Chapter Seventeen

I saw the little girl again, her face a shadow as she watched the flames envelope the orphanage she’d known for so little a time. Her eyes were as dry as the fiery smoke, her cheeks smudged with the ashes and her face lit with the spark of something I couldn’t quite remember.

The image flashed and the memories changed.

This time I watched as the girl stood at the foot of her parents’ bed, the sound of her sister’s racking coughs echoing through the hallway. On the faces of her parents were features she had never seen on them in the past: deep purple circles beneath their eyes, a yellow tint to their normally creamy skin, their bodies wan and sickly, the only shadow of their lives with the girl found in the creases in their cheeks where they had smiled in times previous. Their age showed through their normally youthful skin, the eyes of both the man and the woman closed but peaceful. Then the coughing from the hallway stopped, replaced by a horrible, deafening silence.

The soil was cold when I awoke. Everything was cold, it seemed, as I weakly pushed myself to my elbows. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes with chilled, shaking fingers, then gasped.

The water from the river splashed calmly at the edge of my dress, which was soaked clean through with frigid river spray. When I rolled away from the water, my skirt crackled as the frozen layer upon it broke apart, and I fumbled over myself as painful pins and needles shivered through my limbs. My breath rose in cool, icy puffs in the February air and my body stiffened. Had no one bothered to come for me when I left the warmth of the fire? My thoughts returned to me at the slight thump of my mother’s necklace against my collarbone.

Oh. Right. Of course they wouldn’t come for me.

I bit my lip against the ache in my chest and trekked up the steep incline, my numb feet crunching the leaves on the forest floor and rustling the birds in the trees above me. My throat stung with dryness and I patted a hand against my hip where a flask was normally dangling from my belt, but quickly realized it had been destroyed in the fall down the ravine. I swallowed my thirst, carrying myself up the mountain with a pall of dark thoughts swimming around my vision. The morning had already become most unpleasant, indeed.

I must have been climbing for nearly a hour before the crunch of leaves was matched by an old, nasally voice squawking something awful from somewhere close by.

“Jaren, is this one of those salad-something-or-others you were telling me about earlier—Jaren, come here and look at this!”

“Yes, Miss Mylda,” a darker tenor voice sighed quietly, “that’s a salamander. Please leave it alone.”

I peered past a patch of trees to where an ancient-looking woman in a hundred layers of scarves and shawls crouched, pointing under a bush with a withered, spindly finger and holding a one-sided conversation with another person I couldn’t see. I moved around a tree and her gaze snapped toward me, her eyes wide.

“Good heavens!” she cried, jumping to her feet with shocking agility. “It’s one of those forest people you were telling me about”—her eyes flicked to her left several times—”Jaren, do come look!”

I blinked once, freezing in place. Out from behind a thicket came a tall, graceful wood spirit. Or at least the young man looked like one with his brown leather vest and green blouse and his long silver hair falling in a braid down his back, his eyes glimmering an earthy green in the forest light. It was a trick of my eyes, though, as I blinked again and he appeared fully human—but still just as striking in appearance.

I lifted a hand in greeting, my mouth going dry and my words muffled and stuttering. I clamped my mouth shut and pulled my hand back in, feeling a hot rush of blood flood my cheeks.

“Does she know our language?” The old woman croaked loudly.

The man looked at her reprovingly, then he glanced at my muddy, disheveled appearance and took a step toward me, holding out his own hand. “Hello, Miss. Is there any way we can help you?”

“Um, it’s—I-I mean… that’s… difficult to say.” I placed my hand in his shakily and his eyes widened at my touch.

“Your hands are so cold! We must get you a blanket.” He nodded to me politely, then pulled me along with him past the woman—Miss Mylda—and up a length of hill to the road where a large, flamboyant carriage waited.

Three whole birds’ worth of unnaturally large, colorful feathers protruded from the back of the carriage like a peacock; bright gold and green and blue paint swirled around the exterior as if by a mesmerizing magic and my eyes were drawn to the wheels where a series of runes was carved into the wood in a revolving circle around the rim. I continued to stare at it even as the man opened a compartment in the back and procured a large, cozy-looking blanket, then shut it again and was pulling me back into the woods where Miss Mylda waited before I could so much as speak.

