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I had no idea how long I ran. The snow was my only sustenance. I didn’t even know how it reached the forest floor in this hell without melting.
After my heels became so blistered I was forced to crawl, I stopped. I curled against a mammoth tree root. Cold. Never had I known such bodily pain. I longed to detach my spirit from my flesh. I have only one reason to live. Deian, if it’s your will, save my child.
SIXTY-NINE
“Well, there you are,” a man said.
He dropped a coat over me. I squinted through a blinding lantern glow.
“Sure enough. They said you’d be here. Those nutters were right.”
I tried to push myself up but found my arms had no strength.
“Here. Let me help you. Hadyn’s my name.”
He set the lantern down while he stooped to loop his arm under mine. “This will be a trick. You’re much bigger than I am.”
Hadyn pulled me to my knees at least. His face was at my eye level.
“You’re a little man,” I said.
He looked around. “Well, I’ll be. You’re right. How peculiar.”
I chuckled. “My name’s Niawen.”
“Here, push off my shoulders as I hoist you from around the waist.”
It took some effort to climb to my feet with his arms tugging and tugging. The ordeal was comical, and I laughed, despite my sorrow.
“Come, now. I’ll take you somewhere warm. Oh, I nearly forgot.” He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a bite-sized, cloth-wrapped square. “I should have given this to you before. It will give you energy. We have to hike a ways.”
I unwrapped the cube. The substance was tacky and squishy. I popped it into my mouth. Nougaty texture, maple taste. A fire burned in my stomach. My senses pricked up, making me keenly alert.
“That’s from the tegyd. The knuckleheads. Drive me batty. But they’re always right and always handy.”
Hadyn held my hand through the woods. His lantern was a pleasant comfort. Though he was a middle-aged man, he had few wrinkles, and he was strong.
“These trees have been here for centuries,” he muttered. “Nothing could cut them down. Bizarre how they’ve grown. People become lost all the time.”
We squeezed between two trunks. After we rounded a tree for several minutes, we stopped at a cart. Or rather, a basket of hammered-together wood roughly four feet square, but only three feet tall.
“You’ll have to sit in the bottom,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
He tipped his chin toward the canopy. “We need to get up there.” He shook a chain on the basket’s corner.
That’s when I realized the chains extended skyward from the basket’s four corners.
“It’s a lift,” Hadyn said. “It’s secure. The line’s checked every day. In ten minutes we’ll reach the top.”
My fragile, near-mortal state reminded me how I’d die if the chains snapped. I backed away. “I don’t think I can.”
“How do you think I got down here? I promise you’ll be fine.” He rummaged in his pocket. “Would you like a sedative to ease the journey?”
He held out another chewy square.
“That looks identical to the other one!” I exclaimed. “How did you not give me that one before?”
