Forest Born

  She shook her head and mumbled, “May your cold improve,” as she walked out of the inn. Rin and the other girls followed, and when the inn door shut behind them, Dasha threw herself against the side of the building, coughing out the laugh she’d been holding back. “I love being in disguise! This is fantastic!”

  Enna sighed. “Razo’s bound to be disappointed at first, but eventually he’ll understand that you’ve found true love.”

  “Yes, Sniffles and I planned a furtive meeting later by the woodpile, if his da will let him off chores.”

  “It was impressive,” said Enna, “how he identified that peculiar odor all of your countrymen share, as if you’ve been stewed in vinegar. He didn’t smell it on you, but that lapse could be explained by his tragic cold . . .”

  Two men and a woman, laughing loudly, came down the street toward the inn. The four girls silenced and moved to the far side of the building.

  “People say the king is dead,” Isi whispered. She sat on the ground, her back against the inn. “We need to resolve this as quickly as possible.”

  “Isi, this cannot be Tira’s doing,” said Dasha. “Last Razo and I were in Ingridan, all was well. The Assembly was confident that peace would continue, the general opinion toward Bayern was positive. I just can’t believe the Assembly would send groups to attack the king, let alone burn a little village like Geldis.”

  Enna snorted. “No, Tira would never march into Bayern like that.”

  “In the past,” Dasha said patiently, “but not anymore. I believe that.”

  Rin did not know what to think. Razo now lived half the year in Tira, and he seemed to trust them. But just two years before, Tira’s army had invaded Bayern without provocation and killed thousands.

  Isi looked up sharply just before the two men and a woman appeared around the side of the inn.

  “You there, you girls.” The man’s words sloshed, suggesting he’d been familiar with some ale that night. His cheeks were ruddy and his long black hair clumped together. “You. One of you anyway.” He put his arm around the woman and they laughed in each other’s faces. “We want to dance! And my friend lacks a partner. So one of you . . .”

  “No thank you,” said Isi.

  “One of you dance with him.” The man’s gaze landed on Rin’s face. “You. Come on, one dance.”

  Rin’s hands flew to her mouth, and she looked to Isi for help.

  “She’s not interested in your kind offer.” Isi stood beside Rin, a warm hand on her shoulder. “But thank you and enjoy this fresh summer evening.”

  “One dance.” The man reached for Rin, grabbing her arm.

  Enna shoved the man’s hand away. “She said she’s not interested.”

  “I didn’t hear her say anything, but you’ll do just as well.” He put his arm around Enna’s waist and hefted her up, dragging her toward the inn.

  Rin felt tied up and helpless. Fire would start now, or wind or water, and everyone at that inn would know what secrets the fire sisters kept. She wished she could do something, say something, but she just kept her hands over her mouth and backed away.

  Enna was kicking and hollering. The ruckus caught the attention of the inn dwellers, and the doors opened, spilling music, firelight, and people into the street.

  Isi and Dasha were on the man, pulling his arm, trying to set Enna free. Isi’s expression was desperate. She was not afraid of the man, Rin could see, but of what Enna might do if the man did not back down.

  “One dance,” the man kept saying. “Don’t be so shy!”

  The woman laughed at the to-do and the man’s friend was so enthused he joined in, pulling Dasha and Isi back, laughing into his beard in a bewildered way. Rin rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, her hands fluttering around her chest. She’d been trying to imitate Isi’s way these past days, but Isi was so bold, shouting commands. Rin did not dare. Her hands returned to her mouth.

  “Stand down!” came the shout as a new figure entered the fray. He shoved the man’s friend to the ground, pulled the man from Enna, and twisted his arm behind his back.

  “Finn!” Enna shouted, surprised and angry and thrilled at once.

  “You don’t push me!” The friend lurched to his feet, his belly pulling his weight forward. He yanked his sword from a leather scabbard and took steps toward Finn. “Try that again, boy.”

  Finn shoved away the clumpy-haired one and drew his own sword, positioning himself between the weaponed man and Enna. “Very well.”

