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Zelda had so many questions to ask Cassandra. Where had she learned magick and why hadn’t the Bane Stone any power over her? Zelda hadn’t been able to cast, but Casandra had cast very effectively and without a stave or wand.
When they returned to the inn, the others were both angry that Zelda had ventured out alone and relieved that Cassandra was alive and had defended Zelda. The knights scolded Zelda, and Calain grabbed her arms, peering into her face to see if she was hurt. Then they gathered around Cassandra, gave her one-armed hugs and pats on the back, and asked if she was well.
A breathless Cassandra explained apologetically that the Rose Guard knights had followed her through the portal, as she had been unable to close it, and though Zelda had healed her arm, she was too exhausted to continue fighting.
“Can you ride?” Selene asked, clutching Cassandra’s shoulder.
Cassandra managed a breathless nod.
“Good. We have Sunny down in the stable,” said Selene. She looked at Calain and Gweneth. “Let us don armor and make for Wolf Fortress immediately.”
And so, the knights donned their armor, grabbed their satchels, and all of them set out for the stables. Outside, the three Rose Guard knights were still lying in dark pools of blood as moonlight played upon their staring eyes. The one without a head was still spurting from his neck.
The knights guided their horses from the stables. Zelda went to Calain’s horse, Arthur, as usual, but Selene held out her arm to block her.
“What are you doing?” demanded Calain.
“Zelda must ride with Gweneth,” said Selene.
“What?!” said Zelda and Calain together in borderline outrage.
Gweneth was nearby, avoiding everyone’s eye as she adjusted the saddle on her white speckled stallion, Bron.
“We are going to part ways to confuse the Rose Guard,” said Selene.
“Don’t be stupid,” said Calain at once.
Selene’s nostrils flared and her lips grew tight. She was losing patience. “Be still and listen to me, Calain, you insufferable—!” She broke off, trying to calm herself.
Cassandra put a soothing hand on Selene’s shoulder and said quietly, “Go on, sister.”
Selene took a breath. “Cass can barely stand. She may not be able to sit her saddle. I will send her with you, Calain. You will tie your horses together, that you may steady her. You are the only one strong enough to support her.”
Calain looked anxiously at Cassandra, who did indeed look ready to collapse. “Of course, I will aid her,” Calain said.
“When we leave here,” went in Selene, calmer now that Calain was listening, “we will head our separate ways into the forest and hide there for one day and one night. Then we each shall head to Wolf Fortress.” She looked around at everyone. “Is that understood?”
“Let us go forth already,” Gweneth complained.
Calain pulled Zelda into a kiss that made her tremble. When they broke apart, Calain touched her forehead to Zelda’s and said, “We shall meet again.”
Behind Calain, Gweneth rolled her eyes. “Always so dramatic,” she mocked and laughed softly when Calain lightly punched her.
Everyone mounted. Gweneth took Zelda by the waist and lifted her easily onto Bron’s saddle. Then she climbed up behind Zelda and snapped the reins. The horse took off.
As they were thundering away up the quiet street, Zelda looked back a last time at Calain, and it occurred to her that she and the red knight had never been apart since they had met. Calain must’ve been thinking the same thing, for she lifted her gauntlet in sad farewell. Then the horse turned the corner, and Zelda could see Calain no longer.
“You most really love her,” said Gweneth in amusement. “She must be a worthy lover. Nothing else makes sense.” She laughed.
“There are many reasons to love Calain,” Zelda said irritably.
“As there are many reasons to love you,” answered Gweneth, giving one of Zelda’s heavily bouncing breasts a brief squeeze.
Zelda flushed to her hairline and hated that she had enjoyed the brief groping. Though Gweneth could be sweet, she was still always flippant and mocking. Zelda could not decide the woman’s true feelings, and it frustrated her. She still had the carving Gweneth had given her in her satchel. Was that the real Gweneth or was it the one always poking fun of her? Perhaps the jesting was how she showed affection. Zelda was realizing she did it to everyone.
They continued on in silence, flying through the gates of Priine and into the green countryside. Zelda could see hills and farmhouses in the distance. An endless stream of trees lined the dark horizon, the forest Selene had spoken of.
