The soldiers exchanged a questioning look.
“Rabbits?” one called back.
Aidan tried his best to appear confident.
“I laid traps last night, in the wood,” he replied. “They are full. It shall be our lunch. Stop delaying me, or the wolves will get them.”
With that, Aidan turned and continued hiking off, walking quickly, confidently, not daring to look back—and praying they bought it. He walked and walked, his back tingling, terrified the guards would run out after him and detain him.
As he hiked farther from the fort, he heard nothing behind him, and he began to breathe easy as he finally realized they were not pursuing him. His ruse had worked. He felt a thrill. He was free—and nothing would stop him now. His father was out there somewhere, and until he found him, nothing would bring Aidan back to Volis.
Aidan hiked and hiked and as he crested a hill, he saw a road stretched out before him, well-traveled in the snow, heading south. Finally out of sight of the guards, he burst into a sprint, determined to get as far away as he could before they found out and came after him.
Aidan ran as fast as his little lungs could take him, until he was gasping for air. Stung by the cold, by the vast, empty landscape, he wished that Leo was by his side now, and regretted giving him back to Kyra. He wondered how far he would get. He never found out where his father was, but he knew, at least, that he had gone south, and he would head in that direction. He had no idea how long his legs could take him before they gave out, or before he froze to death. He had no horse, and no provisions, and already he shook from the cold.
Yet he did not care. Aidan felt the exhilaration of being free, of having a purpose. He was on a journey, like his father and his brothers and Kyra. He was a real warrior now, under the protection of no one. And if this was what it meant to be a warrior, then this was what he would do. He would prove himself—even if he had to die trying.
As he hiked and hiked, it made him think of his sister. How could Kyra possibly cross all of Escalon? he wondered. Was Leo still at her side?
Aidan ran and ran, following the road until it took him to the edge of the Wood of Thorns. He suddenly heard a noise behind him, and he took cover behind a tree.
Aidan peeked out and saw a wagon approaching on the road, heading south. A farmer sat at its head, the wagon pulled by two horses and trailing a cart full of hay. It rattled and bumped on the rough road, and it looked terribly uncomfortable. But Aidan didn’t care. That wagon was heading his direction, and as he pondered his already-aching legs, he knew that was all that mattered.
Aidan quickly pondered his options. He could ask the farmer for a ride. But the man would likely refuse, and send him back to Volis. No. He would have to go about it another way. His own way. After all, wasn’t that what it meant to be a warrior? Warriors did not ask permission—when honor was at stake, they did what they had to do.
Aidan waited for the right moment, his heart pounding, as the wagon neared. He waited until it passed him, barely able to contain his excitement, his impatience, the sound of its jostling so loud it filled the air. Then, as soon as it passed him, he jumped out from behind the tree and ran after it.
Determined not to be discovered, he crouched low and realized how lucky he was that the crunching of snow beneath his boots was drowned out by the sound of the rattling wheels. The wagon moved just slow enough, given the pitted roads, for him to catch up, and in one quick motion he leapt forward and jumped into the back, landing in the hay.
Aidan ducked low and glanced forward to make sure he hadn’t been discovered; to his immense relief, the driver did not turn around.
Aidan quickly hid beneath the hay, finding it more comfortable than he imagined—and warmer, too, sheltering him from the cold and the steady wind. It even cushioned the bumps to some extent.
Aidan sighed, deeply relieved. Soon, he even began to allow himself to relax, feeling the rhythms of the cart, banging his head against the wood, but no longer caring. He even allowed himself a smile. He had done it. He was heading south, toward his father, his brothers, the battle of his life. And nobody—nobody—would hold him back.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Merk stood beside the girl, watching the morning sun spread over the countryside of Ur, and as she wept quietly beside him, his heart broke for her. She stood over the bodies of her dead father and mother and brother and sobbed as she had throughout the entire night. It had taken Merk hours to pry her off so that he could bury them.
Merk went back to work, reaching out with his shovel and digging again and again, as he had for hours, his hands calloused, determined to at least bury their bodies and give the girl some sense of peace. It was the least he could do; after all, she had saved his life, and no one had done that before. He still felt the agony in his back from where he had been shot, and he remembered her stepping forward, killing that boy, then removing the arrow and healing his wound. She had nursed him back to life through a long and horrible night—and now he had strength enough to help her. Oddly, he had come here to save her—but now he felt in her debt.
Merk poked at the dirt with the shovel, digging and digging, the smell of acrid smoke from the still-burning stables filling his nostrils, needing to release the heavy night from his mind, to lose himself in something physical. He realized how lucky he was to be alive, so certain he was dead after being shot. He would have been if it were not for her. He did not like these feelings of attachment he was having for her, and as he dug, he tried to blot it from his mind. The shoveling was exhausting, his wound hurting, but it took his mind off her weeping, and off the death of these good folk. He could not help but feel he was to blame—if he had arrived sooner, perhaps they would all still be alive.
