10. Cassiel
I’m midway through dictating a response to the western garrisons when the doors to my study open without announcement.
Captain Fellwood’s boots strike the floor too quickly, his breath just a fraction too loud. He sounds like he’s been running.
“Sire,” he says. “We’ve lost contact with a patrol on the eastern edge of the Duskfen.”
My hand stills on the arm of the chair. “Lost contact,” I repeat. “Clarify.”
“They’re ensnared. Alive—we can hear them—but we can’t reach them. The forest appears to be playing tricks on anyone who tries to enter.”
That earns him my attention. I rise at once, already reaching for my coat. “How many?”
“Six knights. Multiple locations, by the sound of it.”
I don’t waste time with any more questions. If the forest intends to kill them, hesitation will only help it along. I’m already on my feet, grabbing my belt and my cane. Dain finds the weapons. We move sharply towards the stables, Robin quick at my heels.
We ride hard, good mounts pushed to a pace they won’t thank us for later. Even so, the journey takes two hours at least. The Duskfen lies far enough from the castle that most days I can pretend it isn’t there.
The wind tears at my coat, carrying the smell of damp earth and magic, a scent that manages to be both crisp and musty at the same time. I count the rhythm of hooves to mark the passage of time, trying not to think of the knights trapped in the forest, what they’ve seen that I cannot.
They’ve been trapped in there for at least four hours, now.
By the time we cross the forest boundary, the air has thickened.
“What light is there?” I ask Dain.
“We’re at least three hours from sunset.”
It’s helpful for me to know what light is available for others, even if I can’t make use of it myself.
We dismount in a clearing where a handful of other knights are waiting. Horses can’t travel easily through the Duskfen. There are some paths they could take, but they’re far too easily spooked. We leave them at the entrance and creep into the forest on foot.
Magic hums against my skin, prickling like static. The knights’ voices reach me first, fractured and panicked.
I follow the sound of them.
Dain sucks in a breath. “Careful!” he hisses.
“What?” I ask. “What is it?”
“There’s a rapid,” he says. “Sudden. Deep. It just… it came out of nowhere.”
I pause, but not because of the potential hazard.
I would be able to hear a rapid, feel the spray on my face.
Robin would have warned me. And, while I know that not everything in the Duskfen is fixed in place like they would be in a mortal forest, landmarks like rivers are.
I’ve only been blind for a year. I remember the maps.
There are no rivers here.
I take a step forward. Dain’s arm reaches out to stop me—
Nothing happens. “It’s an illusion,” I tell him. “Close your eyes if you can’t trust them.”
“Hmm,” says Dain. “Convenient.”
It is, and I don’t like it. It’s almost too much of a good thing that someone would spring a trap that I and I alone—pardoning the pun—could see right through.
The noise of the knights branches off in two directions, neither sounding far away. “Go left,” I instruct Dain. “I’ll take the right.”
“Understood.”
He heads off in one direction. My group is trapped less than a hundred paces ahead. I step forward carefully, feeling nothing but solid earth beneath my boots. Robin stays dutifully beside me.
“No!” One of them gasps. “Don’t—don’t step there, sire!”
I keep walking.
“There’s lava!” someone shouts. “The floor is lava!”
I stop beside them and crouch. “No,” I say calmly. “It isn’t.”
Hands grasp at my coat, frantic. One of them is shaking hard enough to rattle his armour.
“Sire,” Mistfall whispers, awed. “How did you cross it?”
“There is no lava, Mistfall.”
Silence, followed by a series of small, mortified sounds.
“We’ve… we’ve been here for hours,” someone murmurs.
“But not another more,” I say, trying to sound sympathetic but wishing they’d just closed their eyes to begin with. I lay a hand on the nearest shoulder. “Close your eyes,” I tell him. “Keep walking in a straight line, and you’ll get back to the others soon enough.”
“Y-yes, Sire.”
“Is anyone still missing?”
“Bellriver,” someone answers. “I think he’s further in. Should we—”
“I’ll find him,” I tell them. If he’s half as noisy as you lot…
The knights head back to the others. Robin and I carry on along the path. The forest has fallen strangely silent.
Too silent.
I slow my steps, extending my senses outward, ears prickled for breath, for movement, for something.
“See anything, boy?” I ask.
Robin gives his friend bark, which I take to mean he’s spotted Bellriver, but that’s strange as I don’t think we’ve spent much time together. He might recognise the armour, though, or a familiar scent.
I angle deeper into the forest, following a thread of absence where a presence should be. The back of my neck prickles. It feels, strangely, like I’m being watched.
“Bellriver,” I call, pitching my voice. “Sound off.”
No answer.
I advance another dozen paces, counting steps, tracking the shift of air against my skin. Then—there. A quiet breath to my right.
“Stand down,” I say. “You’re safe now.”
The answer is motion.
“Bellriver?”
But it’s not Bellriver. Bellriver would have sounded out. I turn with my blade already drawn, striking toward the disturbance and meeting nothing but a short intake of breath. A woman, I think. Not Bellriver.
I strike again with my sword, this time meeting steel. She’s fast—very fast. I press the attack, driving forward, forcing whoever it is to give ground.
“Identify yourself,” I demand. “Knights—”
It’s foolish to battle someone alone. I start to call for a help, whistle on my lips—
Something bursts against my face.
Powder. Fine, biting, cold. My throat locks instantly, sound strangled before it can form. I try to shout and produce nothing but a useless rasp.
I suppose I should be grateful that I’ve just lost my voice. She could have closed up my throat entirely, left me choking for air. At least this way, I can still fight.
She isn’t the only one who has come prepared.
I step back, reaching for my pouch of sightsever. If she wants to play games, so be it. Two can play at that.
The powder clouds the clearing, stinging my nostrils. My opponent doesn’t cry out. I don’t think she even stumbles. She moves immediately, repositioning with alarming speed, blade whispering through the air as it searches for me.
Interesting. Is it possible she’s blind too? I’ve not known anyone else fight like her in the darkness, no one except—
No. It can’t be. I shake away the thought, attacking again, harder this time. She parries or slips aside from every blow, reading my intent through motion, sound, instinct—whatever tricks she’s learned. She fights blind as easily as I do.
But not as strongly.
I drive her back step by step, forcing her to absorb the impact of each clash. Her breathing grows faster, the rhythm fraying despite her discipline. She’s skilled—exceptionally so—but every strike costs her more than it costs me.
I feint left, then pivot sharply, hooking my blade low and sweeping her legs.
She jumps it—barely.
I surge forward, shoulder-checking her hard. Her weapon skids from her grip and vanishes into the undergrowth. Before she can recover, I take her down, pinning her to the forest floor with my full weight, my knee across her thigh, my blade at her throat.
She stills. Her breath ghosts my forehead, her scent drifting between us.
It’s a scent I’d know anywhere. A voice burnt into my soul.
“Hello, Cassiel.”
Wren.