Chapter 31
There are too many of us for the horses, forcing us all to double up. I sidle up to Caz. ‘Can you ride with Thessa?’ I ask her.
‘What? Why?’
I keep my voice low. ‘You’re the perfect person to question her. You know more about the Sannings than any of us, and you’ll know if she’s actually telling us the truth or not. See what you can find out.’
She agrees, and Loch doubles with Benny, leaving Stide with either Kyor or Ruben, and the way she’s looking at Kyor and Elska makes me bristle. I push it down because it’s ridiculous, but nonetheless …
‘Stide, you go with Ruben.’
Her gaze flickers between the two men, as if she’s genuinely weighing up whether she’s going to agree with me or not, but then she offers a small shrug and walks over to Ruben’s horse.
Ruben hands her the reins and comes over to me, clearing his throat awkwardly.
‘I thought you should know … Kyor didn’t leave your side, Rose.
The whole time you were out, he was taking care of you, watching over you.
I don’t know the ins and outs of your fallout, but …
’ He grimaces. ‘He does love you. Even I can see that.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
He offers me a lopsided grin. ‘I’m out of the running, right?’
I wince but nod.
It’s harsh, but he was never truly in the running, not in my eyes. Ruben is my past. Kyor is my present. The future? That remains to be seen. ‘May as well see you with a prince then. At least that way I know you’ll be taken care of.’
I glare. ‘I can take care of myself.’
‘True,’ he agrees equably, ‘but Kyor would treat you like a princess. Literally. And if I can’t have you …’ He trails off with a shrug. ‘It would be great to have a buddy who’s queen. I’m just thinking of advantages, you know.’ He winks cheekily before turning back around to mount up.
As I watch him go, I see the friendly smile on his face as he greets Stide, trying to set her at ease with sharing a horse with a man she barely knows.
My heart aches at his goodness, and I wish it could be different, wish it could be Ruben I dream of.
But it isn’t.
I turn to Kyor, my stomach fluttering. He watched over me while I was injured. I’d be lying if I said the thought didn’t warm me.
‘Elska reckons we can make up some good time this morning,’ he says as I mount the wolf and wrap my arms around him, telling myself it’s for safety on the ride and nothing else.
At least this way, sitting behind him, I’m spared the torture of him pressing up against me again.
It gives me a modicum of control. Or at least the pretence of it.
‘She says the route up ahead is fairly flat,’ Kyor continues as Elska begins to walk. ‘Easy for the horses.’
‘That’s good,’ I reply, realising how detached my voice is. And for once it’s not to do with him. It’s just my head is too full to add whatever’s going on with us into the mix.
Besides, easy is great, but what I want to know is whether it will lead to my mother’s ring.
I know that this detour has taken longer than any of us wanted, but every time I think about abandoning it, that pressure returns to the base of my spine as if it’s pushing me towards it.
And the thought of giving up, when I can feel in my bones how close we are, causes an ache – a deep ache that starts almost as soon as we move out of the camp and isn’t helped by the rain that begins almost immediately.
‘I think we’re going the wrong way,’ I tell Kyor as water runs down my face.
‘This is the way to Galreck,’ he tells me. ‘Elska knows where she’s going.’
The pressure strikes again, this time so sharp I have to fight not to gasp.
‘No, no we need to stop. I need to … I have to …’ I release my grip from his waist, sliding to the ground before Elska even has a chance to pause.
‘Thorn!’ Kyor yells after me as I race away from the group, water splashing in my footsteps.
‘Rose!’
‘What’s going on!’
The others yell after me, but their voices are blocked out by the pressure that’s now heightening into something entirely different.
Something almost euphoric. My heart is all the way up in my throat, adrenaline surging through me and blocking out the cold chill of the rain as it beats down around me. I’m near it, I know I am.
With a feeling like bright white light filling my spine and abdomen, I drop to the ground and run my fingers through the waterlogged leaf litter only to come back empty, once and then again. I need it.
I can feel it more than ever. I need the ring. William and Kay need me to find this ring.
I don’t know how I know it, but I do. My pulse drums in my ever-drying throat as my fingertips finally brush against cold metal. Triumph and relief surge through me as I lift my mother’s ring up from the sodden ground it rested in.
‘By the Mother … you found it.’ Caz stands over my shoulder as I rub the mud from the piece of jewellery, revealing the stone beneath it. The blue is even more beautiful than I remembered. ‘You actually found it.’
