The man nodded vigorously. “Yes, I will make it look real as well. The fire won’t spread with all of this snow but I will light the boat house soon after my family brings the boats downstream.”
I frowned. “But what about your business? What will that do to your family?”
The man rushed forward and fell to the snow before me. He bowed his head as he spoke. “You have given me much more than I could have ever hoped for. With these spoils, I’ll be able to build twelve more boat houses or I will never have to work another day in my life. It matters not, I feel foolish for turning you away to begin with. Whatever happens next is in the gods’ plans, for I know I did what was right, even if the Fraud Queen’s wrath comes knocking on my door.”
A wave of dizziness overtook me and all I could do was motion for him to stand. Alric pressed his palm into the center of my back and steadied me without making me appear weak. I shot him a small, thankful smile.
The boats weren’tany bigger than the ones we’d taken the last trip, but they were all we had and there would be no complaints from me. I knew what lived in the depths of the ocean, at least to a certain extent and I wasn’t going to risk my life or my people’s. They were all instructed the same thing— stay low, don’t hangout of the boat, and keep quiet. We would get there when we got there and not a moment sooner.
The boats rocked as they were carried across the ocean and the fog never once let up. I knew better and lay at the bottom of the boat, staring into the nothingness above us. Reva and Alric were in the boat with me. Leo and Grove were spread out with the others, in hopes we wouldn’t get separated again. I closed my eyes and a tear slid free as I imagined Ash’s face as she laughed or got into trouble. She was some of the glue that held us together, how would we go on without her? Reva wrapped her arms around me and her shoulders trembled slightly. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know she was grieving like I was. For the remainder of the boat ride, we held onto each other as if our lives depended on it, and maybe… they did. Flashbacks from our first journey slammed through my head with each rock of the boat.
But thankfully, it didn’t take long for the boat to come to a jerking stop. Reva let out a nervous breath and we somehow managed to untangle ourselves from the bottom of the boat. I was grateful it was only us because it wasn’t a very regal way to lead. Don’t get me wrong, I’d been regal until the fog came in thick and I couldn’t help but sink to the bottom of the wooden boat.
Salt water sprayed over us and I fought back the urge to wrap my arms around myself. Instead, I straightened my shoulders and held my head up high as I surveyed the island our boat stopped at. With how we’d arrived the last time, I expected to see rolling mountains before us and an empty beach. My eyes welled up with tears as I took in the forest we had exited before we’d begun our journey home on the last trip here. We wouldn’t have to scale mountains and we hopefully wouldn’t have to hide from dragons or other creatures lying in wait for their next meal.
As Reva held her sword out in front of her, I noticed a tremble in her hands. This wasn’t going to be as easy as I wished, especially without Ryven.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
JUNIPER
Though our boat was the first to hit land, it didn’t take long for the rest of them to come to their jerking stops as the bottom of their boats hit the sandy shore of the island. On shaking legs, people stumbled through the cold water and onto the sand beside us. A few bent over at the waist to spill the contents of their stomachs but we’d all made it and that was what mattered. After the sea monster encounter the last time, we made sure to count the people and not the boats. We were all accounted for.
Grove and Leo rejoined us with a quick nod and Alric led us through the dense forest ahead. A whisper of the wind wrapped itself around my hair and I closed my eyes with the comfort of it. What I assumed was the hardest part of our journey was behind us. Little did I know. Little did I remember.
What I should have rememberedwith blinding clarity was the wood witch. Her needle-like teeth and shadowed body haunted my nightmares for long enough. I should have known she would have sent her vines and minions for a few sacrifices. They didn’t have time to scream as they were yanked through the brush. We should have known better and slept during the day. After thethird night, we realized our mistake as once again, half of our party was taken from us.
“You’re supposed to heal the land, ain’t ya?” One of the survivors spoke up after he’d emptied his stomach when he realized his son was one of the ones taken. He’d lost his wife and daughter to the monsters in the Wastes and now here he was alone and angry. His eyes shifted between me and my guards, as if he could take us on but I didn’t want to fight. I felt the pull of grief in my middle and I knew he was just ready to end things.
I nodded anyway.
“Then why can’t you get rid of the monsters? The blight?”
Grove mashed her teeth together. “Do you honestly think she can do all of that in just a few days, especially when we’ve been traveling and hardly eating anything?”
“She is just as sleep-deprived as the rest of us. How is she going to be your savior through this hell?” Reva rolled her eyes as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. But I knew exactly what was happening. The grief in his eyes mirrored my own. The pain on his face and the redness of his eyes reminded me of how I looked as I stared at myself in the stream as I washed up the night before.
I held my hands up and took a deep breath. “You’re hurting, I understand. We’ve all lost someone. We’ve all lost everything and we are going to have to rebuild with them constantly in the back of our minds.”
He shook his head and the look in his grey eyes would haunt me just like Ryven’s and Ash’s. He rushed forward and growled as Reva held up her sword, she didn’t even need to swing, he threw himself on it. “I just want it all to end.”
That night, I went to bed with a sob lodged in the back of my throat and more pain in my heart than I could ever imagine possible.
For the next three days,no one spoke. Alric tried to keep everyone’s spirits up but it wasn’t any use. Everyone was tired and grieving. What did you say through the haze of that? There was hardly any food when Leo or the other men went to hunt and the few bits of supplies we’d gathered on the way were dwindling. I didn’t even know what it felt like to be full and I often thought about my time back in the Ender Kingdom as my stomach growled or I watched those around me suffering through their own starvation. I wondered if my magic would work here or if I could maybe bring forward a feast for those around me with produce but every time I reached for the magic to do it… it was gone. There was no tug, no pull, and I wondered if I’d dreamt it all up. The only plausible explanation for my lack of magic was that I would need it and my strength for something bigger that was coming. Or I was too tired and too hungry for there to be any magic.
It didn’t stop me from trying. Each night when I lay down on the hard ground, I pushed my fingers into the dirt and pushed. Nothing happened each time. The whisper of wind didn’t appear. The tug in the center of my chest was gone and I almost felt panicked enough to ask Reva about the mark on my back.
Almost.
I couldn’t bring myself to do it though. Instilling that kind of panic within her wasn’t something I could do right then. Maybe it was for my own selfish reasons, but I couldn’t bring myself to add anything to her plate. There was enough happening as is andthen adding in the nightmares of our past… How on earth could I add to that?
Instead, we all watched each other and I prayed that we would make it to the castle soon. Alric’s brows stayed tented in the center of his forehead and I wondered if this was how long it’d taken them before. But the more we walked, the more I realized that it hadn’t taken them this long last time. I could see it in his tight shoulders and his shifty gaze. Grove was oddly nervous, as well. She was usually the harder one to read.
That next morning, I broke my silence around our fire. We tried not to have too many of them for fear of what it would draw out of the woods, but nothing horrible happened since we began traveling during the night and sleeping during the day.
“What’s going on?” I rubbed my tired eyes as the sun started to rise through the trees.
Alric’s frown only deepened. “What do you mean?”
