Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A World Awakens
When the Forest Stills
Morning brought a pale sky and a bitter cold that had hardened the previous day’s snow beneath their boots.
The king’s men were already mounted when Dravic and Adira stepped from the cottage. Horses stamped impatiently, their breath forming white clouds in the frigid air, while Seger moved among the warriors making certain all was ready to leave.
Dravic rested his hand briefly at Adira’s back as they approached his horse.
She heard the sounds before she understood them.
So many sounds.
The scrape of boots against hardened snow. The restless movement of horses. Leather creaking as men settled themselves in saddles. Voices drifting back and forth around her, some clear enough that she caught a word, others blending together until they were impossible to separate.
The world seemed determined to make up for all the years it had denied her sound.
She wanted to stop and listen to everything. Instead, she behaved as she always had… she watched.
She smiled when someone smiled at her. She followed gestures rather than voices. She made certain her eyes never turned toward a sound unless there was another reason for them to do so. It was proving far more difficult than she had imagined.
“Ready?”
Dravic’s voice reached her clearly.
Adira’s heart gave the same little leap it seemed determined to give whenever she heard him speak. She looked at him only because he stood directly before her and smiled.
He studied her for a moment longer than necessary.
Adira’s smile faltered slightly, worried he may have noticed a change in her. She was going to have to be careful.
Merek approached before Dravic could linger over whatever thought occupied him.
“You should reach the crossing well before midday,” he said. “Ernach knows the way from there.”
Dravic nodded. “And after that?”
“The land grows rougher the deeper you travel. You won’t find another village before nightfall.”
“We’ll make camp.”
Merek glanced toward the warriors. “Keep them close.”
Dravic’s brow rose. “Something I should know?”
Merek gave the faintest hint of a smile. “You’re in Driochmor. There’s always something you should know.”
Dravic shook his head. “I am beginning to believe none of you is capable of giving a straight answer.”
“You’re learning.”
That almost drew a smile from him.
Merek held out his arm.
Dravic looked at it briefly before clasping it. It was not a bow. He preferred it.
“I meant what I said yesterday,” Dravic told him.
Merek waited.
“I am not my grandda.”
“Nay. You’re not.”
The quick agreement surprised Dravic.
“But whether that proves better or worse remains to be seen.”
There was no insult in Merek’s words. Only truth.
Dravic released his arm. “I want all of Scotara to live in peace as one kingdom. Driochmor included. I have no intention of asking its people to forget what happened to them, but neither will I allow what happened in the past to decide Scotara’s future.”
Merek studied him. “And if Driochmor wants no part of the future you decide for it?”
“Then I listen to what Driochmor wants before I decide anything.”
Merek’s expression changed slightly.
Dravic caught it. “You did not expect that answer.”
“Nay.”
“Neither would my grandda have given it.”
“Nay,” Merek said again. “He would not have.”
Dravic glanced around the village. A handful of people had gathered to watch them leave. There were no cheers or warm farewells, but neither did he see the same hostility that had greeted them the previous afternoon.
It was little enough and for now… he would take it.
“Tharne will come for all of Scotara if he crosses the Sea of Shadows,” Dravic said. “He will not care whether a man possesses magic or fears it. He will not care what grievances exist between us. He will see land to conquer and people to rule.”
Merek’s face hardened at the warlord’s name.
“When the time comes,” Dravic continued, “I would rather have the people of Driochmor standing beside me because they believe Scotara is worth defending than standing there because their king ordered them to.”
Merek remained silent for several moments.
Then he clasped Dravic’s arm again.
“Perhaps you should tell the High Council exactly that.”
“I intend to.”
Merek released him and stepped away.
Dravic turned toward Adira. She stood beside his stallion, waiting for him, and smiling.
His eyes narrowed.
Adira immediately wondered if she had made a mistake. She gave him an innocent look.
He pointed at her smile.
She understood. Why was she smiling?
Because she had heard him. She had heard nearly every word he had spoken to Merek, and pride had swelled inside her as she listened. He had not demanded loyalty because he was king. He wanted to earn it. But she could hardly tell him that.
Adira shrugged, her smile fading.
Dravic shook his head. “I did not mean to chase your smile. I only wondered what brought it on.”
Before she could respond with another shrug, so he would assume she didn’t know what he asked, Dravic caught her around the waist and lifted her onto his horse.
He mounted behind her and as usual his arm settled securely around her waist. “There is something different about you, Adira, and I intend to discover what it is.”
Her heart jumped, and she kept her gaze straight ahead as Dravic urged the stallion forward.
