White Hart (22 page)

“May I?” Cas says, gesturing to what is in my hand.

I look down and realise that I’m carrying a platter of champagne flutes. He lifts one and takes a sip.

“I’m so glad we managed to find a job for you here in the castle,” he says. “Now we get to remain friends.”

“Casimir, you nincompoop, what are you doing fraternizing with the serving staff?” A corpulent man comes up to Cas and slaps him on the back. “You do know you’re a prince, don’t you?” The man guffaws and clasps Cas by the elbow, pulling him away.

As he leaves, an excited Ellen runs to me. She is not the Ellen I’ve known previously; her cheeks are flushed, and she smiles from ear to ear. It isn’t her usual sarcastic smile; it’s bright and open and warm. “Oh Mae, thank you so much,” she gushes. “Thank you for helping me when I needed it. If you hadn’t transferred your craft in the castle source, I never would have kept him. I never would have become a princess.” She lifts a glass of champagne. I can tell she’s a little drunk from the bright red rash on her neck. “But you can never tell. It’s our secret.” She winks and then leaves.

The scene melts away again. This time I’m alone, and I do not have anything in my hands.

I face only myself. The mirror is dirty, with rust spots around the outside. It reminds me of that chunk of glass we used as a mirror in the hut back in Halts-Walden. I’ve not come far, just far enough to own a whole mirror. The face in front of me is not one I recognise. It is haggard and old, with sunken cheeks and sagging eyelids. The skin around my eyes is so dark, I can hardly see the irises. I look bruised, but when touch below my eyes there is no tenderness. It must be fatigue.

The mirror reflects my humble room, which contains a tiny mattress, a leaning wardrobe, and a few blankets. Underneath the mirror are a washbasin and a small dresser. On the dresser, I notice a sketch of Cas, young and attractive as I know him now.

A deep, ripping pain explodes in my chest, and I lean forward into the washbasin. Before I know it, a sob runs through my body like a wave, hitting me so hard that I can’t breathe. Tears flow from my eyes. The wall is coming down, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

Father’s death comes flooding back, along with speeding images of things I’ve never seen before: Cas and Ellen dancing; Cas walking past me without so much as a glance; Cas, older now, asking me to shine his boots; me alone, pulling my stockings off at the end of a long day and rubbing my tired feet.

When I straighten up, I realise that I’m holding a razor blade in my right hand. As I let out a groan of pure, primal sadness, I press that razor against the flesh of my inner arm. Trapped inside my own body, I can’t do anything. I can’t shout or stop myself. I can’t! I can only witness...

Not yet.

With a gasp I find myself back at the stream, with the Nix before me. I sit on the soil by our fire with a shard of rock in my right hand. I have gripped it so hard that there is blood on my palm. I shake the rock out of my hand and move away from it, appalled at what I was about to do.

Not yet. I have things I want you to do first.

“What things?” I try to calm my breathing, but my heart is racing so fast that I struggle.

It begins to back away, making its
click-click
sounds again. A white blur runs at the thing and collides with it, knocking the monster sideways.

“Anta!” I shout, realising that he has hit the Nix with his antlers.

The monster squeals and rears up, shooting the serum at Anta. I watch helplessly as my white stag falls backwards and snorts. He cannot move. The goo has wrapped around his legs.

Keep your beast in line next time, Craft-born
.

The monster wiggles away, leaving the
click-ick-ick
noise as a lasting reminder. I blink, not sure what I have seen today, not sure what the Nix showed me. When the bushes rustle, I know that it has finally gone, and I wiggle my legs, waking them up after the serum froze them. Cas rolls onto his side and rubs the side of his head.

“Was I hit? Why was I unconscious?” he says.

“I was too,” Sasha says as she pulls herself up from the ground. “The bastard knocked me out.”

I remain on the ground, shaking all over. My breath comes out in ragged whispers. Cas rushes to me and frowns. “Are you all right? Did the thing do anything to you?”

“I’m fine,” I say.

“I don’t remember anything,” Sasha says. “I don’t understand.”

“Me neither,” Cas says, still rubbing his temples. “What about you, Mae, did you see or hear anything?”

