Chapter 10
Ten
The Autumn Lands
The journey through the Summer Lands so far had been uneventful, unless you counted seeing the Wyldes for the first time.
The days were warm, and the evenings were filled with a cool breeze.
Travel, it would seem, did not prevent Schula from rousing me early each day to make me do her odd stretches.
She had me pulling and twisting and moving muscles I didn’t know the body contained, but despite the aches that protested throughout my limbs, I was thankful for the distraction from the near-constant itch on my back.
The rest of our days went at an easy pace, and every day was easier than the last until I became used to the routine and content with Schula’s companionship.
There had never been a time I could relate to the village children that had siblings, watching them walk hand in hand picking herbs or quarreling over something as petty as borrowing a ribbon.
But with Schula, it was easy to imagine friendship with another woman who wasn’t my teacher.
Outside of our stretches, at least. She had taken a liking to braiding my hair and would whisper small secrets with conspiratorial mischief when the others weren’t looking.
I was better off for having met her, having met all of them.
Even Eberon’s stories, which were filled with nothing of consequence besides the opportunity to hear himself talk, became something to look forward to in the evenings.
He was a charming person, and he knew it, but he used it to uplift or cheer up his friends more than anything else.
It was easy to picture him at court, though the details were muddled with the only idea of crowds and status that I could muster up, looking more like the sultana and her advisers on the private balconies of Sulls, where people wearing silks and jewelry were free to lounge on hot days.
The only one I hadn’t grown any closer to was Thain.
Quiet, strong, watchful Thain. I knew almost nothing about him, really, except for the place in his heart that would reach out to help a stranger in a lake.
Maybe that was all I needed to know about him.
Bryn would have liked him. For that, if nothing else, I decided that I liked him too.
The days blended together. I was accustomed to sleeping outside on pleasant nights, so it didn’t bother me that we had no shelter as we traveled.
We crossed through the Summer Lands for days before reaching its edge, where the fear gnawed at my bones, beginning as an uneasy pull in my stomach before my heart began to race as it had when I first saw the wraith.
Something ahead was unsettling in the air.
And then I got my first glimpse of the untamed reaches of the Wyldes.
Terrible nightmare creatures danced through my head. Stories the parents of the mountains told their children to make them behave. Bryn hadn’t told me many of those sorts of stories, but Mila had. And when Mila the witch told you a story, you would be wise to know her monsters were real.
We stood at the top of a grassy knoll, the warm sun on my back.
A trickle of sweat slid between my shoulder blades.
In stark contrast to the lush Summer Lands we stood in now, below us lay a much darker landscape.
Gnarled gray trees and dry, rocky terrain reached out in ugly tendrils.
The most prominent thing covering the ground was the massive tangle of dusty blue vines and thorny brown brambles. It sprawled out like that for miles.
“The Unclaimed Wyldes.” Schula rolled her shoulders back and stretched.
“Is it all like that outside the courts?” I whispered.
“Not all of it, but most,” Eberon said. “We’ve been skirting the edge of it, in accordance with a longstanding treaty for the patrols to travel back and forth from the outpost. The Summer Court allows us to stay within an hour’s stretch of their borders as we move north.”
“And there is no other way to Thanantholl?” I wavered.
“No.” Thain shook his head. “None of the court lands touch each other. It’s best that way.”
I couldn’t see how two bordering lands would be worse than having to travel the Unclaimed Wyldes when you needed to go somewhere, but I stayed silent.
“The span of Unclaimed Wyldes is the thinnest here. If we move as fast as we can, we can make it in two days. Let’s get on with it.
” Schula walked past the rest of us, heading down the hill into the grim landscape.
“I only want to spend one night in it, and that’s only going to happen if we get a move on. ”
“We’re sleeping in that place?” I whispered out loud to no one in particular. Of course, they all heard me, but none of them answered. I gripped my pack, resolving to follow Thain to Thanantholl no matter what. Even if it was through this nightmarish forest.
We walked for hours at a brisk pace. The weather here was cold as it should be for the season.
