Chapter 11
Eleven
Succinite
My eyes blink open to a cool hue, the thick coverage of leaves above blocking the sun. It’s somewhere near midday, the air mostly quiet and still around me.
Memories of my odd and hazy dream slam into me. I bolt upright, my head pounding and my throat scratchy.
If I can reach Graylen in my dreams…maybe I could find him.
I twist to my left to see who else is awake, my heart pounding against my ribs as the thought runs through my mind on a loop.
“Can you quiet down?” Calix says from my right. “You’re thinking extra loud this morning.”
Despite the weight on my chest, a smile twitches at the corner of my mouth. I want to tell him—tell all of them—but first I need to figure out if that was more than a dream.
“You’re already awake,” I remind him.
He huffs and walks along a thick branch, his lithe legs moving with ease as he reaches my hammock and hands me a bowl of lukewarm grains. “I’m pretty sure I could’ve slept two more days. But you just had to toss and turn in your hammock and wake everyone up.”
I roll my eyes, feeling a little lighter than when I first woke up. From the looks of it, my friends are already all awake. Not a sound stirs from the seemingly empty houses scattered throughout the trees around us. I’m starting to think we are the only ones here other than Aster and Willow.
“Well, you try sleeping next to your snoring all night,” I mutter.
“Cranky, are we?” Calix jokes as I scoop a wooden spoon into the grains. “Aster brought us food shortly after we all woke up, and promised that Adrian and the Lyle boys were getting fed too.”
My shoulders relax instantly knowing someone else is seeing to them. I don’t think I’m ready to face them just yet.
“You feeling okay, Lu?” Calix crouches down, hovering on the branch my hammock is secured to. His eyes soften as he looks at me, as if he already knows the answer. “I know there’s much to discuss today. We’ll figure it out.”
He gives me a warm smile, but it’s hard to muster one in return.
“There’s just…a lot of people depending on us,” I whisper.
Calix nods, a comfortable silence following.
I take another bite of my food, something slightly sweet making the grains go down easily. With the day we likely have ahead of us, we all need to make sure we keep our strength up.
My eyes search the trees around us, every inch of the forest shaded by the thick coverage of leaves from above. It’s covered enough that the lanterns still glow, providing light in the areas that make it feel like the sun isn’t out at all.
Without him, everything feels…empty. Wrong.
Tears line my eyes, and I drop my gaze to the light brown grains, stirring them repeatedly as my vision grows blurry.
“Come on, Lu.” Calix’s voice lowers gently. “I’m worried about what’s going to happen, too.”
He doesn’t try to tell me everything will be fine, doesn’t try to convince me that we will figure this out and get the answers to all of our problems. I know he’s worried—that everyone here has something to lose if we don’t find a way to stop Moros—and me moping around isn’t going to solve anything.
I clear my throat and blink a few times, finishing my food in a couple of quick bites.
When I look back up at Calix, my head feels clearer.
Leda hops onto the branch beside me from above, her sculpted arms swinging her down with ease. “Ready to go see Brielle?”
Not as gracefully as her, I peel myself out of my makeshift bed and nod.
“Aster showed me where to go,” she calls out over her shoulder, already walking away. “Brielle has been asking for you.”
Leda is watching every muscle the healer moves, her gaze tracking each item the Woodland grabs off the shelf. There are several open chairs, but Leda opts for standing near the door, leaning her back against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.
If it bothers the healer, she doesn’t let it show. The fae just continues about the cottage, jars clinking together as she grabs the supplies she needs.
There are a few other cots in here, but all are empty. In the center of the room, a light oak table is scattered with an array of items: a scale, dozens of parchment pieces, empty jars, and wooden spoons.
Earlier, Brielle was lucid enough to hold short bursts of conversation with me, but she’s been out since then. Her skin is a dulled gray, her eyes alternating through bouts of focus and bleariness when she’s awake.
Maddox is sitting in a wooden chair beside her cot, deep circles beneath his eyes.
“Why don’t you get some rest?” I tell him with a nudge. “I’ll stay with Brielle.”
He hesitates, his gaze flicking down to Brielle. There’s something familiar in his gaze—a longing—as he stares at her.
I place a hand on his shoulder, and he glances at me.
“You need rest too,” I tell him gently.
Maddox’s focus drifts back to Brielle, his jaw flexing as he nods absentmindedly. After a moment, his hands move in that fluid, rhythmic motion.