Gweneth turned off the road and galloped them toward an abandoned farmhouse, where she dismounted and led the horse inside with Zelda still seated in the saddle. When she reached up and took Zelda by the waist, her eyes were soft. Startled, Zelda’s lashes fluttered in pleasant surprise, and she braced her small hands on Gweneth’s arms as she was lifted down from the saddle. Her breasts jiggled heavily when Gweneth set her on her feet. For several seconds, Gweneth merely stared down at Zelda and seemed to be meditating on something. Zelda stared back, secretly hoping the beautiful knight would kiss her, but Gweneth blinked and moved past Zelda, instead pacing at the open barn door.
Disappointed, Zelda didn’t know what to do with herself, so she sat on an old milk stool and watched as Bron idly picked hay from the floor and chewed it.
“What you did tonight was foolhardy,” Gweneth said, startling Zelda when she spoke into the silence.
Zelda straightened indignantly. “Excuse me?”
“Going down to help Cassandra,” Gweneth elaborated, shaking her head, “when you should have woken us. There was no reason not to have woken us.”
“There was no time!” Zelda snapped. “While the three of you were donning your armor, she would have been slain!”
“We needn’t have fought in our armor,” Gweneth answered calmly. “We would have rushed to her defense in the nude if the situation had warranted it.”
“My presence caused a distraction,” Zelda insisted, “and Cassandra defeated them.”
Gweneth still didn’t seem to approve. “You’re as hotheaded and stubborn as Calain. No wonder you yearn for each other so. We should never have let you take watch. We should have tied you to the bedpost.”
Zelda’s chest heaved angrily, and she shot to her feet, her cloak coming loose and falling off. “You just try it!”
“There’s a post right there,” Gweneth said, nodding at the wooden barn post that stood near Zelda. Now she was smiling and looking amused.
Zelda trembled. She took an angry step forward. “You try tying me to that post and I’ll . . . I’ll—!”
Smirking, Gweneth quickly advanced, backing Zelda against the barn post. She towered over her. “You’ll. . . .? What? Turn me into a frog?”
Zelda blushed. “Perhaps!” she said defiantly.
Gweneth liked that. She laughed and her eyes were bright with desire when she said, “Or maybe you’ll just stammer and grow moist.”
Zelda’s blush brightened. Gweneth was the only one who spoke to her so suggestively, and as angry as she was at the moment, deep down, she liked it. She hated that she liked it! She was tired of being treated like a delicate thing that needed to be protected! She realized in that moment that was all she was to Gweneth. Calain saw her as powerful, and Selene wanted to protect her because she loved her, not because she saw her as weak. But Gweneth saw her as a silly little girl, who ran recklessly into danger, who couldn’t defend herself. To Gweneth, Zelda was a pretty, dumb plaything that needed to be babysat.
Zelda looked into Gweneth’s eyes and hated how they twinkled with laughter. She blinked, and Gweneth’s face spread in shock when she was frozen on the spot, unable to move a muscle. She could only move her eyes, which she turned down at Zelda in a heated glare.
Zelda smiled up at Gweneth, relishing in her helplessness. “I don’t need you!” she said haughtily. “I don’t need any of you, and I’ll prove it.” So saying, she took her gray cloak up from the hay, whirled it around her shoulders, and marched out, leaving Gweneth helpless as a statue behind her.
***
ZELDA DIDN’T TAKE GWENETH’S horse. She was tempted to, but furious as she was, she didn’t want to leave Gweneth stranded in the middle of the countryside, while she could have easily to used magick to get anywhere she pleased. Apparating was very difficult and even dangerous (lesser mages had lost limbs trying), but Zelda could do it if she focused. Right now, she wanted to be as far from Gweneth as possible. Selene said they should all meet at Wolf Fortress, but Zelda didn’t feel like explaining why she had arrived there alone.
As she marched (in a quick, angry stride) across the open green fields outside the barn where she’d left Gweneth, Zelda realized that she needed to be alone for a while, that she hadn’t been alone since she’d lived with her uncle as a child (he had often neglected her). She wanted to gather her thoughts, calm her angry feelings toward Gweneth, and try to come up with some sort of plan for her future. For Calain’s earnest questions aboard the Atross had set her thoughts in motion: what was she going to do with her life now? She could not, she would not spend the rest of her (very long) life sleeping on the ground! Oh, no. And her gowns were fast becoming rags! She needed coin, she needed a home, she needed proper clothes, she needed stability. And she did not want to live in Wolf Fortress, a cold old building in the middle of nowhere!
