Page 29

brITT

She splashed into thigh-deep water, though nothing was visible to her but waves and a strip of sand.

The sandbar lingered a few paces ahead, covered by the same liquid blue waves that claimed the horizon. Odd, to see a long wedge of sand, to know the boat docked at it, but view mostly waves. The strange dichotomy made her brain hurt. She’d seen underwater sand bars and reefs, but never a lone strip smack dab in the middle of the sea.

Henrik joined at her side, disembarking after her. Lars waded ahead. He stepped as if normal, but the mirage of waves hit his knees without splashing. Water slid back and forth, unbothered by the arcane illusion. The surreality made it stranger still. Like the bizarre haze that overcame her dreams after Pedr smoked red leaves from Uppa island.

Britt asked Henrik, “You’re sure this is where Malcolm is?”

Henrik nodded, though she couldn’t fathom how he knew anything for certain these days. All might be a lie. Even if it was, this was the only information they had. She couldn’t waste more time in Stenberg, and this gave them a rare chance of saving Tesserdress.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go.”

As she sloshed ahead, Henrik brought up the back. Both draguls hid safely in her pockets with several squeaking protests from Denerfen. He peered out, head poking out with hissing displeasure.

Britt stepped slowly both for her sake, and Tesserdress’. Frothing waves left her ankles wet as she stepped on the sand. With each placement of her foot, an equal measure of compact beach revealed ahead. As she glanced over her shoulder, no illusion hid the boat, the horizon, the disappearing sky as night eked closer.

She kept her attention forward, watching as Lars used a sledgehammer to drive a spike into the sand. A thick rope lay on the ground beneath him, looped around the spike. She exhaled noisily, and with relief knowing dry land existed nearby.

Real, but not quite.

Once Lars finished, he strode up the beach again. Silence accompanied them on the sloping path. Thirty steps away from the sea, the khaki sand turned white. Pristine. Flecks of umber nestled in the crests and swells.

“Careful,” Lars hissed as she narrowly avoided a weed with a spiked purple flower bobbing at the end. “Don’t step on any of the plants. They all have ikons.”

“All of them?”

“Look at the leaves.”

She knelt. Her wet skirt clung to her ankles, and sand clotted her toes and shins. Under the sprouting leaves beneath the spiky flower ball shone a scribbled, ebony design. Marks slashed together, no visible alphabet. Not a word in the isles language, but infinitely the darkest black. Fathoms of depth lay in it.

“The bog underneath it all, remember?” Lars grimaced. “Touches everything.”

“Fascinating,” she whispered.

Henrik stood at her side when she climbed to her feet again. His gaze darted from tree, to beach, to tree, and back.

“Walk a little farther, just behind me,” he instructed. “Lars is right about the plants. Avoid touching anything but open ground.”

“What would happen if I stepped on a plant by accident?”

“It would probably bite you.”

Her voice pitched higher. “Bite me?”

He didn’t deem that question with an answer, but she gazed more curiously at each plant as she passed.

“The barbs of those flowers have poison,” Lars said. “Other weeds, too. The ikons cause it. You’ll die within ten minutes of the bite. And yes, the plants do bite. Except for the vines.” He shook a finger overhead. “They strangle.”

She trailed behind Henrik, marveling over the strange advancement of the beach. She could see everything behind her, but only waves ahead as they traversed. Weeds became more abundant, slowing each step. Lars occasionally tottered from one foot to the next, avoiding greenery.

They maneuvered close to a foggy, indistinct darkness. It curled out of and around the waves, wafting like coy smoke near the sea.

Henrik tugged her to a stop. His intent gaze held a note of warning. “If you don’t go in, you can still leave the island without an ikon.”

“I’m going.”

“Know that when you proceed, you’ll have to receive an ikon in order to escape. That makes a hasty exit rather difficult, unless we’ve already found and received the appropriate ikon. Which we will keep an eye out for.”

Lars nodded confirmation.

Understanding the source of Henrik’s anxiety, her lips rounded into an O. “I see,” she murmured. “If Oliver finds us and I don’t have an ikon . . .”

“Exactly.”

“How does one acquire this exit ikon?”

“You do it by finding a specific ikon on a tree. You touch it, say, Great Follorat spirits of the island, I honor your ikons , your power, and your history. I ask for safe passage off your beaches , and the arcane does the rest.”

“That’s not so bad.”

He scoffed. “When you know where the ikon is.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Do you?”

“I knew it last time.”

“Will you know it this time?”

“It moves,” Lars called, with the infuriating confidence of someone that knew everything and couldn’t fathom why no one else did. “The bloody ikon moves. Look, haven’t you been on the sea before?”

She ignored him, though the urge to smack him didn’t die easily. Before she could ask Henrik a question, Lars butted in.

“The ikons prevent people from leaving, but not going in. You can go in all you want, but you have to find the right ikon to leave. Could take days, weeks. There are more trees than you can comprehend, and the ikons make everything an illusion. Looks small, does it?” He scoffed. “The island is as big as Stenberg.”

Terrifying.

“I accept the terms,” she said.

With a resigned sigh, Henrik ushered her forward a step.

Henrik kept a hand on her waist, slowing her, as her next step brought a wall of verdant foliage to the forefront. All at once, the sea disappeared. What had once been water immediately transformed into a raw jungle.

Britt paused, arrested by the stunning sight.

Where the endless ocean once stood, a towering rainforest loomed. Stumpy, thick trees, with trunks as big around as her arms could hug. Branches sprouting at poky intervals. The jungle grew with stalwart union, clawing higher in visceral competition. Conjoined leaves, shoved upright from round, thick trunks, created a suffocating, dim ceiling. The sun inched toward the horizon, where hints of vague pink and jetted crimson slivered between each giant leaf.

