“I know she does.” Cora started off toward the edge of camp. Maiya shadowed her every step, silent although Cora knew she was dying to say more. From the corner of her eye, she could see her friend opening and closing her hands—Maiya’s telltale anxious gesture. The girl’s palms were inked with only a single tattoo at the center of each, a design made from several overlapping circles and triangles that vaguely resembled a flower. She was a year younger than Cora and only just beginning to explore her talents with the Arts. While Maiya’s mother was half witch and half Faeryn, Maiya’s magic seemed to favor her witch heritage. She was claircognizant and used her keen knowing to divine meaning from dreams.
“You could let me practice on you,” Maiya said, voice brimming with innocence. “It would be good for me. And…and I think it would be good for you too.”
Cora halted and faced her friend. She knew Maiya meant well. Knew in her deepest heart that Maiya’s prying was done with nothing but love. Still, it had to stop. Maiya didn’t understand what she was asking to get involved in. “Just drop it, all right? Please.”
Maiya nibbled her lip. “I only want to know that you’re really okay. I know something is bothering you.”
“It’s nothing.”
Maiya reached for her hand. As soon as their fingers made contact, Cora was overwhelmed with a sense of worry and desperation—Maiya’s feelings. Her breath caught in her throat at the sudden onslaught of emotion. Wrenching her hand away, she took a stumbling step back.
Maiya’s eyes turned down at the corners, her sympathy palpable. “Cora—”
“You are not going to believe it!”
Cora startled at the voice, but it was a welcome interruption. It severed her involuntary connection to her friend’s feelings. Her breathing eased as she faced the figure darting their way.
Gisele stopped before them, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “It’s Roije. He’s back!”
Maiya’s face went blank, her preoccupation with Cora’s wellbeing instantly forgotten. The name Gisele had mentioned was probably the only word in the history of the spoken language that could wipe all prior thought from Maiya’s mind. Her voice turned wistful. Anxious. “Roije…he’s…he’s really back?”
“I thought you'd want to know,” Gisele said with a wink. “Come on!”
Before Cora could argue, Gisele linked her arms through both of theirs and dragged them across camp. They came upon a crowd gathering near the picket line where the Forest People’s horses were kept. A familiar young man stood at the far end, hitching his horse. Cora’s first glimpse at Roije showed he’d grown at least three inches taller since he’d left the Forest People a year ago. His hair had grown too, no longer cropped close to his head but in black waves that fell over his dark eyes. She turned her attention to his clothes and discovered more changes to admire. Instead of the leather britches and wool tunic most of the men wore around camp, he was dressed in a fine linen shirt and black trousers. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal inked forearms—proof of his skill in the Arts. But as Cora drew closer, she noticed something else about his shirt—a haphazard spatter of rusty reddish brown. Blood.
Strange appearance aside, Cora was surprised Roije was back. He’d grown up with the Forest People, but his father was not of their commune. When his mother took ill and died a year ago, he left to find the man who had sired him. His loss was felt by many, especially since his tracking skills were second to none. His Art was the Magic of the Soil, thanks to his Faeryn heritage, and he used it to speak to the earth. Before he left, he was considered the most marriageable bachelor in the commune. Now that he was back, Cora was curious to know why. She wasn’t the only one, based on the size of the crowd.
Cora expected to come upon giddy conversation, but the closer she and her two companions drew, the more obvious it was that something was wrong. It was too quiet. Roije had never been a frivolous man by any means, even before he came of age. He was never one of the youths who snuck off to the nearest towns to drink at pubs or steal kisses from farm girls. He took his tracking duties seriously and had gone to great lengths to care for his mother in her dying days. Even so, the look in his eyes was unlike anything she’d seen in them before. They seemed…haunted.
He unsaddled his horse with slow motions, wincing now and then as if he were injured.
“Roije!” Gisele released Cora’s arm to wave frantically for his attention, clearly unable to read the mood. “Where did you go? Did you find your father?”
Roije paused his ministrations and ran a hand over his face. He gave a solemn nod. “I found him. Turns out he…he was a butcher in Kubera.”
“What’s Kubera like?” Gisele asked. “Is it a large village? A wealthy one?”
It took all of Cora’s restraint not to stomp on the girl’s foot to quiet her. A single word nestled within Roije’s answer said everything she needed to know.Was. His fatherwasa butcher. She held no optimism that his usage of past tense suggested a change in occupation. His emotions were written clearly on his face, in the tilt of his eyes, and the dark circles beneath them.
Even if his expression had been blank, Cora would have known, for his emotions were so strong they slipped past her shields, much like what had happened with Maiya minutes ago. Grief flooded her heart, followed by shame. It made her feel heavy. Dizzy. Disconnected.
Breathing deep, she turned her attention to her own emotions, her own body. She focused on the cool spring air against her skin. The smell of earth and pine. Soon the unwanted emotions began to fade. She breathed deeply again, imagining the air around her growing thicker, gathering roots from the soil beneath her feet, soaking up water from earth, from the molecules in the air, then absorbing the bright light of the sun, the warmth of its fiery rays. Welcoming all four elements, she imagined them dancing, weaving, forming an invisible wall that hummed with energy all around her.
With her mental shields strengthened, she returned her attention to Roije.
“I’m so sorry,” Maiya said, her voice barely above a whisper.
His gaze cut to her, and his expression softened. Their eyes held for a heated moment that made Cora want to look away.
Gisele glanced from Maiya to Roije. “What? I don’t understand. What happened?”
“My father accepted me into his home,” Roije said, his eyes finally leaving Maiya’s. “When I tracked him down, I knew there was a chance he’d turn me away, but he didn’t. He remembered my mother and was eager to get to know me. Thentheycame.”
“Who’s they?” asked one of the men in the crowd.
“King Dimetreus’ soldiers. They came to Kubera.”
Every muscle in Cora’s body stiffened at the mention of the King of Khero. A spike of anger burned her blood, but she tried not to let it show on her face. She wasn’t the only one who seemed unsettled by the news, however. Some stared with hard looks while others exchanged wary glances. It wasn’t hard to understand why. The Forest People may have resided primarily in the Kingdom of Khero, but they served the land, not its king. They owed their allegiance to no monarch and avoided royal politics like a plague.
