There was just so much rot.
“We need to make camp,” Casrian said.
They were the first words he’d spoken to her in hours. It took her a moment to disengage from the trees to focus on his scowling face.
“You’re tired,” he said. “We need to stop. I’ll backtrack for water.”
She shook her head. “There’s a cave ahead.”
It was just a little hollow in the hill, but at least it would offer some protection. There was clean water nearby for the horses.
As much as she’d worried about the trees leading her astray, they hadn’t done so yet. She’d got the sense of it—which trees were still healthy and which had been taken by the rot. She could see it in the web, the golden threads disappearing into darkness. It worried her that the threads still stretched between them, the good trees connected to the bad. She thought maybe that was how the rot spread.
Casrian searched her face. “How do you know?”
“It’s just up there.” She pointed at the hill. “That way.”
And she moved forward before he could ask any more questions.
The rain began to fall, the soft tap-tap of the droplets hitting the leaves making it hard to talk anyway.
When they reached the cave, Casrian dismounted and checked it for animals.
“See if you can find dry wood,” he ordered. “I’ll look for water.”
He started walking in the wrong direction.
“Water is that way,” she called, pointing toward the stream the trees had told her about.
He frowned, but turned around.
Maybe she should have held her tongue and let him find the stream on his own, but she didn’t want him wandering around in the woods for longer than necessary. It wasn’t safe.
She found some wood that wasn’t yet drenched. Casrian retrieved water and together they settled the horses. He built a fire. She went to the water to wash. She took the liniment oil with her and rubbed it onto her bruises and sore muscles. Casrian made tea and forced her to choke down some of the leathery meat.
When he offered to hold her while she rested—for warmth since the night was cold and wet and the fire small—she settled into his arms as if she belonged there.
He set his sword beside him, unsheathed, and pulled the blankets over them both.
After a while, he said, “You haven’t been this way before.”
It wasn’t a question, but she answered him anyway. “No.”
“How are you choosing the path?”
That question she didn’t answer.
He shifted her in his arms so he could see her face. His dark eyes glittered in the flickering light from the fire. “Do you have any charms you haven’t told me about?”
“You threw them all away, remember?”
He made a soft noise in his throat. Not agreement or acceptance of the answer, just acknowledgment that he’d heard it.
“I’ve tracked witches into the woods,” he said softly. “Not on this part of the border. But there’s a stretch to the south where the Black Woods reaches further. Witches seem drawn there. It’s impossible to avoid the rot when we go after them. You have to just press through it and hope to come out the other side before dark. Even seasoned woodsmen struggle with it. We send out scouts in pairs to try to find a clear path.”
She hoped to find a clear path to the fort after they found his men, but suspected they’d have to go through the rot eventually. The trees were hungry in the direction of the river. They breathed more like animals than like vegetation.
She shivered. Casrian stroked a warm hand down her spine, which only made her shiver again.