‘I did.’ The words slip from me as a whisper as I slide the ring onto my middle finger.
Another surge of that white energy ripples through my body, this time strong enough to make me gasp, and my sight is lost, a crisp, icy pattern burning into my retinas.
William’s skin. It’s the pattern on his skin, I’m sure of it.
‘Rose?’ Caz questions.
‘It’s fine.’ I shake my head, trying to brush the moment off, though the vision remains a fraction longer. ‘Just … happy. That’s all,’ I lie, my eyes fixed on the stone.
I’ve never worn it, I realise suddenly. I’m not sure why the ring passed to Kay, as I don’t remember it being an explicit bequest from my mother, but maybe it was because she was the one of us who cared most about pretty things?
Regardless, it’s the one piece of jewellery Kay wore day and night without question.
But if she ever felt anything more than simple sentimentality towards it, she never told me.
So either this, like so much that’s happening to me right now, is new, or Kay has been keeping things from me since before the Retterheld. Strange as it is, given recent events, I’m still leaning towards the former. She wouldn’t hide this from me.
As I stand, Caz looks at me with her brow creased. ‘You know this means that these things that are happening to you – visions or slips, whatever you want to call them – they’re real. They really are trying to tell you something.’
I stare at the ring. She’s right. I can feel it in my bones.
For once, I’d love it if whatever the Gods were trying to tell me was clear-cut, like words on a letter. No games. No guessing. No risk to my family or me.
I guess that’s too much to ask for.
‘I’m just glad I got it back,’ I tell her.
While the rest of the group remained on their horses, they’ve all seen what I’ve found, and no one speaks as I head back to Elska.
The rain is yet to let up, though the wolf’s dense fur is still surprisingly dry, and this time I sit in front, Kyor’s body sheltering mine from the worst of the inclement weather.
It’s far more dangerous for my heart, even if his arms rest perfectly respectfully at his sides.
‘Those are some pretty steep hills in front of us,’ Ruben says after a while. ‘Are you sure the horses are going to be able to make it up there?’
‘We’re not going that way,’ Kyor responds curtly.
‘We need to go northwest,’ Caz argues. ‘Those hills are northwest.’
Kyor shakes his head. ‘No. They’ll take a day to cross. At least. And with this rain, it’s better we go a little wide as the horses could easily fall on the wet earth. Rockslides could also take them out.’
No one questions his decision further.
‘Elska says it gets easier up here,’ he says as we’re both forced to duck beneath low-hanging branches.
But luckily Kyor’s right. As we break through the line of trees, we find ourselves in a far sparser part of the forest. Not only that, but the rain clouds seem to have passed, too, settling over the higher ground instead.
‘Elska is restless. What do you say to having a run?’ he whispers against the shell of my ear. ‘I’ll have to hold you tight, for safety reasons of course.’
‘Of course,’ I say, fighting the grin that I’m grateful he can’t see. After the last couple of days, a bit of careless sprinting on a wolf feels like exactly what the healer ordered.
I brace myself, ready to feel the lurch of the wolf beneath me, but before she moves, a shout comes from behind us.
‘Stop! Everyone off! Off their horses now!’
I twist my head around, and even though my view is partially blocked by Kyor, I can still see Stide racing towards us.
‘What have you done, you stupid boy?’ she says, glaring at Kyor. ‘You have brought us to a hule – the home of the v?tte.’
It is the first time since I took back my dagger that I have seen such emotion from the Sanning, who stands directly in front of Elska yet seemingly unaware of the manner in which the wolf is baring her teeth. She doesn’t love Stide calling her rider stupid.
‘You cannot walk across their ground,’ Stide continues. ‘The old burrows are here.’
‘I’m sorry, did you say v?tte? As in the goblins?’ It’s Ruben who asks, and he’s not trying to hide his incredulity.
I understand his scepticism. In the slums, they mutter that all the creatures of myth are just that – myths. Father always told me such beings were real, though, and since facing a jotunn and a kraken, I’m much more open to the idea that the creatures of folklore are exactly as real as he claimed.
But even in folklore, in terms of dangerous creatures, the v?tte are hardly up there with the Myrkr or the jotnar. They’re a pest, a nuisance, nothing more. Everyone knows that.
In fact, I’m pretty sure you need to be more scared of some of the starving rats in the slums than you do of these creatures.
Sure, the tales say they like a bit of mischief – in our house, the v?tte always got blamed when socks went missing – but after everything we’ve been through these past few days, a little harmless humour wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.