Chapter 21 Now Let It Go #2
She was halfway through the central square when she realized she had no idea where she was supposed to go.
She slowed, hoping someone would approach or offer directions, but the villagers maintained a careful distance, their attention intense but not hostile.
There was a feeling in the air, a charge like the moment before a storm.
Unsure, she paused at the edge of the square, beneath the boughs of the two largest trees.
The weight of staring became too much, and she found herself arranging her face into the mask of the palace: serene, unbothered, above it all.
But in this place, surrounded by people who had no reason to care who she was, the mask felt thin and ridiculous, like a child’s costume worn out of season.
She stood for a long moment, awkward and exposed, until she was certain that nothing would happen unless she made it happen herself.
She was about to choose a direction at random when a voice, clear and precise as a bell, rang through the air.
“You’re early,” it said. “Or maybe just in time.”
Alina turned, expecting a council of elders or a jury of her peers, but saw only a single woman—tall, with hair cropped short at her chin and streaked through with premature silver, her skin weathered by sun and wind.
She wore a tunic the color of old linen and boots laced up to the knee.
Her hands were bare, and her long, clever fingers were flecked with scars.
The woman’s presence was magnetic, a field of gravity that pulled every other detail of the world into orbit around her. She studied Alina with a gaze so direct it felt like being measured for a suit of clothes, or a coffin.
“I am Nola Willowheart,” she said. No bow, no greeting, just a statement of fact. “Come with me.”
Nola did not wait for a response. She turned and set off at a brisk pace, her stride smooth and economical, each step deliberate, but unhurried.
Surprising herself, Alina followed, trying to match the older woman’s rhythm and failing by half a beat.
In a strange sort of way, Alina knew in her heart that this woman did not mean her any harm.
She couldn’t have told how she knew, only that it was clear as day.
Maybe she was still lying in the cave and this was her slipping away into the next life?
Or whatever it was that came after this one?
As they walked, people parted around them—sometimes pausing in their work, sometimes not, but always leaving a clear lane.
It seemed as though the entire village had decided, wordlessly, that this was a procession to be watched and not interrupted.
The path led up a gentle rise and into the shadow of a tree so large its trunk could have housed several palace bedrooms. Set into the roots, halfway between earth and sky, was a house—no, a nest, more round than square, the walls built from woven branches and daubed with clay that glinted red in the fading sun.
A staircase spiraled around the trunk, and Nola took it without hesitation, each step taking her a little further from the world below.
A little dazed by the surrealism of it all, Alina climbed after her, feeling every rung of the railing with hands that still ached from the mountain. At the top, there was a light breeze, the air tinged with the green scent of leaves and the faint, bitter trace of sap.
Nola reached the landing and paused, waiting for Alina to catch up. When she did, the older woman nodded once, then opened the door with a flick of her wrist.
“Come in,” she said, and Alina obeyed.
The interior was simple, but not spartan: shelves that were lined with jars and bundles of dried herbs, a table cluttered with parchment and ink, a bed built into the wall and piled high with furs and patchwork quilts.
The windows were cut into the shape of leaves, and the glass panes threw green-tinted light over everything.
It was the opposite of the Caves—open, light-filled, and alive with the smell of growing things.
Nola closed the door and turned to face her, folding her arms. She cocked her head and scrutinized Alina.
“You’re not what I expected,” she said.
Alina bristled, a familiar heat rising in her face. “Sorry to disappoint.”
A glimmer of amusement flickered at the edge of Nola’s mouth. “We were told to expect someone broken. Are you broken?”
Alina hesitated. Was she broken? She remembered the way her voice had sounded, high and ugly, in the last fight with Kael; the hunger and the shame and the way her hands wouldn’t stop shaking even when she tried to make them still.
What did being broken entail? All encompassing desperation? Or feeling nothing at all?
“Probably. Maybe. I’m not sure,” she said.
Nola nodded, as if this was a perfectly adequate answer. “Sit,” she said, indicating a stool by the table. Alina sat, her back straight, hands folded in her lap. The wood was cool against her thighs, and she could feel the knots and whorls through the thin cloth of her trousers.
