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But was it enough to fool a greedy king? Was it enough to save a dying kingdom? Was it enough to protect my son? WasIenough?
5
Fin
Tick was curled beside me, her tail twitching against my side as she dreamed, stirring me awake. The tree shadows played across my face as I blinked my eyes open to a misty morning. Inwardly, I smiled. The greenery was one of many things I missed about these lands. The rich valleys, falling waters, and rugged mountains teeming with life, unlike the arid expanse of the desert. These were woods I could get lost in, woods that felt like home.
My friends. My sister. Fallen Wood wasn’t only the final resting place of my family, but the Patrons as well. I understood Jake’s restlessness—part of it, at least. When you are damn near immortal, you lose everything you love at one point or another, and all Jake had left of his past he had been forced to leave behind after Queen Corisande’s attack. Fallen Wood was home to his sister Becca’s final resting place. He’d had to watch her die twice in his lifetime—once because of the virus and then later in life, after she’d been reborn an Oracle. Then, there was the love of his life. His Zoe. The people of the Seven Kingdoms may have worshipped them all like gods, but to Jake, they were ghosts from his past, and when he and I had to leave their graves and our home behind, we’d lost all we’d had left.
Fleetingly, I thought of Beast, my best friend and faithful companion. It had been three years since the grouchy cougar had walked away from me to find his eternal sleep somewhere. Other than Jake, he had been all that remained of the old parts of my life.
Folding my arm under my head, I inhaled a deep breath, filling my lungs. In two days, I would be closer to that past than I’d been in ten years, and it loomed on the horizon as much as it beckoned me.
Tick’s wet nose brushed my cheek, her tongue licking my scruffy face, making me smile.
With a yawn, she stretched out beside me, her bushy tail thumping as I rubbed her belly. “Good morning,” I muttered.
Even if I hadn’t raised her from a pup, Tick was my companion in every way. A familiar mind and steadfast friendship, more connected to me than any human. I’d been able to communicate with animals my whole life, but only a few had ever felt so entwined with me. Tick and I didn’t need words. She was simply there. Always. Close enough to reach with my cerebral fingers and never too far away for a belly rub and head scratch.
Like me, she preferred her solitude, though, so I basked in her nearness this morning. Though I typically ran from the silence—tried to drown it out and push it away—it was a welcomed sense of peace when Tick was with me.
I rubbed behind her ear, earning her reliable leg twitch when I found just the right spot.
Above the sound of her tail thumping, indiscernible whispers met my ears from the fire pit across camp. Callon and Lyra were awake, and I strained to listen.
“—grew up in the wildlands beyond Corvo City. Fin met the princess when he went to find Jake, and she helped them get out of the city.”
“I heard stories about it,” Lyra said softly. “They wanted Jake’s blood for some magic elixir. And the queen was using his Ability to keep herself young and healthy—typical for the Corvo Kingdom, really, since all they care about is purity.”
“Yeah, well, while Fin and Jake were in Zenia rescuing me and my ma, the queen went back on her word. The truce was broken, and their village in Fallen Wood was slaughtered. The four of us returned to nearly everyone dead, Fin’s sister included.”
“The Extermination,” Lyra breathed. “I didn’t realize that was Fin’s village.”
I squeezed my eyes shut to the onslaught of memories, shuttering away the carnage and utter heartbreak. The stench of the scorched forest. The image of toppled cabins and dead bodies left in bloody heaps for Jake and me to find. After getting him away from Corvo and the queen’s torture, and then the massacre of all the family we had left, Jake was never the same. But I guessed three hundred years’ worth of survivor’s guilt would do that to a man.
I swallowed the regret, guilt, and hatred I tried to keep buried. I needed to be strong for the people who came to us for protection, and I had to be strong for Jake, too.
How many months had he been gone now? Five? Six? I considered the baleful days to come, knowing he wouldn’t be here to help us.
“If we go to Corvo,” Callon said thoughtfully. “If this is all part of the queen’s plan—”
“You think?”
“Either way, if Fin sees the princess after everything that’s happened—” Callon huffed a breath. “I don’t know what will happen to him.”
Clearing my throat, I sat up. I couldn’t take it anymore. I glanced at Callon and Lyra by the fire as I climbed to my feet. Tick stood, stretching beside me. “Is the envoy on the move?” I asked, rolling up my bed mat.
Lyra set her mug on the tree stump beside her. “Um, no. Nothing yet.”
“We should pack up—be ready to head out as soon as they are.”
“Sounds good,” Lyra said, but neither of them moved. In fact, I could feel their eyes on me as I gathered what few things I’d used last night.
“What?” I said gruffly, tightening the knot on my pack.
“I was thinking,” Callon started, brushing his hands off as he walked over. “Maybe going back to Corvo City isn’t necessary.”
My brow furrowed. “Of course it is. That’s where the envoy is heading.”
