Forest Born

  “I want to kill her,” said Enna. Despite the fierce crying of the past hour, her voice turned hard. “I want to kill her, Isi. Sometimes killing is justified, isn’t it? I wish I didn’t . . . I wish. But Selia is Selia, and she killed Razo, and I want to—” Above their heads, a ball of fire popped, briefly illuminating the cell, four walls of stone and a heap of straw in the corner. The light extinguished, leaving behind a scratch of smoke in the darkness.

  “Tomorrow,” said Isi. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow. I’ll figure it out, Enna, and you won’t have to kill her. Because if she touches one hair on my boy’s head”—Isi paused as if trying to find enough breath to speak—“then she’ll answer to me.”

  It must have been day by then, but it still seemed to be night in that dark room below the castle. Crying had made Rin’s eyes sting, her body throb, and she lay side by side with the fire sisters. She was not sure whose arm was on hers or whose hair tickled her face, but there was an exhausted relief just to be close, and she slept a little.

  Hours later, the shaky glow of a torch peeped through the door’s small, barred window. One of the hearth-watchers appeared—a middle-aged man with an uneven beard and shifting eyes.

  “Crown—,” he began, then changed his mind. “Bayern queen, Her Highness Queen Selia asking for you. You for coming alone.”

  Isi sat up, her arms resting on her upright knees. “I want to see my son.”

  “I for taking you. The queen will deciding.” He put such emotion into the word “queen” that Rin knew he was in love with Selia.

  For a few moments, Isi did not move, but when she rose, it was with purpose. Enna stood beside her.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  The hearth-watcher shook his head. “Alone, the queen is saying.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Isi said, low enough that her voice did not carry through the door. “She doesn’t want me dead—yet. I’ve still some value until the land matters are settled. If I can talk to her, maybe I can find out more about Tusken, bargain a way to see him. If I can just see him, I think I can take care of her fire-speakers and get Tusken safe.”

  “Let me go with you, Isi.” Enna was pleading now. “I can do better against her this time, I know I can. Please. I don’t want you alone with that viper.”

  “I think it’s better that way, Enna. If you or anyone else comes too, Selia might use you to get to me. She’d threaten you, hurt you, and she knows I couldn’t stand it. For now, she needs me, but to her, you three are expendable.”

  As expendable as Razo, Rin thought.

  “If she sends food to you, don’t eat it,” Isi went on. “And the moment you get word that Tusken is safe, don’t hesitate—get out any way you can.”

  Rin shook her head. Strong as Isi was, Rin was not so sure she could withstand Selia’s assault.

  “Still, Isi,” said Enna, squinting at the door. “I don’t like the thought of you without a friend at your side. I don’t trust her.”

  Isi forced a casual expression. “Who, Selia? Come on, she’s a pussycat. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?”

  Enna stared back at her, and then at once they both laughed. It was so sudden, and yet sincere, Rin wondered if the darkness of the dungeon had already turned them mad. But there was a light in their eyes, an intelligence, that made her believe they laughed because they needed to.

  Enna shook her head. “Send her my warmest regards, and if the opportunity presents itself, I mean my very warmest regards.”

  The sound of the laugh stirred something in Rin. Her core firmed, and she felt a surge of hope. So when Isi rose to the door, Rin sprang up beside her.

  “Where is Tusken?” Rin demanded of the man—a hearth-watcher, she saw by his clothing. “Tell me where she’s got Tusken.”

  The hearth-watcher shook his head, his expression startled.

  “Tell me where Tusken is,” said Rin again, finding any energy inside her and pushing it into words. She was flailing, she knew, but she had to try. The man just kept shaking his head, so Rin tried, “Let us all out. Don’t take Isi to Selia—take her out of the castle. Let her go into the wood. Get Tusken and let him go too. Let us all go.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed at Rin. “The queen waiting,” he said with malice. Again, from the way he spoke of the queen, she could see the adoration quivering in his expression. This was a man who would die for his mistress, and she guessed he was so full of Selia’s voice, Rin’s weak whimpering could not tempt him away. She had no other solution, no way to save Isi or Tusken, no idea at all. Sadness doused her, and buried under thoughts of Razo she crumpled to the floor.

