She stomped across the hut, kicking up dust and a few pebbles as she went. When her chest butted mine, she looked upon me with a narrow gaze. “What Icando for them—if you will allow it—is offer advice as a bone crafter torn from everything she knew. You are not the only ones who’ve lost family.”
The desire to look away was potent. I held steady, giving her the decency of my attention, but a sheepish heat prickled up the back of my neck.
What did I know about the two Dravens in the Stav Guard?They were in a foreign land, serving the enemies of the clan of their births. How did they come to be under King Damir’s rule? Perhaps that was why Roark softened around Emi—they might’ve been all the other had from home.
I looked down, fingers fiddling with a loose thread on the hem of the tunic. “I merely want them safe. I do not know how to keep them alive when I do not know what we’re facing by the day’s end.”
Emi let out a sigh. “Then I urge you to listen to us. Sentry Ashwood is honorable. He said he would get you to Stonegate, and I now believe he will.”
“Did you not believe he would before?”
She smirked. “I didn’t think he would risk his own neck against a fara wolf which did not share a bond to him, no. But like the Sentry, I said I didn’t want Darkwin or any of you dead, and I meant it. I can offer the bone crafters guidance to their new lives in Stonegate. I could do the same for you if you would stop being a damn fool and stop risking your own neck in the wood.”
With one finger, Emi signaled for me to join her near a narrow gap in the wall. “Look upon those trees in daylight.”
I hesitated for a few breaths, then went to her side and peeked through the cracks in the daub between the laths.
Mists glided through the edge of the clearing. The trees were black and silent, gray clouds darkened behind the rich emerald leaves. Bursts of fiery orange clashed against the dreary bark and stumps with sea moss or blooming shrubs. But dripping shadows slithered across limbs and branches like dark serpents. Beneath the morning light remained a heady foreboding about the wood.
Darkness reigned here. Step too deeply beyond, and it would swallow you whole.
“It takes no time for wanderers to lose themselves, fall intothe jagged ravines, meet the teeth of hungry fara wolves, or freeze until their skin is blackened and blue. There is a reason elders call these treesdraugaskógur,” Emi said, a hidden smile in the corner of her full lips. “The Phantom Forest. War and battles have brought too much death in these trees not to leave them a bit haunted.”
The disorienting lure of the trees, the honeycomb of earthen paths, the tangle of branches and briars, all of it had drawn me in like a doe caught in a hunter’s snare.
“The Sentry managed to find me swiftly.” I turned back into the small room, gathering in my arms the dirty dress I’d worn on the ship.
“Because no one knows these woods like Roark.” Emi stopped in front of the canvas doorway. “It is one reason why he holds his rank. Despicable as you find us Draven folk, we are taught from our first steps how to use signals in the trees to find our way, how to speak to the very soul of the forest. The ravines that divide the kingdoms are heavy with woodlands. It is where we learn to survive, or die.
Emi handed me a leather satchel to hold my old clothes on the rest of the journey. As I secured my dress inside, I lifted my attention back to her. “Do you miss it? Dravenmoor, I mean.”
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I miss the wildness of it, the trust my clan has for the land and the gods. But there was no longer a life for me there.”
“Why not?”
“You trust me so little, yet expect me to give up my whole past?”
Heat flushed my cheeks, and I turned away. “You’re right. Your business is your own.”
I slung the strap of the satchel over my head, securing it onone shoulder. Before I could move for the door, Emi placed a hand on my arm.
“I was born with the wrong craft. Bone craft is not meant to be found in Draven blood. My father believed my mother must’ve been unfaithful, even managed to get her tried as a traitor, calling her a whore. She was banished, and not a full season later one of our hunters found her body half-devoured.”
“All gods.” I gripped the strap of the satchel, fighting the urge to take her hand for reassurance, almost like a brief urge to befriend the woman.
From beneath the thin mattress Emi gathered a knife I’d not realized was there and secured it inside her boot. “When a few more winters passed, I realized I no longer had a place in Dravenmoor. Roark was already established in Stonegate, and saw to it I was brought behind the walls. Is that enough of an explanation? We best be off soon.”
Emi slipped around me, clearly finished with her tale.
“I don’t remember the raids. I don’t remember my mother and father.” The admission spilled over my lips before I could think better of it. “Only in my deepest nightmares do I hear the screams and smell the blood. Someone took me away—I can almost hear his voice—but I don’t know who it was.”
One corner of Emi’s full mouth curved when she looked over her shoulder. “Seems we all have broken paths that have led us here. What if this is exactly where the Norns intended for you to be, Melder?”
I frowned. If the Norns kept me alive all so my fate would place me in captivity within Stonegate, I rather hated them.
“So,” I pressed once we stepped into the morning light, “what brought the Sentry to Stonegate?”
“That is his tale to tell. You’re quite nosy when you start speaking.”
