The world slowly came back into focus as I sat up. My head felt cloudy, weighted, as if I’d had too much of Dreya’s wine. I stretched and my bones ached with each slight movement. Something else cracked. I rubbed my eyes and ran my hands through my hair, jumping with a start as I found that pieces of it were shorter than usual.
I grabbed at my hair and pulled it in front of my face, over my eyes, spotting large chunks of what remained and the seared tips. Feeling around my head, I found patches missing, bits still long here, terribly short there . . . I groaned.
I scrambled to my feet, my hands rustling over the cold earth. I was outside.
Running from home.
The fire.
The lightning.
My Gods. The forest.
The woods looked like the end of the world. Ancient trees had crashed, leaving terrible open spaces and jagged, broken stumps in their wake. The air had the scent of burning wood and pine needles, and wisps of smoke still rose from the debris. In the slowly dawning sunlight, there was something else.
I squinted and gasped.
Bodies.
Further back near the meadows, I saw the clear outline of forms strewn on the ground. My heart beat wildly. I hoped that they were only knocked unconscious like I had been.
My insides bunched. Where was Kenzi?
I stood and winced. Every bone in my body ached; all my muscles were stiff from the cold air and sore, as if I’d been punched. I surveyed the brown, charred landscape. Outlining the ravaged space were bright-green trees, untouched, as if the energy Kenzi shot out just stopped all at once, leaving it unscarred in a perfect circle.
Walking through the burned woods, I was stunned by the silence. I could hear the faint sounds of birds chirping on the far outskirts, but here, amid the carnage, nothing. Even my footsteps, which would have normally crunched and snapped as I stepped on dried leaves and twigs, were quiet, save for the occasional puff of ash that rose from the ground and danced across my vision.
“Kenzi?” I muttered softly, still worried that someone might be waiting, looking for us. “Kenzi!” I spoke up louder this time, my voice echoing across the shattered landscape.
At this, I heard a rustling. I scoured the ash on the ground, the broken trees and blackened leaves. I heard movement again, this time catching a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. I picked a charred branch up off the ground, holding it tightly.
The brambles rustled.
A small rabbit shot out and ran furiously across the desolate forest floor, its fur covered in ash.
“Were you going to hit me with that?” I heard a voice ask. I whirled around, the branch snapping in half as I spun. Kenzi stood a few feet away, looking smug. He had the bag Dreya’s father had given him, but the poncho was nowhere to be seen, and in the growing sunlight, the pulsing light of his Ink was faint. I opened my mouth to speak.
“I think I can control it,” he said with a broad grin. As he spoke, he lifted up his arms, his forearms exposed and sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He looked at his arms and squeezed his palms, the muscles in his forearms bulging slightly, and with that, the Ink pulsed a light white-blue. Even in the sun, it was still vibrant. His exposed neck pulsed and his eyes flashed white for a second, and then it all faded, almost unnoticeable.
“I was up all night, watching the fires burn out,” he said with a grin as he looked at his own arms, “learning all of this. Really, it isn’t all that hard.” With this, he lifted one arm up and outstretched his hand. A perfect sphere of energy formed in his palm, floating between his fingers. He closed his hand, putting it out. He looked normal again, save for the runes still covering his arms and neck, a faint glow fading in the daylight.
“Kenzi, we have to . . . ,” I started and motioned toward the bodies of the townsfolk strewn about the broken forest.
He shook his head. “I checked them already.” He paused, not elaborating.
“And?” I asked, anticipating the worst.
He shrugged. “They’re all fine, Caenum. Relax. Just unconscious like you were. Sorry I didn’t wake you right away. I wanted to grab some water.” He fussed with his bag and pulled out a canteen, tossing it over to me. I opened it eagerly, taking large gulps from the animal-skin sack. My tongue felt like a dried strip of leather.
“Here, you might want this,” Kenzi said, revealing my bag slung over his shoulder.
“Where’d you find that?” I asked.
“Don’t be mad,” he said, tossing the bag over to me, “I had to fill your canteens too. We’ve got a long walk ahead of us, right?”
I nodded my head and opened the bag. Everything was still there, including a freshly filled canteen, droplets of water still soaking through the edges of the mouthpiece. “Awesome, thanks.” I closed up the bag and looked up at him. “Kenzi, you can’t do that again.”
He rolled his eyes. “I can handle it,” he said, pulsing his Ink.
“After just one night, you can control it?” I said, skeptically. I gestured about wildly. “Look at this place! It’s as if a lightning storm just tore through it!”
