CHAPTER SEVEN
“Is it how you pictured it?” Nya asked softly, coming to stand beside me.
There was a crunch as Kieran stepped gingerly over the spot where I’d just been sick. He appeared on my other side.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
I was used to Cyllene’s salt air. But out here, the scent mingled with an earthy musk.
A vast field of tall, untended grasses lay ahead of us, lit up by the moon overhead.
The moon was unchanged, and yet at the same time, bigger and brighter out here.
Before me were so many different species of grass and weeds, I wouldn’t have known where to start in identifying them all.
The land was wild, untamed. No one waking up at dawn to water and trim and shape it, and yet it was full and lush and very much alive. Just like Zander had described it.
On the horizon were the looming shapes of trees. The forest. I could hardly wait to see it up close.
“We’re basically in the clear now,” Nya said. She grabbed the wet cloth off the ground where it had fallen and shoved it back in the main pocket of her backpack. Then she handed me my own bag. “But it’s still a good idea not to stand around out here in the open. You never know.”
With that, she began wading through the waist-high grass, headed toward the forest.
I waited for Kieran to fall into step behind her, but he gestured for me to go ahead of him. “Tread carefully,” he warned. “You can’t always see when there’s a hole or a rock underfoot. Or an animal.”
“An animal?” I glanced around quickly, as if just the mention of an animal would cause one to appear.
“Yeah. Like a marsh wolf.”
When I whipped around, he was grinning. “That’s not funny.”
“Sure it is.” He chuckled. “Really, though. Most animals will take off as soon as they hear us stomping their way. It’s the holes and rocks that can leave you with a twisted ankle.”
As we walked, I tried to follow Nya’s exact path. I figured as long as I did that, there was little chance of falling. The grasses were stiff and brittle in some parts and soft and pliant in others. I ran my hands along the tips of the blades, marveling at the feeling.
When we approached the trees, I was awestruck at the size of them.
I had seen trees in Cyllene, of course. But none were as tall and imposing as these.
I recognized cypress and maple and palm.
Thick tangles of gray moss covered many of them, cascading over the branches like small waterfalls.
Some of these trees had observed the last seventy years of chaos from the beginning.
Some were old enough to have seen much more than that.
Also in the mix were a few species of trees that didn’t quite fit with the rest. They stood just as tall and fit neatly in between the others, as if they had always been there. Like imposters, trying to blend in.
Trees with magical properties.
Such as the eventide locust. While nothing like a sunset in appearance, this tree captured the same sense of foreboding that comes with nightfall.
True to what I had read, the clusters of spiky thorns that covered its surface resembled a regular honey locust, except they were larger.
More menacing. Smothering the tree until there was no smooth bark visible.
The tree was fine enough when left alone.
But it was sentient and had a nasty temper.
When disturbed, it could release those thorns like deadly projectiles.
Further down the tree line, a ways from where we were entering, I also spied a gemstone willow.
The eventide locust and the gemstone willow—I couldn’t have picked two more opposite trees.
And yet here they were, towering and tangible and absolutely magnificent.
Even from a distance, I could see the cascading leaves of the gemstone willow glittering in the moonlight, like strands of peridots.
I hoped at some point while on the other side of the walls, I would have an opportunity to see one up close.
We stepped under the canopy, leaving the field behind. Now we were trading stepping carefully through the tall grass for stepping carefully over roots, fallen branches, and scrub.
The same as before, I watched Nya’s steps and tried to mimic them. Her long legs carried her easily across the forest floor, and I was reminded again of the effortless poise of a cat. Although considering Nya’s personality, she was more lion than cat.
“Stay close,” she said over her shoulder.
I picked up the pace, trying to close the distance between us. But the ground was uneven, and I stumbled forward, arms flailing.
Kieran’s firm grip encircled my arm, steadying me. I hadn’t realized he was walking that close.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“You know, I can always carry you again,” he offered, his deep voice sickeningly sweet.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
He was still laughing when I resumed trudging through the underbrush. “I wasn’t sure at first how I felt about this side of you that I’ve seen tonight, but I think she’s growing on me. Like a squirrel that chatters at you when you get too close to its nest.”
