Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
-brIDA-
Keep running.
How? How had that just happened? My pulse quickened at the thought of what I had done—what I had been able to do.
Cresting over hills, the snow met each foot with a crunch. The glow in the distance was getting closer.
The wind howled while snow fell from the sky, obscuring my vision.
Keep going, Brida.
Pushing myself forward, I wouldn’t stop, I couldn’t. Whatever was there, it was calling to me. A song only I could hear, and I would answer it.
Light had exploded from my palms; my hands had been a weapon. The voice inside my head had encouraged me to act, to run. I listened, not questioning it.
“I won’t leave you.”
Who wouldn’t leave me? What’s happening to me? There was little time to think as I carried on towards the light glowing in the horizon.
Marsh knew the name Ilia. He said Ilia had been his, and would be his once more.
How did he know that name?
My breaths were hurried as I staggered my way atop a mountain, fighting against the wind that sought to push me back.
Keep going. I pushed myself. The chill of the air was biting, my lungs begged me to stop, if only for a moment. As I reached the summit, I steadied myself, placing my hands on my knees as I inhaled deeply.
“Brida?” I jolted upright.
Did I hear someone?
“Brida!” Again, a voice yelled from behind me. It was muffled by the wind and snow. I strained my eyes, squinting to look when I saw the figure of a cloaked man. It wasn’t Marsh, he hadn’t been wearing a cloak.
Who…
They lowered the hood, and I saw Marius.
No.
My gaze shifted back to what lay ahead. The glow pulsing as if it were alive in the distance, beckoning me with each beat. Bri-da, Bri-da, Bri-da.
“Brida!”
Wind Whisperers… they could send messages quickly.
I can outrun him if need be.
Go.
I hurried myself, the light propelling me forward.
The song of the pool grew louder with each step closer. I had a few hundred feet on Marius, I just needed to maintain our distance.
Get to the light.
I forced myself through every laborious step, each raising and sinking of my foot in the snow. Cresting the next peak, my body came close to collapse.
A grove of trees stood ahead, their scent hitting me before anything else.
Kadian. His scent of pine and mountain air wrapped around me in a familiar embrace, and I found myself running harder than I had before.
“Brida!” Marius's words faded into obscurity behind me.
Does he have Kadian? Has he been holding him prisoner as well? The cold air burned my lungs as I ran, begging me to stop, to slow my breathing, but nothing would keep me from it. Glancing behind me, I saw Marius slowed by a wind storm, surrounding him in snow, impairing his visibility.
Thank you, I whispered to the wind, as if it could hear me. As if it were helping me.
Just a few more steps.
The copse of trees from a distance had the appearance of pine, but as I approached, I saw trees, branches and vines.
Some were gnarled, others fresh and covered with needles and the odd leaf.
Formed in its center, was a circular entryway.
Their knobbled roots twisted, runes carved into them—the doorway glowed ever so faintly.
The trees each had varying degrees of snow, their smells mingling with each other, but unlike a traditional wood, this one possessed its own light emanating from somewhere in the center.
Marius would be here soon. I looked behind me to see that he had managed to escape the storm, and remained not far behind me. Blood thrummed in my ears, I needed to get inside.
Approaching the entryway, I tried to step through. Shoved back by the wind, I was denied entry.
Please. I must get inside.
The song, the smell. Kadian—are you here? I’ll find you.
“Not yet,” the wind whispered in my ear. I looked behind me, Marius was getting closer.
“Please,” I whispered back. “I have to see. I have to know.” I remained unsure how long Marsh would be incapacitated, how long this fleeting freedom would be. “I was called to you. I need to get inside.”
Sighing I placed my palms flush to the rune carved wood. The glow in my hands returned, matching the new orange light that lived in the wood.
Vines and branches creaked, echoing through the forest, each moving to create a pathway that would allow me inside, with sentinels forming as guards next to the entryway.
Holy Gods.
A guard taller than any I’d known stood before me, a sword formed in one of his hands. Before I could move, his hand grabbed mine, slicing it down the center, pulling the blade back to itself.
