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At least it wasn’t raining like yesterday, though the humidity hinted that it might soon. Still, it was cool enough to justify my long sleeved shirt, especially once we got into the shade of the forest.
We neared the entrance, and a chill crept down my spine that had nothing to do with the cooler temperatures. It was a familiar feeling from years of hunting, like there was a predator nearby.
We passed several signs warning in multiple languages and hieroglyphics to turn back, which did nothing to curb the waterfall of dread pooling in my stomach.
Any hope of Lina aborting this plan of hers went out the window with one look at her unwavering navy skin. There was no way in a dwarven mine that she was going to change her mind.
The Enchanted Forest spread out before us like an unwelcoming expanse. The sun seemed to disappear in the forest itself, shying away from the path as if it, too, was too afraid to enter.
Lina didn’t bother to wait for me as she and Maggie strode forward, her body rocking from the movement of her hedgehog. She didn’t turn around to see if I would follow, either, but I did.
What choice do I have?
The tall, wide-trunked trees had only a narrow pathway through them for the entrance.
Lina and I weren’t conversing, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say we passed the time in silence. She hummed while she looked at her map and chattered away at Maggie, singing under her breath when she got distracted. She was constant motion and sound and morelifethan it felt like I had seen in ages.
Although, in a place where being still and silent would keep you alive, it was hard to appreciate her vivacity just then.
As much as the sun didn’t want to shine through the forest, I was surprised by the glowing moss on many of the trees. They lit our path like small lanterns with enough light that Lina seemed to have no trouble reading the small, hand-drawn map she was holding.
“So, tell me about this map of yours,” I said, mostly to interrupt her latest line of cooing at the hedgehog.
Even if she hadn’t been intentionally hiding it, I would have had a hard time making out the tiny markings on the square inch of parchment.What does she even use to write with?I had never asked her, and it brought her comment earlier uncomfortably back to mind.
This world really wasn’t built for her. I had never thought she minded that before, but maybe that was just one more way I had managed to kid myself back then.
“It’s more of a concept map,” she finally said, “based on a few things I’ve managed to pick up. But the general direction is—” She looked around at the sun peeking through the leaves and the tree line, before pointing toward the northwest. “Somewhere in there.”
She sounded so proud of herself that even I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that “somewhere in there” was still a whole lot of ground to search for a kingdom that could probably fit in the wagon she had ridden in.
“All right,” I said, instead. “That way, it is.”
We walked for a few more minutes in relative silence, aside from the occasional disgruntled noises Pepper made from her spot at my shoulder, still no happier with Lina’s presence than she was before.
Which, frankly, made two of us. Especially as a neon-blue frog jumped from the underbrush and made it halfway to Lina before I kicked it away. Not that she seemed to notice. The poisonous frog hadn’t even interrupted her humming.
Her color, though, was slightly off, and it occurred to me that she might be humming to distract herself as much as anything.
“Lina’s lucky to have you looking out for her.”
Those were some of the last words her mother had spoken to me before I had abruptly left the small village we called home. It hadn’t been true then, and it sure as hell didn’t feel true now, but it did make me feel guilty enough to at least try to talk to her.
“So… how have you been, since… ” I trailed off, uncomfortably.
“It’s all right, Edrich.” There was wry amusement in her tone. “You can say, since she died. And… I’m fine.”
That wasn’t an answer to what I had actually asked, but I wasn’t going to push her to talk about her feelings.
“And you?” she asked.
“Same old, same old.” Same job that wasn’t, at all, what I thought it would be when Atesh had approached me about my falconry skills nearly three years ago, now.
My family had been struggling, and he said his band always had extra work. He said it casually, like they were a regular band of mercenaries, not the Huntsmen, the most elite, sought-after mercenaries this side of the world.
I kicked away an enormous rat creature halfway to a still oblivious Lina, my thoughts still lingering in the past.
Besides, the pay was more than my mother made in a year with her sewing jobs, and the cause seemed noble enough. I suppose it was, at the time.
