CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE #2
“Well,” Sabina went on, her voice hot, “while you two were gathering your bearings, we were barely managing to survive. The beetles came straight for us. We had to jump into the river to escape them, and there was this fisherman on a boat, and they–” All the color drained from her face, like the heat from her voice.
“His screaming. I’ll never forget that sound as long as I live. ”
Sy faltered. He’d never seen her so shaken. He took her by the arms and guided her toward a fallen log near his resting place, to sit. Sitting beside her, he tried to draw her back out of herself. “How did you escape?”
It worked; she took a shaky breath. “We clung to a fallen tree beneath the surface. We could hear – when it was safe. Once it stopped, we had to fight the current to surface. I know you’ll think me a lunatic, but it was like – it was like the river knew we were there and wanted to keep us.”
“And when we made it to shore,” Perrine interjected, “who was there to greet us but a badger the size of a boar, with tusks to match.”
“Perrine killed it. It was…quite impressive.” Cherry blossoms sprouted on her cheeks at the memory.
“We attempted to gather our bearings, but when we sat for a rest we noticed there was this…acidic moss, eating away at a stone. It was seeping this brown liquid, like burnt grease. Almost as if the stone was bleeding, and it smelled burnt, too. Moss, Sylas.”
“We’ve been so busy, the spirits haven’t even had a chance to haunt her,” the falconer said off-handedly. “The forest’s in a real tizzy. And I’m starved.” Perrine turned to the bird on her shoulder. “Fetch us some rabbit, will you, love?”
Sy marveled at her companionship with the fierce creature; not least that it seemed to understand and obey her. He watched it soar away, fighting the wind’s strength with dips and weaves.
“She always comes back,” Perrine said, noticing him watching.
And he noticed the way Sabina watched her. “The practice of falconry is usually reserved for nobles in Gescany. Is it not in Preule?”
“Sy,” hissed Sabina.
“Oh, you’re allowed to torture my companion, and I’m not even allowed to question yours?”
“She’s your companion’s dearest friend. Is that not enough?”
“You vouch for Anya’s opinion? The forest has changed you.”
“Usually,” Perrine interrupted, grinning at Sy.
She did have a winsome grin, he’d give her that.
“Not in my case. They train them with hoods and bells and tethers, keep them in mews. Gruesome stuff. That one,” she said, pointing in the direction the falcon had flown, “chose me. Found her caught in a trap when she was barely more than a chick. Fed her, nursed her. Started bringing me mice, then rabbits. Figured we could make a go of it.”
“Some would argue it’s cruel to keep a bird as a pet, regardless of the method of capture.”
“I am going to turn your lips blue if you don’t close them,” hissed Sabina from the side of her mouth.
Perrine laughed. “Some would. I say, let a free thing choose. I chose to help her, she chooses to stay with me every time she comes back. Maybe one day, she won’t.” She squinted into the light as the falcon returned, a dead rabbit in her claws. “Seems today’s not that day.”
Perrine sent her for another and began building a fire, while Sabina told Sy more of her adventures in the Lichtenwald.
She had heard a child crying, a young girl.
Reading the pain on her face as she recollected the sound, he wondered who the crying child, the one only she could hear, had sounded like.
Anya thought the forest had marked her, she told him. But Anya had saved her from it, twice.
As she had saved him, more than once. All with an axe hanging over her head; not over her head, but cutting into her, deeper, day by day. All with more incentive than anyone to let them all hang.
Remarkable woman, he thought, a bit awed. Unmarred, unmatched.
Sabina’s curt sigh brought him back to the present. “You aren’t listening.”
“I am,” he said gently. “And what I hear is that you should consider returning to ?bender.”
“Where do you think we’re going?”
He didn’t bother hiding his surprise. “You’re giving up?”
“Changing tacks, rather,” she said, straightening her torn skirt, to little effect.
“What about you?” Sy asked the falconer. Her falcon had returned with the second rabbit, and Perrine was skinning it.
“I’ve never seen the forest stirred up like this. I’m simply not that ambitious. At least, not in that way.” Her knife stilled as she exchanged a private look with Sabina, and Sabina’s cheeks again went pink.
Sabina turned back to Sy. “Perrine is escorting me back to ?bender, where we plan on discussing certain…business opportunities,” she said primly.
“I’ll loan the money from my dowry. My brother will simply have to allow it; I won’t take no for an answer anymore.
Perrine is a very talented chef, you see, and we’re going to open a restaurant together. In Preule.”
“Then…you’re leaving Gescany. For good.”
She pursed her lips. “It certainly seems that way.”
This declaration hung between them. After he won the king’s contest, though it would be difficult, he had planned on returning to some semblance of his life – to whatever he could scavenge. With each passing day in the forest, it seemed the scraps he had left further dwindled.
“Try to light the fire,” Perrine said to Sabina, perhaps sensing the tension. “Like I showed you.”
Dutifully, Sabina obeyed, taking the tinderbox Perrine handed her. After several diligent attempts, the wood remained unburnt.
“Come on now, fire,” Perrine scolded. “If you don’t light you’ll never get any of this delicious rabbit fat.”
At that, the fire burst into roaring life, startling Sy and Sabina back from its floating embers. They exchanged glances. No fire should light that quickly. She hadn’t even struck the box.
“You speak,” Sy realized. “You spoke to the fire, and your falcon. And they listen.”
Perrine pursed her lips. “Never thought of it that way. It’s true, I suppose.”
“How do you know what to say?”
She thought about it. “The words sort of…come to me.” She thought harder. “It’s an offering. The words. The fat.”
“Like Anya, with the tree,” Sabina said. “She left it food, and bones. Her hair.”
“Exactly. We all have our ways of doing it.”
“Sy?” Sabina was watching him, brow furrowed.
“It’s magic, isn’t it?” he said, feeling excited and not knowing why. “Not like ours, but…magic.”
Perrine looked between them. “Was it magic that saved Anya? I still don’t understand how she survived the buzzard beetles. When they swarm like that, they never leave anything warm-blooded intact.”
Sy swallowed. “Do they eat anything…else?”
“No,” said Perrine, stilling her knife. “Only mammals.” Then, after several moments, “Oh.”
“…Oh,” echoed Sabina, placing her chin in her hands. “That is…unfortunate.”
“Foul, beastly, wretched woman,” Perrine bit out. She rose from her seat, stared at her rifle. “I’ll kill her. I’ll kill her for this.”
Sy tried, and failed, to keep his leaping heart in check. “Can you? Kill her?”
“No,” she replied, crestfallen, dashing his hope to the ground as quickly as it had risen.
“Not me. Not anyone. She never leaves her manor. It’s a fortress, impossible to get inside unless she wants you in, and never with weapons.
There’s many hereabouts who would gladly do the job if it could be done. ”
“She’s from the city, originally, we think,” provided Sabina. “Mirabelle Corveau.”