Chapter 3
Three
Flee
Whispers tickled me awake. It was not near dawn yet, and my muscles ached. I frowned and tilted my head slightly to hear better. A few words were clear enough to make out. West. Soon. Smoke. Girl. The wind had picked up, blowing the sounds away.
I sat up as quietly as I could, thankful for the fresh hay not quite dried out and crunching underfoot. The barn door was half open, but I couldn’t see anyone through it. With luck, that meant they couldn’t see me either.
I caught my lip with my teeth; my heartbeat quickened as my mind woke up to race through possibilities.
Surely no one from Silver Lake had bothered following me for the sake of grief.
Then again, I had faith in Mila’s warnings.
Could it be someone from Pine Hollow? The farmer didn’t seem to mind me too much as long as I did my share.
I crept down the ladder, swearing to sleep with my axe from now on. My feet hit the dirt floor, and I tiptoed to the doorway to listen.
“Most of the girls in these parts match that description. You’ll have to do better than that.” It was the farmer, but who was he talking to?
“I smell her all over your fields. Does that bring someone to mind?” Faltering backward, I gripped the leather coat around me and kept my steps as silent as I could.
Those words to the farmer weren’t a question, they were a demand.
The rumbling voice sent chills down my back.
It was wild, something that didn’t belong outside a barn but rather running through the trees or soaring in the sky.
It was a voice of strength. It was low and dark and dangerous.
And I’d heard it before, on the burned shores of Silver Lake.
“Let me think now. I had someone help in the fields, but she’s done and gone from them now.
She never said where she would go after that.
Perhaps south, though, since there isn’t anything in the other directions of much interest to a traveler.
” The farmer’s drawl was slow, like he was thinking.
Or buying time. I held my breath. They said the fae could smell lies.
He hadn’t outright said anything that was untrue, but he was most certainly pushing the boundaries.
The old farmer might have been the bravest man I had ever seen.
If it had been me, I’d have been shaking in my boots.
I dared a peek outside the barn door. It was him. The fae from the village towered over the human. I choked down a gasp. His back was to me, but the farmer could see me clearly. I ducked back into the barn.
“Yes, I’d go south if it were me,” the farmer wondered out loud. “But I didn’t watch her leave, so I can’t be sure.”
“So be it,” the fae answered and stepped back from the farmer.
The fae’s steps thundered. He ran with a frightening swiftness.
I stuck my head out only to find he was already out of sight.
The farmer stood in his doorway, staring open-mouthed after the creature from the Wyldes.
Then he turned his head toward me and nodded once before retreating to the warmth of his house.
I guess I ranked a little better than a fae from the Wyldes, at least to this farmer of Pine Hollow.
Fully awake now, and with every instinct urging me forward, I pulled my sled out the barn door.
He had to be after me for my offense to him.
I knew it was dangerous to offend them. Mila had told me so many times.
But everything had happened so fast, I hadn’t really known what I was doing until it was already done.
I didn’t regret pushing him, though. He’d put his hands on me and laid bare my most vulnerable secret.
He’d deserved it, even if I now feared it would be the end of me.
North was tempting, the opposite direction of the wild thing that was looking for me.
But the Wyldes were north of here, over the crest of the mountain range where the trails were said to slip down into dark places where the creatures of the Wyldes hunted one another.
“We stay on the south side of the peaks,” Bryn would say, “and they stay on theirs. By the grace of good luck that we aren’t of interest.” There were plenty of stories of humans who had gotten lost and become a plaything to the fae at best or a meal to the beasts at worst. Mila always reminded us there were never firsthand accounts, but Bryn could never turn down a full tankard and a willing storyteller, so we’d heard plenty of tales that told otherwise.
I pressed eastward, if only for the fact that I’d told Mila I would be traveling that way.
The open fields in the hollow left me feeling naked.
The trees were a welcoming cloak from the empty skies and the terrible growling voice I had left behind me on the farm.
I tried to run, but the sled held me back, and the forest floor was a tangle of hazards, the snow too light.