Merk dug and dug, three graves now finished, probably deeper than they needed to be. His muscles burned as he straightened his aching back, and he put the shovel down definitively, looking over at her. He wanted to wrap an arm around her, to console her. But he was not that kind of man. He never knew how to express or even understand his feelings, and he’d seen far too much death to be greatly affected by it. Yet he felt bad for the girl’s emotions. He wanted her crying to stop.
Merk stood there patiently, not knowing what to do, waiting for her to place the bodies in—to do something, anything. Yet she just stood there, weeping, unmoving, and he soon realized he would have to do it himself.
Merk finally knelt, grabbed her father, and dragged him into one of the freshly dug graves. The body was heavier than he’d expected, his back was hurting now from his wound and his over-exertion, and he just wanted to get this over with.
She rushed forward suddenly and grabbed his arm.
“No, wait!” she cried out.
He turned and saw her grief-stricken eyes staring back.
“Don’t do it,” she pleaded. “I can’t bear it.”
He frowned.
“Would you rather the wolves have at them?”
“Just don’t,” she cried. “Please. Not now.”
She wept as she dropped to her knees, cradling her father.
Merk sighed and looked out at the horizon, at the breaking dawn, and wondered if there was any end to death in this world. Some people died pleasantly while others died violently—yet no matter how they died, they all seemed to end up in the same place. What was the point of it all? What was the point of a peaceful death, or a violent one, if they all led to the same place? Did it even make any difference? And if death was inevitable, what was even the point of life?
Merk watched the sky lighten and he knew he had to move on. He had wasted too much time here already, fighting a fight that was not his. Was this what happened, he wondered, when you fought for causes that were not your own? Did you end up feeling this sense of confusion, of mixed satisfaction?
“I must go,” he said firmly, impatient. “A long journey lies before me, and a new day breaks.”
She did not reply. He looked down at her and felt a sense of responsibility for
her, here all alone, and he debated what to do.
“Other predators roam this countryside,” he continued. “It is no place for you to be alone. Come with me. I will find you protection in the Tower of Ur, or somewhere close by.”
It was the first time he had ever offered anyone to join him, had ever gone out of his way to help someone for no reason, and it made him feel good—yet also nervous. It was not who he was.
Merk expected her to jump at his offer, and he was confused when she shook her head, not even meeting his eyes.
“Never,” she seethed.
He was shocked as she looked up at him with eyes filled with hatred.
“I would never join you,” she added.
He blinked back.
“I don’t understand,” he replied.
“This is all your fault,” she said, looking back at the corpses.
“My fault?” he asked, indignant.
“I begged for you to come sooner,” she said. “If you had listened, you could have saved them. Now they all lie dead because of you. Because of your selfishness.”
Merk frowned.
“Let me remind you,” he replied, “that you are alive right now because of my selfishness.”
She shook her head.
“Pity for me,” she replied. “I wish I had died with them. And for that I hate you even more.”
Merk sighed, furious, realizing that that was what he got for helping people. Ingratitude. Hatred. Better to keep to himself.
“Fine then,” he said.
He turned to walk away, but for some reason he still could not. Despite everything, for some reason, he still cared for her. And he hated that he did.
“I shall not ask you again,” he said, his voice quivering with anger, standing there, waiting.
She would not respond.
He turned and scowled at her.
“You do realize,” he said, dumbfounded, “that staying here alone is a death sentence.”
She nodded.
“And that is precisely what I hope for,” she replied.
“You are confused,” he said. “I am not their murderer. I am your savior.”
She looked him with such contempt that Merk recoiled.
“You are no one’s savior,” she spat. “You are not even a man. You are a mercenary. A murderer for hire. And you are no better than these men—don’t pretend that you are.”
Her words struck him deeply, perhaps because he cared for a person for the first time he could remember, perhaps because he had let his guard down. Now Merk wished he hadn’t. He felt a shiver run through his spine, felt her words ring through him like a curse.
“Then why did you save me last night?” he demanded. “Why not let me die?”
She did not respond, which agitated him even more.
Merk saw there was no reasoning with her, and he had enough: fed up, he threw down the shovel, turned, and marched away.
He hiked away from the burning compound and into the breaking sun, heading back for the woods. He could still hear the girl’s crying as he went. He crested a hill, then another, and for some reason, as much as he hoped they would, the cries still did not fade. It was like they were echoing in his mind.
As he crested another hill, Merk finally turned and look back for her. His stomach clenched in a knot as he spotted her, a small figure in the distance. There she knelt, still, far in the valley below, by the graves of her family. Merk was confused by his emotions and he did not like the feeling. It clouded him.
Worst of all, Merk felt a lack of resolve. He knew she would die out there, and a part of him wanted to go back and help her. But how could he help someone who did not want helping?
Merk steeled himself, took a deep breath, and turned his back on her. He faced the woods ahead, and looked out at the pilgrimage before him. On the horizon, waiting for him, he knew, was the Tower of Ur. A place where his mission would be simple, where life would be simple. A place to belong.
Suddenly, as he pondered it, he was struck by an awful thought: what if they rejected him?
