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She continued on for the next week and a half, terrified of stopping to rest. She pushed her horse to his limit, but was careful not to push him over. Her journey would not be helped if he dropped dead. Aein breathed easier knowing that all of the werewolves in the camp had changed back to human, and in human form, they would have no memory of her. She kept looking over her shoulder, though.
And despite everything, she almost wished that the form of one particular werewolf would darken her path.
Finn, she thought. Would she ever see him again, she wondered. She hoped that the one berry was enough to keep him sane. She hoped that he had not slipped back into a meaningless beast, possessed by only the desire to bite and tear. She touched her lips. She hoped that he remembered.
Still, she did not see any sign of Finn or any other werebeast. It should not have made her feel as lonely as it did.
The trees began to change, the land became boggy. Her horse's hooves hit the solid planks of the walkway and too soon, she was in the swamp. She sat up a little straighter in her saddle, trying to keep aware of her surroundings. A frog sang in the distance. Where had she seen those berries? It had been almost three months ago. The seasons had changed. Things that were alive were now dead. Things which had been dead were now alive. The swamp contained ghosts as she wandered through it alone.
She and Lars had traveled on this path, she reminded herself, and they had stopped to rest. The hill was easy to spot then, she tried to comfort herself.
But as she thought, she failed to notice that the fog began to gather. It started slowly, pooling around her horse. Her horse began to shy away, spooked by the pressing white. Then the fog nipped at Aein's ankles and wrapped around her legs. It brought with it the memories of all the awful secrets it contained. It was full of the sounds of her nightmares, the sounds of the beasts who hunted her. She knew enough now not to fall prey to its tricks. But it was like it was amplifying her worst fears back at her, like it could read her mind.
She tried to reach out and reason with it, to explain she was not here to hurt, but to help. The fog did not care. It only gathered around her stronger, blocking her eyes so that she could not see more than a foot ahead of her. She dismounted and took her horse's reins, stepping carefully in front of him so that they did not go head first through a rotten plank and into the swamp.
It was only because she was walking along, feeling the edges of the wooden road that she found the breakpoint. Only a few inches of green grass let her know she had found the clearing.
She stepped carefully out, hoping that she was not wrong. The fog pressed closer, as if trying to herd her back onto the road, but she would not be stopped.
And at once, the fog was gone. Her horse gave a whinny and shook his head. Aein swallowed and looking back at where they had come. This hill was in a single pocket of sunshine, surrounded on all sides by a wall of white. It was as if there was something here which repelled all of the magic of the swamp, which acted as an antidote to anything the fog might bring. Ahead were the berry bushes. Aein's eyes prickled with relief. She had made it. She had found them.
She ran up to the bushes and a cry ripped from her throat. They were almost barren. The birds and other animals had eaten it almost clean. What did she expect almost three months later? There was no way that this bush could have grown fruit year round. She pushed her hands through the brown and crumbled leaves. Here and there were a handful of berries. She checked every branch and looked down on the ground for anything that had fallen. She counted thirty. Thirty berries to save the entire stronghold until the next time that the bush bloomed.
"Oh gods," she wept. "What are we to do?"
"Aein?" came a voice.
Aein spun around, not able to comprehend the sound of another human after all these weeks by herself.
"Aein?" asked the voice again.
Was this another trick of the fog? "Who are you?" she asked.
The man stepped out onto the hill, his red hair the first thing to break the gray.
"LARS!" she shouted, shoving the berries in her pocket and then running to throw her arms around his neck. "You're alive! Oh, Lars! You're alive!"
It was him! It was truly him! Her tall, gangly, pale, freckled partner. His beard had grown in thick and full. His hair was a curly mess. He was filthy and dirty, but it was him. She held him tight.
"You were going to bring help..." he whispered. His voice was filled with anguish. "Why didn't you send help?"
She broke away from him. "What are you talking about? The Lord Arnkell sent an entire troop of men out here to relieve you. When you didn't return for the wedding... we thought... we thought you were dead."
There was madness in his glance, the madness of someone who had spent close to three months in the fog alone. "They never arrived."
It was then that Aein became very cold. What happened to them? Had they met the same fate as Johan and Whalter? Or had Lord Arnkell not sent them at all?
She tried to think the best way to ask him. "Lars?" asked Aein. "I have a very strange question to ask you."
"What?" he replied.
"What do you remember between the time of sunset and sunrise?"
His eyes became far away. "I have just been trying to survive. I have just been trying not to go insane in this fog. I go into the cabins every night, fearful of the beasts that come out after dark. I cannot face the twilight. I cannot face the night..."
Aein reached into her pocket. She pulled out one of the berries. She hoped that just one would be enough. She would then have only twenty-nine left. Only twenty-nine more chances of redemption until next summer. "I need you to eat this," she said.
"What?" he asked with a glint of suspicion.
"You must trust me," said Aein. "Eat it. I will tell you everything that has happened."
"I don't understand... You come here after abandoning me, thinking that I was dead, and the first thing you care about is me eating a berry?" He backed away fearfully. "Are you trying to kill me?"
"No! No, Lars... The twilight will be coming soon and I don't want to lose you, Lars. I cannot risk losing you again. This is the only way. Please, just eat it. Please, trust me."
It was like trying to coax a wild animal. He was so mad, she could feel him trying to figure out how to even make a decision. In the end, it was defeat that won, and it broke Aein's heart. He took the berry from her hand, not because he felt like it contained hope, but because he seemed resigned to death. He placed it in his mouth. Aein breathed a sigh. It felt like she had been holding her breath the entire time.
"Good," she said. "Good."
"Good what?" asked Lars.
"Now we must get your horse and leave, Lars. This is what has happened..."
And so she told him everything: about the feast, about the transformation, about her discovery of the berries, of the plot she discovered with the werebeasts held in silver. Lars stumbled.
"You are saying that I am one of them?" he asked, shaking his head, his eyes vacant and glassy. "You are telling me that this is the reason why I cannot remember anything at night anymore?"
Aein nodded. "It was those mushrooms I harvested our first day in the swamp."
Lars took a swing at her. She backed away, shocked by his reaction.
"You did this to me?" he shouted, tears streaming down his face. "You are the one who caused this all? I killed two of my friends because of you?"
"I did not know!" she shouted back. "I did not know!"
Lars fell to the ground, weeping. Great, hot tears spilled down his cheeks. Aein went over and wrapped her arms around him. He pushed her away, but she would not be daunted. She just hugged him tighter and he leaned against her in exhaustion as he sobbed.
"Shhhh..." she whispered. "Shhhh... it is all better now..."
"How can it be better?" he asked. "How can it be better ever again?"
"The berry," she replied. "It protects you."
"It doesn't change the fact I have killed innocent, good men."
"It was not your fault. You were possessed by a terrible beast..."
"It is all my fault... it is all my fault..." he wept.
"Shhhhh..." She pressed her cheek against his sweaty hair and just rocked him, holding him until he was done. "Shhhh..."