Chapter Eleven
The ferocious windfinally calmed enough for them to leave the shelter of the rocky outcropping and head toward more substantial shelter. Shadows stretched longer, creeping in with the chill of evening. The forest grew dimmer, its habitual creaking keeping Rain on edge as she and Daric made their way to the nearest treehouse.
Hallerhounds had terrorized people for centuries. Longago, generations before Daric, the House of Ash had built elevated shelters throughout the Wood of Layton. The regularly placed treehouses protected the royals and their entourages from animal attacks at night during their pilgrimages to Braylian’s Cauldron. The mostly unfurnished rooms saw no regular upkeep and were often home to small creatures, but they were always stocked with blankets andoil lamps, and there would be a nearby enclosure for the horses.
It wasn’t the thought of more hallerhounds that scared Rain right now, however. Each time she used her power, with every new vine she created,Isme dolunde vaten crewdug into her mind a little deeper. She’d already feared its roots were poisonous, but as she and Daric rode toward the treehouse that would be their last stopoverbefore Leathen’s barrows and Braylian’s Cauldron, she finally understood what the combination of sounds truly meant—and how just four small words would destroy them.
The sorcerer in Upper Ash had given her the final ingredient to break the curse on Leathen, but it wasn’t a simple offering they had to make, as she’d originally suspected. It was a sacrifice. And whoever spoke the words to Braylianboth gained exactly what they wanted, and lost what mattered most.
“What’s turned you so silent?” Daric asked as they approached the treehouse.
These past few nights in the sacred wood, they’d had somewhere more comfortable than the ground to sleep and more than a campfire to drive back the darkness. But they’d stayed in separate rooms, across a massive tree trunk from each other. Tonight, theirlast night before this quest likely ended, Rain would make sure they slept together.
“I’ve just realized something.” She turned to Daric, his beloved features harder to look at suddenly. They burned through her, searing a scar across her heart. Winter-blue eyes, strong jaw, thick dark hair, that heavy lock always tumbling over one eyebrow. The way he looked at her… Rain dropped her gaze, tryingto hide her sorrow.
“Mockweed.” She grew a plant in the palm of her hand. “No need to go searching.”
Daric grinned. “You never cease to amaze me.”
She handed him the flower, not letting her return smile waver. “Keep it with the bloodstones. Tomorrow, we’ll find the Barrow Witch and break the curse together.”
“It seems rather simple in the end, after all these years of doing nothing.”
“Notnothing, Daric. Everything we could. And we only just received the clues pointing us in the right direction.” Rain forced now dreaded words around the rising lump in her throat. “There’s one more thing. A chant. I heard it from the sorcerer.”
Daric’s brow furrowed. “In Upper Ash?”
She nodded. “I kept it to myself because I didn’t understand it.”
“And now you do? How? What is it?”
Rain sawthe confusion in his expression—and the hurt that she’d once again held back from him. “Isme dolunde vaten crew.” Her heart ached, pounding. “The more I use my power, the more I understand the language of sorcery.”
Daric’s frown deepened. “What does it mean?”
“It’s simply to formally present the bloodstones and the mockweed to Braylian.” The lie rose up in Rain and fell from her tongue likeacid. “Harmless, but we need it along with the other things when we ask her to break the enchantment.”
Daric tucked the plant she’d given him into his pouch, seeming less worried after her explanation. “Not sure why a goddess wants a weed, but magic is a strange business.”
“It is,” Rain agreed. One that was tearing her apart, even as it made her stronger. “We’ll find the Barrow Witch. She’llhelp us. You’ll say those four words tomorrow, Daric, and break the curse on Leathen. You’ve been working toward this your whole life.”
He nodded, repeating those raw and awful magical words back to her. He knew them now and could utter them without trouble.
A shadow crossed his features again as he watched her. “You look too somber for this happy news. We’re almost there, Rain. We’ve almostdone it.”
Somber didn’t even begin to describe how she felt. Understanding the sorcerer’s words had opened a chasm inside her and set her adrift. But Leathen would survive without her. The kingdom couldn’t survive without its prince.
That conviction calmed her, left her resolute and sure of herself. “I want you to know that I would never, ever, have shown myself to you that day at the Cauldronif I hadn’t wanted to,” Rain said.
Daric shrugged a little stiffly. “But you didn’t want this.” He waved a hand in the air, seeming to encompass him, her, Leathen… Everything.
She thought back to that Time Before.Wanthadn’t been a concept for a season, as far as she could recall. What a boring existence it must have been, with no one to talk to, nothing to discover, no desires or needs, nofears or pleasures.
“The first time I remember wantinganything,” she told him in a voice thick with emotion, “was the day I saw you.”
Daric looked at her gravely. He reached out, feathered his fingers across her cheek, and tucked her hair back. “You’re my every dream and desire.”
Rain’s heart swelled to near bursting. She was done waiting. Done hoping. Done playing by Daric’s rules, becausehis weren’t the only ones that mattered. “Tomorrow, we save Leathen, but tonight is ours.”
