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When Edored finally stopped whispering, though, it wasn’t because of my steely self-control or Beyla’s soothing murmurs. We reached the top of yet another hill, one of the highest so far, which was covered in such abundant tangles of grapevines that I suspected it must have been a vineyard in some distant past. The farmhouse at the highest point still retained most of its roof, although the weight of the sprawling vines had sent part of the walls collapsing. Before and beside us, lower hills rose from the earth, the flagstone path meandering between them.
And behind them, not even a mile away, Zera’s woods lay shimmering in the late afternoon sun, the deep green of the trees twinkling as if a starry sky had found a home between the leaves.
The forest stretched north and west as far as the eye could see, an endless blanket of moss green that covered hill after hill, all the way to where the first sharp mountaintops jutted into the cobalt sky. To the south … There had to be a border there, where Etele’s lands began and Zera had never wielded much power. If the trees still obeyed that ancient division of the continent, it was too far away for us to see.
Staring at the breathtaking expanse of the wood, I was overcome by a sensation I’d felt before – that tingle of insignificance that had grown in me when I’d climbed Cathra’s dunes as a little girl and watched the endless ocean for hours upon hours, until I understood in the depth of my bones that no ship would ever find the end of it.
My mouth had gone dry. Once again, I’d underestimated – disastrously underestimated – just how large a single forest could be. Ten days.Hell, even if Zera was alive, we could spend adecadewandering through her woods and never even catch a glimpse of the goddess herself. What in hell had I been thinking, betting all I had on what had to be a losing card?
Still, no one spoke up to suggest we might as well go home and save our time for the soothing of anxious maybe-allies.
‘Nightfall isn’t that far away,’ Beyla said, glancing at the sun with wide open eyes. ‘We could keep going for an hour, probably – maybe an hour and a half – but I’m thinking …’
‘Might be better to go in by the bright light of day,’ Lyn finished, pulling a face at the tranquil forest before us.
I found myself silently agreeing with her. Zera’s woods were eerily beautiful from a distance, with their vibrant green and that odd way the sunlight reflected off the leaves … but it was an ominous sort of beauty, the same way the Labyrinth had been beautiful in the depths below the Crimson Court. I imagined knotted roots slithering around my legs and arms, gnarled tree bark closing in around me, and unsuccessfully attempted to suppress a shiver.
‘And we do have shelter here,’ Beyla added, nodding at the half-ruined farmhouse. ‘I wouldn’t mind having a couple of walls during our first night on the continent. No idea what to expect of this place.’
‘We could walk on and fade back here at sunset,’ Tared said slowly. ‘Then again …’
‘I could also take a look at the treeline with Naxi,’ Beyla said, ‘and then fade the rest of you there tomorrow morning. No need to make everyone walk more than necessary if this last part will probably be safe.’
Perhaps my feet weren’t the only ones feeling like blisters on bone, because her proposal was accepted with unusual enthusiasm.
Chapter 8
Welookedthroughthedeserted farmhouse and found no bodies except a handful of charred barn animals on the other side of the hill. Inside, the rooms had remained uncannily intact: the dark wooden furniture was bone dry, and some of the white-and-blue porcelain tableware had cracked, but the blankets still lay messily on the beds as if the inhabitants of the place had woken up mere hours ago.
To my relief, no one suggested using the bedrooms. But I still felt like a graverobber when Lyn lit the fire in the living room hearth and Tared found a rag to wipe most of the dust off the floor, as if the eyes of the dead farmers were following me when I installed my luggage on one of their dining chairs and pulled my sweaty boots from my feet.
Naxi and Beyla left their bags behind, then slipped out to take a quick look at Zera’s domain before the sun went down. Tared set out to find a well or a brook nearby, throwing his rag into Edored’s hands before he left.
‘I could make dinner?’ Edored suggested, scowling at the floorcloth as if it was a dead rat.
‘You nearly burned down the kitchen last time you tried to boil an egg,’ Lyn said impatiently. ‘Just focus on the cleaning, will you?’
I threw a quick look at Creon, who lounged against the farthest wall as if he planned to stand there for the rest of the night. A better chance was unlikely to present itself. ‘I can take care of the food, if Creon is willing to help?’
‘Oh, of course,’ Lyn said, at the same moment Edored loudly snapped, ‘Why would you need his help cooking?’
‘To cut the onions,’ I said, rolling my eyes at him. ‘Everyone knows demons never cry.’
Even Creon bit down a laugh at that – nothing but a twitch around his lips, but noticeable enough for the trained eye. A sliver of tension untangled itself in my guts, taking in that moment of vulnerability like a breath of fresh air.
As long as he was still smiling, he couldn’t mind my silence all afternoon too much, could he?
Edored gave in and set himself to work, grumbling and cursing as he scrubbed the dust from the table and the cracked leather chairs at the window. There were no spiderwebs between the ceiling beams, I realised. No termite holes in the wood, either. Even the smallest pests must have died in the first waves of plague magic, freezing this deserted home in time.
Lyn trotted to the porch outside with an armful of maps to see if she could identify our exact position. It left Creon and me alone with Edored, who seemed both deeply annoyed and far too determined about his new position as our chaperone. As we unpacked the food bags and took stock, the alf followed us with suspicious eyes, muttering the occasional jab about being glad Creon was carving up parsnips rather than innocent children for once.
To my relief, Creon ignored him. One near-confrontation a day was more than enough for my nerves.
We chose our ingredients, packed up the rest again, and started slicing and dicing. Creon barely looked up from his work, only pausing every now and then to sign the quickest of instructions at me. But the longer we sat there by the fire and worked on the food together, the more his silence resembled that quiet earnestness I knew from our time at the pavilion – a dedication to our meal that seeped through even the Silent Death’s uncaring mask.
A much, much more comfortable silence than the tense shield of unspoken words that had hovered between us all day.
I found a large copper cauldron we could use. We managed to secure it over the fire through some magical experimentation. Creon sautéed onions until they werejustthe right shade of golden brown and their mouth-watering smell filled the room, and I chucked in lentils and parsnips and barley at his direction, marvelling at the way even our uninspiring ingredients somehow turned into a hearty stew before my very eyes. This ruined farm in the middle of the continent was so very different from the ethereal beauty of the pavilion, and yet I felt, in a flash of déjà vu, as if we were back at the Mother’s court, preparing our dinner at that birchwood kitchen table.