  Dasha and Enna seemed confused by Rin’s outburst, but Isi whispered, “Thanks for trying, Rin.” To Enna she said, “Keep them safe,” and she smiled before the door clanged shut.

  They waited.

  No one brought food, poisoned or otherwise, but Dasha filled their cupped hands with water she pulled from the moisture in the air. Rin drank greedily. The water was clear and tasteless, as if it had come from fresh rainwater. Apparently the floor of the dungeon had been sticky with damp at first, but Dasha had dried it all. So they huddled on the straw while Rin recounted her time with Razo and Tusken. Enna got more and more angry, but Dasha seemed to crumple. Even in the scatty light from the torch, the heartbreak on Dasha’s face was as visible as noon sun.

  She really did love him, Rin thought. She loved him in her way as much as I do. That knowledge made Razo’s death feel a hundred times more real, and Rin had to look away.

  “Say something hopeful,” Dasha said. “I can’t stand all this . . . just give me one light thought.”

  “I think it’s my birthday,” said Rin.

  Enna croaked a half-laugh. “That is really sad, Rin.”

  “Happy birthday,” Dasha whispered.

  If Rin were home, one of the brothers might smoke a beehive and bring home a dripping comb. Honey on bread was enough for a celebration, but some years Ma made cakes, and of course the children would decorate her with flowers and sing the song of years. Then Ma would put Ulan or Sari in charge and take Rin for a walk to their favorite copse of aspen, where they’d sit and chat for hours. Honey and flowers and songs were nice—but that walk in the woods with Ma, that was her birthday.

  Rin folded herself over her legs, too dried out to do anything but ache.

  Enna paced and occasionally struck the door, cursing Selia and her various body parts, and then Razo’s stupidity for letting himself be killed. Once she was standing by the door and said, “I think they’re nearby. I’m not so good at hearing the wind as Isi, but I think that’s her. There’s another room down here, and a draft came from under its door.”

  After that, Enna would not leave the door, straining for any breeze, any hint of where Isi was and what was happening.

  A long time later, a door nearby slammed open and they heard Selia’s voice shrill and angry.

  “What did you do? What did—no! Curse you, idiots!” And she screamed an angry, piercing scream like a pig at slaughter. When they heard her voice again, she was closer, as if in the narrow corridor just outside their door. “Fine. Fine, fine, fine. Too late now. Get rid of it. Throw it at her friends, tell them that Tusken is next if they lift a finger against me. Do you hear? Tusken is next!”

  The three girls were on their feet, watching the door.

  “They can’t have meant . . . ,” Dasha began. “She was not talking about . . .”

  The door to their dungeon opened just enough for them to see the hands of two soldiers holding a body, yellow hair fallen over the face. They dumped her on the ground.

  She did not twitch. She did not groan. The guards slammed the door and fled, but Rin, like Dasha and Enna, had eyes only for Isi. Dasha and Enna knelt at Isi’s side, but the terror in Rin kept her still. She already knew, could already see that something had departed out of Isi. She was looking at a hollowed log. The girl on the floor was dead.

  Chapter 22


  Dasha’s fingers were on Isi’s neck, then hovering above her lips. She spoke in hurried gasps.

  “She’s . . . she’s not breathing. I don’t see a wound, but her hands are ice cold, and she’s not—”

  Enna shoved Dasha out of the way and crouched beside Isi’s body.

  “Isi, get up,” she said, almost conversationally, then her voice deepened into a demand. “That . . . that thing can’t kill you. You’re Isi, you’re my yellow lady, you can’t just stop. So get up!”

  Enna shook Isi, and the queen’s lifeless head rolled on her neck, her hair falling over her face. Rin backed away until she hit the wall. How did these things happen? How did living become dagger-sharp and dangerous, and everything so murky and cold, no way home, no light, just wandering and wandering and being locked away and killing and dying and pain? The weight of the whole world hung above her head, threatening to crush her, promising to make the end of everything. She wanted to be far away. She could not run, she would not let herself scream, and in desperation she sought out the one thing she could to survive the moment—she tried to remember the calm of a tree.

