I said, as I followed Ilvar to the horses, “Not if the forest kills him first.”
We rode out within ten minutes. I sat with Radan, who was the best rider of the three, and I clung with terror to him as he spurred his mare. I much preferred the swift, smooth leaps of Adrik’s stag.
None of us spoke until we reached the footbridge past the towngate. Yavor slowed his horse and raised his lantern.Tendrils of mist drifted like restless ghosts over the river and disappeared between the birches at the bank. A thin veil crept over the bridge, stirring like a pond in the breeze. It came for us, snuffing out the torches. I clutched Zora’s lantern tightly. Her flame cackled as the mists brushed it. It burned brighter.
“Do not stray from the light,” I said, shivering as a tendril of mist grazed me.Let me see you, it whispered. “I can only clear a narrow path.”
I drew the knife to open a thin slice on my palm, licking the blood before I let a drop seep into the mist-veiled earth. I gripped the still-warm pebble tightly and sent a cautious sliver of magic forth. The mist hissed in anger, parting just wide enough to allow for passage.
“I do not like this,” muttered Radan as the bridge creaked beneath hooves.
Neither did I. My breaths came quick and labored, the air too dense to offer much relief. As we pushed on, stark white walls caged us like a chasm, thickening into something solid that pressed in on us, coiling wraith-like fingers around our throats—
Let me see you. Let me taste you, witch.
“Are you alright?” The brush of Yavor’s hand tore me from my daze.
“Yes,” I gasped. I drew breath and let loose another spark of magic. It burrowed through the snow and into the packed trail, weaving past mist and pines and skeletal thicket.
Find him, I pleaded silently.Take me to him.
There was no sound save the snow-muffled beat of hooves and our own strained breathing. No warmth to be found at all; not beneath the snow-laden trees, nor the leafless copse, nor in the grove. I sent my magic further, far and wide, until it was not spark but blaze, not droplet but flood.
Find him. Bring me to him. Let me save him.
Power spilled from me with ease. I panted, not from exertion, but from wonder. I sent it forth until it reached the steep hill at the end of the trail. There, at the base of a white fir, the earth pulsed with three slow heartbeats. I laughed, relief spilling through me as I snapped back to myself. The trail had cleared. My magic had driven the mist to the far edge of the treeline, where it lurked as if to sulk.
“Quick,” I said. “At the end of the path.”
We tore through the night, the lantern bouncing in my hand and casting tall, distorted shadows over the undergrowth. As we neared the hill, the flame flickered…faltered.
“Stop!”
My shriek clanked horribly in the tense, quiet air. I dismounted gracelessly and barely clung to the stirrups before my buckling knees gave in.
“Adrik!”
No answer.
“Adrik!”
He was there, I knew it. I’d felt his heart beneath the white fir. The light of the lantern did not reach there. It cast its feeble flame only over the horses and the thicket, no farther.Run. Zora’s command echoed in my head, but I’d taken root there in the soil, squinting where I knew Adrik should be.
Let me see you, hissed the wind.Let me taste you, witch. Let me show you what he did to us.
“Adrik!”
I clutched the still-warm pebble and I felt through my feet into the earth. Past frozen tangles and aching seeds, deeper and deeper until darkness greeted me. I did not hesitate before I plunged.
I became the wind that hissed furiously past naked branches. I became the dark that gathered, thick as fog, between the trees. I found him there, still beneath the white fir. I found him tangledin briarthorns and vines, tied to the trunk. I howled in fury and I became the thorns, withdrawing my claws from his freezing skin. I became the vines, loosening my strangling hold.
He did not stir, so I became the wind again and I screeched in his ear.
Get up, I shrieked.Get up, you thick-headed, vain, irritating—
He had the nerve to chuckle.
I snapped back to myself like a string cut loose. He came from the dark, slumped over on the back of his stag, Lorell draped lifelessly over his lap. What if the forest had taken him? What if it had turned him strange? What if his eyes had hollowed into bone-white?
