MIKAIL

CITY OF HALLAN, GAYA

W e made it through the night and the morning without being attacked, so that’s something. But if Aeri spends a minute longer looking at wrap dresses in this market, our streak might be over. Even Sora looks annoyed.

“Just pick one,” Royo says, throwing up his arms. “Or get them both. We’re going camping, not to a ball.”

He’s grumbling, but they’re as close as they were in Khitan. Like I told her, he just needed time.

Aeri picks the white-and-blue-patterned dress she’d gone back to a few times. She pays the shop worker and pockets the change.

We finally have all the supplies we need…and then some. Actually, we could survive a full sunsae with everything we bought. We were running low on mun until Aeri pulled out a diamond to sell this morning.

She can also turn anything into gold, but that’s a last resort.

The market is surprisingly full for a city that’s seen better days.

I consider asking locals about the temple, but it’s not worth the risk of discovery.

Loyalty has been hard to come by, but enemies have been plentiful.

By now, Rune knows we escaped, and Seok is aware we’re alive.

We’re being hunted, and there’s no reason to leave a trail.

As we walk out of the market, we pass a messenger house.

I think about sending a message to Fallador.

By asking for a private word with Rune, he helped me escape, but was that intentional?

We didn’t tell him about our plans in case he was working for Rune, yet it seemed like he picked up on them. Whose side is he really on?

Without an answer, I continue down the old stone street. The only people I can trust are the ones walking with me. We will, in fact, meet Fallador and Rune in Tamneki, but it will be at the head of an army.

I hope.

Ever since Berm, I’ve been thinking about Jeul, the old capital that bore the worst of the Festival of Blood.

I am certain the Gayans there feel far differently about Yusan than those who live in the southeast. Rebel and spy reports came from the northwest side of the island. It’s what I’m counting on.

We leave the skiff tied up at the port and take horses out of the city. If needed, I can use the scepter to call a boat to us. But with aching pain from my joints to my muscles and an ever-present headache, among other issues, I’d rather not do it.

The four of us ride in a line west to the sacred woods.

Or where they once stood. A normal forest would’ve grown back after a fire, even a purposely set one, but from all accounts, the enormous trees belonging to the earth goddess never regrew.

And yet Joon didn’t suffer for desecrating a goddess’s prized possession.

Sometimes I wonder if the gods are even watching us. And if they are, why don’t they act? Why are they indifferent?

I grip my reins despite the pain curling my hands.

“Are you all right?” Sora asks. She’s riding next to me. Aeri is to her hearing side, so she turns her head, waiting for my answer.

“I’m just thinking about the woods,” I say.

“Mm-hmm,” she hums.

I smile. I thought I was a great liar before Sora. Last night, she asked me to sleep in bed with her because she didn’t buy me claiming to feel fine on the couch. I’m glad she insisted. It was good to sleep on the feather bed. I doubt I would’ve slept at all on the lumpy sofa.

We ride west for two bells. It’s just the dirt road and green field around us under a clear blue sky.

The fog burned off by dawn, and now it’s warm but not hot.

The breeze feels refreshing, lifting spirits on the floral air.

Aeri laughs as a butterfly lands on Royo’s head.

Sora smiles. On an open road with my friends, I can almost forget why we’re here.

Then, as we crest a hill, there it is—a wall of fog and death.

The sacred woods of Alta, or what’s left of them, are covered in a dense mist said to be the goddess’s tears.

The immense ebony trees stand without leaves or needles.

Acres and acres of charred woods linger like reapers in an area that had once been teeming with life.

The zone of death extends far up the western coast, nearly reaching Jeul.

I claw at my saddle, but we continue forward.

“Is the ground…ash?” Aeri asks.

It appears so. I ride forward until my horse won’t step any closer, and then I dismount and try to pull the animal forward. Begrudgingly, he walks until we reach the border of the ash, where he refuses to move another foot. I pull his reins. He rears back and whinnies, his eyes full of terror.

Animals can sense forsaken ground.

The horse calms when I allow him to back up a few feet. Finding the temple would certainly be faster on horseback, but something tells me that’s not going to be an option.

I hold the reins, debating about where to tie him. The closest grass was on the other side of the hill, but the horses could be stolen. We could leave them here, but if we don’t return within a day or so, they’ll die of hunger or thirst.

Royo has also dismounted. He’s carrying his pack and Aeri’s on his back. He also has Sora’s in his hand. I’d offer to help, but I’m in enough pain just carrying my own pack and a water bladder.

“I’ll tie the horses back by the hill.” Royo drops all the bags and takes rope out of his pack. “You said it could take a few days to find the temple, right?”

“It could,” I say. “But thieves could take the horses from the meadow.”

Stealing a horse is punishable by death, but that hardly matters when you’re starving or addicted to laoli.

“They could take ’em from here, too. If the gods will it, they’ll be around when we get back.” He shrugs and takes the horses to where there is grass and a stream.

I suppose the muffled moans I overheard last night are the reason for his startlingly good mood.

If I asked, Royo would claim it’s because Hwan might already be free from Idle Prison, but that’s not it at all.

We don’t think Hwan was ever moved there.

No, it has everything to do with the way Aeri looks at him.

Doesn’t matter, though. I should be grateful that Royo is in a good mood at all.

He returns, and the four of us walk toward the towering charcoal woods. Each tree is over ten feet wide and reaches well over a hundred feet into the air, most over two hundred.

