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  My stomach falls out from under me and I stagger back. Poisoned arrows. The bastard shot Anta with poisoned arrows. No. It can’t be. I put my head in my hand as Anta’s muzzle musses my hair. Tears well in my eyes. This can’t be happening.

  Not Anta.

  I shake the thought away and clear my head, thinking of everything I know about poisons. If I can get Anta to the Waerg Woods, we might make it to the Borgan camp. Thinking back to the survival techniques Father taught me, I make the best of what I know, and gather the various herbs that could help.

  “Eat this, lad,” I say, holding back tears as I lift my hand to his muzzle. He eats down a combination of herbs to reduce swelling and to cool his fever. Then I daub the cut with a mixture to help calm the angry wound. There’s no way I can ride him now. We will have to walk to the Waerg Woods on foot. As we set off, I feel my insides tightening into a knot. Finding the Waerg Woods is one difficult task. On top of that, we have to find the Borgans. I need Anta to survive until then.

  Each step is a tug on my heart. Anta breathes hard and we stop often, using more of the mixture to soothe the wounds. The tendril of black grows an inch every half day. I clean the wound of pus every hour. His eyes open and close. I have grown accustomed to talking to him aloud, giving him a commentary on everything I see: a strange tree, the clouds in the sky, a rabbit hopping by, birds in flight, the stretch of the fields.

  We make our way slowly, with my heart quickening at every sound, expecting the king’s guards to echo near. I keep telling us both that as long as we are alive and as long as we are walking forwards, that we have hope.

  “Because that’s what Cas would say. He would say that all is not lost, that he has faith in me, that he knows I can turn this around and that we can still survive. He would say that this will only make us stronger; that this experience will shape us, and that one day in the future we will look back on this moment with a smile. Because without this moment we would be different. He always saw the good. He told me that we’re all equal, he showed me that. We all look up at the same moon.” I can’t help but smile as I think of him telling me that in the Ibena camp. “Of all the people in my village who kept their distance because I was poor and strange, it was a prince from Cyne who taught me that we’re all equal. I never knew, Anta. That pampered, spoilt prince. He truly is the best of us, and I let him down.”

  I stroke Anta’s nose as we walk, and he blows air into my palm. My eyes drift to the poisoned wound and my throat clogs with unshed tears. It is black, and the poison has spread another inch towards Anta’s heart. My old stag blows harder into my palm and nudges me back, as if to tell me to stop being such a sentimental thing. I turn back to the green folds of the farmland. We’re walking over the crest of a hill as the sun turns the muddy path into gold. I take another step and my heart soars.

  Never has the sight of dark, gnarled branches and acres of intimidating trees seemed so welcoming. I would recognise that place in an instant. It is the place I shed my girl skin and acquired my woman armour. It is the place I fell in love and broke my heart. It is the Waerg Woods.

  Even Anta manages a quicker pace. My muddied boots trot along, and the white slip of my night gown trails after me. We have a chance. At last, we really have a chance.

  “Cas is right,” I say. “There always is hope.”

  I walk ahead of Anta, letting the cold wind of the forest lick at the nape of my neck. The woods call my name. They whisper Mae through the leaves. I close my eyes and cross the border, completely taken by the draw of its pulse. I have to shake myself free, pull myself out of a trance. It’s only then that I turn back to Anta and find him collapsed on the ground.

  “No!” I rush back to him and feel his neck and shoulder, trailing my fingers over the black veins of poison. I can see the pulse of his heart through his coat, fast and panicked. His eyes slowly shut.

  No.

  This can’t be.

  I tip my head back and I shout one word. The echo of it ripples through the trees.

  Sasha.

  Chapter Eight – The Return of the Flame Haired Girl

  Mae

  Her spirit is by my side in an instant. I’d forgotten how jarring it is to see the soul of my Borgan protector. I’d forgotten how real she would seem. “Mae, what’s happened?”

  “There’s no time to explain. The king shot Anta with a poisoned arrow and he is dying. Sasha, can you help? Can you get your people to us?”

