I was a fool.
Of course she could. I was powerless, and this was not the Voryn I’d imagined.
Earlier, as I’d been led to the prisons, I hadn’t wanted to admit it, because I kept tricking myself into thinking that these ornate buildings in this forgotten city of Voryn couldn’t have been made without magic, that these people couldn’t have lasted this long within these walls without some enchanted help—well, the fog was enchanted, I found out later, but very little else was. There were no enchanted weapons. No enchanted lampposts that popped on when night fell, like in Somersal-by-the-Sea, or enchanted armors like the ones in Eriksenburg, or enchanted people.
Fearing me, I guess, they locked me in one of the other empty cells as they dragged Fox away. I didn’t know where, even though I insisted that he was cured, that he wasn’t dangerous. But they didn’t listen to me. So, I sank down to the cold floor, and I waited. Powerless. I didn’t know how long I sat there—long enough for the blood from Fox’s bite to dry—but finally a handful of guards came to get me. As I was led out of the prisons again, toward the fortress at the top of the city, I realized how much of a fool I really was. These denizens were just people. They reminded me so much of the people of Aloriya. They looked like people from Eriksenburg, and Eldervale, and Nor. Had they all gotten lost in the Wildwood and found their way here? Or had their ancestors been in the city since the curse?
The city was beautiful, each building ornate and old, but it was gray and quiet and . . . hopeless. I imagined—I don’t rightly know what I imagined, but it wasn’t this. The Sundermount looked like the sun against the grayness of Voryn. There were stone creatures perched at the edges of the rooftops and carved across the trim work in the old stone buildings. The wallpapers inside the buildings were old, as were the furniture and decorations, as if Voryn itself had been trapped in a bubble of time hundreds of years back, or at least trapped in the stuffy, unused halls of Castle Sunder. And the citizens of Voryn had this look in their eyes when they caught a glimpse of me—I could feel the animosity at the back of my neck, jealousy and bitterness intertwined. Like people trapped.
Nothing about Voryn was what I’d expected.
Where was the magic? Where were the riches? The power that could hold back the curse, that could create the crown itself?
Where was the Lady of the Wilds?
And, more worryingly, where was the crown?
I hoped Vala was okay. I hoped even harder that, wherever she was, she had the crown. I didn’t want to think about whether we’d lost it in the wood, or if Seren had gotten it—or something even worse. If Vala was out there in the wood with it, I knew she would keep it safe until we could find her again.
“The Grandmaster wants to see her alone,” said one of the guards, a woman with bright blond hair and pale skin. I didn’t like the sound of a Grandmaster. Was he some sort of leader? A king?
The Lady herself?
“Alone?” one of the guards who had me by the shoulder asked. “Are you sure that’s wise?”
“It’s her wishes.”
Inside the fortress at the apex of Voryn, the half dozen guards led me up a large stone stairwell to a large set of ornate doors, carvings of bears and cougars and ravens across them, and pushed one open.
The guards jerked me to a stop just inside the door.
“. . . It cannot be that she was able to cure the woodcurse once it takes hold, and yet she did,” said a soft, sure voice. It belonged to a young woman, her back turned to me as she faced the older woman sitting behind what I could only describe as the fanciest desk I’d ever seen—bronze gilding and animals carved into the wood. Stacks of papers were piled high atop the desk and almost blocked the older woman completely. I recognized her—she was the same one who led me to the prisons. The woman who I’d thought was a seneschal.
Could she be the Grandmaster? Behind her was another set of closed doors, framed by maps of what must be the wood and other information about the city.
The young woman went on, “Think of all the people we could save if we could force her to—”
“We have no idea where she came from,” the older woman replied. “She could be woodcursed herself. She could be part of the wood’s plan to take us unawares. No, this is a nonstarter, Petra. Oh—you’re here,” she added when she noticed me.
The young woman—Petra—glanced over her shoulder toward me. Now that I was closer, I was surprised to see how tall she was. Her dark hair was short, barely brushing her ears, and her skin was the color of bark wood, her eyes a warm brown, eyelashes long. I couldn’t help but blush, because she was very beautiful. She turned to me with the grace of a dancer. Her lower left leg was wooden, gleaming with metal bits that strapped it to her thigh. She wore leather armor emblazoned with the raven’s sigil, like the guards.
The crest of Voryn.
“So you are the one who cured that young man,” said Petra, narrowing her brown eyes. “How did you do it?”
I gave a start. “Oh, um—”
“Was it a poultice? Magic? Are you a witch? A god?”
“No,” I quickly replied, shaking my head. “You see, I don’t really understand it—”
The woman went on, cutting my babbling short. “Then some sort of talisman? An array? A—”
“Petra,” the older woman interrupted. “Leave us.”
The young woman looked like she wanted to say something more, but then she bit her tongue and turned to leave. As she passed me, she gave me a glance that sent a chill down my spine. The door swung closed behind her with a deep and sullen thump.
“Forgive my apprentice. She’s very curious.”
“It’s, um, all right.” If that was curiosity, I didn’t want to know what it would be like to be interrogated by her.
“The question she should have been asking,” the older woman said, and reached behind one of the stacks of paper, “is why you have the crown of Aloriya.”
She set the golden crown on her desk.
Oh.
I stared at the crown. I’d tell her, but . . . “Where’s Vala?”
“Who?”
“A bear—about this tall and sort of a sooty gray color . . .”
“Ah, that beast,” the Grandmaster said. “She was very protective of the crown. We had to subdue her. But she’s fine,” she added quickly when I made to yell at her. “You see, I’m in quite the predicament. You seem to be able to cure the woodcurse, and on top of that you have the crown of Aloriya. You can just imagine what I might be thinking of you.”
I clenched my hands again. “What might that be?”
“That you’re from the wood,” she said. “That you’re a magic user of dark intent who has stolen the crown from Aloriya for a purpose I cannot yet guess.”
“That . . . is definitely not true.”
“Then how did you cure your companion? I’m no fool—you knew he was cursed, and you walked into that prison with a plan.” She stood abruptly. The legs of her chair screeched loudly against the stone floor. “Now tell me why I shouldn’t lock you up or put you to death—if not for being woodcursed, then for the safety of my city.”
I clenched my teeth. “I didn’t mean to deceive you. I have some sort of . . . power in my blood. I don’t know how it works, but I somehow knew that it would either kill Fox or . . .”