Chapter 10 The Woods
"Ouch, quit pushing, there are brambles," Cherry scolds like nursemaid—or a princess—the next day as Vakhrin dares to place a guiding hand on her shoulder. We're about half a step into the Werewood Forest, with Cherry, bafflingly, in the lead.
Vakhrin drops his hand from Cherry's back and seems to rally his courage as he takes a step in front of her, leading the way into the woods.
Cherry follows with a loud exhale, aiming for a noise of exasperation but landing somewhere in the vicinity of a sigh of relief.
Although she isn't afraid of wolves and jackals, she is as averse as ever to scratchy branches, dirt, and spider webs.
Marton follows behind her, and I take up the rear.
Our new traveling roles are assumed without verbal discussion.
Vakhrin will blaze a path ahead, armed with his superior knowledge of the forest's legends and the protection of his manticore form.
Cherry will proceed second, as befits a princess who must be protected but still catered to in all things.
Marton is next, so he can cast amused looks at me over his shoulder, or marvel at the thick gloom of the fabled forest around him without distraction, while I go last, tense as a bow string and twitching at every sound of breaking plant refuse under my companions' feet.
We proceed in that fashion for breathless minutes, the wide trunks of the redwoods floating around us like boats in a cluttered harbor, their impossibly tall tops shooting upward until they disappear into a dense green canopy overhead.
The forest all around is cast in darkness by the trees' profusion, murky as falling twilight or an overcast sky.
As the time passes and our travel grows long, I feel my friends' tension ease away with every unimpeded step we take into the forest. Vakhrin walks on with lengthened strides, gliding over the underbrush.
Cherry has grown positively bored, and even Marton looks slightly less alight with interest in this land of legend than he was before.
Only I am not relaxed.
This feels entirely different than the day Marton, Cherry, and I traipsed into the mountainous woodlands of Olio.
On that day, I was certain of my being the fiercest creature in the woods.
Now I've met a manticore and learned just how real is the reality of monsters in the land.
There are so many creatures I have never even heard of, and although Vakh was careful to tell us all that he could remember having heard as a boy about jackals, wendigo, and wargs, I do not feel secure in the knowledge—or in my ability to defeat one or a dozen of those creatures while still keeping Cherry and Marton safe.
Marton, at least, has a sword at his belt and has promised that he knows how to use it when required.
Cherry has no weapon but her attitude, and here I am walking headlong into danger with my sacred charge by my side.
No, not my sacred charge, I remind myself.
Cherry is my friend. My dear young friend who I feel protective of, but the king's lies do not bind me to her of necessity anymore.
The story Cherry told the other night rings in my head.
Although it began as an act of duty, because the dragon had sworn to protect the princess from all threats, it became an act of love.
And isn't that the truth of it?
The real reason why, even knowing of the king's deceit, I do not feel released of my duty?
Because I have not been serving him all this time.
Not for many years hence. Somewhere along the way, Cherry became like family to me, dearer than my own heart.
My own life.
I cannot imagine a world in which she does not exist to give my life purpose.
I cannot imagine a version of myself without her as the focal point of all my actions.
Not healthy, speaks a voice in my mind that sounds a disgruntling amount like Marton.
What does he know, anyway?
A fine amount about history and legends, but very little about me.
I know nothing at all about his own family, his past, his friends.
Who is he to question mine? No one, I answer myself briskly.
But the assurance doesn't make me feel all that much better.
Who am I without Cherry?
Will I be forced to find out?
Both thoughts are terrifying, and I shove them from my mind with spiteful force as I refocus my attention on our surroundings.
The ground has begun to slope downwards, leading us into a narrow ravine with damp mulch at its bottom, as if there is a creek here sometimes, but not even the brief rainstorm the other night was enough to create one here during the dry season.
Cherry makes an eek noise as her handmade—and recently reinforced for travelling—slipper descends under inches of mud.
"Tarah!" she accuses, as if I had placed the mud puddle here on purpose, or purposely allowed her to step in it.
I suppose, with my inattention, I did.
While Vakh and Marton wince at the noise Cherry is making, I hurry forward to offer her my arm, helping her out of the muck and several steps up the incline on the other side.
She collapses there on her backside, looking down at her befouled slipper with antipathy.
"We need boots," I observe.
Having outgrown our own sturdy footwear years ago in the tower, we've been making do with what Cherry could craft by hand.
