The Assassin's Curse

  Once I had the driftwood gathered I ventured into the fringe of the woods. I didn't want to bother with fern leaves again, but there really wasn't much I could use in the way of shelter-building. I pulled the sword out of its scabbard and crept deeper into the forest. Here, the light turned a syrupy golden color I didn't trust one bit. Ain't no way the northern sun could give out light like that. But there was a certain type of tree in this part of the woods, one that I hadn't seen before, with trunks covered in a chalky pale white bark that peeled off in long wide strips. I didn't trust it, but sometimes you gotta trust the thing you don't want to.

  Course, following that particular bit of Papa's advice was what got me in my current predicament in the first place. I guess it came down to a matter of choices. And I didn't have much of any at the moment.

  I stacked the driftwood up into a lean-to against one of the pine trees – those at least I recognized from the ice-islands. Then I wove the tree bark into a sort of roof, which I tied to the driftwood using some twists of old vine.

  When I finished, I took a step back and admired my work. I almost forgot where I was. I almost convinced myself I was just on the ice-islands, having the sort of adventure I used to dream about.

  But then a wind blew in from the forest, and it smelled like musty damp and magic. I had my sword out before my brain could even figure out if I was in danger or not.

  The beach stayed as empty and desolate as always.

  I crawled into the lean-to and peered out the opening and through the cracks in the branches I'd left in so we could keep look out. I figured there should be enough room for me and Naji to both stretch out and sleep, and it was high enough that when I was sitting down I could reach up and my fingers would just barely graze the underside of the tree bark ceiling.

  Since I'd managed to take care of our shelter problem for the time being, I figured I should look into food. The truth was I didn't trust anything on this island enough to eat it. Even if the water had turned out fine.

  But my stomach was grumbling and I figured Naji was gonna need food if there was any hope of him getting better. So as I picked my way through the forest, back to the spring, I watched for any edible plant that I might recognize from the ice-islands. I didn't find nothing.

  When I came to the spring, the ferns were scattered across the ground, and Naji was gone.

  All thoughts of food flew out of my head. I had my sword out, my body tense and alert, and I stalked around the spring, stepping as careful as I could.

  "Ananna?"

  I froze, and then turned around slow and careful. Naji was leaning up against a tree, holding his shirt up like a basket.

  "You left," he said. "And you took my sword."

  I let the sword drop. "I thought you were dying. And we needed shelter. Real shelter, not leaves." I kicked at the ferns.

  "I'm not dying. But the healing is taking a long time." He stumbled forward and I noticed his hands were shaking.

  "Should you be wandering around the woods, then?"

  "Probably not. But I was hungry." He knelt down in the remains of our tent and flattened out his shirt. A handful of dark red berries and little brown nuts spilled across the ground.

  "I know these are safe to eat," he said. "They grow in the ice-islands, too."

  I scowled, irritated that he'd been able to find something when I couldn't.

  "Have some," he said. "I can show you where to collect more."

  I picked up one of the berries and sniffed: It smelled sweet as rainwater. I was too hungry to be cautious. I tossed it into my mouth.

  Best berry I'd ever tasted. After that first one didn't kill me, I took to shoving the rest of the pile into my mouth. It wasn't enough to satisfy me, but it took the pang away. When I finished, Naji was staring at me.

  "I'm glad I ate some on the way back."

  "Sorry."

  His eyes brightened a little, and seeing it made me feel weirdly happy even though I was surrounded by gloom and magic.

  "I made a lean-to," I said.

  "Ah, so that's where you disappeared off to."

  "I guess it didn't hurt you too bad."

  Naji shrugged. "It wasn't as bad as yesterday, no."

  "Well, I figured we needed shelter. And fire, too, although I don't know if I'll be able to start one in all this damp." I stood up and rubbed at my arms, trying to work out the chill. "Do you want me to show you? I don't… I don't much like staying in the woods."

  Naji tilted his head a little and looked at me like he wanted to say something. But he only nodded.

  It was slow going back to the beach. Naji stumbled over the underbrush and kept getting caught up in the woody vines that draped off the trees. Although he let me carry the sword, I was on edge the whole time, waiting for something to come creeping out of the shadows. It didn't help that every now and then I'd hear these weird chiming animal calls off in the distance, and the wind had a quality to it that sounded like a woman's whisper. At one point, Naji slumped against a tree, his forehead beaded with sweat. I only just caught him before he collapsed.

  "Not safe," he whispered. His face twisted up and he pressed his hand into his forehead. "Not safe. For you."

  "What's not safe? The woods?"

  He cried out in pain and groped around my shoulders. His fingers were clammy and cold. I peeled the collar of my shirt away. The charm he made me was still there.

  "Thank the darkness," he whispered, and he slumped up against me, as if all the air had been let out of him. "I'm sorry I can't protect you better."

