Chapter 15
Fifteen
It had been three days of walking, and Ivy’s feet still weren’t sore.
Ivy ran her hand over her heel as she sat on a bony tree trunk.
The skin was soft and pink, nothing like what she would have expected.
She had been a nomad for most of her life.
Trekking through forests, mountains, and the like.
The only reason her feet were so soft when she entered the wilderness void was because her uncle insisted on it.
You must be a good offering, he had said as he handed her a rough stone to sand down her tough feet during her last bath. Something worth taking.
Ivy’s lip curled. She forced the memory away and stood, flexing her toes in the dark dirt.
“Vale,” she called. “Are you ready? We should keep going.”
No reply. Ivy craned her head, trying to spot him through the dense trees. The white rot had not reached this far into the void, and everything was still dark and lush.
“Vale?”
Still no response. Ivy chewed her lip and reached inside her head for the void. However, before she could sense anything but its ever-present exhaustion, she heard heavy footsteps through the trees.
Vale stepped through the bushes carrying a handful of frostberries.
“For you,” he said.
Ivy beamed, ridiculously pleased. Frostberries didn’t grow in the small area where she had been working those first few weeks. They had only stumbled on them on their last day of walking. Even though Ivy was connected to the void, she had explored so little of it.
“Thank you,” Ivy said. She took a frostberry and popped it into her mouth, enjoying the firm, icy texture. It reminded her of the ice cream they ate sometimes back at the castle, the childhood memory so hazy she sometimes thought she dreamed it.
Vale kept walking. Ivy walked beside him, eating out of his hand. The void pulsed in her head, alerting her that they were almost at their destination. But before she could say it, Vale spoke up.
“We are almost there,” Vale announced.
Ivy paused, covering her mouth to hide the frostberry she was chewing. “How do you know?”
“I may not have the void talking in my ear anymore,” Vale said. “But I remember where the castle is.”
Ivy nodded, feeling silly. Vale had been here for millennia; of course, he knew where everything was.
“It was on your list of things to fix,” Ivy said, taking another frostberry from his cupped palms. “Right? Clearing up the castle?”
Vale grunted. “I do not think we will have time to clean.”
Ivy laughed. It was shorter than usual. She was distracted by his gait, which was slumped and slow. His eyes were a dull glow. And were his claws more brittle than yesterday? She would try to check when the pollen took over later. He enjoyed digging his claws into her hips.
They were down to the last few frostberries when Vale growled out of nowhere.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
Ivy startled, tearing her probing gaze away. “Like what?”
“With pity in your eyes,” Vale said.
“There’s no pity,” Ivy tried. “I’m just worried.”
“Do not worry. There is no sense in it.”
Ivy stared up at the trees. Even though the rot had not reached them yet, the leaves were fading. The bony tree trunks chipped at the slightest touch. The entire void was weakening, and Vale weakened with it.
“We can walk slower,” Ivy offered.
“We cannot,” Vale replied. “We must cure the void.”
Ivy plucked the last frostberry from Vale’s hands, irritated as she chewed. She couldn’t argue with that logic. But she hated forcing him onward when he was feeling like this.
“Do not frown,” Vale said, dropping his berry-stained hands. “I have been working tirelessly for generations before you were born.”
“Yes,” Ivy said hesitantly. “And you shouldn’t have. I can’t believe the void didn’t make you more light-motes!”
The void stirred in her head. It did not feel offended, like Ivy had been worrying about. She wondered if she could offend the void at all. If poisoning the void didn’t upset it, then this certainly wouldn’t.
“It cannot,” Vale said. “That is surely the only reason it would not give me more.”
Ivy nodded thoughtfully. It made sense. But it also filled her mind with questions.
“Where did they come from in the first place?” she asked. “The light-motes?”
“I do not know. They simply appeared.” Vale came to a stop, his face creasing in pain. It was the most she had seen him react beyond falling down, and Ivy touched his elbow in alarm.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing new.” Vale dropped his head, his glowing eyes squeezing shut as he braced himself through whatever was roiling through him. Then he opened his eyes and started walking again, his shoulders slumped and his tail dragging on the ground.