He grinned. “Well, it sort of did.”
I looked at him reproachfully. “Come on.”
He shrugged. “No one got hurt.”
I looked over at the bodies and caught him glancing over as well. His eyes darted back to me and I pursed my lips.
“I’m going to go check on them.” I said, starting to walk over.
“No . . . ,” Kenzi started, reaching his hand out. “T-they, um,” he stammered, eyes darting about, thinking, “they might wake up, run for help. We should go now.”
I frowned. “How many of them are there?”
Kenzi shrugged, “I don’t know, five . . . six, maybe.” His eyes kept looking about.
“You didn’t check them, did you?” I asked, crossing my arms.
Kenzi dug his foot into the earth, looking down.
I scoffed and started off toward the scattered bodies, rag dolls hurled by an angry toddler. Kenzi followed behind, slowly, a dozen feet away. Each step we took tossed more ash into the air, until we were walking in what felt like a fog of white and gray dust. My feet kicked particles into the air and spending them back straight into his face. Kenzi coughed and sputtered.
“You could walk ahead of me if you wanted, you know.” I said, monotone. “Man up and be the first to see what you’ve done?”
Kenzi grumbled something in response.
The first villager we reached was splayed out near a large rock, about half the size of myself. Two booted feet protruded from behind the boulder. I leaned against the cold stone and glanced back at Kenzi, who fidgeted and looked around the forest. I took a deep breath and hoisted myself to the top of the rock.
I grimaced. Regenye was a small woman with dark, curly brown hair, bright rosy cheeks and enormous brown eyes. This was the woman who made elaborately grand cakes and fruit-filled pies for the entire town. Our farm supplied the fruit she used, and she often stopped by my grandmother’s house with the first batch of baked goods. She still clutched a torch in one hand, though it had long since been extinguished.
I clambered off the rock and sat down next to her. Her eyes were closed, her face had a fine layer of the white ash on it, as did most of her clothing and exposed skin, giving her the look of a petite statue. My heart sunk, this cheery woman, silenced.
Then, a flicker of movement.
I pursed my lips and lightly blew some of the ash off one of her arms. Regenye was Inked with imagery of warm bread, colored splotches of frosting . . . and her Ink was still moving. Sprinkles were fluttering down onto cupcakes and flames licked from the hearth that was tattooed near her neck.
I smiled.
She was alive. I stood up and looked at Kenzi, who was still looking away, uncomfortable.
“She’s okay,” I said, smiling. Kenzi looked relieved, and we continued to poke and prod the others who were lying on the forest floor. Each stirred slightly as we approached, a movement that both thrilled and terrified me.
Ambur, the town’s alchemist, whose Ink was made up of bubbling rivers of melted metals, twisted and turned in her sleep, and next to her, Helene, one of the town’s seamstresses, kicked a little, her skin decorated in tattoos of patchwork cloth, stitches, and fabrics.
Close to the edge of the woods, slumped against a large tree, was the mayor of Frosthaven, a crossbow still in his hands. It was large, heavy, weathered, and made of wood. It was carved with an array of symbols, a beautiful killing machine. A handful of arrows were snapped to the bottom of the frame as it moved up and down on his chest.
I stopped for a beat. Kenzi looked at me puzzled.
“What?” he asked with a shrug.
“What do you think?” I asked, nodding my head at the crossbow.
Kenzi pursed his lips and sucked at his teeth. “I don’t know, Caenum, I guess we could kill him.”
I flashed him a horrified look.
“I just wanted to take the crossbow from him!” I exclaimed softly, pointing at the weapon. “Not kill him. Come on, Kenzi.”
“Oh!” Kenzi said with a slight chuckle. He eyed the crossbow, which moved up and down slowly with the Mayor’s gentle breathing. “I think it’s worth the risk, especially if more of your,” he smirked, “friendly townsfolk are going to be coming after us.”
“All right, keep an eye on him.” I reached down slowly and tugged gently at the crossbow. The mayor stirred and groggily muttered something but didn’t wake. I pulled, but it wouldn’t give.
“He’s still holding on to it,” Kenzi said, stooping down to watch. He nodded at the mayor’s hands, the fingers clutching the crossbow. I nodded and grasped the bow.
“I’m just going to yank it away and see what . . . ,” I started.
“What do you think you’re doing?” sputtered the mayor, his booming voice echoing in the woods. His eyes darted from me to Kenzi to the crossbow, which was now firmly in both my and his grasp.
He eventually settled on Kenzi.