  She nods. “I’ll inform Allerton and be back soon.” She glances behind me. “Where are you? In the entrance of the woods?”

  “Yes, east of Sverne,” I reply. “Hurry.”

  “Stay strong,” she says. Her red hair is gone in a flash.

  I sit down next to Anta and try to feed him my concoction. When he refuses, I stroke his ears and beg him not to give up. “Sasha is coming back. We have hope.” I spread more herbs on his wound, afraid my efforts are a waste of time, but unable to do anything more.

  When Sasha returns, I jump to my feet. “Well?”

  “They are coming,” she replies. “They are riding hard and will be here in half a day.”

  “Half a day?” I repeat. “Will he last?”

  Sasha turns to Anta and her entire body tenses. “Try water. There is a stream further down near that copse of trees. Mae, why are you wearing a nightgown?” She puts a hand to her mouth. “By the Gods… Your hand!”

  “It’s a long story. Water first.” I hurry away from them towards the copse of trees Sasha pointed to. Finding a suitable piece of bark to fashion into a container—and then transporting it with one hand—proves tricky to say the least. When I return, Anta’s breathing grows heavier.

  “Don’t panic, Mae,” Sasha says in a soothing voice. “He has as much fighting spirit in him as you do.”

  “Are they bringing your body with them?” I ask.

  She nods. “I can sense it getting closer. They are making good time.”

  The clench of my heart softens a fraction as Anta drinks some of the water.

  “Are you going to tell me now?” she says.

  “Tell you what? Oh, about my hand and the clothes?” I glance down at myself. I am a sorry sight, I had forgotten about that.

  Without taking my eyes from Anta I begin to tell her about killing the Nix and the events that followed. After Sasha helped me through the Red Palace, her soul left believing the Nix was dead. But it was all a trick. The Nix had waited for me in the palace gardens. We battled and lost my hand in the process. When the curse on the castle was lifted, I found that time had reverted back to the ceremonial dropping of craft-born blood into the castle grounds. I was taken to the healer with a damaged hand in need of amputation.

  She listens without judgement—or shock—as I go on to tell her about Beardsley, and about escaping from Cyne. If she stares at my stump, I don’t notice.

  When I finish, she says, “So Casimir knows your secret and he has not married Ellen?”

  “He could have married Ellen. You don’t know that.”

  “Oh, he hasn’t married her,” she says. “There is no way the king would allow that after finding out she is an imposter.”

  My stomach sinks. “Do you think he will hurt her?”

  “Maybe,” she says with a shrug.

  “I hope not. I may have disliked Ellen for a long time but I don’t believe her to be a bad person, and I don’t think she should be harmed.”

  “You’re a better person than me, Mae Waylander.”

  “I’m not,” I mumble.

  Sasha hovers a hand over mine. We cannot touch when her soul has been torn from her body. As my sworn Borgan protector, I am able to summon her spirit at will, which is something I discovered by accident when cursed in the Red Palace. I press my forehead into Anta’s neck and wait.

  And wait.

  Anta shivers with the cold, but his skin is red hot. There is a patchwork of black lines running over his flesh, visib
le through the white of his coat. I clean the wound again, impotent with the fear of losing him.

  “They’re close,” Sasha says. She begins to fade away. “We’re coming Mae.”

  Her red hair and blue eyes leave my sight, replaced by the rumbling of hooves. I stand up, my back erect and my fist clenched, nervous and excited. A cold doubt eats at my mind—what if they are too late?

  The first horse to approach is a chestnut gelding with a white blaze ridden by Allerton. The horse holds its head up, as high and haughty as Allerton himself. The leader of the Borgans drops to his feet and walks towards me, his heavy frame moving awkwardly. Before Sasha became my protector, Allerton was sworn to me, but I found it almost impossible to trust him after his men killed my father back in Halts-Walden.

  “Show me the wound,” he says.

