But then the boy beckoned to Ven and began walking, jumping from rock to rock, using his hands for balance, as if he were a squirrel in a tree. Ven didn’t hesitate, keeping his eye on the boy as he followed. He trusted that Naelin would be behind him, keeping the spirits in check.
The land around them continued to change: toward the north, a mountain spewed flames on one side of its face while it wept waterfalls on the other. Ice crystals shaped like trees sprouted into a forest farther to the west, only for wind to blow them apart.Unnatural place, he thought. And yet, what the spirits did here was nothing compared to what he saw next. Because when he crossed the latest ridge, he halted, shocked.
It was a village. Of sorts.
A collection of huts made from uneven planks of wood lashed together and leaning up against boulders, the town—More like a camp, he thought—was smushed close, as if the buildings themselves were huddled together, afraid of the outside world.Which, he supposed,is exactly what they are afraid of.He saw fire pits between them, a few lit with pots hanging on spits, and laundry was strung between windows. Perhaps more than anything, it was the laundry that disturbed him. It was such an easy sign of domesticity that would get overlooked elsewhere, but here, it drove home just how out of place all this was in the untamed lands.
A few people came out of the huts as they approached: men, women, children, all of them as dirty and underfed as the boy. Ven raised his hand in a wave. “We mean no harm!”
One of the women scurried forward and pulled him down from the rocks. “Quickly, quickly,” she muttered, “before the spirits see you.” As soon as he passed the first hut, the people all surrounded him, pressing close, patting his arms, his hair, his pack, and murmuring at him.
“I’m looking for a girl and a boy named Erian and Llor”—and then, because this was all impossible anyway, he added, “as well as a wolf named Bayn. Have you seen them?” He pushed away the fingers of a young girl who was probing his front pocket. “What is this place? Who are you all?”
The woman who had brought him in stepped forward to answer, and then she whitened and shrieked. Others began to run. The children were herded together. Curiously, after the initial shriek, there were no more screams, just a grim determination to flee.They’ve done this before, he thought. Whipping out his sword, Ven turned, ready, and saw Naelin riding in on a wave of spirits. Her hair streaming behind her and her expression fierce, she looked almost like a spirit herself.
He lowered his sword. “It’s all right! She’s a friend! She won’t hurt you! A friend!”
“She brings the spirits!” a man cried.
“She controls them,” Ven said. “She’s a queen!”
Clustered together, they stopped running. But they clung to one another as the spirits whipped between their huts and around him.
“Call them off, Naelin!” he shouted.
And the spirits retreated. Small and large, they huddled in a ring around the village, perched on the rocks and hovering in the air. Naelin dismounted and hurried forward. “Erian? Llor? Are you here? It’s me! Please be here!”
“We’re looking for her children,” Ven explained. “They were brought into the untamed lands by two spirits.”
“You said you also seek the wolf, the Protector,” an old woman said.
They knew Bayn?“Yes,” Ven said. “Is he here?”
“And my children?” Naelin added. “Have you seen them? Are they alive? Are they all right? Where are they?” She grabbed the old woman by the shoulders.
Gently, Ven pried her hands off the woman. “You’re scaring them,” he said to Naelin. He knew what she was feeling... No, he didn’t know, but he could imagine it and he could see it, reflected in the agitation of the spirits. “Clamp it down. You’re spilling.”
She glanced up at the spirits, who were hissing and spitting and growling. She closed her eyes for an instant, and the spirits calmed minutely. “I’m sorry.” He saw her take a deep breath, and he wanted to put his arms around her and hold her close.This has to be agony for her.But answers would come only if they didn’t drive them away.
“You must mean the children at the grave,” a woman said.
Naelin staggered backward.
“Grave?” Ven repeated.Not dead. Please, don’t let them be dead.
“The Grave of the Great Mother,” the woman said—this one appeared to be a mother herself. She had two boys clinging to her legs, and she was cuddling them closer to her as if her arms could protect them from the spirits, if they decided to attack.How had these people survived here?Ven wondered. The woman continued, “They came recently, with two spirits, nasty creatures. The Protector chased away the spirits, but kept the children. Those are their names: Erian and Llor.”
Bayn did that? He’s here, and he saved them?
“Alive?” Naelin breathed.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Naelin felt...
There were no words for what she felt.
But there were colors: sun-gold yellow and deep summer green and clear blue, the colors of growth and wellness andlife. And the spirits absorbed the burst of her emotions, and around them the wind spirits whipped into dust devils, the ice spirits shed fireworks of snow, the earth spirits exploded from the ground in a shower of dirt and pebbles that rained down.
