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Step. By. Step.
Another wave of agony, so hideous I have to stop for a second and bend over just to make it through—but I can’t stop, because the thorns are closing in around me, and I must hurry ahead to stay in the little pocket of light and safety with the others.
Part of me wants to ask why we’re doing this at night, but I already know the answer. The Elves thought we could make it through this area within a few hours, but their memory of the place was flawed, or it has changed. And now that we’ve begun, we can’t stop. There’s nowhere to camp—nowhere to stand or sit. If we stop moving, the forest will eat us. It will run needle-thin thorns into our eyes, plug our ears with moss, fill our mouths with brambles. We’ll become part of the Riddenwold, trapped forever.
I keep stumbling forward, holding my stomach, silently begging the goddess for relief. Of all the nights for this to happen—of course it had to be this one.
“Let’s keep up the pace,” says Lannau.
Bede glances back, but the lamplight is behind her, and I can’t make out her expression. All I know is pain—wrenching, grasping, twisting pain, the agony of my body’s betrayal. I hiss another breath and struggle forward again, while vines snap back into place behind me with a menacing rustle.
The four of us are a drop of light in a vast tangle of dark forest, a blob of glowing hope in an endless bristling sea of black trees and writhing vines.
I am Rupert’s only hope.
I will save him. I will save myself. I will save the kingdom.
The kingdom, sure. But mostly me and him.
I choke back the bile surging in my throat, and I focus on the two of us, Rupert and me. How strange it is that I’ve lived all my life up to this point without him, and yet I can’t seem to bear the thought of spending the rest of my existence apart from him?
How do two people become linked so swiftly, so surely? How does the knot form and tighten, how do the cords thicken between two hearts until they are inextricably bound? How does such a bond feel like the truest freedom?
Goddess, I’m going to fall over. I’m going to fall right over into these spiky bushes, into the pain-sharp darkness, and I’m going to lie there and die, because dying in this forest feels more endurable that taking another step with this fucking monster in my lower belly.
I’ve probably bled through the cloth Bede gave me. When the cramps are this bad, the bleeding is usually worse too, flowing out of me like water.
I turn the pain and the purpose into a rhyme of my own, a spell against my own weakness.
I can’t do this, but I will do it.
I can’t bear this, yet I will bear it.
It’s too much, and yet I will carry it.
I will endure.
One more step.
One more step.
Blackness all around me, except for the silhouettes of the women and the drop of gold that is the lamp.
Thorns in my hands and thorns in my belly.
Acid in my throat, on my tongue.
Black and gold and pain, pain, pain.
25
I’m nearly well again. Today Lady Kessalif asked me to perform a small spell for her, and I was able to do it without collapsing.
“Very good,” she said, in a tone thick with condescension. “Your eminent master is becoming impatient. He desires you to perform some spells for him as soon as you’re able.”
“Why can’t you do it?” I retort.
Her lips tighten, and she pauses before answering. “As you know, the women in this kingdom are occasionally gifted with magic, but only in trace amounts. I possess more than most, and with training and supplemental artifacts, I’ve been able to elevate my craft. But the King is always looking for more power. And since the march of the concubines—”