  She was standing straight, her feet grounded on the earth, her head reaching for light. She let her chest fill with the memory of a tree’s thoughts, the thrumming of sap, the contentment of soil and light. Peace rushed up from her toes, strengthening her legs, making her skin feel as hard as bark. When she opened her eyes again, the whole world seemed changed. Still, timeless, a breath held, as if she were both awake in the human world and asleep inside the green world. Dasha was bent over Isi. Enna was sobbing, laying her head on Isi’s neck. But Rin the girl, Rin the tree in her serenity, understood that everything was going to be fine.

  She looked over Isi’s body, but she saw it like a tree—it was not chopped down or burned to ash, not broken into bits. It was simply uprooted. The leaves were beginning to wilt, the roots drying in the air, but it had not been long—perhaps only moments before. Dasha had said Isi’s hands were ice cold. In Rin’s pocket of stillness, her thoughts cleared of emotion, she realized that was strange. If Isi had stopped breathing moments before, her body should still be warm. This was not a normal death, then. Something might be done. It was out of her power, but . . . She looked at Enna and seemed to see a mass of white and orange swirling around her—wind and fire, breath and heat, dancing together, ready for action. So Rin reached out her hand, gripped Enna’s shoulder, and tried to be to Enna what a tree was to Rin. A source of peace, a place of clear thought. Just an idea of it, that was where to begin.

  Rin found the words to speak. “She’s only just stopped breathing, she’s cold and airless, only just.”

  Enna breathed in, a great slow gasp as loud as wind rushing through a cave. Her sobbing stopped. She looked back at Rin and blinked. Where despair had clouded Enna’s eyes, an idea glimmered.

  Enna placed her opened hands on Isi’s chest and belly. Her eyes closed. Rin closed her eyes, too. She was still touching Enna, and the deep, tough thread of her core understood what Enna was doing—setting tiny flares of heat inside Isi, in her heart, in her blood and muscles, filling her everywhere with gentle taps, warming her body, the work as intricate as threading a tapestry. And she pushed air into Isi’s nose, into her lungs, in and out too, the rhythm as natural as breathing, the movement swirling the hair over her face.

  While Enna’s wind tried to force her to breathe, subtle strokes of heat worked at Isi’s heart, making her chest rise and fall in spasms—ta-tum, ta-tum, ta-tum . . .

  The peace in Rin was starting to fade, the surety that everything would be all right trickling down her length, dripping from her fingertips. Rin opened her eyes. Isi was still, her eyes open but unlooking. And terror began to scratch at Rin, to shake her limbs. Tusken’s mother was dead. Tusken would have no Ma. Rin’s grip on Enna’s shoulder weakened.

  But Enna did not stop. “You do not get to die, Isi. She doesn’t get to kill you, Anidori-Kiladra. You are too strong to die. Listen to me!”

  Keeping one hand on Isi’s chest, Enna grabbed Dasha and pulled her close. “Do what I’m doing. She needs water too, and more fire. Easy with the heat, just enough to wake her up.”

  “I . . . I . . . ,” Dasha stuttered.

  “Do it!” yelled Enna.

  Rin did not wait to be commanded too. She sat by Isi’s head, held her face in her hands, smoothed her hair as if her hands were wind going through leaves. She tried to find that peace again, to feel it rise out of the earth and into her core, to let it flow into Isi. She did not know if it would help, but the terror was so thick if she did not try something, she would harrow her way out of the dungeon herself. There was this body—this still, cold body before her, this husk that used to be Isi, and she could not bear it. So she reminded herself of who Isi really was, the truth of Isi. The words formed in her throat, and she decided to speak them aloud. If people-speaking could add any good or truth to the world, then she demanded of herself that it do so now, convince Isi of who she was, help bring her back before she slipped completely into that unknown of beyond.

  “Mother of Tusken,” Rin whispered, “wife of Geric, queen of Bayern, daughter of Kildenree, friend of Enna, friend of Dasha and Finn and Razo. And Rin.”

  And Enna was saying, “Take a breath. Take a breath, Isi. You don’t get to die. I can feel you in there still. Just wake up!”

