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“It’s alright,” he said. “I’m fine. I can wake you in a few hours, and you can take over the watch.”
“No,” I said, sitting up. “I can’t sleep. I’m wide awake.”
It took a bit more insisting to persuade Dearen to let me keep the first watch. But finally, he budged. He placed his bedroll next to the fire to lay. Only a few minutes passed before I felt his breath slowing down. He was fast asleep.
I can keep watch for you, Cari suggested. You can sleep, too.
I don’t feel like sleeping, I replied.
Cari did not say anything. She could hear my thoughts the moment I thought of them, and she knew what was on my mind. There was no denying it. I stared at the dark forest and tried not to think, but after a while, Cari sighed.
Okay, she said. Ask away.
Was that your mother? I asked. There was no use denying it. She could hear the thoughts that I’d been trying to push away.
Yes, she replied.
Where is she now?
Dead. Cari’s tone suggested she did not want to talk about it.
And that place, with the field and the safety,I said. I did not have to dwell on how I knew, what she felt, I had. Where was that?
Home.
I was going to ask more questions, and she knew.
The queen is working on something, she said.
She knew how to pull my attention away from her private memory. I was intrigued.
Do you know what? I asked.
No, she said. She does not share her plans with her servants. But I think she is planning to strike the Unseelie Kingdom before spring. To surprise them.
The Unseelie is better at fighting on snow, I replied. That would not be wise.
The monsters fight on snow just fine, Cari said. Her tone was bitter. If you don’t want to lose the Unseelie Kingdom, you should hurry to get to me. Then, she will no longer have her monsters.
We are going as fast as we can, I replied.
I know, she said. But it might still be too late.
***
WE REACHED THE LAKEthat Cari had talked about the next day. Her warning had worked. When I told my friends that the queen’s attack might be closer than we thought, we started to cover a lot more ground each day. Now, we stopped only when the sun had gone down enough to make it impossible to ride our horses, and we rose early in the morning before the birds started chirping in the trees.
Less sleep meant more tiredness. My back constantly hurt now, so much that most nights, I had to sleep on my side.
We did not spend time hunting after we set up our camp, and thus, we had to eat the food we carried with us. It was a dull spread that dwindled daily, but we all knew that if we managed to complete the task we had set out to do, we could always hunt and forage in the forest on our return journey.
Despite all the hardship that speed introduced, no one complained. At night, we set our camp in silence and only spoke a few sparse words during the day as we focused on riding as quickly as possible without tiring the horses too much.
After a few days, Cari announced that we had reached halfway. She informed me again that we had to hurry, and when I told this to my friends, Brigid offered to lead us at night to cover even more ground. She could easily see in the night, and the horses instinctually followed each other, so she could lead us at night.
So we started sleeping on the horses and settling for the night only when the horses seemed too tired to go on. It took a toll on each of us, but traveling at night meant we could cut short the time we spent on the road and reach the outskirts of Terlyth earlier. From there, we would go north and find where the queen kept Cari. According to her, it would take us only another day to find her after reaching the outskirts of Terlyth.
We saw no monsters during our journey. The forest was silent since we had seen one next to the bridge Dearen had conjured. From time to time, we heard the howling of the wolves or a low growl that made the hair on the back of our necks stand up, but no wild animals approached our group for more than a few yards, thanks to Brigid’s fire magic. Whenever we heard a growl, she would send a spark toward where the sound came from, and the animals would disperse as quickly as dust amidst the wind.
