Page 34 of The Light Between Worlds

I look for stags.

By the end of a fortnight, I’ve reached a comfortable place. I’m tired enough that I can’t feel much, and I nap in dusty corners of the library between classes, when I should be studying. Max tries to ask me what’s going on, but I brush off her questions and she stops leaving the key out for me.

No matter. I climb through the window each night, edge along the roof, and clamber down the fire ladder at the building’s far end. If I can’t go home, I’ll be an exile in earnest, a girl with no place, no roots, no heart.

Exams are held in the refectory. I write my name on each paper, then draw leaves in the empty margins until we’re let go.

Dear Philippa—

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my love,

’T is not too late to seek a newer world....

My purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until—-

I am made weak by time and fate, a grey spirit yearning in desire. I am not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven.

That which I am, I am.

I don’t know who I am anymore.

I don’t know who I am.

24

THE ONLY THING KEEPING US SAFE FROM THETarsin Empire and its armies is the snow, which began to fall the moment Venndarien Tarsin left the Great Wood. It casts us into limbo, drifting in the forest hollows and rendering the winding track that serves the Woodlands for a highway impassable. We’re secure until spring makes travel practical again, and I wish this winter would never end.

The sea air buffets Palace Beautiful. I welcome the storms that come with it, flinging sleet against the leaded glass windows. It’s drafty and cold inside. We wear furs most days, sitting snug by a fire in one of the smaller rooms.

Philippa is quieter than ever, and more withdrawn. The Woodlanders treat her with the same unfailing courtesy, but she walks as if she bears a weight. Most days she spends in the kitchens, sweating over the cooking fires. She won’t sit at the table in the great hall and keeps to herself whenever she can.

When I ask her what it was Venndarien promised or threatened to convince her to go so badly astray, all she’ll tell me is this: he told herCervus never meant to send us home. And once he’d convinced her of that, nothing else seemed to matter. I try to be a comfort—to tell her I know what it’s like to be so afraid that all you wish for is to be taken away—but she murmurs excuses, and shuts herself away in her room. There is a world between us, and I don’t know how to call across the void.

On a rare day when she can bear company, Philippa and I are crossing the entrance hall arm in arm. We’re careful with each other, speaking only of little, inconsequential things. Both of us look up when the castle door swings open. Hector ducks in, wearing a hooded coat, the ever-present twin swords strapped across his back. His breath still smokes from the cold, and unmelted snow dusts his black hair.

I nod in greeting and take another step, but my sister stops.

“How are the troops?” Philippa asks tentatively. “Are they in good spirits?”

Hector bows to her, gracious as only a Woodlander can be. “They are.”

I hold tight to Phil’s arm. Hector hesitates for a moment before speaking again. “Philippa. In the end, what you did was foolish and nothing else. No harm came of it, besides what would have come anyway. You can’t punish yourself forever.”

My sister winces.

“How do you manage?” she asks him. “How do you keep going, knowing you’ve looked into the eyes of people who will die in the days ahead?”

“We all know what we’re fighting for. We’re willing to lay down our lives for the Great Wood. Anyone we lose will have died defending the place they love more than any other. You know what Cervus saysabout those who lose their way, either in life or death.”

“Tell me again.”