  A breath. A gasp. Rin pulled back, as surprised as if she’d suddenly found herself holding a snake.

  The hair over Isi’s face stirred. Her heart was beating so loudly, Rin could hear its murmur. Isi’s chest rose. The three girls bent over her, their hands on her arms, on her cheeks, their breath held as if not to make any sound louder than Isi’s heart.

  Dasha swept the hair off of Isi’s face. The queen’s eyelids closed and opened. And closed.

  “Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee,” Enna said, her face drenched from crying. “If you’re really alive, you’d better say so right now or I’ll kill you myself.”

  Isi’s eyelids barely parted. She opened her mouth, then coughed dryly. Dasha’s fingers flinched, and Rin guessed the Tiran girl was moving water in the air to wet the queen’s throat and mouth.

  Isi’s voice croaked. “Just now, stuffing the queen of Kel into a barrel of nails sounds like a mercy.”

  The three girls laughed, then sobbed, hugging one another, repeating Isi’s words again and again, wiping their running noses on their hems. Isi just smiled and curled up.

  They were all exhausted from laughing and weeping and almost dying, and they lay down, bundled around one another. Rin slept with her head on Dasha’s side, one hand on Isi’s hair. Enna slept closest to Isi, her arms wrapped fiercely around her friend to keep her warm.

  Chapter 23

  Rin woke with hope clawing up from the pit of misery in her chest. If they could get to Razo’s body, maybe they could fix him as they had done for Isi. Dasha could give him water, and Enna could give him heat and breath so he lived again. If only . . . if only . . . She closed her eyes and imagined Razo breathing in, sitting up, and asking, “What happened? Did I fall asleep? Where’s Tusken, and why are all you crazy girls staring at me like that?”

  She clung to the hope because she sensed it was about to blow away. Isi’d had no serious injury and she’d stopped breathing only moments before. Fire and wind could not heal a burn or a sword wound, could not bring back a boy dead for a day. My brother is dead. The thought pressed on Rin, pushed against her eyes, filled her mouth. She thrust away that knowledge, desperate to keep it from burying her, at least not until Tusken was safe.

  Isi stirred and seemed to want to wake, but Enna kept shushing her and insisting she sleep on, until at last Isi protested that she was thirsty enough to drink Enna’s blood.

  Then Enna popped right up and said brightly, “Good morning, Your Majesty. I believe the rooster has crowed.”

  Dasha said there was not much water left in the dungeon air. She pulled as much as she could, letting fat
drops splash into their cupped hands. Rin sipped the warm liquid from her hands, licking her fingers, feeling the air around her crackle and dry up. Their bellies all groaned in chorus, and to distract them from hunger, Isi told them about the day before. She and Selia had talked for hours. Selia had tried to persuade Isi to sign the document, but Isi had insisted she would not sign anything without seeing Tusken first.

  “I was a little better at resisting her people-speaking than last time, especially when she was trying to provoke me to do what I didn’t want to do. Her ability to dissuade me from action was still quite strong. After a time she got frustrated and wanted her pet fire-speakers to hurt me without really hurting me, just to cause me pain. They were poking me with heat. It stung. I didn’t attack back, but I did wash away their heat with wind. Nuala, her favorite of them, retaliated and pulled all the heat out of my body. I think it was a mistake. I think she was just clumsy and took too much. But that’s what did it . . .” Isi put a hand on her chest and stared at it for some time.

  “Do you want to tell us?” Dasha asked, her voice more concerned than curious. “What was it like?”

  “It hurt.” Isi took a breath. “It hurt a lot, as if she’d put her fingernails into me and was yanking out something essential, like, oh, all my internal organs.”

  “Lovely,” said Enna.

  Isi’s eyes were haunted. “The yanking kept going, and I couldn’t . . . while Selia was talking at me, I couldn’t concentrate enough to call a wind. Then a huge pulsing numbness exploded from my belly and radiated through my whole body, and . . . I don’t remember much of anything until I heard Rin’s voice, and then Enna shouting at me. You were none too gentle.”

  “What am I supposed to do when my best friend dies on me? Pat your cheek and say good for you?”

  Isi squinted at the dark wall as if she were trying to make out someone’s face from a distance.