Chapter 63
The six Bone Women who accompanied us were armed to the teeth, slipping between the trees like skeletons given flesh. We were to make no noise. No speaking. Nothing that might draw the Infected. And truthfully, I was glad of it.
Rìan and I kept as much distance between ourselves as the narrow game trails allowed.
As the hours passed, the forest slowly began to change.
The ancient trees grew fewer, replaced by younger growth.
The canopy thinned overhead, sunlight spilling across ferns, moss, and scattered wildflowers.
Here, spring had only just begun to touch the trees, their new leaves still small and tender.
Late in the afternoon, when we stopped to fill our waterskins beside a bubbling creek, I moved quietly to Saskia's side.
"How long until we reach the mortal lands?"
She looked at me, surprised. "Eidra... we crossed hours ago."
My head whipped around.
I looked again, properly this time. The saplings. The wildflowers. A squirrel darting along a nearby branch. I'd already spotted deer twice that morning without thinking anything of it.
These were the mortal lands?
I'd only ever known them to be brown and withered with rot, a land where life clung on by shredded fingernails. Yet somehow it had... recovered. The Veil had shattered, magic had returned, and the land was healing.
My throat squeezed painfully. I drank in my surroundings, marvelling at the impossible sight before me. I'd never known the mortal lands could be beautiful.
If only Father could have seen this.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Rìan watching me.
I turned away quickly.
He withdrew a small, folded square of parchment from his pocket and beckoned to Saskia. Despite the cave, the marshes, and the blood that now stained it, the map remained remarkably intact. Whatever enchantment protected it still held firm.
Saskia crouched, one knee pressed into the forest floor as she drew a winding path with the tip of her finger.
Rìan followed the route in silence, his brow furrowing before he pointed farther east. She immediately shook her head, murmuring something too quiet for me to catch.
She rested a hand lightly against his forearm before tracing another route, one that curved farther north.
Something hot and sharp lodged beneath my ribs before I could stop it.
They were discussing a map. Choosing the safest path through lands crawling with Infected. That was all. So why did the sight of her hand on him bother me?
As though sensing my stare, Rìan lifted his head and pinned me with his gaze. Then, without a flicker of expression, he tucked the map beneath his arm and walked straight toward me.
My stomach sank. I’d been hoping to avoid him a little longer.
He spread the worn parchment across a flat-topped boulder.
"Look at the map, Eidra."
I barely glanced at it before looking away again. He let out a slow breath, dragging a hand back through his hair.
"Did you ever see a well in Midland?"
I froze.
"... Midland?!" The word escaped me louder than I'd intended.
Every Bone Woman stopped. In an instant, bows were half-raised, hands flew to knife hilts, and every head turned toward the trees, listening.
Saskia crossed the distance in three quick strides. "Hush, Eidra!"
Heat flooded my face.
"I—"
"They can stand down," Rìan said evenly. "There aren't any Infected nearby."
Saskia glanced around "Are you certain?"
He nodded. "I'd smell them."
My head snapped toward him so fast the world blurred.
"You can smell them too?"
I'd never met anyone who shared my gift. Never met anyone who could smell the Infected before they drew near.
He gave a curt nod, his attention already returning to the map. "It's because we're Firstborn, Eidra."
Saskia hesitated before finally gesturing for the Bone Women to lower their weapons. Nevertheless, they remained vigilant, their eyes scouring the forest.
I stared at him, stunned. Another missing piece of the puzzle that was my existence had finally clicked into place.
"Can you see the black veins too?" I blurted.
He looked up just long enough to fix me with a withering stare. "Did you have a well in Midland or not?"
Midland.
The word yanked me from my thoughts. I looked back down at the map. My gaze followed his finger to the last location marked in red. Eldrath.
Beyond it, two other names framed it in a broad triangle. Nareth. Valethis.
"I don't recognize any of these."
"Look closer, Eidra," he said stiffly, tapping the red circle again.
I frowned and bent nearer. Nareth lay inland to the north. Valethis hugged the southern coast… My gaze moved between the three points.
North.
South.
West.
My breath hitched. It wasn't the names I recognized. It was where they lay in relation to one another. I knew that arrangement.
Annapolis.
Greyharbor.
My eyes landed on the final circle. Eldrath.
"I'm not very familiar with the mortal lands," Rìan said. "Does that look like Midland to you?"
