. “Now I’m not sure how much any of us knew.”
Xandros walked several paces before responding. “A duty can outlive the reason it began.”
I looked at him. “You sound familiar with that.”
A muscle shifted along his jaw before his expression smoothed. “My people inherited plenty from the dead.”
He kept his attention on the trail ahead. I wanted to ask which duty would pull him hardest when the time came. His king. His stranded people. Or the promise he had made not to take me through the Veil.
Claws scratched against the trunk ahead.
My sword cleared its sheath before I saw the red squirrel racing into the branches. Bramble’s alarm struck through our bond, then faded.
Beside me, gold glowed across Xandros' raised hand.
The squirrel vanished back into the leaves with clear, dark eyes.
Before the Briar Moon, claws scraping along bark would never have made me reach for a weapon. Now my heart pounded against my ribs.
Bramble pressed his nose to my boot. I sheathed my sword and rubbed between his wet ears.
“False alarm.”
He sneezed at my muddy trousers.
Ahead of us, the road narrowed. Green moss dulled to gray, and the ferns along the path bowed toward the bare earth beyond the rise.
Ivy’s fingers closed in the thick fur behind Sula’s ear as the bear stopped. Her claws dug into the soil, and a growl rolled through her chest.
“She won’t go any farther.”
Bramble climbed onto my shoulders. Fear sharpened through our bond while I reached for the Wild beneath the road.
The Mother Tree’s living current weakened with every yard. Her weave still stretched toward the marker, but little warmth remained inside it. I released my hold before the emptiness could pull me deeper.
Caelan raised one hand. The Thornwardens spread through the trees while Perrin crouched beside a rain-filled track.
“Three claws. Longer than a wolf’s.”
Mira nocked an arrow. “Which way?”
“It circles the rise.” Perrin pushed aside a fern and uncovered another print. “There’s more than one.”
Caelan sent Ivy and Sula around the southern edge, then ordered Mira and Jalen north while keeping them within sight.
Xandros stopped beside me.
Gold kindled at the base of his throat and climbed through the constellations above his collar. He pressed his palm against the markings hidden beneath his tunic.
“What is it?” I shifted closer before catching myself.
“Something below us is pulling at my Everlight.”
“Can you hold it back?”
“For now.” His fingers curled against his chest. “But the pull feels deliberate.”
Caelan gripped the hilt of his sword. “Can it force you to use your power?”
“I don’t know.” Xandros kept his attention fixed on the earth ahead.
“Warn me if that changes.” Caelan moved closer, placing himself between the prince and the top of the rise.
Xandros glanced at the glow escaping around his fingers. “I will, if it gives me time.”
We climbed the remaining slope in silence and stopped where the living forest ended. No one crossed the boundary.
Bare soil swept toward the marker in a wide black scar, like a forest after wildfire had stripped away everything green. Nearly a week ago, moss had covered this place. Ferns had crowded the stone, and the cedar roots had vanished beneath wet growth.
Now the earth lay exposed around them.
My throat tightened. The damage had spread several strides since I had last stood here. This was my patrol region. Land my family had guarded before the duty passed to me.
I pressed one boot into the dark soil.
It gave beneath my weight with the loose collapse of cooled ash. No Wild rose to meet me.
My fingers closed around my sword, and I stepped onto the dead earth first. The others followed, their careful footfalls sinking into the land I had sworn to protect.
My gaze drifted up to the Cedarstone marker at the center of the dead ground.
One half of the standing stone had shifted farther from the towering cedar, widening the gap between them. The tree leaned into the space. Brown needles clung to its lower branches, and indigo stains climbed the bark, which was dark where the roots entered the ruined soil.
A few green needles remained on the higher branches. I wanted to feel relief, but they only made the dying branches below harder to ignore. The cedar still lived, for now. But I had no idea how deep the damage went, or how much longer it would last.
My steps slowed as I drew closer.
A pale green shape rested beneath one of the exposed roots. I mistook it for a new leaf until its wings shifted.
A luna moth clung to the wet bark, its wings wider than my palm and its long tails stirring in the breeze. I had always thought them beautiful. Against the ruined earth and dying cedar, its soft green wings seemed even brighter.
Bramble went still, his gaze watching the fluttering insect closely. But he refused to leave my shoulder.
Nearly a week ago, another luna moth had rested on this same root while Rhian and I searched for Torren. Bramble had left that one alone too.