I bit back my angry retort, realising just how much damage they could do to me with four wishes still remaining. I stopped walking, the chain pulling tight around my neck. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe at all, and a strangled sound emitted from my throat as I pulled on one end and Vale, the other. Then the chain loosened. It slipped from my neck altogether. My feet left the ground and my disoriented brain told me that I was falling, that I had been pushed. I curled in on myself, my arms protecting my face … but I didn’t hit the ground. I was lifted into strong arms, held against a massive chest. I turned my head to the side, my nose brushing the soft material of a cloak. It smelled of saltwater and rain.
Vale.
Nothing more was said, and we walked like that for a few more hours, until I finally couldn’t contain the question that had been burning through me since Helki’s outburst.
“How is it?” I asked, praying Vale wouldn’t drop me in retaliation and drag me along behind him again. “How is Foraether? You went back there to get me clothes … so you must have seen something.”
After a moment, Helki spoke. His earlier anger filed away. “The small council has ordered everyone who hasn’t already travelled to Edelsten to do so. The first ship from the enemy islands arrived with the dawn. Word is spreading quickly, and people are flocking to the festival for answers.”
I mulled over his answer for a moment, wondering why he wasn’t raging and threatening to mutilate me again. His tone was carefully wiped of emotion—no regret for his earlier words, or annoyance over the fact that I had almost allowed strangled myself with the chain, forcing them to drop the issue of their second wish.
“Calder?” I finally asked, pressing my luck.
“No word of him,” Helki answered brusquely.
I chewed on my lip, thinking about his instructions to the small council to have a member of each of their sectors summoned to the first gate—a place where people didn’t usually linger. He must not have wanted witnesses to the meeting.
“Thank you,” I murmured, though I wasn’t sure Helki heard it.
It must have been nearing the middle of the day when we stopped again—though I had no real way of telling that as the sun didn’t rise or set in Forsjaether, so I couldn’t feel the heat of it against my skin. Vale set me down against a tree and a minute later, someone dropped something onto my lap. I unravelled it, salivating at the scent of bread and apples. I tore off a piece of the bread but paused with it raised to my lips, my mouth open, but waiting…
“It’s fine,” Fjor said, his body settling beside mine. “It’s from Edelsten.”
I stuffed it into my mouth without further delay, a silence falling over us as I ate. They weren’t eating, or talking. They simply waited. Maybe they had feasted back in Foraether, after abandoning me to sleep blind in the forest. Or maybe they were so powerful they could go longer than the rest of us without eating. Once I was finished, I was gathered up again by Vale, and we walked. I couldn’t seem to stop clutching the material of his cloak, my fingers refusing to believe he wouldn’t change his mind and drop me at any second. When I eventually stopped thinking about that, I wondered why he wasn’t tiring. His arms should have been shaking from the strain of lifting me for so many hours. I felt no signs of fatigue. He barely even seemed to realise I was there. I relaxed my hand, slipping it just inside the fold of his cloak and waiting to see if he would notice. His breathing continued in an even rhythm, his step never faltering. I slowly, carefully spread my fingers out, until my hand was against his chest.
I would have closed my eyes to concentrate, but I was blind anyway, so I simply focussed my attention on my fingers. On the material beneath my fingers. On the skin beneath that material. I pushed further, trying to see inside him, trying to taste his power as Fjor had done to me the day of my trial. I proceeded carefully, with excruciating slowness, not wanting to become trapped inside myself again, rejected by his power as I had been with Andel. At first, I felt nothing but the heat of his skin beneath his shirt, but then somehow, I managed to peek inside him, like a mite of dust slipping through a door with the force of it closing. He stopped walking, his arm falling out from beneath my legs—but it was too late. I was inside. My hand was still pressed against his chest and I kept it there, forcing myself deeper, searching for his power.
It was like standing too close to the sun. I began to burn, my blindness breaking away, obliterated by a painful, blinding light. There was no source to his power, not like there was to mine. He simply was power. It lived in him, stretching to the very edges of his skin. It pulsed there, pushing out, swelling against its confines.
No wonder they were so huge. It was like their power was forcing them to grow, to increase, so that it, too, could increase.
“That’s enough,” Vale whispered before the burn overtook me, and I collapsed to the ground.
“You’re not normal,” I groaned as he stepped over me.
Hands pulled me to my feet, the chain looping around my neck. I guess I was back to walking.
“How can a person so small really cause this much trouble?” Fjor asked, taking up my chain.
I offered no response, stumbling forwards until I could grab a handful of his coat. We didn’t stop again until I was on the point of collapsing, and again, my lead was simply dropped as they walked away from me. I inched my way to where they were sitting—on a short slope leading to a body of water. I could hear it bubbling, and I turned in its direction.
“It’s too shallow to drown in,” Andel told me. “So don’t bother.”
I sighed, shaking my head, before inching down toward the sound. After two days of constant walking, I needed desperately to wash myself, and I was too tired to give a damn what they thought about it. I stopped when water squelched beneath my boots, backing up a few steps and sitting on the hill. I gingerly removed my boots and unwrapped the bandages, wincing when they stuck to my toes. I stood again and unbuttoned my pants, pushing them down my hips.
“What—” Helki started, but Andel answered his question before it was even voiced.
“She’s bathing.”
“As she should,” Vidrol added. “I can smell her from here.”
“No you can’t,” Vale muttered.
I bent down, feeling around for my boots so I could leave my pants in the same place. Still crouched there, I whipped off my vest, tucking it beneath my pants so that the silk wouldn’t blow away in the gentle wind. I stood again, leaving my bodysuit on as I inched toward the water. It was cold, the bank sandy. It collapsed like mud beneath me, but felt heavenly on my sore feet, so I continued. I waded right through to the other side, the water never rising to my knees. Andel was right.
I turned back to the middle of the stream, lowering to my knees with the stream flowing towards me. I scooped the water in my hands, splashing it over my face, blindfold and all. I wished I had soap.
“Ask us something,” Fjor said, surprising me.
My hands stilled, half cupped around the water. They had moved closer, almost to the edge of the stream, where I had left my clothes.
“You hate questions.” I was genuinely confused and could feel my hackles rising. What trick was this?
“About us. As people,” Fjor clarified. “It’ll help you decide.”