For the first several hours of our journey, the landscape remains bleak and desolate as we travel over the wasteland separating our two kingdoms. My brain is constantly telling me I need to be ready for Siphon ambushes even though we’re literally riding with a few of them up ahead.
But we meet no resistance, even as we delve deeper into Astreona. Mostly because there’s nothing left to resist us, really.
Centuries of warfare have scarred the land here. There are only dried-up, ghostly trees twisting from the barren land and the burned-out husks of buildings every so often.
It matches everything I’ve been taught about this nation. An empty, inhospitable realm of death and darkness where Siphons lurk.No wonder they’re desperate to escape this place and take what we have.
It’s strange, actually being here. I spent months hoping to cross the border into Astreona while I was in the Trials, and now that it’s happened, nothing about the journey is unfolding the way I would have expected. Disorienting unreality settles over me.
The traveling atmosphere remains tense. No one speaks.
Eventually, we reach a small circle of ruined buildings. They look like little cottages. Cradled in the semicircle of their remains lies a small pond.
Elias reins in his horse. The creature’s tail flicks toward Anassa’s nose, who bares her teeth and rumbles. Elias glances at her, then at me.
“The horses need water. Do your wolves require the same?”
“I’d rather eat the horse and save us the time,” Anassa grumbles.
I snort, which clearly perplexes Elias, but I’m not interested in catering to his confusion. “Tell us when we’re moving again,” I say, and guide Anassa away from him.
We end up squaring off across the small, muddy oasis Elias found. Venna watches the Siphons like a hunter.
Stark lingers close to me, still silent, still avoiding my gaze. I’ve tried prodding at him mentally a few times, but he’s erected a wall against me, the prick.
He’s lucky we’re surrounded by company, because the moment we’re alone, I’m going to throttle him.
I catch my father glancing toward us as he strokes his horse’s nose, but he looks away quickly.
When we get back on the move, I start to worry about an entirely new threat: dying from boredom.
Then Anassa’s nose twitches.
“What is it?” I ask.
She pauses and bows her head, sniffing. I lean forward on her back, bending around Saela to see what Anassa is investigating. It’s… a tiny green sprout. A tuft of grass is struggling up through a fissure between two craggy stones.
That’s how it starts.
Soon, it’s all around me. The air becomes clean, fresh. Coolness gives way to a gentle press of warmth on my skin.
Heat. I’ve never felt anything like it before.
It builds as the clouds part, making way for the sun, and I start to sweat in my leathers.
The ground becomes greener. It’s only patches of grass at first. Then bushes. Saplings. Life reaches up out of the ruins and toward the increasingly hot sunlight.
We pass another ruin, but this one is covered in vines, a tree growing right up through the collapsed roof. Nature is suddenly everywhere, the smell of life hanging in the moist air. My lips part in wonder as a stream glints on the horizon, and Elias acts like it’s nothing as he guides his horse to slosh through the shallow, sparkling waters.
We crest an incline, and a hot breeze rushes up from below. My silver hair spins into my eyes as the valley below us emerges.
There are rolling green hills and lush vegetation as far as the eye can see. Continuing down the winding dirt road, it becomes clear that it isn’t allwilderness. The fields are cultivated, with distinct rows of crops and plateaus leveled out in some sort of irrigation system.
In the distance are small settlements. Towns. People, probably, living off all this greenness, tending to the land, breathing in all this nature.
This isn’t Astreona. Itisn’t. It can’t be. It’s meant to be a wasteland. Desolate. Hideous. Inhospitable to humans.
Kryptos spies have infiltrated this country, pushed far past our border to collect vital intelligence. They’ve never reported anything like this.