  The forest was rustling around us, dropping down feathery green leaves, and my breath was coming out fast and short. I knew we couldn't stay here – knew I couldn't stay here. But I wasn't leaving Naji behind.

  "Here," I said, shoving the sword at him. "To protect me with."

  His fingers fluttered around the handle. He straightened up a little, and his face no longer seemed so drawn and haggard. Stupid curse. It ain't like I don't know how to use a sword.

  "Let's run," I said. "To keep me safe."

  He stared at me like he didn't understand. But then he said, "Yes, I think that might work."

  So we ran.

  I ran faster than him, flying over the ferns and fallen tree trunks, but he kept up better than I might have expected, and I guess the running really did count as a way of keeping me safe. We burst out of the forest and the sea wind didn't carry the same cold whispers as the forest wind. I collapsed on the sand, panting, my stomach cramping up from the berries I'd eaten.

  Naji knelt down beside me and took a long, deep breath. "Thank you," he said. "I couldn't think straight."

  "Yeah, you looked pretty rough." I sat up and twisted around so I was facing the forest. I didn't like having it out of my sight. "You want to see the lean-to?"

  I stood up and helped him to his feet, cause he was shaking and trembling like an old man. The lean-to wasn't far; I could see it crouched next to the treeline like an ugly gray toad.

  "Ain't much, I know," I said. "But hopefully it's sturdier in a rainstorm. I bet it can last us till we find the wizard." I tried to sound sure, cause I figured it wasn't too fair to burden Naji right now. But inside I was afraid we'd never find the wizard at all.

  I helped Naji crawl into the lean-to. He stretched out on his back and closed his eyes. I hardly had a chance to ask him how he was doing before his chest started rising and falling in the rhythm of sleep.

  I took the sword off him and crawled back out onto the beach. I didn't want go too far – I certainly didn't want to go into the woods. We did need a fire, though. Papa had shown me how to start fires back when I was a little girl, since Mama couldn't start 'em with magic on account of her being a water witch. I figured it was safe to burn the wood since nothing had happened with the first fire, plus I'd already built a lean-to out of it, and I'd drunk the island's water and ate its berries without any trouble. And I was shivering so hard, too. This time it wasn't just 'cause of the fear.

&nb
sp; I wandered down the beach looking for driftwood I hadn't already gathered up for the lean-to. When I got my courage up, I'd dart into the woods and pluck some dead, fallen branches off the ground. Never went in more than a few feet, though. Never went into the dappled shadows.

  Stones were easier to come across. They were scattered across the beach in big piles, like someone had come through and set them that way as a message to the gods or to the spirits of the Isles. Part of me hoped it was the Wizard Eirnin, that maybe I'd stumble across him and we wouldn't have to wait for Naji to heal himself. But I never saw anybody. No animals, no birds, no wizards.

  The lean-to was glowing when I came back, intense pale blue, a color that made me feel colder just looking at it. I checked in on Naji and the light from his tattoos seemed to overpower his whole body.

  Maybe he'd heal quicker than he thought.

  I piled up the wood and sat in the sand and struck stone against stone until a spark caught. You're supposed to feed the fire dead dry grass, which is easier to find in the south, so I made do with twigs from the dead tree branches. Luck was on my side. I had the fire going just as the sun, what little of it I could see, was dropping down to the horizon. In what I was pretty sure was the east.

  I tried not to dwell on it.

  The fire grew and grew as the island fell dark. Naji kept on sleeping, the blue from his tattoos mingling with the orange firelight. I never crawled into the lean-to myself, 'cause I didn't want to leave the heat and light of the fire, and so I fell asleep out there in the open.

  The next morning, I rolled over onto my back, sand crunching beneath my weight. It was still dark, although whether that was 'cause of the time or 'cause of the rainclouds I couldn't stay. At least the fire was still burning, casting light up and down the beach–

  Except it wasn't.

  I sat straight up and screamed. The fire was nothing but a pile of dark ashes. The light was coming from me.

  I screamed again and pushed myself up to standing and stumbled down to the edge of the island. Streaks of light radiated out behind me, and I froze in place, terrified. The sea crashed and churned beneath my feet. I took a deep breath and held up one of my hands and squinted at it, and I could see bright lines moving beneath my skin, those veins and arteries where my blood should be.

  "No," I whispered, because I knew that all those stories about the Isles were true, that I really was turning into moonlight. "No, no." I took stumbling, shambling steps, trying to work through my panic. We couldn't build a boat and live out on the water, and we couldn't stay on land, neither.

  Tears squeezed out of the corners of my eyes, blurring my skin's light and turning it into golden dots that scattered across the beach. I stumbled over the sand. The wind picked up, smelling of brine and fish–

  "Get away from the edge!"