“Speak to me,” he said as Ivy dropped into step beside him. “Distract me from these annoyances.”
Ivy couldn’t help but smile. Mere weeks ago, she had been the annoyance. He’d told her to stop talking many times. Now he was asking for it.
“Of course,” Ivy said. Then she paused. “I can’t think of anything. What do you want me to say?”
“Tell me of your Circle.”
Ivy stumbled over a rock. She righted herself quickly, matching her stride to Vale. She didn’t want to think about the Circle. When she did, her thoughts went back to those whom Vale had killed the last time they were in the mortal realm.
“Well,” she said hesitantly. “The ones you killed weren’t very nice. So that’s… good?”
Vale rumbled threateningly. “You should have told me. I would have spent longer killing them.”
“They weren’t awful,” Ivy said. “They just weren’t nice.
None of them were, really. At least, not to me.
It was… strange, actually. Someone at one of the last towns we passed through said they made me a scapegoat for all that went wrong.
I did make a lot of mistakes, but not enough to deserve my treatment.
Or so they said. Now that I think back on it… ”
Ivy bit her lip. “My uncle might have been behind it? I felt so silly for even suspecting it back then. But I kept hearing him say bad things about me behind my back, like he wanted the others to think less of me. Maybe he wanted me to rely on him. He was the only one who was nice to me, even if he did treat me like a servant. I thought I just needed to work harder, you know? Prove myself. Be useful.”
She fell silent, embarrassed. She had never said it aloud before. She’d never had anyone to say those words to.
Vale did not speak for several steps. At first, Ivy thought he was too lost in his pain or that he had nothing to say.
“You need not do that for me,” he said finally.
Ivy couldn’t help it: she laughed. She had spent these past few weeks working every moment of the day, save for sleep and slaking her pollen-lust. If anything, Vale had told her to work harder. She couldn’t even blame him. Everywhere they went was full of work to be done.
“You do not,” Vale insisted. “It is necessary now, with all the work that is to be done. But if you stay here, in my void… I can find other assistants. I will find others.”
Ivy stared up at him in shock. “Really? Even… even after how finding your first assistant went?”
“I did not find you. You were given to me.” Vale walked several more paces, his tail swishing. Then he stopped and turned to her, taking her chin in his berry-stained claws.
“You deserve a life,” he said. “Not just work.”
The words were for her. But there was confusion in his voice, as if he was only just realizing that the same might even apply to him.
Ivy’s heart fluttered. She was so distracted by Vale’s intense gaze that she barely noticed that, yes, his claws were more brittle than the day before.
He tilted her chin up and kissed her. It was cool and soft and sweet, despite his fangs grazing her lip.
The pollen stirred inside Ivy’s blood. But before it could properly bloom, Vale grunted and pulled back.
Ivy stroked his mossy cheekbone. “How badly does it hurt?”
Vale didn’t answer. He twisted away from her, craning his head to peer through the trees.
“We are here,” he announced, and stalked forward.
Ivy followed. The trees came to an abrupt stop, and Ivy gasped as she saw the view waiting beyond them.
The castle had been rotting for a long time, aged bone crumbling into what was once a moat.
It was even bigger than it had looked when the void pushed images into her head.
Even bigger than the castle she had lived in as a child, bigger than any castle mortals could create.
The ruined spires looked like they could scrape the sky.
The doors were crafted from bone, so big and heavy, she doubted even Vale could heave them open.
Luckily, there was a chunk missing in the bone big enough for both of them to walk through.
The void pushed another weak image onto her: giant beings fighting in the courtyard. Titans. A war before the Skullstalkers even existed, let alone mortals. An ancient siege machine, taking a chunk of the door. Then the image was gone, and she was alone in her head again.
Ivy reeled, holding her pounding head.
Vale stepped back toward her. “Ivy?”
“I’m fine,” she gasped. She shook her head, the void’s memories already fading.
Vale held out his hand.
Ivy took it, and the two of them set off toward the hole punched in those impossibly huge doors.