The village disappeared behind them, swallowed by the forest long before the morning had fully passed.
For several hours, they traveled without incident.
The deeper they rode into Driochmor, the more the land seemed determined to remind them that they had left the familiar parts of Scotara behind.
The path narrowed and widened without reason, sometimes forcing the warriors into a single line before opening abruptly into stretches broad enough for several horses to ride abreast. Ancient trees towered over them, their trunks thick and gnarled, their branches intertwined so densely overhead that little sunlight penetrated them.
Adira barely noticed where the path led. She was too busy listening. She had never imagined the world contained so much sound.
The steady beat of the horses’ hooves fascinated her most. She had felt the movement of a horse beneath her countless times, but now there was something accompanying it, a repeated rhythm that changed depending upon the ground they traveled.
The sound softened through deeper snow, sharpened where the path had frozen hard, then changed again when they crossed a shallow stretch scattered with stone.
She wanted to turn and watch every horse to match the sound with the movement of its hooves.
She dared not.
Voices came and went around her as well. Some remained little more than meaningless noise. Others reached her clearly enough that she caught several words before they disappeared again.
Dravic’s voice remained the easiest to recognize, perhaps because she had gotten to know him so well. Or perhaps simply because she wanted to hear him more than anyone else.
He spoke occasionally with Seger or Ernach, and every time he did, Adira had to remind herself not to react unless she could see him speaking.
That continued to prove difficult.
Fiora was even worse.
The fairy flitted alongside them for a while, complaining to Ernach about something Adira could not completely follow, then she suddenly laughed.
Adira nearly turned toward the sound but stopped herself just in time.
So that was Fiora’s laugh. Light and quick, tumbling over itself much like the fairy did when she flew.
Adira smiled.
Dravic looked down at her.
She immediately looked toward the trees as if something there had amused her.
“It amazes me that though you live in constant silence, you find something to smile at. You are a courageous woman, Adira.”
Adira heard every word and her heart skipped more than a single beat. That he thought her courageous surprised her. She turned and looked up at him only after feeling his arm tighten, giving herself a reason for doing so.
She did not know how much longer she could hide that she could hear, particularly if her hearing continued to strengthen as rapidly as it had since yesterday.
The thought filled her with excitement… and fear.
She still worried she would wake one morning and find the silence had returned. Until she knew it would not, this belonged to her.
Her precious secret.
The hours passed, the cold easing somewhat as midday approached. They stopped only briefly to rest the horses and eat before continuing on. Ernach assured Dravic they were making good time, though reaching the High Council remained several days away.
The forest changed as the afternoon wore on.
The enormous trees thinned enough for pale sunlight to reach the ground in places, and the path began a gradual climb through rockier terrain. Snow lay unevenly here, collected heavily in hollows while leaving stretches of dark earth and stone exposed.
Adira listened to the wind moving through the branches.
She knew what it was now and that realization alone delighted her. She had felt wind against her face all her life. She had watched it toss leaves, bend branches, and send snow swirling around her. Now she knew it had a voice of its own.
She smiled.
Then the sound stopped.
Adira’s smile faded. She listened and heard nothing. Not complete silence like before she could hear. She could still hear the horses. The creak of leather. A man’s cough somewhere behind them. The occasional clink of something metal against metal.
But the wind had stopped. So had something else.
Adira looked around. She wasn’t immediately certain what troubled her.
Then she realized… it was the forest.
She had spent the last several hours discovering sounds she had never known existed. Birds called from branches. Small creatures rustled through brush. Snow occasionally dropped from heavily burdened limbs.
Now she heard none of them.
Her old instincts immediately took over. Adira stopped listening and began looking. The trees. The shadows between them. The exposed rocks farther up the slope.
Nothing moved, yet something felt wrong.
She straightened slightly.
Dravic felt it.
His arm tugged at her waist. “What is it?”
Adira glanced up at him. How could she tell him? Worse, she couldn’t even explain what had alerted her without revealing that she could hear.
Her gaze returned to the forest.
Dravic followed it. He had learned long ago not to dismiss Adira when something caught her attention.
His hand moved toward his sword. “Seger.”
The Hunter immediately rode closer.
Adira continued searching the trees. Then she saw it, a flash between two trunks. Gone almost before she was certain it had been there.
Her hand closed hard around Dravic’s forearm.
He looked where she was staring.
“Hold!” The king’s command rang through the forest.
Adira heard it clearly, strong with power.
So did whoever waited among the trees.
A horse cried out somewhere behind them.
Then the forest erupted.