It's never affected me much, as my skin is made of sterner stuff than a human's.
I suppose the lack of much walking has kept Cherry's slippers intact up until now.
Raising my own skirts to ankle height and glancing down, I note that, yes, I am barefoot.
I must have burst through my slippers back when I first shifted to confront Vakhrin, and the absence hadn't troubled me a bit.
But I think with concern of what all the walking must have been like for Cherry, with only a thin layer of leather between her soft human feet and the pitfalls of the forest. And yet she hasn't complained about that.
I wonder, not for the first time, how much of Cherry's damsel-like fussing is in earnest, and how much is put on like armor to hide the true contents of her mind.
Seized with inspiration, I lean down over her skirts and, grasping the heel of her cleaner slipper, I yank the whole thing off her foot.
Cherry gives a cry of scandalized dignity and tries to tuck her barefoot under the hem of her dress.
I grasp her by the ankle, keeping her slender foot in view.
Just as I thought. My lip curls in disgust—at myself—and I drop her foot.
She quickly pulls her knees up, tucking her skirts around both feet.
But the image is emblazoned in my mind. The sole of Cherry's foot, covered from toes to heel in blisters, some burst and leaking, some still swollen with fluid, some bleeding.
"Why didn't you say anything," I practically growl, gritting the words out through my teeth.
Cherry's expression is the picture of hauteur, though her cheeks flush faintly pink.
"It's unseemly to discuss one's bodily ills—"
"Don't princess talk me right now!
I swear to the Great Skies above—"
Marton clears his throat, and I turn my burning eyes on him.
But it's Vakhrin who steps forward, attention on Cherry.
"You've been walking—with scraps of cloth for shoes—all this time?
With blisters on your feet?"
Cherry won't meet anyone's eyes.
Her fists tighten in her skirts, like she can keep them as a shield between her hurting feet and our prying concern.
"It hardly signifies—"
"Cherry!
" I growl.
She flinches, and her eyes swim with moisture when she looks at me.
And no. No, no, no. Because that's real sadness I see in her eyes now.
Real defeat. Not at having blisters on her feet, which she can power through and pretend away.
But at having several people see her as less than the prim and dignified princess.
Having us see her as someone who blisters and hurts, just like a commoner.
"Cherry," I gentle my tone.
"I do not wish to talk about it," she says crisply, turning her face away.
The three of us stand about awkwardly for a moment, hovering around her, not knowing what to do.
It's not like we can pop down to the nearest cobbler for a fresh pair of boots.
We're deep in the Werewood Forest, the trees too closely packed and the canopy too thick to fly out of.
There's room to shift and fight on the ground if we have to, but no room for a takeoff.
That's a new thing to worry about that I hadn't thought of before.
Vakh heaves a sigh. "I'll carry her.
"
"You'll...?" I'm sure I've heard him incorrectly, but on the off chance that I haven't, I bristle with offense.
If he thinks I'm letting him put his hands on—
"I'll carry her," Vakh repeats, nodding to the princess.
"You most certainly will not!
" Cherry cries.
"I'll carry her," I say at the same time.
"She's twice your height," Vakhrin points out, looking like he's trying not to roll his eyes.
"Her lega would be dragging on the ground, or bumping into trees—"
I make an outraged sound, while Marton smothers a laugh.
I glare at him, the traitor, and Vakhrin takes the opportunity of my distraction to cross to Cherry's side and slip one arm around her back, one arm under her bent knees.
He scoops her into the air, rising easily to his feet as if she weighs nothing.
He looks at me in challenge.
Cherry's face is flushed red as the fruit she's nicknamed for, and she pointedly looking everywhere other than his face.
But he's carrying her, and polite society everywhere has not imploded.
Cherry's honor is as intact as ever, though her pride might have taken a blow.
"I am perfectly capable of walking," she says in a weak voice, hands knotted in her lap, careful not to touch Vakh any more than she has to.
I frown at her. Frown at Vakhrin, gazing down at her without expression.
Frown at Marton, still quietly laughing.
Frown at the trees around us mutely watching our performance with the upright stillness of a thousand years.
"Fine," I say bitterly, sighing.
We have places to be, after all. A journey to continue.
A dragon husband to find.
The manticore with his arms around my princess isn't going to get in the way of that, I decide. Not at all.