“You . . . ,” he said, loathing in his voice. He wrestled with the crossbow, his thin frame jostling back and forth on the ground. “Let go, Caenum! Let me finish this!”
I wrenched the crossbow out of his hands and held it high, brandishing it above the mayor.
He chortled.
“And what are you going to do with that, boy?” he demanded. “It’s not loaded. Do you even know what an arrow is, working on a farm as you have all these years? Playing in the dirt instead of brandishing a weapon?” He grinned, amused at his own joke.
Kenzi took a step toward the mayor, tightening his fists. They pulsed blue-white.
“Kenzi, don’t,” I said, and he backed down.
“Ah,” the mayor said, and continued to press, “so the Conduit is your lapdog now, is he? I hear the Citadel trains mongrels like you, makes you do whatever they want. Soldiers, assassins, slaves . . . just wait until they catch the two of you.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, trying to reason with the mayor, slinging the crossbow over my shoulder.
“We’ll just leave that up to the Citadel, now won’t we?” the mayor snarled.
“Shut up!” I said, and pointed the crossbow at his face.
The mayor laughed. “It still isn’t loaded, boy! What are you going to do?”
“I’m warning you!” I growled, gripping the crossbow.
“You’re not going to do a damn thing,” he said. “You don’t have the guts. Help! Someone he . . .”
WHACK!
I brought the butt of the crossbow down across the mayor’s forehead, leaving a bright-red mark in its wake. He looked up at me, his expression dazed.
“They’ll kill you. Both of you. And everyone . . . everyone . . . ,” he broke off.
WHAM!
I slammed the end of the weapon across his head again, and he slumped down, flopping onto the forest floor. His Ink, which swirled with symbols of government and leadership, still whirled about. His stomach moved gently, his breathing shorter, but still there. I tossed the crossbow back over my shoulder and looked at Kenzi, who grinned.
“What!” I barked at him.
“Nothing,” he said, “nothing. Just didn’t expect that sort of thing from you is all. Nice work.”
“Thanks.” I looked up toward the edge of the forest, seeing patches of torched meadow. “What’s next?”
As we made our way toward the meadows and the edge of the forest, the number of toppled trees and charred brush decreased, and I felt a rush of relief as we approached my mother’s tree. Surrounded by the pile of stones, the small tree went untouched among the carnage. I stopped at the grave and placed my hands over the rocks, all still warm to the touch, either from the morning sun pouring in through holes in the canopy or the charge of power that blasted through it just hours ago.
I pulled my stashed satchel out from under the stones, and emptied its contents into the new bag.
“Escape plan?” Kenzi asked.
“Maybe,” I said, staring at my mother’s tree.
“Who’s buried here?” he asked, taking a step forward, standing next to me.
“My mother,” I said. “We lost her ten years ago. And now I have so many more questions.”
“Sorry,” Kenzi said, placing a hand on my shoulder. I resisted the urge to move away.
“It’s okay,” I said, squatting down to move the rocks back. “Let’s keep going.”
We stopped at the meadows, and I looked toward my home.
“Come on,” Kenzi said, nodding his head toward the woods. “They wouldn’t want us heading back up there.”
“Look, you might not care about them, but I do.” I took a step toward the farm, and Kenzi grabbed my arm.
“Let go of me!” I snarled, pulling back.
“What if we go up there, and we get caught? That jerk made a pretty loud fuss back there. What if someone is waiting for us? Then they find out your grandmother was involved, your gal pal . . . we’ll all be screwed. Not just us. Them.”
“You’re right,” I said, turning briskly around and heading back into the charred woods. The crossbow swung around and slapped against my back. “Let’s get out of here and make our way to the—”
I stiffened. A rush of fear coursed through my body.
“What is it?” Kenzi asked.
I patted myself down, and finally pulled out the piece of leathery parchment my grandmother had given me, which was tucked away inside my bag. It was damp from Kenzi’s good-natured canteen filling, and when I unrolled it, my fears were confirmed.
The ink had run and smudged.
“Damn it!” I yelled, and several people still lying in the woods stirred noticeably. I shook the map. “The water from the canteen ruined it.”
Kenzi grimaced. “Do you remember where we had to go?”
I looked down at the leathery parchment and frowned. We couldn’t go back, and going forward meant we’d be wandering toward the unknown. How were we supposed to find the place? “All I remember is something about two suns setting between two peaks . . . a village . . . ‘” I trailed off as I spotted something in the distance.
Smoke.
I squinted. It was rising from my grandmother’s house.
“Come on!” I yelled, rushing toward the house. Kenzi grabbed me a third time, and I jerked away from him. “Do that one more time,” I snarled, “and I’m keeping that damn hand.”