Zelda stopped and turned, gazing at the line of trees on the distant horizon. It was a forest, dark green and mysterious. Selene had mentioned hiding there, so how dangerous could it be? But it was quite far away without a horse. Zelda closed her eyes and focused her entire being on appearing in the unknown forest. She felt her ears pop as she disappeared, and a second later, she opened her eyes to find herself standing in the dark forest.
Zelda gasped: the forest was beautiful. It wasn’t as dark and scary as it had seemed from a distance. Instead, it was bursting with flowers. Vines loaded with blossoms hung from the trees, and the treetops were a dark, rich green. The abundance of flowers made the forest smell heavenly as Zelda walked through it, listening to the hoot of owls and the happy song of night birds.
Zelda traveled for three days in blissful solitude, drinking at the little streams, eating apples from the trees, humming to herself, happy and content and suddenly glad to be alone, even for a little while. She never found trouble. No goblins. No trolls. No evil spirits. The forest had a light, clean aura to it, as if no wicked creatures could even have entered had they tried. So far, Zelda had only come across butterflies, little rabbits fleeing in the undergrowth, startled deer that fled at once when they saw her, and the occasional raven or sparrow, watching her silently from the trees.
The birds unnerved Zelda. They did not behave like normal birds, though she couldn’t see how the court sorceress of Eriallon could have been using them to spy. Magick had its limits and could only reach so far. Depending on the strength of the sorceress, magick couldn’t even cross water, and Zelda was on a different continent entirely, assuming the court mage hadn’t followed her to Koradara.
If the birds weren’t being controlled by the court mage of Eriallon, then it was possible they were being controlled by a sorceress who was local to the area and was using them to watch Zelda. Zelda didn’t like that. While the forest had a clean feeling and she could not detect any Dark Magick, she did not like being spied upon. She decided she would leave the strange forest as soon as possible and head for Wolf Fortress after all . . . If only she could find her way out.
It was on the fourth day that Zelda came across the crystals. They were massive, rising out of the earth and pushing their great way up between the trees like gargantuan teeth. They were white and pink, purple and pale blue, all glowing and humming softly with power. And there were so many of them, it was becoming hard to continue on, for soon, they were blocking the path and forming a wall.
What was worse, the presence of the crystals seemed to have the same effect on Zelda as a Bane Stone, and she realized they must’ve been what Bane Stones were carved from. The symptoms were barely noticeable at first. She felt a little drowsy the first hour, and as she kept walking, she started to feel more fatigued, then too sluggish to lift her feet, until by the fifth hour, she knew she would not be able to cast a spell.
Zelda felt foolish for storming off and leaving Gweneth’s side. If the woman weren’t so insufferable! But she knew deep down that no one else was to blame her for actions. She had acted on impulse, allowing her emotions to control her rather than the other way around, and now she was lost in a strange forest, too tired to use her magick to escape it. If some creature were to come along, she wouldn’t even be able to defend herself physically. She tried lifting a stick as a makeshift weapon and her tired arms shook before she suddenly dropped it. The crystals seemed to be sucking the life out of her.
On the fifth day, as Zelda was sitting on the ground and miserably willing herself to go on, wolves appeared between the crystals. There must have been seven of them, and they were no ordinary wolves. They were black and scruffy, and twice the size of a normal wolf, their eyes red spheres that seemed to hover as they peeled out of the darkness, their long fangs dripping with yellow saliva. Heart pounding, Zelda scooted back on her seat and felt the solid cold side of one of the giant crystals against her back. She pressed herself to the crystal, as if it could save her, and the wolves seemed amused by her desperation. She saw the laughter in their red eyes. It reminded her of Gweneth and she glowered.
:Are you lost, little lamb?: mocked the wolf in the lead, its mind linking with hers. It was bigger than the others, a female with wild black fur flying in every direction, and thick fur around her ears that formed a shaggy mane.