Nola went to the far wall, where a stove and a cupboard were located. “Relax,” she said, took a cup from a shelf and a kettle from the stove and started to pour hot water.
“You’re here to learn,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“I am?” Alina replied, and immediately hated herself for how small her voice sounded.
Nola pulled a jar from the shelf, opened it, and pinched a few green leaves between her fingers. She dropped them into the mug and set it in front of Alina.
“Drink,” she said. “It will help you sleep.”
Alina did, while wondering why she obeyed this woman’s every command.
Was she under some kind of spell? And if so, was there any danger lurking under the surface?
She stretched out her senses for a moment, but all she felt was calm.
She swallowed and was startled by the taste—sharp, almost electric, but with a sweetness that lingered on the tongue.
She drained the mug in three gulps, feeling the warmth chase some of the cold out of her bones.
Nola watched, her expression inscrutable.
“There will be time for stories tomorrow,” she said. “Tonight you sleep. Your body and mind are exhausting and you need both to learn.”
Alina started to protest, but the tea hit her like a hammer.
Her limbs went loose, her jaw turning heavy.
Nola caught her as she tipped forward, and with surprising gentleness, lifted her and carried her to the bed.
The last thing Alina noticed was the softness of the furs and a faint smell of lavender coming from them.
Sweet nothingness beckoned and she gladly fell into it.
When she woke, the world was a puzzle of green shadow and soft light, and for a moment Alina did not know where she was.
It took her several breaths to remember: the valley, the impossible village, the woman with the silver-streaked hair and the gaze that could pin butterflies to a card.
The air inside the tree house was sweet and heavy with the smell of drying herbs and the heavenly, savory scent of meat.
It felt dense, protective. It was a different species of air than what she’d breathed in the rebel Caves.
She tried to sit up but found herself pinned by the weight of a patchwork quilt.
The effort made her head swim, but the pain in her limbs was less than before, and her hands, when she flexed them, stung only a little.
She had the weirdest sensation of being blurred around the edges, not entirely real.
Across the room, Nola stood with her back to the bed, cooking something at the stove that produced that wonderful smell.
She wore a different tunic, this one the color of river silt, and her hair was pulled back to expose the sharp lines of her jaw.
There was a delicacy in the way she moved, the economy of motion of a person used to work and at one with her body.
Nola turned, saw Alina was awake, and nodded. “Good. You slept through the night and the morning. It was exactly what you needed.”
Alina tried to say something, but her throat was dry and tight, her voice little more than a croak. Nola set the spoon aside, crossed to the bedside, and offered her a cup of water with a single word: “Drink.”
Alina did so, letting the coolness wash away the stale taste of sleep. She emptied the cup and handed it back, not quite trusting herself to speak.
Nola inspected her face, her eyes, her hands.
Then, without warning, she pulled back the quilt and began to examine the rest of Alina’s body, probing gently at each bruise, each cut.
Alina flinched at first, especially as she realized that she wore nothing but her underthings, but the older woman’s touch was sure and impersonal, like the hands of Sage Wintermend—nothing wasted, nothing meant to hurt.
Nola took a pot of thick salve from the windowsill, scooped some with her fingers, and worked it into Alina’s torn skin.
The stuff was cold and greasy, but it dulled the sting and left a tingling numbness in its wake.
“I can do that,” Alina offered, too late. Nola ignored her.
“Your skin is soft,” she said, not unkindly. “Too soft for mountain walking. Did they not teach you to wrap your hands?”
Alina made a face. “I was not planning on falling so much.”
A flicker of a smile, gone as quickly as it came.
Nola reached into a chest and drew out a bundle of cloth, the color of old parchment, the fibers so fine they felt like skin.
“Wear this,” she said, setting it on the edge of the bed.
“Your own clothes are nearly done for.” She gestured to the heap of filthy, torn jacket and trousers that sat in a sad lump by the fire.
Someone—Nola, presumably—had cleaned off the worst of the blood and dirt, but it looked beyond salvage.