“She’s getting too clever for you,” Andel said.
You. Not us.
Someone wrestled my arm out from where it was curled, wrapping the chain around my wrist. A huge body settled down on the grass beside me, and I couldn’t help but be silently thankful that whoever had tethered me to the beast hadn’t tied me by the neck. I had a feeling that after my little show, Helki would choke the life out of me the first chance he got.
I covertly turned to my other side, until the chain was taut and I couldn’t shift any further away, and then I closed my eyes. My sense of victory was a little depleted, but it soon didn’t matter, my former exhaustion slowly creeping back.
I slept fretfully and woke untethered. Andel’s cloak was gone, but someone had re-dressed me. Sans underwear. My nose crinkled in distaste. I pushed myself up into a sitting position. Without a word, I was lifted to my feet, my wrist captured, the chain tied there, and then we were walking again.
I held the chain, walking behind whoever led me, wondering how I had graduated from being led around by the neck to being led around by the hand. We had moved from the clifftops of Edelsten to the thick, unruly forests leading inland, making my progress far more problematic. I fell several times, but whoever led me seemed to catch the lead each time, holding me up by the arm. They hadn’t spoken since I woke, and they didn’t speak again until I was shoved to a fallen log, a bundle dropped into my hands.
This time, the fare was far less plain. A pastry flaked between my fingers, honey-fried bread layering the base of the bundle. I even found a handful of berries, their skins full and smooth, bursting with juice.
“You went back again,” I said, picking at the food. I was starving, but I felt uneasy.
I didn’t like that they could return whenever they wanted, while I was stuck. I didn’t care about their threats, but I knew that the Darkness waited for me in the other world, and I couldn’t face it without speaking to Ein first.
I needed help.
When they didn’t answer, I realised my sentence hadn’t really required a response. I was stating the obvious. I tried again.
“How was it?”
“The Reken ships have arrived,” Vidrol answered. “They’ve heard the stories. They’re searching for food. They’re willing to offer anything. If we don’t help them, it will likely start a war.”
“How are you still feeding everyone? Why weren’t your crops poisoned?”
“They were. Fjor created a cure.”
I stilled, the pastry sticking to the back of my throat. I swallowed it, wrapping up the empty bundle slowly.
Something isn’t right.
“Why wouldn’t you just give people the cure, Vidrol?” I asked carefully. “Why the festival? Why this farce to force everyone to Edelsten?”
Someone took the wrappings from me, taking up my lead again as they began to walk. When I received no response to my question, I settled into pensive silence. It had been my idea to run to this world, to hide from the Darkness. It had been Ein who called me. It was my decision to travel to Hearthenge, to the diseased tilrive tree that would lead me to Ledenaether, to where Ein was imprisoned.
The great masters had no hand in any of those decisions … and yet it seemed that it was all happening by their design. I was separated from the foreworld, from Fyrio. I had no idea what was really going on there, and reliant on them for everything. Food. Clothing. Sight. It was clear now that something was going on. The great masters were manipulating me in one world, and everyone else in the other. They had effectively separated the Foraether from its final Fjorn, it’s only remaining protector against the Darkness—
No. That wasn’t right. All of this was my idea. I couldn’t let them get into my head like that.
My mind remained twisted into knots until we stopped to sleep again that night. We seemed to be in a very small pocket of clearing between the thickets of underbrush and the thick, gnarled trunks all around us. My stomach was grumbling, my feet, knees and hands aching. I needed more food, but I wasn’t going to beg them for anything. They all settled around the trees, their legs facing into the middle of the clearing. I was finally sure, as I picked my way through them, that they weren’t lying down to sleep. They were sitting. Waiting for me to sleep.
When I realised there was no room for me to lie down without squeezing between them, I simply stopped moving, shifting from foot to foot.
“Pick one of us to sleep with,” Vidrol ordered.
“Anyone but you,” I replied, annoyed with the command.
One of them caught my chain, tugging me in their direction. I stumbled over legs until their grip switched from the chain, to my wrists. Their hands were rough, textured. I flipped my hands in theirs, my fingers tracing the outlines of scars that dug into the lines of his palms, overlapping down to the base of his hand and up to his fingers.
Vidrol.
“I said anyone but you,” I told him as he pulled me down, swatting away my curious touch.
“You didn’t pick one of us. Now you’re stuck with me.”
I collapsed into his lap, my head colliding with his chest. I grumbled out a sound of frustration, but it didn’t really matter. I hated and distrusted them equally. He slid me down, until I was across his thighs, my head on his stomach, my legs curled up instinctively. I could almost coil up my entire body and have no part of me touching the ground. That’s how massive this man was. Twisted mostly onto my side, I looped my arms around my legs, letting my boots slip to the ground beside his legs. His stomach wasn’t comfortable to rest my head on—the muscles hard, straining my neck uncomfortably with each of his breaths. I shifted down further, curling in on myself even more, and he eventually shifted his legs apart, letting me slip between them until I could lay my head on his lap. I closed my eyes, suddenly surrounded. He was on every side of me, my legs still hooked over his, my boots brushing the ground on the other side of his right leg. I slipped my hands beneath my head, using them as a barrier so that I wasn’t pressing my face into him.
“If we could give you one thing right now, what would it be?” Fjor asked, his voice close. He was sitting beside Vidrol.
I almost stopped breathing, but it wasn’t hope at his question. It was Vidrol’s hand, which had fallen to his lap, beside my head. His fingers brushed the back of my skull. It seemed intentional.
“Lavenia?” he prompted, and this time his fingers slid along the back of my skull, pulling back so that my hair slipped through his grip, falling over his lap.
He was touching me.
Why was he touching me?
“Tempest.” Another prompt. This time, Vale’s voice, and it wasn’t a question.
My face prickled, and I shot a hand up to the little silver circle high on my cheek. Before my brain could even unpack their question, my lips had formed an answer.
“My mother.”
“That isn’t something we can provide.” Fjor sounded strange. Troubled or amused, I wasn’t sure. I wished I could see his face. “You must be dead to enter the afterworld, and that’s where she is now.”
My hands curled into fists beneath my cheek. Vidrol’s fingers were still tugging gently through my hair, his seductive soul energy skittering along my skin, causing a strange stirring feeling in my blood. Fjor had told me what happened to our souls when we died. They go to Ledenaether.