  I take him to Anta. He bends low and frowns, his forehead wrinkling where his eyebrows should be. “The poison is spreading quickly. I have some tonic and a rub for the wound, but we must get him back to the camp, and he must be treated by our healers immediately. Mercer, Henrick, Jon… lift him onto the cart.”

  The three strong men are lifting Anta onto their cart when a bundle of a girl flings her arms around me.

  “Oh, Mae,” Sasha says, now in her body. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t say that unless… there’s still hope.”

  She smiles at me, and it’s a smile with a twitch of something else. “You are greatly changed, Mae. You’ve become something… more.”

  I’m about to ask her what she means when we’re bundled into the cart with Anta. Allerton orders the party on, and we head into the dark forest.

  *

  Casimir

  A beautiful girl in a white dress rides a white stag out of the city. She turns and beckons to me. I want to follow her, but the king shoots an arrow into my heart and I see the red blood spurt from my chest.

  I wake with a start. Treowe, who had been keeping watch by our fire, eyes me with a neutral expression. I commend him for keeping the pity from his face. I expect him to comment on my nightmare but he does not.

  “I never thought I would end up in the Waerg Woods with a prince,” he says instead.

  “It seems to be a common occurrence for people these days,” I retort. “I’m more often in the woods than I am out of them.”

  “Then you must know a lot about them.”

  I shrug, lifting my face to the dark branches above. It’s night time, Ellen snores softly on her bed roll, and I realise that I had forgotten how silent the woods can be. I expect to hear the sound of the Nix clicking around us, but there is nothing.

  “We were attacked by a number of strange creatures—birds, vines, nymphs. Every time, we almost died.”

  “Yet you survived.”

  “Thanks to Mae.” I shake my head. “There were so many times we were on the brink of death, and yet somehow she got us out of it. Now I know she must have been using her powers without me even noticing.”

  “And you resent her for it, do yer?” he asks.

  “I did. Now I don’t know how I feel about it. She did what she had to do. She did what she thought was right. She hid who she was for her own personal reasons.” Like Ellen hid who she was. Are the two connected? Is the love for your own gender the same as hiding supernatural powers? I imagine it takes courage to admit to being anything that is different to others. I’ve seen the shunned Cyne residents who live outside society. People who dare to live their lives in a different way. I don’t blame her anymore. My anger towards Mae is nothing now. Nothing compared to how I feel about my father.

  “We should keep moving,” I say, aware of the irony, aware of the last time I heard that phrase, and the last person who uttered it.

  “Not ‘til dawn,” Treowe says. “It ain’t safe out there.”

  I know he’s right, but I am impatient for action. “I’ll take this watch, then. Get some rest.”

  He nods once and moves over to his bedroll. I crawl closer to the fire and feel the heat on my skin. The light is welcome in this darkness. With the others asleep, I contemplate the day to come. I have a rough idea of the Borgan camp location, but then so does my father. They may have moved it, because it would be smart to do so. We will have to head towards the camp, and search for clues as to where they have moved, and how. I need to work harder than ever before if I am to find Mae.

  The girl in the white dress on her white stag.

  Dawn comes not a moment too soon, and as the others wake I am packing up my bedroll. We eat the last of our dates and berries from the woods. Ellen applies Treowe’s remedy to her injured back, as we both turn around, and busy ourselves with the horses. We press on into the Waerg Woods, and my body tenses in anticipation of what waits through the trees.

  “Look for anything suspicious,” I tell the others. “Anything that might give us a clue as to which way Mae went. Don’t trust anything that moves.” I urge Gwen forwards, taking the lead.

  The forest is dense, and once again I am reminded of how easy it is to get lost. I must concentrate on the small details. I must think back to when I found the Borgan camp with Mae. It’s not just my life at stake, but those following behind me; two people brave enough to come with me after the death of their queen. I take a deep breath and wonder what Cyne is like at this very moment, whether they even know, whether the king has become a sympathetic icon, or a suspicious target. The blame could be on me. I could be considered the murderer. I hadn’t thought of that.