:She smells like other meats,: said a smaller male at the back of the group. He snapped his jaws hungrily. :What’s in the bag, little lamb?:
Zelda was indeed carrying dried meat she’d purchased in Priine. She thought of offering it to the wolves in exchange for her life, but she knew they preferred fresh meat. They were going to eat her, here, in the darkness, beneath the moon, and Calain, Selene, and the others would track her down to find her bloody bones.
The wolves were hissing with laughter as they closed in. One leapt forward and ripped Zelda’s dress with its teeth. She screamed softly and her body tensed, though the wolf’s teeth had only grazed her skin. Her dress had been torn in the front, exposing her slender belly and breasts. Another wolf leapt forward, and she cringed when it grabbed her sleeve, tearing it off. Would they undress her first? She supposed they didn’t want to eat her clothing as well.
Trembling, Zelda closed her eyes, miserably resigned to her fate. And then . . . a whimper and a shriek. Zelda opened her eyes and gasped: one of the wolves had lost its head. The severed head rolled away as the other wolves watched in horror. Then their leader howled, and all of them scattered, still whimpering, as the giant figure of a woman swung a great blade threateningly after them and managed to kick one in the backside with her boot. A yelp from the assaulted wolf, and then the sound of paws frantically tearing through the undergrowth.
When the wolves had gone, the giant woman turned around, breathless, and stabbed her great two-handed blade in the earth. She leaned against the blade and eyed Zelda curiously.
Zelda sat in shock, fumbling to cover her breasts as she leaned back against the giant crystal behind her. The woman before her was as big as a Knight of Falcon and just as muscular, but she wasn’t wearing silver armor. Instead, she wore black leather armor that exposed her muscular arms, her bulging legs, and her rippling midriff. She was also draped in animal furs and hides, and upon her head was a horned circlet made of bone. Her long, auburn hair fell in curtains either side a face that was surprisingly young and sweet and not hard or scarred by battle at all.
When the big woman spoke, it was in a language Zelda did not understand. Seeing Zelda’s confusion, the big woman cleared her throat and said in broken common tongue, “Woman lost?”
Zelda hesitated and nodded, feeling too tense to speak. Who was this wild barbaric woman? And was she a danger to Zelda? She couldn’t decide. The woman didn’t seem threatening, though she was certainly dangerous. With all her bulging muscles, she probably could have broken Zelda’s neck with a headlock alone.
“Woman sorceress?” asked the big woman, pointing to Zelda’s stave, which she had dropped to the ground. The woman didn’t seem to approve. Her face darkened.
Zelda knew it would probably be a bad idea to let on that she was a sorceress, so she shook her head and said, “Walking s-stick.”
The barbarian woman didn’t seem to believe Zelda, and she cursed, realizing the woman was far smarter than she appeared.
The barbarian fixed Zelda with a hard stare, but after her eyes had traveled over Zelda’s body (lingering momentarily on her exposed breasts), they softened, and she said with grudging curiosity, “Woman travel alone through Dark Bloom? No defense? No companion?”
The way the barbarian spoke, she sounded as if she was scolding Zelda. Zelda wanted to be angry, but she was realizing that perhaps Gweneth – and the barbarian stranger – were right about her. She was foolish and impulsive. She was a child who needed to be babysat.
“Yes,” Zelda said with much shame. “I am alone.” She thought it best not to mention Gweneth or any of the knights. If the barbarian wasn’t dangerous, perhaps she had friends who were.
“Woman come with me?” offered the big woman. “Yrsa keep woman safe.”
Zelda hesitated. When she looked into the woman’s dark green eyes, they were gentle. They reminded her of Calain, so she slowly nodded and said, “I’ll . . . come with you.”
The apparent Yrsa nodded and rose to her feet, towering over Zelda again from her great height, so that Zelda gulped and felt her body quiver. The barbarian sheathed her great two-handed blade in the harness on her back, then she leaned down, grabbed Zelda gently by the arm, and pulled her to her feet. Zelda barely had time to gain her bearings before she had been flipped over the woman’s shoulder, and she blushed when Yrsa clapped a meaty hand on her backside to hold her in place as she turned and stomped away through the trees.