The warmth of the Summer Lands no longer eased the journey, and I slipped Bryn’s coat back on within a few minutes.
None of my companions were willing to break the silence in the stagnant air; instead, I watched as their ears twitched at sounds that I couldn’t hear.
No breeze rustled the ugly trees, no animals roamed the landscape.
Even Puko stayed close, choosing to perch on my shoulder more often than not.
We stopped to pull out some portions of cured ham and herbed crackers for lunch, but we walked as we ate.
I suspected we wouldn’t have paused for food at all except the three of them seemed determined to put some weight on me, having gained the habit of sneaking me extra bits of food when they thought the others weren’t looking.
It reminded me of Mila’s friend Gilly, who would visit on occasion and act as a doting aunt more than anything else.
Still, I was grateful for the distraction of food as we crossed the bleak landscape.
My legs were aching from the faster pace we traveled at, but I didn’t want to complain.
The faster we got through this part of the journey the better.
When night was upon us, we stopped as we usually did, the end of our day signaled by Thain stopping at a spot and nodding to the rest of us.
Eberon looked on edge, but Schula and Thain just seemed more alert than usual.
They were probably better at hiding their feelings than Eberon was. Or me; I was sure I looked terrified.
“Aren’t we camping off the path?” I asked.
“Do you think that would be wise?” Thain looked at the thick, gnarled trees just a short distance from us. The overgrowth whispered promises of nasty surprises within.
I shuddered. “No.”
“Don’t gather any firewood tonight,” Schula said. “No fires. Not here.”
I just nodded and began unpacking my blanket. Firewood was usually my job, so I didn’t know what else to do.
We ate in silence and went to bed. Schula kept the first watch.
We hadn’t kept watch overnight while traveling in the Summer Lands, but I was glad we did so here.
They didn’t ask me to take a shift. I would have, but I didn’t know what to look for, and I was no trained warrior.
No more use than a child, as far as the task of taking watch was concerned.
A lost dog they were leading home that didn’t do anything but slow them down.
I sighed and rolled over, trying to get comfortable.
My thoughts were depressing, and they wouldn’t stop.
It took a long time before I could fall asleep.
I woke up in the pink air of dawn. Eberon and Schula were talking in hushed whispers, and they stopped when they noticed I was awake. They both stared at me for a moment.
“Good morning,” I mumbled.
“Good morning,” Eberon answered. “Have an apple, we’ll be packing up and leaving shortly.”
He tossed the red fruit to me, and I caught it, but the motion startled Puko, who had opted to sleep on a fallen branch at my back.
He settled, but I eyed him and then the trees that provided high branches I would have thought a bird should prefer over a branch on the ground.
Puko was an odd bird, that was not in doubt, but even he seemed wary in this bleak place.
“Where is Thain?” I asked.
Schula simply moved from where she and Eberon were talking and began removing traces of our stay on the road. “He will meet us soon. Eat and pack, we need to go.”
That alarmed me, but I took a big bite of apple and did as I was told, rolling up my blanket.
We were on our feet and walking quickly. My eyes darted around as we went, ready to see some horrible thing jump out at us. I felt vulnerable without the presence of the quiet, strong fae.
It was about an hour later that we heard the rustling of the trees, which I was sure was for my benefit and no one else. Still, my hand flew to the axe at my right hip before dropping away when Thain appeared.
“There you are,” Eberon said, moving to his side.
Thain came to us from the dark woods, covered in nasty scratches and the scent of blood. His eyes shone bright like silver fire, his fingers ending in sharp points, his teeth a little longer, mouth a little wider.
My heart sped up a little. I recognized this, recognized the small ways he was different when he had been in a fight.
Something a little more beast than fae showed not just in his features but in his movements; it was the same way he had looked at Silver Lake and with the wraith.
The time I’d spent with these three had muddied my memories of this part of their world, the things about them that were wholly not human.
Mila’s voice came to mind, scolding me for putting fear between me and Thain, who had saved me twice now.
My nails dug little crescents into my palms as I willed the uncomfortable feelings away, and Eberon brought the usual Thain out of the beastlier version in front of us.