“What if it’s a trap?” he exclaimed as I ran through the charred meadow toward my home.
“It’s worth the risk!” I said, yelling back at him. “Stay here if you have to! I’ll meet you at the edge of the woods.”
While the back side of our home that faced the woods was fine, the front door had been smashed in, and a fire was smoldering on the rooftop, a hole seared through the straw. I pushed the broken door aside. It creaked loudly, one of the hinges hanging off the wall.
“Grandmother!” I yelled, running about. “Where are you?!” I screamed, not caring for a second who heard me.
I tightened my hands into fists and made for the door. I’d go find her. I’d run to the town hall and break down the doors. I’d load the crossbow and—
“Caenum . . . ,” a muffled voice muttered.
“Grandmother?” I said out loud.
A shadow hopped in through the door and I jumped.
“Sorry I lost my cool back there,” Kenzi said, appearing out of nowhere. “I…” His eyes widened, horrified. “My Gods. What happened here?”
“Shh!” I exclaimed, looking around the room. “I thought I heard something. Were you calling me before you came in here?”
Kenzi looked at me confused. “No, I just ran up here. Why did you—”
“Ca-Caenum . . . ,” the voice muttered again, broken, sounding out my name as if it were caught in the Glacialis.
“There!” Kenzi shouted, pointing to the broken living room table and a pile of the shattered remains of our living room’s chairs, plates, etc. From under the debris, which included pieces of the roof that had crumbled down onto the floor, I spotted a piece of patterned fabric fluttering out, and the unmistakable backs of my grandmother’s leathery, delicate hands.
We both darted over and started sifting through the refuse, tossing bits of wood and ceramic until we lifted up a large beam and the bottom of our table, revealing my grandmother underneath it all.
With a gaping wound in her side.
“Oh Gods,” I swore, reaching down to her. Dried blood flecked the edges of the cut, caking the sliced-open gash in her tunic. It looked so dry that she could have been there all night, and to my horror, I realized she likely had been. I pressed my hands down on her side and she winced, letting out a soft moan.
“Caenum,” she muttered, her eyes blinking madly.
“Shh . . . ,” I said. “Kenzi and I are here, and we’ll take care of you. It’s . . .” I looked down at my hands, and dark blood was seeping between my fingers. I gulped and choked, “It’s going to be okay, don’t worry.”
I looked over at Kenzi urgently, and realized he was already fumbling through his bag, pulling out the bandages Dreya’s father had packed for us. He tossed them at me, and I caught one, keeping my hand on my grandmother’s abdomen, and pressed one of the cotton strips to her, tucking the edges around her back. She hardly moved, her torso horribly rigid. While the white bandages continued to turn a deep crimson, Kenzi reached into my bag and pulled out more.
She’d need a doctor. She’d need stitches, it would have to be cleaned, and it would have to—
“Caenum . . . ,” my grandmother started again, a note of determination in her voice. Her wandering eyes fluttered over at me, and mine welled with tears.
“No, save your strength, I’ll go across town and get the doctor, we’ll get—”
Her gaze suddenly sharpened.
“When you come of age . . . things might awaken . . . ,” she stammered, the words coming out slowly between strained coughs and gritted teeth. “Don’t . . . don’t get Inked. You won’t be able to control it . . . you won’t . . .”
“Grandmother,” I said, her eyes darted about again, lolling in her head, “Remember the map? The map . . . we’re not sure where to go. Where do I go?”
She looked up at me and whispered, a small smile coming over her face, a trickle of blood dribbling down from the corner of her mouth, “It was right there, I kept giving you hints . . .”
“What do you mean?” I asked, grabbing her hand, keeping my other hand tight on her wound and bandages.
“Pepper . . . thistle,” she said, her eyes fluttering toward the kitchen and back to me, “it was pepper thistle.”
“Grandmother I . . . ,” I said, starting to choke on my words, “I don’t understand.” I looked up at Kenzi, his eyes flush with tears, thick streaks trickling down his face. A spice? What did a spice have to do with anything?
“The pep . . . pepper thistle, you always asked . . . I didn’t want you to know . . .” she said, stammering and drifting off, that small smile dancing playfully on her face, coming and going. Suddenly her face got that urgent look again, her eyes set on me. She leaned up a little with a soft groan, her gaze fixed on me. “He’ll be so proud of you. I know he will.”
With that, she exhaled deeply and her head fell back against the floor. Her tight grip on my hand went limp, and she was gone.