We're running late now, thanks to turning back at the first sign of the fire and finding the devastation that met us at home. The Seer had called for me to come to her, and my parents had agreed to send me without delay, but they hadn’t seen the attack coming. I stumble, tripping over my own feet, as numbness seeps into my limbs the moment I think about our village and what had happened there, of the grisly deaths our loved ones endured.
Of everything we’ve lost.
“It’s going to rain, Rooke. We’ll be lucky to make it to the Oakwood Inn by tomorrow.”
I look up, but Pemba is too busy squinting at the foliage around us to notice my scrutiny. Itislooking like rain, but we’ve never been concerned by that before. The vines around us are swaying a little in the wind. As I watch them, I realize there’s too much movement for the strength of the breeze—the trees are talking to each other. They’re warning each other of the coming downpour, of the likelihood of the river overflowing and flooding the area as it has done countless times before. While I’ve been lost in my own head, Pemba has read our surroundings perfectly. If we get caught in the storm, we’ll be forced to make our own shelter, and neither of us have experience in such things.
My gaze catches on the heavy weight he’s carrying, and I chew on my bottom lip.
No matter how tired he gets, Pemba won’t let me carry the satchel. It’s large enough to carry the supplies for both of us and, though he lifted it with ease at first, the weight of it slowly took its toll as the day went on. I can see the strain in his body, the tense lines of muscle trembling as we travel through miles and miles of forest, but if I even suggest that I can tell he’s struggling, he only gets more stubborn.
He’s acting this way because I am the Maiden of our coven, and he’s always treated me with a sort of deference. Although, due to my mother’s death, I’m technically the Mother now. It’s rare for a Maiden to become a Mother without, you know, actually being one, but every coven must have one.
I’m the only female left of the Ravenswyrd witches.
It’s a heavy mantle to carry, one I would never have guessed was in store for me so soon. My mother was so powerful—the most powerful witch I’d ever met—and yet… she died with the rest of the coven.
Her body burned on the makeshift funeral pyre we’d built, just the same as those with far less power.
Tears fill my eyes, and my chest tightens. I try to focus on the forest around me instead of the devastating places my mind has wandered into.
The Ravenswyrd Forest is named after my coven and is one of the largest in the Southern Lands. I was always at ease playing here or traveling between the covens that live in the other, more docile forests nearby. As I grew up, the forest itself was just another set of eyes on me, looking after me. Another loving presence beyond that of my parents and extended family.
It doesn't feel that way anymore.
The rich, dark green foliage hasn't changed, nor has the earthy scent of life and decay in the air. Small creatures scratch around in the underbrush, and birds call out to one another overhead, singing their songs as beautifully as they always have. The rain never seems to stop falling here, no matter the season, but it'sdifferentnow. Everything changed when someone entered our forest, intending us harm, and the forest did nothing to stop them. I don't understand how this could have ever happened.
“Stop thinking about it, little one,” Pemba mumbles under his breath, but he doesn't turn back to look at me.
The problem with him being not only my brother but also my best friend is that, even in the silence between us, with his back to me and a million other things on his mind, he can still read me like a book. The moment we set out on our journey once more, he closed up, the carefree boy he’d once been disappearing as he took the place of our father as the protector of our family.
“Do you think we did something wrong? Do you think that Mama or Papa did something wrong, and that's why the forest didn't warn them? I checked the skies every night, the same way we always have, but there was never any blood on the moon to warn us. Have we done something wrong?”
I have uttered these words to him a hundred times already, and there's no way that he hasn't been questioning and re-questioning everything over and over again in his mind as well, because none of it makes any sense. There are more questions to be asked, but my mind cannot get past how our protections failed us, and how they could fail us again.
“We just have to get to the Seer. She’s expecting us, and we cannot deny the Fates. The Seer will tell us everything we need to know.”
He stops for a moment and peers around again, a determined look on his face. “The forest will keep us safe until we see her. We have to trust in that.”
He’s sure of it too, that this was a single slip in the forest’s defenses and not a falling from grace for the Favored Children, but there’s an ache in my heart that can’t be so easily convinced.
I swallow and glance around at the never-ending expanse of trees. For anyone who doesn't know the forest like we do, it would be easy to wind up walking in circles, but I can read the path that we're on as easily as I can read the stars above us at night. These things were taught to me as a child, and they’re now so ingrained in my very soul that it would be impossible to forget.
I take a deep breath before I speak again, the words awkwardly tumbling out of me as they pain me. “What if the Seer doesn't want to meet with us now, Pemba? We’re late.”
Pemba glances over his shoulder at me before he stares ahead once more. “The Seer is expecting you, Rooke. Mama and Father put off your trip to see her for too long. Wehaveto get you there.”
I swallow roughly. The sound of a snapping twig catches my attention, and I clutch Pemba’s arm. We both stop and glance around, but there’s nothing there. The very idea of someone following us is like a shot of ice through my veins. There hasn’t been a single sign of the murderers, or any other creatures that might be a threat, but I haven’t felt safe since we first saw the smoke in the sky.
My magic pushes out from me, untamed and wild now that my control has slipped. The jewel in my mother’s scepter glows a little as the power passes through it, my gut clenching at the sight of it, before it spreads out into our surroundings. When I don’t sense anything but the small creatures of the forest, we continue forward, our footsteps now halting.
I wonder if I’ll ever truly feel safe again.
I whisper, “How do you know they put it off? Mama said we were too busy to lose a set of hands, but she wouldn’t tell the Seer that.”
It sounds ridiculous even to me. The long line of Ravenswyrd Maidens before me have always visited the same Seer, the one on Augur Mountain, but to think that she might know of me and be willing to wait for me is beyond my comprehension. I’m a Ravenwyrd witch, but I’m not some important person, some high fae princess or priestess who is going to achieve great things for the kingdom.
I’m going to live in the forest and heal people. I’m going to deliver babies and marry my mate, continue my bloodline, lead, and teach our coven. It’s what I was born to do, and it’s exactly what I want to do, even if it will be painful to return home and rebuild.
