I sit on the floor in front of the keg and down a mug of ale. It’s followed by another, then another, until my limbs grow heavy, until my thoughts slow and then cease to exist. I lay on my back in the dark, staring into nothingness while my body seems to sink into the wood beneath me.
When I finally drift off, no dreams haunt me.
I awake with a splitting headache and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. My body aches, my side throbbing and numb as I shift onto my back. Someone jostles my shoulder. “Odgar go away,” I slur.
“Princess, it’s me.” That sickeningly-sweet voice. My eyelids feel too heavy as I blink up at the priestess. “Come on,” she whispers. “Let me help you.”
“Please stop calling me that.” The twinge that buds in my chest has me rolling onto my side again and automatically reaching out for the ale mug. Briony puts a hand on mine, halting me. A sob hitches in my throat and embarrassment burns in my face.
“Pri—Carys … let me at least take away some of the nasty effects of the ale. May I?”
I nod, and she presses her hand to my forehead. Slowly, some of the heaviness leaves my body, and the headache retreats. But the haze that so often shrouds my mind remains firmly in place. “I want to stop feeling like this,” I groan.
“I know,” she says gently.
“Just make me unconscious again. Please.”
“I—”
“You had no problem doing so repeatedly back in Paramount! You had no problem inflicting pain either!” The anger comes out of nowhere, boiling hot.
Briony winces slightly. “I will forever regret my actions. I am so very sorry. But putting you into a state of unconsciousness is not going to help you learn how to cope.”
Weak,comes Enidwen’s voice from the mist in my mind.Weak. Undisciplined. Cowardly. Control your impulses!
I flinch so hard that Briony also jumps. “What is it?”
You don’t have to feel all this pain if you let me in more. Let me take it away.
A shiver rolls through me, growing in intensity until my hands are trembling and sparks bead on my palms like sweat.
Briony whispers almost conspiratorially, “The enchantress again?”
“I can’t block her out.” I rub my hands together as if I could rub the sparks back into my body. “I can’t. She’s too strong.”
“Breathe in slowly and think happy thoughts. Riding through an open field. Archery. That beautiful view of the fjord and the mountains.”
I inhale deeply, counting to five.
“Exhale and push away the negative thoughts. Envision building that wall between your mind and the enchantress’s.”
I sit there, breathing and trying to follow Briony’s instructions.
You cannot block me forever,says Enidwen.
I would rather die trying than let you take over.
Her laughter is the last thing I hear before my body relaxes. Briony eventually convinces me to go back to bed, and as much as I try to keep myself awake, I lose to a dreamless sleep.
About a hundred people move through the forest, beginning the three-day trek toward the Hallowed Wood. We’re at the front of the multitude, Briony on my left, Odgar on my right. Somewhere to his right are Valdis and Seth.
I refrain from glancing back at the others. In Erleya, I was used to being revered when I walked through the corridors or the concourse, but here, I’m gaped at like an outcast. Unless I’m making a fool of myself in the mead house. I push away thoughts of the mind-numbing ale and trudge onward.
Our first stop doesn’t happen until night falls, and everyone settles in to find some much-needed sleep. Bedrolls are scattered around us within the woods. I lie on my bedroll beside Odgar, the sparse canopy of two trees overhead. Their trunks bow toward each other without touching, eerily reflective of me and Odgar.
Briony is farther from me, settling onto her own bedroll.
Despite the cold, I tug off my boots and massage my aching feet through my socks. What I’d give now for a long soak in a hot bath. To smell less like perspiration and more like myself.