A squirrel?
I whirled around to face him. But my comeback died on my lips when I saw his grin. He had gotten under my skin again, and he knew it.
I gave him my back again. “If I’m a squirrel, what does that make you?” I asked.
“Hmmm…a lion, maybe?”
“That won’t work. I already decided that Nya is a lion.”
“And you two are my whining cubs,” Nya said without missing a beat.
The crack of a branch echoed to the left of us.
We fell silent.
Instantly, as if it were second nature, Nya stepped back and Kieran stepped forward, filling in the gaps between us. Kieran turned toward the noise and crouched slightly, as if in a fighting stance. Nya did the same, but facing the opposite direction. In case we were being hunted. Surrounded.
I was afraid to swallow, to breathe. We stood like that for several minutes. Waiting.
“Well?” Nya’s whisper was barely audible.
“I don’t see anything,” Kieran replied.
They straightened at the same time. Nya resumed her position at the front of our little line and started out again.
Reluctantly, I trailed after her. “What if it’s that evil wind?”
I shouldn’t have been surprised when the sound of laughter burst out from behind me. “Evil wind?”
“We don’t have a name for it yet,” I explained. “But it’s a wind-like phenomenon that apparently makes people go mad.”
Ahead of me, Nya made a noise in her throat and continued walking.
“Have you all ever encountered something like that?” I pressed.
“Nope.” Nya paused, holding a low-hanging branch so that I could pass.
“And even if something like that does exist, doesn’t sound like there’s a whole hell of a lot we can do about it.
If we venture out to hunt, and an evil wind gets us, then I guess that’s just what fate has in store for us that day. ”
Well, she had a point there.
Sensing that the subject was dead, I decided to broach another. This was my opportunity to learn from them, to get more questions answered. “It’s getting darker the deeper we go. It must have taken a lot of practice to be able to see so well at night.”
Nya scoffed. “Or no practice, if you’re Kieran.”
I looked back at him with raised brows.
He pointed at his eyes. They were shadowed under the treetops, but whenever we crossed under a gap in the canopy, they flashed that shade of silver that rivaled the moonlight.
“A gift from my father,” he said. “They’re not just for looks.
” He considered a moment, then added, “On second thought, looks are exactly what they’re for, huh? ”
Nya sighed. “You’re becoming absolutely intolerable.”
I ignored them both. This was the opening I had been waiting for, to find out more about his family. “So your eyes—the eyes you share with your father—allow you to see clearly in the dark?”
“Yes.”
“Can they do other things, too?”
“Probably,” he snorted. “But being a half-human bastard doesn’t exactly earn you a spot as a student or acolyte or whatever the fuck they call their offspring who still need training.
I know next to nothing about my own abilities, and I imagine they would prefer it stay that way.
We have a nice unspoken agreement where they pretend I don’t exist, and I live out my life as a human. ”
His situation was so different from mine. And in some ways, so eerily similar.
The tree trunks and foliage closest to us were shadowed, but beyond them, unidentifiable shapes twisted and collided into something foreboding.
After considering, I asked, “Is it possible that we could run into”—I almost said “your father,” but decided against it—“others with those eyes while we’re out here? ”
“Are you planning on burning down the forest?” he asked flatly.
I weighed his words. “So your father’s people are protectors of the forest? If I were to do something crazy and destructive, like set fire to the trees, they would intervene?”
“Something like that.”
I gathered from his tone that I still hadn’t quite hit the mark. A thought bubbled to the surface. “Matthew, the explorer who disappeared—whose whole team disappeared after seeing a hooded figure with silver eyes. Are you saying he was a threat?”
“I don’t know who this ‘Matthew’ is,” Kieran said, sounding bored. “But based on what you just said, it would seem that way, wouldn’t it?”
I whirled around again and let out a startled cry as I smacked into his chest.
“Everything okay back there?” Nya’s footfalls paused.
“Yeah, sorry.” I rubbed my nose.
The corner of Kieran’s mouth tugged upward. He inclined his head expectantly, as if to say, “Go on.”