“Scary again,” Ven murmured to her.
She tried to pull back on the vicious hope, but only just a bit. She didn’t care if she was scaring these people.My children are alive!“I need to see them. Take me to them.”
The woman cowered away from her. “Only the Protector can approach the grave.” Stepping forward, a little girl piped up, “We don’t know the way!”
“Come,” an older man said. “Let us show the hospitality of our village. You must be tired from your journey here. Rest yourselves. Share a meal with us. Please, what are your names?”
“Naelin.”
“Queen Naelin, formerly of Aratay,” Ven put in. “And I am Champion Ven.”
The older man’s hand shook, and there were gasps from the people crowded around them. Hushed whispers: “A miracle! I never thought I’d see the day.” And then the boy they’d followed: “Have you come to save us?”
I’ve come for my children,Naelin thought. But Ven was already answering, kneeling on one knee to be at an even height with the boy, “What do you need saving from? You’ve survived here, in this hostile land. How have you done it?”
A woman answered, “We move when we must. Harvest when we can.”
“But the spirits,” Ven said. “You’re outnumbered, vastly. Without a queen to control them—how do you stay alive?”Stop asking questions,Naelin wanted to say to him.First Erian and Llor, then you can ask anything you want.But she was afraid if she spoke, the villagers would retreat again.
The woman shrugged. “Not so many of us to threaten them.” She gestured at the few dozen people that huddled close. “Plus they don’t like to come here, so near the grave.”
“Then it’s near?” Naelin pounced. The idea of her children being alive, being near, but her not being able to touch them, to hold them, ate at her until she wanted to claw at her own skin.I need to see them!
“Are there others like you? Humans, in the untamed lands?” Ven asked.
Naelin wanted to scream at him.Erian and Llor!Ask about them!
“Yes, we’ve seen a few other groups. We keep our distance, for the most part. Safer in smaller numbers, and easier to find food if we’re spread out too.”
“Fascinating,” Ven said.
Naelin shot him a look.
“Well, it is,” Ven defended himself. “Miraculous, really. We always believed entering the untamed lands was a death sentence, but you’re here thriving.”
A man snorted. “‘Thriving,’ he says. Each year more of us die than are born. Some days there’s no food for any of us. Some days it’s all saltwater for miles around. Some days we wake to fire and ash. Some days we wake to cold so deep that some of us don’t wake at all.”
“We need a queen,” another said, “and here you are, an answer to a prayer.” And a few pressed closer again, stroking Naelin’s arm, and it was if she were seeing them for the first time. How dirty and tired and hungry andscaredthey looked. And... how hopeful too. Strangely, it reminded her of the spirits now surrounding them, the ones that called her queen. How they too had felt hope. It confused her, yet she couldn’t shake it. She patted their hands, unsure what else she could possibly do. She’d thought life in the outer forest was difficult, but these people... They were living lives of unimaginable hardship. Naelin looked at them, really looked at them, and saw the hope in their faces shining broader and brighter with each passing minute.
She didn’t know how to tell him she’d only come for her children.
Thankfully, she didn’t have to.
Before she could decide how to respond to them, she heard a howl, and Ven cried, “Bayn!”
The wolf ran out of the haze, between her spirits, toward them, and Naelin let herself feel a little more hope herself.
Chapter30
Ven knelt and threw his arms around Bayn’s neck. The wolf panted onto his shoulder and leaned against him heavily, as if he were hugging the man back. “Never thought I’d see you again, my friend.”
The wolf licked his cheek.
“Uh, thanks? You missed me too?”
Naelin crouched beside them. “Bayn, are my children all right? Can you take us to them? Please?”
Bayn looked at her with such intelligence in his eyes—pity, understanding—that Ven was embarrassed he’d ever thought Bayn was an ordinary beast.Clearly, he’s extraordinary.“You survived,” Ven said. “I didn’t know. I would’ve come sooner, if I’d known. Why didn’t you come back to us?”