  Hands grabbed me by the arm and dragged me backward, away from the churn of the ocean. I flailed and screamed. It was only Naji, but he was glowing too. Not just his tattoos. All of him.

  "We're turning into moonlight!" I screamed.

  "No, we're not. You almost ran off the side of the island. Come."

  His voice was stronger, the voice I remembered from that night in the desert. He led me back to the lean-to and sat me down next to the fire remains.

  "What's going on?" I wailed.

  Naji blinked at me. It was unnerving to see him with his bright skin and his dark eyes, the opposite of how his magic worked.

  "We're fine," he said. "Do I look like I'm in pain to you? There's no danger. At least as long as you stay away from the edge of the island."

  "But the stories–"

  Naji reached over pulled the charm out from under my shirt. "It's keeping you safe," he said. "As far as you're concerned, this is just… an effect. A courtier's trick." His glow brightened for a few seconds.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes." Naji pushed a piece of my hair out of my eyes. The movement was distracted and careless, but the minute he did it he dropped his hand into his lap and looked away. I felt myself growing hot and I realized that my own glow had brightened and turned a rich syrupy color. "I imagine it was caused by drinking from the spring. In a few days' time I should have enough strength to cast a spell to keep it from happening entirely."

  I sighed as my panic mostly disappeared.

  "Think of it this way," Naji said. "We won't need to worry about lanterns when we walk down to the spring."

  "What! The spring! You said that's what's doing this to us!"

  "It's also giving us water. Which we need if we aren't to die. Which I need if I'm ever to be well enough to track Eirnin."

  "You seem well enough now," I muttered.

  "I'm not." He stood up and held out his hand.

  We trudged through the woods, our glow throwing off weird, long shadows that seemed to wriggle and squirm between the trees. Naji had the sword, but I had to stop myself from reaching over and grabbing it from him. I always feel safer with a sword in hand.

  The spring was waiting for us, looking as normal as ever. Naji knelt beside it and took to drinking, but I hung back. His glow shimmered across the surface of the water.

  "Ananna," he said, "I swear to you that it's safe."

  I was thirsty. And I knew I couldn't go without water. What would be the use of coming all this way, just to die of thirst?

  "Fine," I said, and I sat beside him and drank my fill.

  Nothing happened on the walk back – no whispers on the wind, no flare-ups of Naji's curse. He led me off the path we'd flattened out on our trips to and from the spring to pick some nuts and berries, and I was so hungry I ate 'em without waiting till we were on the beach. This time, they seemed enough to fill my belly. The sun pushed out from behind the clouds and washed out enough of the glow that I almost got to thinking everything was normal.

  "We shouldn't stay," Naji said.

  "Are you hurting?"

  "No. I just don't want to linger."

  Stepping out on the beach eased my tension up some, the way it always did. Out in the open, my glow had almost entirely disappeared in the pale northern sunlight.

  "The lean-to," Naji said.

  "What about it?"

  "It's gone."

  I stopped in place and squinted down the beach. He was right. All I saw was trees and shadows and sand.

  The fear slammed back into my heart.

  "Someone knows we're here," I said. "The wizard? He's trying to scare us off?" My voice pitched higher and higher. "He ain't gonna help you after all? We got stranded here for no reason?"

  "I don't think that's it." Naji pulled away from me and marched to the place where our lean-to had been. And that's when I saw it: the smear of ashes from our fire. The lean-to had been replaced by an enormous bone-gray tree, twisting up toward the sky.

  "Curse this island," Naji said.

  I couldn't speak. The best I managed was little gasping noises in the back of my throat.

  "It's the magic," Naji said.

  "I know it's the magic!" I shouted. "This island ain't nothing but damn magic!" Desperation welled up inside of me. He wasn't never gonna get better and the wizard wasn't never gonna cure his curse and we were gonna die here just cause of some glimmer of hope Lelia had nestled inside him. "What if we'd been inside?"

  Naji turned toward me. Even though the glow was mostly washed out by the sun, his eyes seemed much darker than normal. "We should be grateful that we were not."

  I turned away from him and walked over to the fire ashes. Kicked at 'em with my boot. The tree that had been our lean-to rustled its branches at me and showered down a rain of gray, twisting leaves. Everything about the island was gray. The sky, the sand, the shadows, our home.

  I was becoming more and more convinced that the rest of my life would be nothing but gray.

  We spent the next few days sleeping in fern tents that I built out on the beach. A storm rolled in one afternoon and soaked through all the wood and our tent, but Naji had gotten enough
of his magic back that he was able to build a little fire afterward. It must have exhausted him, though, cause he stretched out on the sand afterward and slept, the glow of his skin and the glow of his tattoos fighting it out in the dark.

  We always moved our location, and we always used different ferns for the tents. We took different paths to the spring. Naji said that would keep the island from changing too much, though he didn't explain how. At least that was back to normal.