Chapter Fourteen
ThenextmorningtheywerereadytogointotheBlightonceagain.Theirroutewascarefullymarkedonthemap,andtheyhadenoughsuppliestolastthreeweeks,thoughFloriandearlyhopedthattheywouldnotbetherequitesolong.Thebackpackfulloftheirsupplieswasespeciallyheavyonhisback,butKade’sbackpackwasevenheavier,sohecouldn’tcomplain.
Tatiana had come to see them off again. This time she did not have the same forced casual expression that she had worn previously, when it had been the three of them heading out into the Blight instead of two. Now her brows were furrowed, the concern obvious on her face.
“We’ll be careful,” Florian said quickly, as she took his hands into her own but before she had the chance to speak. “I promise.”
She managed a slight smile. “I know you will.”
But the pained expression remained on her face. Now more than ever, Florian was acutely aware that if anything were to happen to either of them, neither were likely to return. If they were hurt, or worse, Tatiana would have no idea; she would only be able to speculate, until it was far too late to do anything about it. What more could he say? He was sure that nothing he could tell her would help her worry less—certainly there was nothing that would quell the anxiety in the pit of his own stomach.
“I’ll keep him safe,” Kade added, placing a hand on Florian’s shoulder, but his eyes were on Tatiana as he spoke. “We’ll do our best to be back soon.”
“I know. Don’t be out there too long,” Tatiana said, her tone almost teasing. Her hands were tight around Florian’s. He forced himself to smile wider than she was smiling.
“We’ll be back soon,” he said, sounding surprisingly chipper even to himself. “Maybe she already knows I’m coming and will make it easy for us.”
“I hope so,” Tatiana agreed, nodding.
When their goodbyes were over, Florian and Kade trudged through the field outside the castle that led to the boundary between the Winter Court and the Nova Blight. Both were silent; this time Kade walked a bit ahead, and Florian a few steps behind. It didn’t seem to take as long as Florian remembered to reach the point where that now-familiar white line appeared on the horizon, the first hint of the blinding light of the Blight ahead.
Florian kept his eyes on it as the white streak slowly started to take over more and more of the sky. When Kade stopped to pull his sun goggles over his eyes—when the white light had consumed all the color in the sky, and they could clearly see the demarcation in the dirt ahead where the Blight began—Florian hesitated with his own goggles hovering just over his face.
“You alright?” Kade asked, glancing back at him. The dark lenses of the goggles blocked out his eyes, but Florian could still feel his gaze linger on him. He took a deep breath and nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “I'm a little nervous. But I’m okay.”
He pulled the sun goggles over his eyes and pressed his hands together to murmur the incantation of the shroud. The slight shadow from where his palms touched quivered and spread over the rest of his hands, trailing up his arms and down the length of his body, and he pushed the sensation of it toward Kade. The shadow trembled in the space between them, before it jumped toward Kade’s shadow, creeping up the length of him until they were both enveloped.
“Here,” Kade said, holding out his hand. Florian stifled a grin as he took it, and they stepped into the Blight.
The sudden sweltering heat that instantly prickled at his skin was an unwelcome jolt, just as miserable as Florian remembered. They walked hand-in-hand for a little while, but soon the heat became unbearable. Florian became acutely aware of how sweaty his hand felt, and he pulled away. Kade glanced back at him, but didn’t seem to relish the shared heat either.
For the first day of travel, much of the landscape seemed somewhat familiar. They traced the same path that they had followed his first time in the Blight with Jerah, but they would start heading more northward after a day or so. It felt a bit different, walking through it at a normal speed, but Florian still recognized some of their surroundings even though it all sort of blended together in its monotony.
The second day was much of the same. That morning Florian carefully tried to set the quickening spell after they were shrouded; it held for a little while, helping them travel faster as they veered northward, but maintaining both soon proved to be a strain that he couldn’t keep up.
“I have to drop the quickening,” Florian groaned through gritted teeth. He had held it as long as he could, doing his best to not complain; but his head was pounding, and the unbearable heat didn’t help. Kade glanced back at him, and the concern was apparent on his face.
“Okay, drop it,” he said, and with a sigh of relief Florian let the thread of magic that was speeding them up dissolve from his grasp. There was a slight lurching sensation as the world seemed to slow around them for just an instant, then Florian stumbled forward a few steps at his normal pace. It was disappointing that he couldn’t help them move any faster, but without the shroud they wouldn’t be able to travel at all—at least they’d gotten a few good hours out of it.
That night, after they’d set up their shelter against the Blight, Florian pulled the pendant Tatiana had given him out from his backpack and looked it over again. It still didn’t feel like any active magic was coming from it, even as the cool stone grew warm in his hands from the ambient temperature and his own body heat. There was that tiny thrum of latent power, which he could only sense if he really focused, but he had no idea how to activate it.
“Work,” he hissed at it, but it didn’t feel any different afterward.
“It’s old, Florian. I don’t think it has anything left in it,” Kade remarked, eyeing him with a combination of curiosity and amusement.
“Maybe,” Florian sighed, turning it over in his hand again. “I can sort of feel a little bit coming from it. But I must be missing something.”
“We can ask her when we get there,” Kade said, and Florian nodded.
The days went by in a hot, dusty blur. Florian’s legs ached from walking, and his head hurt from holding the shroud all day, every day. Any changes that occurred in the landscape around him were subtle and small, so it felt as though they spent days walking only to end up in the exact same place from where they’d started. The occasional petrified tree or particularly large rock were the only landmarks that gave any indication that they’d traveled any distance.
Even Blighted creatures were sparse: they were stalked once by boar-like creatures that looked the same as the ones that they’d seen the first time in the Blight. The beasts followed them for several hours before one finally charged them. Kade made quick work of them—Florian helped—but otherwise their journey was unbearably monotonous.
Every few days Florian felt like he could muster the strength to speed them up for a few hours, holding the quickening spell until his vision blurred with the effort and he had to let it drop. He felt drained for the rest of the day, but being able to reach their destination even a tiny bit sooner was worth the effort. The longer they were in the Blight, the more he hated it.
The only good thing was that Kade was with him. Most of their journey was made in companionable silence. There were days where the quiet seemed less comforting, though, and they would talk, telling stories to each other and sometimes even singing. Neither were particularly skilled at holding a tune, but even the semblance of music sometimes helped the time go faster.