He found a log and sat me down, swiftly wrapping the blanket around my shoulders and touching my hands again before backing up to a formal distance and casting me a smile that seemed to warm my body much more than the thick, soft blanket ever could. “I do apologize, Miss, for not introducing myself. I am Jaren Leimattes and this”—he motioned rather dramatically to the still stunned old woman who had crept out from behind him with milky gray eyes as wide as saucers and her wrinkly mouth stretched into a wide O—”is the Great Madame Mylda Meeker.”

The woman suddenly glared at Jaren. “I told you, it’s just Madame Mylda. Madame Mylda Meeker is too long!” Then, as if just realizing that I was still sitting there, her mouth pressed into a wrinkly line and she squinted at me. “So she’s not a forest girl, then?”

Jaren scrunched his face as if she had asked him if I’d sprouted horns, shaking his head quite clearly, then he turned again to me and raised a questioning eyebrow. “And what might your name be, Miss?”

I flustered again at the question, curling my fingers around the blanket and wrapping it tighter around myself. “It’s, I’m—my name is Ilyavei Phelde.”

“Ilyavei,” He repeated thoughtfully before dipping into an elegant bow, the corners of his lips turning upward. “What a beautiful name.”

I couldn’t help but smile with him. Then Atlas’ quirky grin flashed across my mind and my smile dissipated. I had to find them, even just to let them know I was okay. Even if they weren’t my friends, it would be outright impolite to just abandon them in the middle of the wood in this frightening cold.

Jaren seemed to notice my predicament and, as if he could read my mind, said, “What brings you out to this forest, Miss Phelde? Are you lost?”

I shifted uncomfortably on the log and folded my hands on my lap. “Well, not exactly. You see, me and my… companions… were riding along this road when we came across a rockslide and fell down the ravine—don’t worry, there was little injury among us. Unfortunately, our cart crashed down the mountain when we did.”

Miss Mylda’s eyes had grown wide again, but this time with watering sympathy and luster. I saw her lips moving as she muttered soundlessly to herself. In the midst of my speech, Jaren had placed his hand on his chin and furrowed his eyebrows as if calculating a difficult equation. Finally, he snapped his fingers, taking me by surprise, and stepped forward, bracing my shoulders with his firm grip. Heat bloomed in my cheeks again.

“Miss Mylda and myself are currently en route to a city not too far away named Azareba”—my shoulders tensed, but he didn’t notice—”and if it’s preferable for you and your company, we have plenty enough space to have you all along with us.” He paused, realizing his mistake. “How many companions did you say you were traveling with?”

I managed a smile. “I didn’t ever tell you, but I’m traveling with three others… and one horse.”

“Ah.” He smiled reassuringly and helped me to my feet. “So where are these companions of yours?”

I hesitated, glancing once at the overtly curious Miss Mylda. “That’s the thing: I really don’t know where they are.”

I didn’t mention the fact that I had run away from them (the sheer immaturity of my actions burning again at my conscience), but found I didn’t need to—no sooner than I could begin to describe where we’d been camping, Jaren had somehow obtained a spying glass and cried, “There they are!”

Following his outstretched hand, I did indeed see the extinguished fire and a little figure who looked like Lefeli unpinning the dried clothes from the line. But she was the only one I saw.

“Where are the others?” I asked, an edge of unintended worry in my voice.

Jaren glanced at me, his hand back on his chin in contemplation, then he turned and whispered something to Miss Mylda, who listened with her aged lips pursed. She nodded once, whispered her agreement on whatever it was rather loudly, then jabbed her index finger into the middle of Jaren’s mahogany vest and started hobbling up the hill. I raised my eyebrows when he turned back around with a cheery smile on his face. “Well then, let’s go find your friends, shall we?”

“Right,” I cleared my throat uncertainly, the mesmerizing blue of Atlas’ eyes streaming through my memory as we both took a step down the ravine toward the camp. I hoped this was the right thing to do.