Page 39 of The Seeker

In the center of Ralheim, I’d never felt alone, but that was before I’d journeyed the rest of the corner of the continent. Before I realized there was a secret town in the forest that wasn’t on the map, and land available everywhere. Yet, neither Adis nor Hansen were happy sharing the rule with the other.

It had always been winner takes all.

They’d forgotten that, in war, there was no winner.

“Do you even think the king will listen to us?” I polished off the last of my share of the berries, standing and brushing myself off. Sleeping against a tree wasn’t comfortable, and standing felt nice. I pressed my hands against my lower back, bending toward the sky to stretch.

“He has to.” Ena stood too, her gaze squinting at something in the sky I couldn’t see. “Otherwise, Heimland will be useless to him soon. There won’t be anyone to produce the few products Shianp needs.”

Her words niggled something in my mind, but I couldn’t coax the thought to fully formulate. “What products do they rely on us for?”

Ena tossed the waterskin over her shoulder, arranging the sword so it hung at her side. “Milled flour is the main export, though we do have some fruit-bearing plants that don’t grow up North.” She spun in a slow circle, her eyes on the sky as she inhaled deeply. “Come, there’s a river this way, then we will continue north.”

I followed her in silence, both of us lost in our thoughts. The second dose of poison must’ve kicked in, though, because my magic was once again dull—Ena’s thoughts her own, despite the fact I hadn’t finished fixing my mental wall.

The further we walked from Malheim, the rougher the terrain became. Soon, we were scaling hills, which made the huge tree stump from the day before appear small. The trees grew thicker, pilling more and more foilage on the forest floor until our feet sunk with each step. Ena grew tired of carrying the water and the sword, pausing around midday to hold it in my direction. “We need to trade off carrying this.”

I nodded my agreement, my hands clenching my upper arms under my cloak. “It’s much colder than I anticipated.”

Ena frowned, and I could feel her anxiety. “It’s almost the warm season; it shouldn’t be like this. Not this cold anyway . . .”

I stopped in my tracks, trying to remember what little I’d been taught about the Heimland’s mountains. “How are we going to survive through the night if it’s this cold during the daylight?”

She gnawed on her bottom lip, brushing away the hair plastered to her face to the side. “I’m working on that now. Let’s focus on getting as far as possible. It will be better after we summit and start down the other side.”

I arched my eyebrow but swallowed my retort. We wouldn’t summit anytime soon.

Unfortunately, our pace slowed tremendously after that, both of us running low on energy, considering we only had a handful of berries for breakfast. As the sun dipped below the elevated horizon, I knew we needed to stop.

“We need to make a fire,” I told her, my teeth chattering as I surveyed the area around us. We’d stopped on one of the many slopes we’d spent that day climbing, the trees creating a canopy that blocked the sun. The area we were on was only a little flatter than the areas around it, creating a small overhang, but one wrong move and we’d be sliding down the hill.

“We are too exposed here,” she countered, drawing her cloak closer around her, her lips cracked. Our water skin was running low, and we hadn’t seen a river since that morning.

I was starting to think we’d made the wrong choice, venturing into the woods. But it was too late to go back now. “Any chance there’s an abandoned cabin or anything nearby?” I wanted to ensure we exhausted all of our options before I truly panicked.

Her features twisted. “I know of one, but we have to crest this hill first and . . .” She leaned back, my nerves on edge as she tried to see where it ended. “I don’t think we will make it up there tonight. This is much steeper than I remembered.”

I nodded. If we couldn’t go forward, it was time to act fast to gather everything we needed to last the night. I stomped on the dirt overhang we stood on, ensuring it was firm and could bear weight. My boot prints appeared in the dirt, and I didn’t notice any vibrations. “Let’s see if we can get a fire going—bring small firewood. Grab anything you find that might be edible on your way.”

She glanced around. “We should stay together, actually. While I can get back here on my own, I’m not sure you can.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “Come on, let’s hurry.” We moved through the woods on silent feet, struggling to stay upright as we walked perpendicularly to the slope. I slid a few times, Ena catching me each time before I could fall to my inevitable end.

We ended our search with several sticks, a few stones, and more berries that we were reasonably sure were edible. There was no sign of belladonna, but the clinking in my brassiere reminded me I had one more day to worry about that.

If we survived the night.

We returned to the overhang, which was indeed the only flat area we’d seen. We ate berry after berry as I attempted to use the rocks to create a spark on the twigs we’d gathered.

It never caught.

We decided instead to huddle together, sharing both of our cloaks to sleep. Still, the rate at which I drifted into darkness was alarming, my mind flashing back to when we’d learned how one might freeze to death in school.

It was only a breath later that Ena was shaking me awake. “Runa, someone’s here.”

My head snapped up in time to hear the snapping of twigs. Not one, but several. I scoured the incline beneath us, spotting a form a stone’s throw below us. Next to them was another form.

There were two.