People will get hurt.
If she did travel to the village and the daemons caught up with her, she did not want the villagers to be dragged into the middle of it, not after the role she’d already played in the theft against them.
She also considered traveling directly south until she hit the River Wry, and then following that upstream to her Coven’s village, but she figured that the daemons would suspect that, andwould probably head that way to try to catch up with her. Not to mention, that would mean a week or more of traveling, and with no supplies or horse, that would be incredibly grueling.
No, her plan was hopefully something they would not expect. She would head southeast until she was parallel with the Lost Sister, the jagged twin-peaked mountaintop that Heran had used to orient them when they’d traveled to the Sacred Pool. Ena knew that the Sacred Pool was somewhere parallel to that peak, and given how many days they’d already been traveling west, she was likely only a few days past it.
The Sacred Pool was her best chance to get help. Not only did the water have special qualities that were useful for potions and spells, but it was also a divining pool—its waters could be used to send messages to other witches. She’d never practiced a spell like that herself, but she knew how to do one—theoretically. It was a blood-to-blood spell. Sacrificing her blood in the pool and speaking the proper spellword would allow her image to appear within whatever body of water was closest to the blood relative she sought to speak to. Through that connection, she could speak to Greya, and she prayed to Gaia that she’d catch her when she was doing the laundry or filling a pot of water. If she could get a message to Greya, then she’d tell the Coven about what the daemons were planning. Then Heran could intercept them, and send someone with supplies and a horse to come get her.
It was a good plan, she told herself.
It was her only plan.
Her palms scraped on the rough bark as she scrambled down the tree. She knew when the sun rose that she’d likely find them filled with splinters—her skin had always been so thin and susceptible to them. But she ignored the uncomfortable spots of pain and continued to jog silently through the woods.
She moved this way all night, but as the sun started to lighten the sky, exhaustion finally hit her. The stitches in hersides became unmanageable, and she felt like she was going to collapse, so she allowed herself to slow down to a brisk walk.
The movement of birds and the shuffle of squirrels masked her sounds even more, and she began to think that maybe she’d succeeded in losing them. She still kept an ear out for sounds of hoofbeats or large male feet, but her mind relaxed enough to, unfortunately, start drowning her in guilt.
Why she felt guilt, she couldn’t exactly say. The men had come to her village andkidnappedher, then forced her to do the locator spell, and had been prepared to drag her to an enemy Coven where her life would be at risk, all for their own nefarious, daemonic purposes.
Not only that, but Ty had lied to her, tricked her, all those years ago. He’d manipulated her into thinking he was mortal—for what purpose, Gaia only knew—and then he’d discarded her. And now that she thought about it, he’d probably done the same thing to dozens of other women by now.
But hearing those screams from the woods, the snarl of the wolves… No. She wouldn’t dwell on that. Besides, daemons were fast and strong, and she’d only heard three wolves. Three full-grown daemons could likely fight off three wolves, right?
She just hoped the wolves hadn’t severely injured any of the horses. The sound of that pained whinny replayed in her mind, and her guilt sparked anew. But, she told herself, if one of them had been killed, that was perhaps a necessary part of Gaia’s balance. The horse’s body would feed the wolf pack and any number of critters in the woods for weeks.
She forced herself to think of other, more urgent things. Like how she was going to find something to eat today. She did, Gaia be blessed, come across a small stream around midday. It bubbled cheerfully over colorful, polished rocks, and the sight of it lifted her spirits immensely.
She spent longer than she should have drinking her fill on its banks and collecting bittercress, an edible plant which grew in copious amounts on the water’s edge. It didn’t exactly fill her belly, but it at least took the edge off her hunger, which had only worsened as the day went on.
She also patted herself on the back for having had the foresight to bring the waterskin that the daemons had given her. She filled it and looked longingly at the stream. Part of her wanted to follow it. She knew it would run into the River Wry eventually, and being close to a water source made things so, so much easier. She could, of course, use her magic to pull water from the air in emergencies, but she could only get small amounts at a time, and doing so regularly would exhaust her energies. But alas, streams could meander widely, and following it might add several extra days to her journey. Sighing, she parted from the stream when it began to flow west, and continued on her way south.
By the late afternoon, her feet were aching in her boots and her muscles were terribly tight from running all night and walking all day. The adrenaline, lack of sleep, and inadequate food had begun to wear on her immensely. Her stomach grumbled painfully. She longed to stop and rest, but before she could, she knew she should try to find something else to eat.
She focused her Knowing on the signs around her. The forest was stuffed full of pine and oak trees, with the occasional birch and ash sprinkled in. Abundant plant life covered the ground, not much of it edible. Maybe she’d get lucky and find some mushrooms. It was the prime season for many species.
The squirrels were busy collecting acorns, so she could do that, too, but they were very cumbersome to process and cook—she didn’t have time for that; she needed to keep moving. She looked up into the canopy to see what the birds were doing. The birds were—
There!
Gathered in a plop of white and purple on a dangling oak leaf were some bird droppings with pieces of blackberries in it. Ena looked up at the trees surrounding her and spotted a noisy wide-winged purabeak. She read its signs and Knew it was not migrating yet, and that it had been hopping around gorging itself on the fall bounty in this area for some time.
She watched it flit back and forth between the trees, flashing the bright-purple feathers under its wings, as she followed it, and after a while, it led her to the blackberry bush itself. Most of the berries were past their prime, the season of plenty nearing its end, but the coolness of the forest had kept some overripe and slightly withered berries on the vines. Ena ate as much as she could before the sun fully went down. Then, deciding that this spot was as good as any to rest, she gathered downed leaves and moss to create a crude nest and finally laid down to rest.
The temperature in the forest dropped quickly, and Ena desperately wanted to start a fire, but she didn’t dare risk it. There was a chance that one or more of the daemons was still on her trail, and she didn’t want to attract their attention. She curled up tighter under her cloak and drifted off to sleep immediately.
***
She awoke shivering just before dawn as light drops of water began to pitter-patter on her cloak. Emerging from her cocoon, she looked up to see that the clouds had rolled in while she’d been sleeping, and it was starting to rain. She groaned in miserable frustration.
Her muscles were tight from the cold and overuse, and she was really, really starting to hate this dress. What she wouldn’t givefor a full meal, a hot bath, and a fucking change of clothes that fully covered her chest.
She was able to find a few more uneaten blackberries on the bush which served as her breakfast, then took a swig of her waterskin before she once again climbed the tallest tree she could find to check her positioning. The sun was invisible behind the dense layer of rainclouds, but she could still make out the Chasm Mountains. She’d made less progress yesterday than she’d hoped. Her search for food in the afternoon had taken up more time than she would have liked. By her estimation, she still had a day or two of travel before she was anywhere close to the Sacred Pool. She scrambled down the tree and continued walking.
For the first time since she’d escaped, she started to feel apprehensive. Would she be able to find the Sacred Pool? Would the spell to send a message work? Maybe she should have come up with a different plan of escape. Maybe she should have gone to the village and gotten a horse. Maybe she should have stuck with the daemons until they got to a different village. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
All her doubts and misgivings hit her like a load of bricks and dread filled her. She was alone out here. Yes, she had water, for now, but food was going to be a constant struggle until she made it home. She’d camped in the backwoods many times in her life, but she’d always had a horse, ample supplies, and the company of other witches. Not to mention most of her travel had been done in the summertime, not in the late fall. Her solitude was already starting to wear on her, and she desperately hoped this had not been a poor decision.