  From the unwavering point of his weapon to his unshaking legs, there was no question Finn was a soldier, someone who knew his sword and could use it. His opponent looked him over, his sword tip wavering, dipping. He glanced behind him as if for an escape route.

  “Sheath your weapons and walk away,” said Isi.

  Her voice was so sure, so full of right and command, Rin was surprised no one was dropping on knees in acknowledgment of the queen. Even not knowing who it was they obeyed, the two men backed away, giving Finn a wide berth. Their woman friend had stopped laughing, and the three of them headed into town, apparently no longer in the mood for dancing.

  Isi sighed, glancing at the small crowd leaning out of the inn doors. “So much for not drawing notice.”

  “Do you think we should move on tonight?” Dasha whispered.

  Isi shook her head. “No fires were set. Hopefully this will seem just an ale-inspired brawl. But let’s get off the street.”

  With his sword sheathed, Finn lost all his menace, his shoulders slumped and face long, his eyes on Enna. She turned away.

  They followed Isi through the crowded common area and up the squeaking stairs to their room. The innkeeper raised his eyebrows at Finn as he followed the four girls inside. Finn shrugged and grinned.

  “Oh, Finn, don’t give them more to talk about,” Isi said.

  He was last in the room, and he shut and locked the door behind him, seeming to take as long as possible. When he turned to face them, his expression was sheepish.

  “I wondered when you were going to show up,” said Isi.

  Enna started. “You knew?”

  “I suspected. In truth, I didn’t need to hear the wind whispering about a man alone in the wood to figure out Finn would try to follow you.”

  Enna put a fist on her hip, and Rin thought to be glad that hot gaze was not directed at her.

  “Did you think I’d need you to protect me?” Enna asked.

  He shrugged. “Maybe. You never know when you need a sword at your back.”

  “You thought I couldn’t handle myself.”

  “No, I—”

  “I’m not talking to you, Finn,” Enna said.

  They readied themselves for the night in silence. Finn faced the wall as the girls undressed into shifts and cozied into their cots, Dasha sharing with Rin, and Isi and Enna on the other. Finn took a spot on the floor, laying his body before the door, his head on a bedroll.

  Enna yawned. “A tale before bed?” It had become custom their four nights in the wood. Rin had even practiced her own story till Enna had cheered with approval.

  “A song would be nice,” said Isi. “And nicer still if you’d sing it.”

  Enna glanced once at Finn and quickly away again, keeping her eyes on the window while she sang.

  She had a high voice, higher than her speaking voice, but it slipped out of her throat soft and simple. Her song was of a carpenter’s daughter who lay in the branches of an oak tree as if cradled in a lover’s arms and would love no other. Her father discovered her hopeless passion and taking pity, he cut down the tree and carved it into the shape of a man. But to the girl it was no kindness. The tree was now dead, and she wept for the loss of her love. Rin had heard the song before. The way some sang it the story was funny, and she recalled laughing at the girl’s silliness and the father’s inept compassion. But in the dark, with Enna’s voice reaching up and around, there was no humor. Only loneliness.

  Dasha rolled over and placed an arm
around Rin, a gentle touch, a gesture of friendship. Rin flinched, but the touch made home seem real again, Ma beside her, her tunic wafting wood smoke and juniper, and everything safe for the night.

  “Try not to wake us, Dasha,” Enna whispered, “when you leave to meet your beau by the woodpile.”

  “I shall pour all my efforts into a stealthy tiptoe,” she whispered back.

  Still woozy from the crowd and noise of the inn, Rin slumped into sleep so fast she felt as if she’d been hit over the head.

  After a time, her sleep became light, wakefulness and dreams tugging back and forth until wakefulness won. She opened her eyes. The dark was pulsing with remembered images—Dasha daring to speak up while Rin sat in a corner; Isi and Dasha rushing to help Enna, while Rin stepped back, her hands over her mouth.

  She squeezed out of bed and padded to the window and the dim view of town. Ma had said, “The longer you’re away from your family and your trees, the more you just might wither away.” Rin did feel like half a thing, like a dried-up root. But then again, she had often felt that way. Dasha’s vigor for life, Enna’s passion, Isi’s love—those girls were as full of energy and joy as the members of Rin’s own family. And then there was Rin.