  We move as fast as our steeds can manage along the narrow path, trotting over the smooth areas and walking when the path becomes steep, or slick with mud. We stop very little, only to gather water or hunt game. Treowe is a good hunter, and quick with a bow. His calm presence is welcome, and he seems to make Ellen feel safer. Soon we have three rabbits tied onto Treowe’s saddle. This is a good start, but I know how the Waerg Woods can change.

  And sure enough, it does. Not before long, the trees change colour. The bark becomes thick and gnarled. The trunks are wider and darker, and the branches lean in so that we are plunged into the dark. I know this forest now, and I know the signs. I unsheathe my sword, and Treowe nocks an arrow. Ellen has her own small dagger to protect herself with.

  The leaves rustle above us. I turn my head sharply, expecting to see the rise of a hundred birds, like the time I rode with Mae. I cringe at the thought of their acid rain falling on us once more. But there is nothing above, only the sway of the trees.

  As we continue on, the sound of hooves is drowned out by the wind. It picks up speed quickly, howling through the darkness. Gwen dances beneath me, spooked by the change in weather.

  “It’s a squall,” I shout above the wind. “We’ll have to try and ride through it.”

  Most winds as strong as this are brought by a storm and come off the sea. This is different. The trees should provide shade, but in the Waerg Woods you have to be prepared for anything. This wind is clearly magical.

  The squall develops into a gale, whipping up the forest floor, and slamming it into our faces. We have no choice but to press on; our arms protecting our faces; weapons back in their sheaths. Gwen lowers her head and folds back her ears. She is loyal enough to go on for me, but the other horses are trying to turn back. The path is too narrow and it forces them on. Ellen’s steed attempts to reverse but she kicks him on until he relents.

  Now the trees are bending over us. The branches whip us. We try to work with the wind, finding ways to avoid the debris it throws at us. But just as we manage it, the wind changes direction and our eyes are hit by twigs. I can barely keep them open anymore.

  And then, the wind moulds into a new form. I feel its fingers as it seems to take the shape of hands come to squeeze the life from us. It works at the cloak around my neck, unfastening it. I grasp hold of it with my left hand, fighting against it. I turn back to see Treowe struggling with an invisible force trying to remove his bow from his pack. Ellen’s sc
reams are lost in the wind as she hold onto her dress.

  The fingers change tactic. They stop trying to unfasten my cloak and begin to tighten it around my neck. It twists and twists, until I feel my face burning, and my wind pipe tightening. My nails claw at a nothingness. The gale is relentless against my skin, cold and determined. Gwen struggles on. Her head is low, almost to the ground. How long can I survive without air? A panic grips me. I haven’t felt panic like this since the fog tried to freeze us, and then I had Mae at my side.

  Mae.

  A reason to keep going. A reason to live. Like Aegunlund itself, and stopping my father.

  I dig my heels into Gwen’s side. She jumps into action, bucking once and hurrying forward, as fast as the closing trees can allow. The fingers loosen from around my throat.

  When I’m able, I turn back to the others. “Don’t let it win,” I croak. “Push your horses faster.”

  But as I am saying the words, Ellen is blown off her horse. Her scream is a torturous noise to behold, filled with anguish. I try to turn Gwen around but there isn’t enough space. Ellen grasps hold of a tree trunk, desperately trying not to get pulled away by the wind. Treowe and I are off our steeds at once and blown forwards by the force of the gale. I have to grip hold of the nearest tree to keep on my feet. Treowe lowers himself onto the ground and begins to crawl. I do the same, realising that I can travel much faster this way.

  Ellen’s screams ring out through the gale, the only sound loud enough to pierce the howl. Her hair streams out behind her. Her legs are stretched and taught. That’s when I realise that the wind is yanking her away.

  Treowe looks to me as though to ask if I’m ready. I nod. We each take one of Ellen’s hands and pull her as hard as we can. The wind pulls back, wrenching all three of us forward. Treowe jams his foot against one of the bulky, dark trees. I ram my heel into the soft forest floor. Ellen’s eyes are wide with panic. I grasp hold of her elbow and heave her towards me but the wind maintains a steady hold.