My brows pull together, and I move to get his attention, but a rustling from the cot below stops me.
“Thank you,” a voice rasps. My gaze snaps down to Brielle, whose eyes are slowly opening. “That sign means thank you.”
Maddox shifts toward Brielle, his shoulders deflating a little as she gives him a small nod. He looks back at me, hesitating once more.
“You’ve had a long night,” I say to him, and I mirror the sign to thank him back. “I promise I’ll stay with her for a bit.”
Maddox yawns and pushes away from the cot, his back stiff as he shuffles out of the healer’s cottage.
I wave over the healer, the girl seemingly a few years younger than me, with soft brown eyes and matching chestnut hair. She gives me a nod from the small table, pouring a steaming liquid into a wooden bowl, then glides over to us, her footsteps light.
“Drink this,” she says to Brielle. Her voice is quiet but firm, reminding me a bit of my mother.
As the healer helps Brielle up, a well of sadness stirs in my chest, reminding me of another woman who has hands and a voice as gentle as hers. My mother—the one who showed me nothing but kindness since I arrived in Penyth.
While nearly everyone else was wary of me, she was on my side from day one. I hardly spent any time with her before all of this. What will she think of me now that I’ve snuck off without telling her? Not only getting myself into this mess, but my friends, too.
The thought plagues me while I watch the gentle healer with my friend.
A scraping of wood against wood catches my attention as Leda finally takes a chair and positions herself across from me at Brielle’s other side.
We sit in silence together, watching the healer work. After she’s satisfied with how much Brielle drank, she scurries back to the shelves of tinctures lining the wall of the small cottage.
“How are you feeling?” I ask gently.
Brielle grunts and lies back down. “Like I was hit by a boulder.”
My lips twitch. It’s good to hear her voice—to see that she’s at least better than she was the last time I saw her.
Brielle looks between the two of us, her eyelids fluttering open and closed. “Where do we go from here?” she mutters, but I can tell it’s more to herself, her words slightly slurred together.
Her question echoes the same thought I’ve had. Where do we go from here? With Daimon off the table, Graylen stuck in the Vale, the souls trapped from the trial, and Moros doing goddess knows what with the Crean army… There are too many things to count.
A weight sinks in my stomach, pulling my muscles into knots.
Leda leans back in her chair and says, “Rest, Brielle. We’ll talk more—”
“No.” Brielle shakes her head. “There’s no time to wait. With Moros back on the board, we need to take advantage of every second we have.”
Leda hesitates, but then gives her a short nod. “Then where do you propose we start?”
Brielle briefly closes her eyes, a muscle in her jaw ticking. “Willow and Aster,” she whispers, her lids blinking back open.
The image of Willow’s face as she whispered Brielle’s name last night flickers into my mind. They knew each other—well enough that worry crept into her features when she realized it was Brielle who was unconscious.
“Do you think we can trust them with the information we have?” I keep my voice low, my gaze flicking to the healer. But she’s lost to her task, muttering to herself and scribbling on parchment across the room.
I realize that we may not have the ability to wait and find out. There’s not much we can offer these people other than information, and hope they might return the favor with anything that could be helpful to us.
Brielle clears her throat, the sound wet and strained.
“I would like to think so. We’ve been through a lot together.
” She hesitates, and I know there’s a but coming.
“But, they’re different. Just as I’m sure they think I’ve changed, too.
” The muscles in her neck strain. “The warriors I once knew—once fought beside—wouldn’t abandon their people to hide away here.
I don’t know what’s made them abandon their people.
Or if we can change their mind and convince them to help us. ”
Leda shifts in her chair, her back straightening. I share a look with her, one filled with worry that we made a mistake by staying here.
“You were nearly unstoppable together during the war,” Leda says in a low, almost awe-like whisper. “My mother told me countless stories of the villages and lives you saved.”
Brielle briefly closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “We weren’t as invincible as we thought we were,” she rasps, her hands fisting at her sides. “We lost people close to us during that time, too.”
“Perhaps they’re afraid of going through that again,” Leda muses.
I don’t see fear ruling Aster and Willow, just like I know it doesn’t control Brielle. She’s one of the bravest warriors I’ve met, and I’ve already seen Willow in action.
“If there’s any truth to that, then it would be hard to blame them for leaving,” Brielle says with a sigh. “The things we went through… It would be enough to send any warrior into hiding.”