Page 51

16

Tamsyn

IMPOSSIBLE AS IT SEEMED, OUR PACE QUICKENED AFTER THEconfrontation with the brigands. Fell set a grueling speed, driving us like a relentless wind. Well, drivingme. The others did not seem pushed beyond their limits. It was just me who felt as though I were a sapling battered in a storm, ready to snap. Just me. Different. Solitary. Lonely. Not yet broken in to the ways of this life.

It felt like a punishment for my actions, for my boldness with the brigands. The border warriors looked at me and saw stupidity. Weakness. As though I were a wayward child lacking all sense. My jaw locked. They were wrong. I would show them. Somehow. I would prove myself not useless.

This land had teeth. Sharp little points ready to sink into you and bleed you dry. I clung to my reins, leaning forward as my mare carried me faithfully. The air felt thinner as we moved through the hills into higher country, and I breathed deeper, harder, stretching to fill my lungs.

The new pace was shattering the last of my strength. I could not imagine my sisters bearing it. I’d always been the hardy one, the one built to withstand the rigors of life. Obviously. But then I wondered if they would have had to. Would Fell have made other arrangements for them? Would he have cosseted Alise? Sheltered Feena? Pampered Sybilia?

Would he have tucked the princess, the wife he sought, into acarriage and traveled at a slower pace? I glared at the back of Fell, hating him.

I hated all of them and their ability to weather this crossing with such obvious ease.

Fell was still angry. It radiated off him in waves. He wanted to be home already. He wanted to deposit me inside his stone walls and forget about me. Forget that I was his wife. I felt certain of this.

I told myself it couldn’t get any worse. Short of forcing the horses into a gallop—and he wouldn’t overtax the poor beasts that way—it couldn’t worsen.

Then the sky opened.

IT RAINED FORtwo days.

Intermittent rain that fell like needles on the skin. Still we pushed on. It was as though nothing ever affected these warriors. They were inhuman. My clothes never had time to fully dry out between downpours, so my discomfort never abated. My garments stuck to me like a clammy hand, wet and heavy. There was no part of me dry.

“Will we stop anytime soon?” I asked Mari in one of the rain-free spells when we could actually hear our voices. It was a question. Not a complaint. Complain I would not do.

Mari shook her head, her expression worried. “We need to reach the river before the water gets too high. It might already be too high to ford.”

“What do we do then? If we can’t cross?”

“We go west.” She didn’t look happy. “It will add days to our journey. And it also puts us close to the skog.” She looked even unhappier at that, and I could tell this potential threat was a bigger concern.

“What’s wrong with the skog?” I asked, recalling the brigands’ taunts about it.

“Oh.” She grimaced. “You don’t want to travel through the skog if you don’t have to.”

“Why is that?”

She opened her mouth and closed it before saying, “Let’s just say, not every traveler who goes into the skog comes out.”

That sounded ominous.

Mari continued, “Have you ever heard of a huldra?”

“As in a... forest nymph? A seductress? I’ve heard the bards speak of such a creature, but I assumed that was just a myth.”

Her lips twisted. “That is what they’ll probably say in the future about dragons and witches. In some distant era when the world is a place we can’t even imagine.”

The rain started again and talking proved pointless beneath the pattering. I leaned low and forward over my mare’s neck. It seemed to help, relieving the worst of the grinding pressure on my nether parts. It also reduced the risk of me toppling over the side.

Several hours later, we reached the Vinda River. It was the widest river in Penterra, crisscrossing the continent north to south and dumping into the Dark Channel.

It was alive. A writhing serpent. Swollen and wild and churning with death.

We stood along the bank, watching the tossing waters, and I recalled something I’d heard from one of the palace’s visiting bards, that the swords of the dead churned beneath the waters of the Vinda River, ready for those who fell in—fodder for the stab of their immortal blades.

Suddenly I tasted blood in my mouth again. Copper coins sitting on my tongue. I worked my mouth, trying to get rid of the taste as I stared hard at the bubbling white foam and knew there had to be some truth to the stories. Those who fell into the rushing current would never resurface. The river carried death.