There was only one way to find out. Merk took the first step and this time he resolved to stop for nothing—for no one—until he completed his quest.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kyra rode Andor at a walk, Dierdre at her side, Leo at their heels, miserable, unable to stop shivering in the freezing rain. The rain fell in sheets, so loudly she could barely hear herself think, pelting them for hours, sometimes turning to snow and hail. She could not recall the last time she had been indoors, beside a fire, in any sort of shelter. The driving wind kept at them, and she felt a chill deep in her bones which she did not think would ever thaw.
Dawn had broken long ago, though one could not tell from the sky, the clouds dark, angry, hanging low, thick, and heavy, gray, lashing rain and hail and snow, barely an improvement over the night. They had ridden through the Wood of Thorns all through the long and harrowing night, trying to get as far as they could from the Pandesians. Kyra had kept expecting them to be followed—and it drove her on without rest. Perhaps because the dark, the rain, or just having all those boys on their hands, they never tried to follow.
Hour passed hour and Kyra, freezing, scratched by branches, sleep-deprived, felt hollowed out. She felt as if she had been riding for years. She looked over and saw Dierdre equally miserable, and saw Leo whining, none of them having eaten since Volis. The irony of that whole encounter, Kyra realized, was that they had endangered their lives for food but had not managed to salvage any—and now they were even hungrier.
Kyra tried to focus on the quest ahead of her, on Ur, on the importance of her mission—but at this moment, sleep deprived, her eyes closing, all she wanted was a place to lie down and sleep, a warm fire, and a good meal. She was not even halfway across Escalon, and she wondered how she would ever possibly complete this quest; Ur felt like a million miles away.
Kyra studied her surroundings, peering through the rain, but found no sign of shelter, no boulders or caves or hollow tree trunks—nothing but this endless, mangled wood.
They rode and rode, mustering the strength to go on, Kyra and Dierdre too exhausted to speak to each other. Kyra did not know how much time had passed when she thought she began to hear, somewhere in the distance, a sound she had only heard a few times in her life: the crashing of waves.
Kyra looked up and blinked into the rain, blinded by it, wiping it from her eyes and face, and she wondered. Was it possible?
She listened closely, stopping, and Dierdre stopped beside her, each exchanging a curious glance.
“I hear ocean,” Kyra said, listening, confused by the sound of gushing water. “Yet it also sounds like…a river.”
She rode faster, encouraged, and as she neared heard what sounded like, perhaps, a waterfall. Her curiosity heightened.
They finally emerged from the wood and as the sky opened before them for the first time since entering the Wood of Thorns, Kyra was taken aback by the sight: there, but a few hundred yards away, sat the widest sea she had ever laid eyes upon, seeming to stretch to the end of the world. The sea was white with foam, windswept on this blustery day, pelted with rain and hail, and Kyra saw dozens of ships, taller than she’d ever seen, their masts bobbing and rocking. They were all clustered in a harbor, close to shore, and as Kyra looked carefully, she noticed a gushing river leading from the sea and winding its way through the wood. The river seemed to divide two woods, the trees on the far side a different color and glowing white. Kyra had never seen anything like it in all of Escalon, and she marveled at the sight.
They stopped there and stared, mesmerized, their faces pelted with rain and neither bothering to wipe it away.
“The Sorrow,” Dierdre remarked. “We’ve made it.”
Kyra turned and examined the river before them, and the small, wooden bridge spanning it.
“And the river?” Kyra asked.
“The River Tanis,” Dierdre replied. “It divides the Wood of Thorns and Whitewood. Once
we cross it, we are in the West.”
“And then how far to Ur?” Kyra asked.
Dierdre shrugged.
“A few days?” she guessed.
Kyra’s heart fell at the thought. She felt the hunger gnawing at her stomach, felt the freezing cold as another gale of wind lashed her, and as she shivered, she did not know how they would make it.
“We could take the River Tanis,” Dierdre added. “We could find a boat. It won’t take us all the way, though, and it is a rough ride. I know more than one man from Ur who has died in its waters.”
Kyra examined the gushing river, its sound deafening even from here—louder even than the crashing waves of the Sorrow—and she realized its danger. She shook her head, preferring to risk whatever they might encounter on land than in those torrential currents.
She studied the contours of the river and saw where it narrowed, one shore nearly touching the other; a small bridge spanned it, clearly well-traveled, shaped in an arch to allow ships to pass through. She spotted something on its shores: a small, wooden structure, like a cottage, weathered, leaning, perched at the edge of the river. Candles burned in its sole window, and she noticed dozens of small boats tied up alongside it. It was a hub of activity. She saw men stumbling out of it, off-balance, heard a raucous shout, and she realized: it was a tavern.
The smell of food wafting in the air hit her like a punch in the gut and made it hard for her to focus on anything else. She wondered what sort of people were inside.
“Pandesians?” she wondered aloud, as Dierdre examined it, too.
Dierdre shook her head.
“Look at those boats,” she said. “They have foreign markings. They’re travelers, coming in off the sea. They all take the Tanis to cut through Escalon. I’ve seen many in Ur. Most are traders.”
As Leo whined beside her, Kyra felt a hunger pang in her stomach; yet she recalled her father’s warning to avoid others.