My hand stung as blood trickled down my wrist. Turning its back to me, the sentinel ran a hand over its blade, wiping my blood above the entryway.
The runes shone brighter, and started moving within the circle to a dizzying degree.
They swirled until they were no longer legible, light chasing itself in an endless loop.
“It is time.” The wind caressed my cheek in a playful, loving manner.
“Thank you,” I whispered. This time, when I moved forward, I was allowed to pass. The trees moved, forming new patterns, weaving a barrier to shield me from the outside.
My shoulders slumped, my chest folding in on itself. I took a second to breathe. I had been running for so long, but here in this moment, I was safe. For however long I was allowed to remain, I would be afforded sanctuary.
“Thank you,” I whispered again, placing my hand on the jagged bark of one of the pines. It groaned, shaking some of its needles atop my head in response. A low chuckle left me.
I had always loved the forest in the snow. The stillness and quiet. The sky was always clearest in winter, offering the best view of the stars. But nothing I had seen in my life compared to this.
I wish you could see this, Dainan. I pulled on the thread in my chest, hoping, yearning, to feel a tug back, but nothing came.
Although the trees were decorated in fresh flakes of snow, the ground remained visible.
A deep, rich brown, the color of chocolate, littered with green and yellow needles, depending on the tree resting above it.
It had been daylight when I left Marsh, but now, I was under the cover of nightfall, the stars greeting me as if I were an old friend.
My fingers grazed the trees, tracing the ancient bark under my fingertips.
“Trees hold ancient wisdom, Brida.” My mother had said. “They know the truth of the soil, the words on the breeze, the stories of those who seek its shade. Trees hold wisdom, darling. Shelter them as they do us.”
Sprouting from the trees like buds in the springtime, beautiful, orange glowing orbs no bigger than a butterfly rose from the branches of the grove, as if the sap from within had transformed into a different form.
“What are you?” I asked as one danced playfully around me, an echo of laughter emanating from inside. I couldn’t resist the temptation to hold out my hand in the hope that one might land upon it and I would be able to further inspect it.
Minutes later, one did, and for a fleeting heartbeat, I thought I saw a face.
The face of a woman with fair skin and onyx hair, not too dissimilar from myself.
For a moment, it looked as if she was smiling directly at me, as if she had been waiting for me all this time.
And somehow, deep in my soul, the very core of me, I knew her.
The crinkle of her eyes, the way her lips tugged up just a bit more on the right, and the crook of her nose.
She nodded at me, as if she were privy to my innermost thoughts. But before I could say or ask anything, it lifted from me, floating to the center of the wood where all of the light was migrating.
Laughter filled the grove as the orbs danced around, a sound I never thought I would hear again, let alone from myself.
I was overcome with joy, with laughter, with pain.
I wished my friends, my family, could see this, could witness this beauty, a beauty that somehow felt as if it had been made just for me.
It was something that yearned to be shared, and yet was deeply personal.
Something that would be entirely my own.
I ventured deep into the center of the wood where the orbs were congregating, their laughter guiding the way. While the sky above was an inky and diamond littered black, the ground glowed with the color of dawn.
Resting under a cleared area under the open sky stood ancient gray rocks covered in runes surrounding a pool that had been cut into the earth, a natural hot spring.
Its pale blue waters transformed as each orb ventured into its depths.
The ripples grew larger as hundreds, thousands, of orbs became one with the water.
The laughter grew louder, the song almost deafening while summoning me in, its cackling like thunder in the sky.
Come, Brida.
I shuddered from the chill in the air as I removed the scraps I wore, laying them on the earth, but was unafraid.
This place had been calling to me, and I had listened.
The water was warm as I dipped my toe inside, carefully stepping further into its depths.
It was deeper than I believed it would be, my feet unable to touch the base.
I treaded water for a few moments, tilting my head back to admire the stars but was halted when I felt them.
Hands of light and shadow emerged from the depths and pulled me below the surface.
And that was how I, Brida Larrow, died.