Sora steps a delicate foot on the edge of the woods. She pulls up the hem of her dress, and her boot sinks down until the ashy soil reaches her calf.

“It’s like a bed of ash,” she says.

Aeri frowns at her new shoes.

“The ground has wept ash since the festival,” I say. “The land was blessed, and now it’s cursed.” I shift my pack to take a sip of water from my canteen. The bladder is enough to refill all of our canteens ten times. I try not to wince with pain as I move the pack. “Let’s go.”

It’s unsettling at best, entering the mist-covered dead woods.

The ground is spongy ash underfoot, and there’s not a sound.

My senses tell me that this is hopeless, that the temple is long gone, but Sora and Aeri are right—there were recent Gayan scrolls in the Temple of Knowledge in Khitan.

Yusan wouldn’t bother with making a Gayan translation, not for a colony.

The temple must still exist somewhere. And because Yusan believes they burned it to the ground, they would assume the Gayans, now under Yusanian control, wouldn’t need one.

The Gayan Temple of Knowledge used to be housed in the magical tree of Alta, which was said to be two hundred feet in circumference and three hundred feet tall.

But despite the massive size, I’m not sure where it is.

Something tells me it’s dead center in these woods.

I’d rather have more than a gut feeling, but information on the temple also disappeared.

The four of us continue into the forest, and the mist soon closes in around us. I have a compass, and so does Royo, but the visibility is poor, and the trees are dense.

We’re not more than a hundred yards in when my skin prickles.

It feels like there’s a feather dancing over my shoulders.

I turn each way, certain we’re being watched.

But that’s not possible. There’s no one else in these woods.

Still, I switch the walking stick to my left hand so I can grab my sword hilt faster.

Bells and bells pass as we continue into nothing but the sound of Royo’s heavy breathing.

Nothing lives here—it’s why the horses spooked and why reasonable people would steer clear.

But this soil is nothing compared to the funeral pyres after the Festival of Blood that were so large the ash blew all the way over to Cetil.

The black specks were the remains of people whose only crime was to live on Gaya.

Mothers and sons. Grandfathers and infants. They all burned.

I sip more water. We can’t give up, no matter the odds. We may not win, but we’ll take as many to Lord Yama as we can.

Yet as the sun gets lower, my hope begins to fade. I knew it might take some time to find the temple, but how long? The woods span thousands of acres. What if the temple is far north? That will take days and days of walking. What if we miss it to the west or east? Then we’ll have to circle back.

What’s worse is that I’m not sure I’m leading everyone in the right direction, especially when I’ve been unusually confused.

It’s part of the toll of the scepter, I think.

But we need to reach the temple. We have to find out what happens when the relics are reunited, what is happening to Aeri, and also if there’s a cure for this toll.

I haven’t told the others about my confusion, but they noticed last night.

“This is a good spot to stop,” Royo says.

He points to two trees that had once grown together. The fused trunks will guard our flank and then some. With how dark and foggy it is, there’s no real option to keep going.

I drop my pack, and my muscles are instantly relieved. I refill my canteen again and start taking out supplies.

Royo tries to dig down through the ashy soil, but it keeps filling back in again. He gives up and starts stacking wood and rocks into the shape of a firepit.

Once again, it feels like spiders are crawling along my back. I shift and scan with my hand on the hilt of my sword. I check behind us and then around the sides of the trees. My swift motions alert the others, but there’s nothing. Just woods, mist, and three concerned faces staring at me.

Euyn would’ve gotten a kick out of me turning paranoid. He finally would’ve had a rapt listener for all of his traps and scanning techniques.

Tears prick my eyes, and I’m not sure why. Why now? My first instinct is to dismiss the feeling. But what is the point of that? Does our love not deserve mourning? Or is it that I don’t want to cry in front of the others? I’m safer among these three people than I am in the rest of the world.

I sniffle and then sit on my sleeping bag. Sora’s worry line appears on her brow before she wraps her arms around my shoulders. Aeri takes my hand. Then Royo comes over and slaps me on the back with his meaty palm. It really hurts, but he rubs his hand in a circle to wipe away the pain.

“I miss him, too,” he says.

Those little words burst a dam inside of me.

All the emotions I’ve kept at bay since the banquet hall spill out.

Maybe I needed someone else to say that they’ve missed Euyn.

I missed him for the years of his banishment, but this is something else.

This is a deep, dark cavern of longing that can’t be filled.

It felt good to murder the king’s guard.

To do something with this rage. Even the pain of using the scepter has been better than dealing with this emptiness, this hole in my heart.

I let my tears fall as my nose runs and my headache worsens.

I cry for Euyn and my father—the men who chose me, who loved me, and who paid the price for it.

They’re gone. And yet I remain. Deep sobs rack my chest, and I reach deeper.

I cry for what happened here when I was a boy.

The family I knew and lost, and the family I didn’t.

I cry for the victims until I’m wailing on the forest floor.

Then I move to wipe my face. But Sora, Aeri, and Royo hold me until I have no tears left. Sora adds salt to my water to help me feel better. Aeri places a blanket over me. Royo lights a fire, which beats back the dark. This isn’t an alliance—this is a family. One to live for and die with.

I lie back on the sleeping bag as my breathing slows enough for me to be able to drink. As I stare at the fog, I can’t see any of the night stars. But maybe that’s not a bad thing. The stars tell our future. Maybe together with a starless sky, the four of us can write our own destiny.