“No,” I reply.

For the rest of the day, I sit by Anta and stroke his nose until the Nix’s serum wears off. I find that I can’t look at Cas, not anymore.

I came into the Waerg Woods for revenge. Since then, things have changed. I’ve faced death more than once, I’ve helped people I never thought I would want to help, and I’ve developed feelings I never knew existed. Throughout all of this, the ache in my heart still exists. I still miss Father.

Now, a new ache has begun: an ache for the future, for my future. If what I saw was true, then going along this path will lead me to heartbreak, loneliness, and poverty. It condemns me to a future of scrubbing Cas’s house and cleaning his boots while he lives happily ever after with Ellen. As we pack up the camp to move on, I wonder if I should just leave. I could sneak away with Anta and leave Cas with Sasha. Together they can find Ellen, and I can move on with my life. I can go back to Halts-Walden and take up where I left. Perhaps the sympathy regarding my father’s death would finally bring me closer to the other villagers.

But then I think about the miller and his wounded eyes. Could I live there, after leaving Ellen to the Wanderers? If Cas and Sasha failed... Would it be my fault?

Maybe I could move to the Haedalands. Generations ago, my family came from there. Perhaps I could trace that history and find out if I have any relatives left. But then I think of how I was born in Halts-Walden and that I don’t even know the Heda language. Would I fit in? Or am I destined to never fit in anywhere, to always live as a half-ling, with one foot in either culture, never belonging to either?

If I left now, I would never see Cas again. The thought makes me feel hollow inside. I’m not ready to say goodbye to someone else in my life. Even leaving Sasha would be difficult. If I stay, it means helping Cas find his future wife, and the thought it makes my stomach roil.

I feel so betrayed by my feelings. I blocked away those tears at my father’s funeral because I didn’t want to hurt anymore. I wanted that wall to go up and stop anything from getting in again. Somehow I let Cas work his way into my heart, sidestepping the wall I thought I had so cleverly constructed.

Reluctantly, I climb onto Anta’s saddle. He nibbles the end of my boot with his nose, and I know he’s trying to cheer me up. Well, it won’t work this time, Anta. There’s too much weight on my shoulders, too much to bear.

Sasha has recognised a trail, and she believes it will take us straight for the Wanderer’s camp. Now is the time that I have to decide what I want to take from the Waerg Woods. Do I want to take the revenge I came here to seek? Do I want to seek answers from the people who killed my father? Do I want to free Ellen so I can rid myself of guilt? Or do I want to run away from it all?

T
he sun shines through golden leaves, and almost all the pain has left my leg. Cas rides Gwen up front, and Sasha skips along next to Anta. Ever since the Nix attacked us, she seems free and happy, as if she’d been locked in a cage before and now she has broken out. She begins to sing a song, and I find myself listening to the lyrics.

It’s about the Ancient Ones, when everyone had magic, not just the craft-born, and those abilities were passed through generations.

The Ancients live for hundreds of years in cities with beautiful castles and tall, glass houses. But then people begin to be born without magic. These non-magicals travel for miles around to heal their sick, begging the Ancients to help them. At first the Ancients do it because they want to help the sick people, but later in life, they begin to charge. The charges go up, until most people can’t afford to pay for the service anymore. Many people die as a consequence, and the non-magical people hate those with magic because of it.

They come to the city with torches blazing, ready to burn their castles down to the ground. It starts a war that lasts for centuries, magic and non-magic fighting, innocents dying, riches running out.

Years later, a beautiful young woman with the power of the Ancients—the last of her kind—falls in love with a handsome young man without magic. They run away together to start a family, and it creates a scandal that reaches into the four corners of the world until they are hunted down by angry people. They kill the man, leaving the woman to grieve. This part pricks up my ears. Sasha sings with a haunting voice, and I find myself falling into her song:

The maiden did cry,

“Oh, now shall I die?”

As she beat the soil with her fist.

Dirt answered her call,

Far down did she fall,

’Til roots wrapped her tight and swift.

The girl she felt dread,

“Oh no, am I dead?

What have I hastily wished?