  Tree-speaking, she told herself. She did not think trees had a language in the same way wind seemed to, or horses and birds. Surely trees could not empower Rin, as fire did for the others. What a strange idea, and she would have tossed it away like a cone empty of nuts, but that Isi seemed so sure. Tree-speaking. Is that what made her feel different, what separated her from everyone else, what crowded her inside until she wanted to scream and flee from her own ugliness? Even before Wilem she’d felt that way. But now she could not go to the trees for comfort—now the wrongness clung to her viciously, weighing her down more and more with each day.

  Rin searched for the dark smudge beyond the town that was the wood, strained with her eyes and then with her heart. At least back home she’d been useful to her ma—but what did she have to offer someone like the queen of Bayern? Rin’s chest felt like a knot too solid to unpick. Tension buried any hope of sleep, so she focused on the distance where the wood waited, trying to remind her body what it felt like to commune with trees, to hear the sap moving through the limbs, a breeze lulling the leaves . . .

  Calmer, quieter, Rin became more aware of everything. She could almost hear Enna exhale before the sound reached her ears. Her skin tingled as if the night was just about to get hotter. Something was strange—something about the air. Rin backed away from the window and leaned over Isi’s bed.

  “Isi?” she whispered. “Isi? I think—”

  There was a noise like wind howling or a voiceless scream. Then the straw roof was blazing.

  Chapter 10

  Rin fell to the floor as blistering heat stormed above her head.

  “Wake up!” she shouted.

  Isi was alert at once, upright with eyes wide. A second rush and the wall was boiling with orange and gold flames. Rin grabbed Dasha and pulled her hard, onto the floor as their bed caught fire. The room was engulfed in tearing flames. The heat was so intense Rin could not open her eyes. No breath filled her, the air eaten away. She covered her head with her arms and hoped she would die quickly.

  Then wind gushed through the window and blew a hole through the roof. The flames pulled into themselves and extinguished, the heat from those flames bursting into new and harmless fire through the hole and into the sky, leaving a bright streak of smoke. She did not know if it had been Isi’s or Enna’s work, or perhaps both. When the rafters and walls beaded with water, Rin guessed that much was Dasha, gathering the moisture from the outside air and dousing the embers. Finn was at the door with his sword, scanning the hall for an intruder.

  The girls gasped at the air that gushed in through the window, cool as water. From elsewhere in the inn they heard a scream.

  In the corridor, the roof began to blaze. People in nightclothes wailed as fiery straw fell on their heads, the corridor so jammed no one could get out. Isi was shouting orders at Enna and Dasha, and Finn fought to stay beside them. Rin was getting pushed back. The wailing, the smoke, the people, all choked her with panic.

  The crowd shoved, and Rin fell before the open door of a sleeping chamber. The straw roof sizzled and spit, rolls of flames turning the room gold. A young woman had climbed atop a stool with a baby in her arms. Trembling, she put one leg through the window to climb out. They were three stories up.

  Rin ducked under arms, shoved between backs, and flung herself into the room. She grabbed the woman by the hem of her tunic and yanked her back to the sill.

  “Let go!” the woman screeched. “We’re going to die! I have to save my baby, I have to—”

  “We won’t die, not unless you throw yourself out that window. Come down.”

  The woman turned, and her eyes were frightening, wild and dangerous with fear. “My baby will burn, my . . .” She began to weep and clawed at Rin to break free.

  “The fire will stop,” Rin said, coughing from the smoke.

  “We’ll burn!”

  “Listen to me, the fire will stop! It will stop. Come down here now, come down with your baby and you’ll see. The fire will stop.”

  The woman gasped, as if Rin’s words were a pocket of fresh air inside the smoky room. “The fire will stop?”

  “It’s already out, see?”

  The hysteria cleared from her eyes and she clutched her baby to her chest, blinking and looking around. Smoke tickled their eyes, blackened straw dusted their shoulders, but there were no flames, no heat.

