I shove that voice away. I cannot put my new friends in such a position. I will not ask them for a show of loyalty that will jeopardize their livelihoods or reputations.
No.
I will not return to Caeldera. I will find a way to survive on my own. I have done it before. I can do it again.
When I feel strong enough to move, I force myself to pick through the wreckage for anything useful. In the ruins of the guard post, I find a cache of weapons—battle-axes and broadswords, all too heavy for me to wield. In a stroke of luck, I spot a hunting bow and a full quiver of arrows half-hidden beneath the branches of a fallen tree. Near the flattened remains of an old table, I pilfer a few stale bannocks, a store of dried fruits and nuts, and a large hunk of cheese wrapped in wax paper.
I close the guards’ sightless eyes as I check their pockets, coming away with a tiny whittling knife and a suede purse filled with Dyvedi crowns and farthings for my trouble. I pack as much as I can carry into a dusty rucksack I discover by the last soldier’s body. Slinging it across my back along with the quiver, I walk into the forest.
I do not look back.
Chapter
Twenty-five
Dyved’s forests teem with life.
I see more animals in two days living in the woodlands than I have in all my prior years combined. The deer I used to hunt in Seahaven were starved, slight creatures—half-dead already by the time my arrows brought them down. The elk and doe that cross my path here are in peak physical form, magnificent horned beasts with gleaming coats and glossy, intelligent eyes. Cotton-tailed hares dart through the undergrowth so fast, it is difficult to spot them in the low brush. Exotic birds of several different varieties warble from the highest reaches of the pines, filling the air with strange songs.
When I come upon a stretch of trees where the music tapers off into abrupt quiet, and see the bark of many trunks scored with deep claw marks, I quickly change course. I have no desire to see if Dyved’s bears are as healthy as its deer population. Or as hungry.
I do not much care which direction I walk in, so long as it brings me vaguely south. I have no true destination. I make camp the first night by the crook of a river, sparking a fire with foliage and kindling I find scattered in the thicket. Once the flames catch, I feed them with dry logs until they are burning steadily,high enough to ward off the shadows but low enough to avoid drawing unwanted attention. The spring thaw is well underway, and while a hint of winter’s sting lingers, it is not intolerable. Especially with a thick, fur-lined cloak and sturdy leather boots.
A far cry from my last sojourn in the wild.
Hours lengthen into days, and a sort of peace settles in my bones. Things are simpler in the forest. There are no social customs to follow, no sneering courtiers to impress, no tripwire conversations to tiptoe through. Here, I am not a child of the prophecy or a meaningless dinner guest or a maegical being of great import. I am just a girl in the woods. If I am hungry, I eat. If I am tired, I rest. If I am bored, I make a game of naming the herbs and flowers creeping through the ground with pale green shoots.
Rose hip. Sagethorn. Tansy. Comfrey. Chicory. Yarrow. Myrtle. Dogwood. Fireweed. Juniper. Star grass.
I collect some of the more useful ones as I walk, using the dead guard’s pocketknife to take cuttings. It is rather optimistic to think I might ever find a place to plant a medicinal garden, let alone nurture it to fruition. Yet I do not stop until my pack is full of carefully wrapped roots and stems. A nascent harvest, swaddled in cheesecloth.
As the days slip by, I gradually make my way south across the plateau. I do not lend much thought to where I am going. My plan, if you can call it that, hinges entirely on finding the Range Road we took from Coldcross, and making my way back there. There, or somewhere like it. Any neutral trade-post town will do, where I can disappear into the fabric of daily life without so much as a ripple. One more anonymous halfling in the patchwork of society, overlooked and ordinary.
I see no one in the woods, keeping far off the roads. Occasionally, I pass a bit too close to the outskirts of a settlement orfarm, but it is easy enough to divert my course at the first signs of life. I do not know exactly how far I am from Caeldera; close enough not to risk recognition at an inn, no matter how much my tired bones and aching soles might appreciate a night’s rest on a feather mattress instead of the rock-riddled ground. Besides, I do not yet trust myself around people. Not after the carnage I unleashed. Not after Gower—
I shove the thought away before it can fully register.
There is a tiny whisper in my head that suggests, in the small hours of the night when the world is darkest and my worst fears rattle the chains in which I keep them fettered, that I am not dealing with reality. That I am hiding in the forest—from what I have done, from who I am becoming. From everything.
I do not give that voice much credence.
I am fine.
Totally fine.
So what if I break down at the sight of my dagger’s blade, stained with dried blood? So what if I douse it in the first creek I come across, plunging my hands into the frigid water and scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing until every trace of gore is washed away? So what if I keep on scrubbing, even when the blade is clean again, only ceasing when my hand slips and I slice a deep gouge into my palm?
I sit there on the bank and watch my blood welling, spilling, dripping—vibrant, vital red against the bleak blanket of dried pine needles that cover the earth—with vague detachment. Only my long-ingrained training convinces me to eventually tear a strip off the hem of my shift and wrap the wound until the worst of the bleeding stops and the cut begins to close. Unable to stomach the sight of any more blood, I leave the saturated fabric there on the riverbank and hurry on my way.
That night, the end of my third day of wandering, the sun isdipping toward the horizon when I come to a strange, silent section of the forest. More bears, I think at first. But no—this is a different sort of quiet. Absolute stillness seizes the air. No birds, no breeze, no sound at all. No rabbits race through the scrub, no soft-footed deer nip berries from the bushes.
The trees show signs of damage far beyond ursine claws. Some are stripped of their branches, as though a very tall animal has moved through with haste and snapped them off. Others are knocked over entirely, fallen sentinels left to decompose with their roots exposed to the elements.
When I see the tracks scored deeply into the soil—some as long as I am tall—I’m overcome by the urge to run. Run,quickly, away from this place, before I find myself face-to-face with whatever left such mammoth footprints behind.
I backtrack through the woods to the creek where I’d washed my dagger clean that afternoon, holding my breath until I hear the comforting chirp of songbirds and see a pair of rabbits racing each other to their burrow at the base of an ash tree. The sun has nearly set; a waxing moon is rising to take its place. I make a fire, taking extra care to keep it burning low. I have put a fair amount of distance between myself and that eerie stretch of woods, but I am still too rattled to take any undue risks.
My stomach growls in protest as I stare into the flames. I have not eaten more than a handful of dried nuts all day. I force myself to munch on a stale bannock as I watch the embers devouring the thin twigs, a defiant glow in the swelling shadows. My thoughts drift to Penn as I chew the flavorless bread. They often do when I stare into the flames. I doubt I will ever again see a fire and not conjure him in my mind. Those severe planes of his face. That cutting jawline. That rare smile. I allow myself only a moment to wonder if he has learned of my absence; if he thinks I left him of my own accord.