It had to be. There were no settlements farther west than Midland. When the Veil still stood, it had been perched almost against its edge.
I nodded weakly. "I... I think so."
The red ink seemed to stare back at me, like the laughing eye of fate.
How could the third Well have been so close to me my entire life without my ever knowing it? It was impossible.
Rìan's patience was wearing thin. "I'll ask again. Was there a well in Midland, or not?"
"We had several wells," I said slowly. "Most of them had long since run dry."
"Then we'll visit every one."
I blinked up at him. "And do what? Bleed into each of them?"
"If that's what it takes."
I gave a disbelieving scoff. "It can't be in Midland."
"I'm almost certain it is." He pointed to one of the lines sweeping across the map. "A Vein once passed directly beneath it. One that fed into the Thornlands."
"Rìan." His name tasted strange now, bitter. "I lived there my entire life. I never once felt what we did at the other two wells. Never once sensed even a trace of that magic."
He folded up the map and tucked it back into his pocket.
"You couldn't even sense your own magic while the Veil stood. With the mortal lands drained for centuries, either your senses were dulled, or the Well remained dormant, preserving its power while severed from the rest of Elantis."
“But…” I couldn’t make sense of it. “How…?”
“It doesn’t matter how, Eidra. All that matters is getting there as quickly as possible and bleeding into the damned thing.”
His dismissal stung more than I would have liked, a flare of anger tightening my mouth.
“Saskia,” he said, just loudly enough for her to hear. She turned and strode toward us. “Midland it is.”
She chewed the inside of her cheek, her expression darkening. “That won’t be easy. It’s crawling with the Bone-Wrought.”
My heart clenched. My town. My home. All those people…
Laurie.
His face surfaced in fragments, like a memory already beginning to fade. The scattering of freckles across his nose. Kind brown eyes. An easy smile. Everything else had already begun to blur.
“Are you certain?” My voice came out thin, almost pleading.
Rìan's gaze snapped to me, but I had eyes only for Saskia.
She gave me a sorrowful look. “I’m sorry, Eidra. The place is infested. No survivors.” She rested a heavy hand on my shoulder, the hooked talons of her bone gauntlet catching lightly on the fabric of my shirt. “No survivors anywhere. The mortal lands have become a place of death.”
A strangled laugh escaped me, shrill enough to make worry flicker across her face. “They always were.”
She ran her tongue along the outside of her teeth before turning back to Rìan. “We cannot make it there before nightfall. And I don’t recommend wandering those lands after dark.”
“That’s fine,” he said briskly. “We’ll camp here tonight and continue at daybreak. Thank you for your help, but we’ll continue alone.”
“Ha.” She let out a quiet laugh that sounded more like a bark. “We will accompany you to the settlement.”
“That’s unnecessary. And dangerous.”
“Trust me, my Prince, our kind do not fear death.” She pressed her palm to her forehead and bowed her head. “We will accompany you to the end.”
We settled in a nearby clearing long before dusk surrendered to true darkness, choosing one far enough from the creek that the sound of water bubbling over stone wouldn't drown out the approach of anything moving through the forest. Even if Rìan and I could smell the Infected long before they reached us, the Bone Women had survived these lands by trusting their own ways, and they had no intention of abandoning them now.
We lit no fires. Raised no tents. There was no idle chatter to fill the evening, no stories shared beneath the fading light.
We ate in silence, passing strips of smoked venison from hand to hand alongside fistfuls of dried berries and nuts.
As night fell, two women rose without a word, bows in hand, and disappeared into the trees while the rest of us settled onto the ground, propping our packs beneath our heads as pillows.
I lay awake for a long time.
I listened to the sounds of the forest. The endless drone of insects, the distant call of an owl somewhere high among the branches.
There had never been anything but silence and death in this place.
But now life poured back into it with eager determination, creeping across the land and reclaiming every inch that had been taken.
It didn’t mourn the centuries stolen from it.
It simply returned, as though the land held no memory of the suffering it had endured, refusing to dwell on what had been in favor of what could still be.
As though it understood that death had never truly been an ending, only a passing season.
Across the clearing, Rìan lay upon his back, one arm folded beneath his head, the other resting loosely across his chest. Even from here I could see it—that faint silver glimmer in his eyes, subtle as starlight caught upon deep water. Awake.
As though he felt my gaze on him, he turned his head.
Our eyes met.