If only the deep snows had begun. I could already see several nicks in the metal rails where rocks had scraped the sled badly.
Surely, it made too much noise. I debated abandoning it, but even with my natural strength and swiftness, I couldn’t carry everything, and the weight of my sack would tire me sooner.
Besides, with the now fully formed bruise from Bryn, my left arm was nearly as useless as it was sore.
But the Mother smiled on my path, and I came across a brook.
Unlike the muddy riverbed that had brought me to the farm, water trickled cold and unrelenting down the slope from the high places where the snow piled more readily.
At least my burden could move through it.
Dawn came. I stopped to rest, drink, and eat.
I tried to dry my wet boots. I cried again for Bryn.
I set out once more. Worn deer trails and mostly dry creek beds aided me in moving the sled through what little frost lingered.
I began to reach the edges of familiar forest, and glimpses of unknown landscapes danced ahead.
I was tired, but I didn’t stop again for rest or food until the sky turned red.
I ate a little more and soaked my feet in a trickling mountain spring. It was cold but refreshing. I chewed my lip and tore at my fingernails. Was sleep the right decision? But how long could I continue at this pace? I made up my mind to rest for only an hour, then I would move again.
A mighty oak with thick, low branches made a promising bed.
I hauled my sack up with me and tied it off the ground, away from any curious animals.
I sank the blade of my best axe into the trunk near where I lay.
I would not let it leave my reach again.
I devoured an entire loaf of bread before settling down to rest. For a long time, my ears twitched with sounds of the night.
I jumped at owls, scurrying mice, and rustling branches.
A bird cawed nearby. Finally, my weary body gave in, and I fell into a deep sleep.
I awoke at midnight. Much more time had passed than I’d wanted. My legs throbbed and my shoulders roared with hot aching, but I was far calmer than when I’d run from the barn. I let myself down from the tree gently, retrieved my axe and my belongings, and set forth again at a slower pace.
Wind howled down the mountainside. The chill bit into me, but my movement kept me from freezing.
I found a gentle path, and another, and another, until I reached the bottom of the large slope.
I ate an apple and began to climb. A few different muscles began to burn with the new motion of shifting upward.
Something pricked at the back of my mind.
It was sleep, or nerves, or some primitive instinct to escape what was behind me.
At times I could feel it, like an itch my hands couldn’t reach.
A tingle on my spine where my seal was. Other times it was all but gone.
The feeling kept me going, and as it grew stronger with the rising sun, so did my fears.
And then I heard it. It was light, but it was footsteps. Definitely not an animal. How I could tell, I still don’t know, but there was no doubt in my mind the fae was behind me.
My heart raced, and I gripped my axe. He wasn’t close, but with his terrible speed, the gap between us would be a moment for him. Maybe he hadn’t noticed I’d sensed him. Maybe he didn’t care.
I went over every item in my possession in my head.
My clothes, the food, my meager pocket of coin.
I could survive without it; Bryn had made sure of that.
I would cry for the things Bryn had carved for me, but I would live without them too.
The only things that might save me now were surprise and every ounce of speed I had.
I took a deep breath and let go of the sled. It clattered down the slope behind me, hitting rocks and probably scattering my things. I ran.
Sprinting left, around trees and rocks, I hurled myself forward. A growl from behind shot chills up my spine just as a bear would have. My heart threatened to break through my ribs. I ran for what must have only been a minute when everything ahead of me stilled.
I skidded to a stop. An unearthly mist had covered the edges of the forest. Everything was darker, more sinister than it had been just a heartbeat ago, and I whipped my head back the way I had just come to see the strangeness had hidden the path back too.
Something felt off in the clearing. My skin prickled with it.
I listened for anything I could hear from ahead of me where the mist began or behind me where something had chased me.
I realized I couldn’t hear anything at all.
No birds, no insects. Not even the movement of branches overhead.
The seal on my back burned like it would when Mila was crafting spells nearby, the angry roar of magic trying to escape and touch other magic.