  “I’ve never seen . . . but it’s gone. You said it would.” She stared at Rin, dazed and desperate. “What do I do now?”

  “You grab your things and take your baby outside. You can do that?”

  The woman nodded. “I can do that.”

  Rin watched her go. The frenzy in the corridor had quieted with the fire’s demise. She could hear Enna shouting something, Finn directing people downstairs.

  “The fire will stop,” Rin whispered. Feeling like an empty grain sack, she sat down and sobbed into her arms. That mother and her child would have died from the fall. It was a good thing to help them, it surely was. So why did she feel like a very bad girl due a wooden spoon beating? Guilt and confusion and sorrow gnawed at her, and running away sounded so promising.

  Isi wouldn’t run away, Rin thought.

  She heaved herself to her feet, collected their things from their room, and trudged down the corridor, passing empty rooms full of charred and damp wood. The stairs shuddered beneath her feet.

  The girls and Finn stood in the road, staring at the blackened inn as it groaned and leaned to one side. Dasha and Isi were retying their headscarves over their conspicuous hair, but none of the dazed travelers in nightclothes looked their way. Gathered in small groups, they whispered and cried, never letting their eyes stray from the ruined building.

  “That could’ve been my grave right there,” someone said. “I sleep like a tree most nights. Good fortunes, that could’ve been my grave.”

  “That fire started pretty suddenly, don’t you think?” Enna whispered. “Spread quickly too. Funny that.”

  Other townsfolk on the crossroads were opening windows, creaking doors, blinking into the night, judging whether what they were missing was exciting or dangerous.

  Rin still felt spooked, her muscles tense, begging her to run. Be calm, she told herself. She inhaled, drinking in night—her favorite time, when the world was scrubbed of edges and hardness—and tried to remember how it used to feel to lean into a tree, hear its deepness with her own. While seeking that stillness, she looked around, taking in the moment.

  Everything seemed slowed, easier to see. And in that stillness, she noticed a figure. Every other person either stood before the inn as if they’d just escaped its smoky ruin, or in the doorways of their homes afraid to emerge. But one man rushed away, no protective home around him, no sign of ash on his clothes. Even from
a distance, she could spot that no-good look of a man with something to hide. She exhaled, letting the moment go. The seeming slowness fell away, and she decided she had imagined it.

  “I bet he knows something.” Rin gestured to the figure now bolting toward the cover of trees.

  Isi nodded. They all ran, ducked between two cottages, and emerged facing the wood, no one in sight. Isi paused, her head cocked, and Rin guessed she was feeling something tangible in the air, listening to what images the wind brought her.

  “Another house, through the trees. He’s in there.”

  “Let me go first,” said Finn.

  “Not a chance,” said Enna. “You stay with Isi.”

  She ran ahead, her white shift outlining her form against the night. Rin had stuck on her boots but still wore only a shift too, the cool air creeping up her legs and bringing out goose bumps. They followed Enna through trees and tree shadows until the darkness peeled back and the gray outline of a roof poked through the gloom. As one they slowed, creeping as they neared. Rin could make out the little house now—wood, no windows, one door in front. Enna moved faster than the others, and Rin suspected she was determined to put herself in front of Isi in case of danger. Finn did the same, walking now between Isi and Dasha and slightly ahead.

  That’s what I should do, thought Rin. That’s what Razo would do. Be brave, run into the fray.

  Rin quickened her pace, gaining on Enna.

  “Rin,” Dasha said with warning.

  The sound of her whispered name tingled through Rin, made her whole body more aware of the danger. That man might be the one who tried to roast them in their beds, and he might burst through that door and burn them like Geric, like Brynn.

  Better me than the queen, Rin thought. Better me than the Tiran ambassador. Better me.

  She stepped from heel to toe in fluid motion, balancing herself from her pelvis outward, mindful of twigs and leaves. Her passage nearly silent, she aimed to get to the house first. Perhaps she was not powerful like Finn, Enna, and Dasha, but Rin yearned to show Isi that she was worthwhile in some way so she could stay with the fire sisters. If she got to the house first, she might warn Isi if the man was truly inside and if there were others.