Broad leaves dominated the fauna, thick as leather hides. The bottle green tones ran to midnight black, except for when the sun rippled along the interior. A dazzling trail of plush emerald resulted.

Lush flowers trailed around the trunks in winding spurts, decorating the dark wood with bright brilliance.

Sound exploded at the same moment. Distant insects, a vague cry that might have been a bird, or a monkey. Restless grinding and shifting leaves filled her ears. Her eyes watered with an assault of smells. Decay, foliage, perfumes.

“It’s . . .”

Lovely didn’t quite describe it. If a jungle could have teeth, this one would bite. The urge to hold a weapon and plunge forward at the same time trickled through her, as if something ancient and hungry beckoned.

Lars side swept a glance at Henrik.

“You entering?”

“Yes.”

With a crack of his neck, and a flex of his left arm, Lars said, “Me too. Ain’t no going back after this, lass.”

She lifted her chin.

Lars plunged ahead. Henrik clasped his fingers around hers and followed, forcing her to trail behind him. The heat of his hand provided a reassuring balm.

Sand gave way to a firmer texture beneath her bare feet. A type of crumbly soil, intermixed with churning black. Her knees trembled, but not from weakness. The oppressive weight of humidity pressed upon her chest with relentless force. At eye-level, they passed a painted mark. Tarry slashes, decorated by swirls, ovals, and interconnected stripes, filled a tree trunk.

Ikons , he’d called them.

A haunted, frightening sensation filled her from toes to nape with each glance at a different ikon. They passed many. At least every other tree, if not more. Plenty of islands tried to prevent foreigners by using powerful wards, but they generally targeted natural issues. Unexpected rip currents, tide shifts, dangerous beaches, poisonous coral for fish.

A permeating smell hung in the forest. Boggy, like burning peat. The stench added to the general malaise in the air. How had Malcolm endured this place?

They inched around a corner. Lars stood off to the side, studying a collection of bleached white bones. His booted toe turned them over, revealing half of a skull crushed to smithereens. Her stomach roiled.

Malcolm?

Henrik’s grip on her hand tightened.

“Months-old bones. Probably from the vittra,” Lars declared. “She crushes her prey. See the head? Caved in. Might have been that ikon, if not the vittra.”

With a tip of his head, he motioned to the tree. A black ikon, so deeply dark it almost appeared blue, filled a palms-width on the middle of the tree trunk. Vines and flora grew around it, instead of over the top, as if even nature itself was repelled by the latent arcane power.

“She?” Britt asked.

“The vittra,” Lars breathed, so quiet she almost missed it. “There were many of them, all women. They’ve been slowly killed off. They left most of these ikons behind. Their power remains. The only vittra left is bitter that Stenberg took their land, and she commands all the arcane the other vittras left behind. Seething and angry doesn’t do her justice. Legends say vittras can read minds, memories, intent.”

Lars kicked sand over the bones, more uneasy with each passing moment. “This poor bloke must have touched the ikon and wound up dead.”

His scoff teemed with brittle annoyance. Britt curled her fingers into her palm. The draw of the inky texture would have lured her closer, had Lars not warned her.

“How does the vittra kill her enemies?” she asked, striving for a nonchalant tone, and failing. “A club? Does she have hands?”

“Well, she’s a dark spirit, isn’t she?” Lars cried. “Does whatever she wants. The natives used to call them Legion, but with the others gone, call her whatever you like. She rises from the ground in a black cloud. Gives off a permeating smell that’ll knock you senseless, then she clubs you in the head with a weapon made from the bones of those she killed in the past.”

“Sounds terrifying.”

“There’s no words for a vittra,” he growled. After a thoughtful silence, he added, “Except cold. Legends say she’ll numb your teeth with her frost.”

She cast an eye to Henrik. “What do you think?”

Henrik stood within reach, one leg braced ahead of the other. His neck swiveled here and there. Assessments and careful calculations filled his gaze as he gave a noncommittal half-shrug. She almost doubted he had listened at all.

“There’s bad arcane here, for certain,” he said, “but I never saw a vittra. Some islanders believe the vittra are the bloodless spirits of natives that Stenberg killed to take the jungle.”

The sound of his voice, as stalwart as ever, lent great comfort despite the dark undertones. Better than the purring background noise of the unsettled jungle.

“What do you think, Lars?” she inquired with deepening curiosity around Lars’s moral compass.

“If someone drove me out of my boat, I’d haunt the bastid until they died, then I’d wallop them in the afterlife. No one parts me from sweet Birgitta.”

She staved off a laugh. Birgitta must be Lars’ ship. His violent promise ran a little too bright.

“Listen, this is when things get thick and difficult to see,” Henrik said. “We need weapons before we advance.”

Tesserdress wriggled, shifting her dress. Britt put a hand on her pocket to soothe her. Lars extended a giant machete, tapped Henrik on the side of the arm with the dull side of the blade, and said, “Better you than me.”

Henrik accepted it with a murmured thanks. A gleam entered his assessing stare as he studied it. He grabbed Britt’s hand and pressed it to his back. “Don’t let go of my shirt. If you need to slow down, let me know. I’ll match your pace, but plan to move steadily. Don’t make unnecessary noises. If you need to speak, tug twice on my shirt.”

He lifted his gaze over the top of her head. Lars must have given some indication of approval, because Henrik turned back to her.

“Ready?”

Britt nodded.

Lars did the same.

They strode into the jungle together.