For grief made me wild,

As rash as a child,

And my life will end forthwith.”

“Your life will not end,”

Whispered a friend.

“In fact it has only begun.

“Take all this power,

From earth, air, fire,

And water to cleanse the rift.”

’Twas magic that helped,

Her love-caused welt,

And gave her the strength to live on.

Sasha’s tone is one of pure joy but the words are so sad, they tug at my heart. As we ride on, I wonder if the song is intended for me. For all of Sasha’s joy today, she knows very well that there’s a good chance we will find the Borgans, the people who left her in the woods. At one time, they would have been like family to her. Perhaps her words are telling me not to start that war again, not to kill the people who killed my father. Like the maid in the story, I should find comfort from my craft. I should move on.

When Cas is further ahead, Sasha places a hand on Anta’s reins. “Mae, I need to tell you something.”

Anta stops and I look down at Sasha’s upturned face. “What is it?”

“It’s about my people.” She pauses to checks that Cas is still ahead of us and out of hearing distance. “There’s a reason they’ve been searching for the craft-born, and it isn’t what you think. They are the
protectors
of the craft. They don’t want to harm Ellen; they want to help her with her... your... powers. My people are not craft-born, but we have an affinity with the craft. When the new craft-born comes of age, we send out scouts to find them and bring them into the Waerg Woods for help and guidance. When the king sent out word that the first craft-born girl would marry his son, he upset the balance. He created imposters, and it was hard for my people to find you. It made things... messy—”

“Not just messy,” I say between gritted teeth. “My father died.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I just thought you should know.”

“It changes nothing,” I reply. But deep down I wonder... I wonder what they could teach me.

“Are you girls coming, or what?” Cas shouts from further down the path.

Sasha lets go of the reins and purses her lips. “Please think about it. It could be important to you. That’s all I’m saying.”

We move on in the morning sun.

*

I
t’s mid-morning when I first see the tracks. My heart leaps into my mouth. It has been so long since I’ve seen the tracks left by the Borgans. I’d begun to doubt that we would ever find them again and instead become lost in the Waerg Woods forevermore. But as we follow those tracks, the reality of our situation sinks in. We’re weak. There are three of us, whereas Sasha has told us that the camp is made up of over three dozen people. Our supplies are depleted. Most of Anta’s saddlebags were lost when we escaped from the Ibenas. I have an injury. Sasha and Cas are tired from sleepless nights keeping watch while I recover. How are we going to get Ellen back?

As we eat berries and rabbit over a dim fire, the three of us stare out into the forest in silence. The realisation has hit us all.

“If the camp is in the same place it used to be, we should reach it tomorrow at sundown,” Sasha says.

Cas nods. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we can save Ellen.”

“Not if we fail,” I point out. “We need to devise a plan to get her back. I don’t want this to end up like the Ibenas.”

I exchange a glance with Sasha. The two of us know more than Cas, and I want to make sure it stays that way. I’m not ready for him to know my secret, even if it would make it easier for us to get to Ellen. We both know that the Borgans are supposed to protect the craft-born, but we don’t know if they have worked out that Ellen has no craft. Perhaps she can fool them with her tricks, like she fooled my village.

“We won’t fail this time,” Cas says. He licks his lips thoughtfully. “I think we should sneak in under the cover of night. We could be in and out without the Borgans even knowing about it. Less fuss, and no one gets hurt.”

Sasha shakes her head. “They will have her watched. We have a jail at the camp. It’s more of an iron cage contraption than anything else, but it’s designed to lock up prisoners. My guess is that’s where they’re keeping her. It will be difficult to get her out.” She takes a stick and draws outlines in the soil. “This is the camp. There are lookouts with bows and arrows on each side. They have built a wooden wall which goes all the way around, with the entrance here.” She points to a dot along her drawn outline. “That’s where carts come in after market. Inside the camp, the tents are lined up along this border, and there is the jail. It is only opened by a key, which will be with Allerton.”

“Who is he?” Cas’s eyes shine.

“He’s our leader, a tall man who channels the craft through his amulet. You do not want to cross him. He carries the keys around with him at all times. There’s no way we can get them from him. Not by force.”