In the Forest
to walking. To make matters worse, her injuries made it feel like she was stepping on razor blades, making her whimper every time her feet touched the sand. Truth be told, her experience with pain had been limited. The height of her discomforts had been minor abrasions when she had fallen while playing in the courtyard, and when that had happened, nannies were always present to hug her and patch her up. Falling off flying horses—which she had done many times—rarely hurt when you could fly on your own.
Was this payback? Almost seventeen years of pain at once? What had she done to deserve this? She was not mean and never wished anyone pain. Well, except when she imagined the Queen of Chim falling from the rocks, but that was different. She had just wanted to get away.
Now, however, all she wanted was to return home.
She limped across the dunes. Now and then, she turned to gaze across the sea, but she refused to even admit to herself that she hoped to see anyone there. The water woman must be far away by now, and she was not coming back. I don’t want her to come back, she told herself. The water folk were killers; everyone knew that.
Two hundred feet of sand separated the ocean from the forest. What was she hoping to find? Her knowledge of edible plants was purely theoretical, all from her lessons, and she doubted her ability to identify anything of use. Nevertheless, staying on the beach in the scorching sun was not an option.
It took forever to walk to the edge of the forest.
The forest was quiet, except for the roaring waves pulling in over the beach and a faint buzz of insects and birds in the background. The tree trunks were broad and tall, their crowns full of thousands upon thousands of leaves, filtering the light into soft darkness, appealing to her eyes after the sharp sun and the white sand. Tree roots and broken twigs covered the earth, but soft grass and moss grew in some places, caressing Moira’s sore feet. The air was thick around her, a scent of soil and decaying leaves.
She stumbled on for minutes, maybe hours; she had no clock and only glimpsed the sky. Her feet throbbed with pain, and she was tired and thirsty. The memory of wine from the evening before fluttered past like a mockery. Had she not drunk the wine, would she have realized the danger before the storm grabbed her? Would she even have argued with her mother like never before?
She didn’t know where she was or where she was going. Hopelessness bubbled in her, sagging her shoulders. She wanted to fight, but had no energy. She collapsed and leaned against a tree trunk, exhausted and scared. Everything hurt. She saw a glimpse of the sky between the foliage above, clear and blue. It must be past midday, and the clouds that hid Aurora had moved away. The branches became like prison bars, as if the trees confined her.
Moira cried.
Crying wouldn’t help, but holding back her tears was impossible. She had lost everything. Her wings were gone, and her feet were so sore that she each step was torture. She closed her eyes and dreamed of the castle in the air, her little brother Mael in her arms and Mari sitting next to her, reading. In her daydream, Mael stretched his small, chubby fingers to play with Moira’s hair. He laughed when he grabbed the long curls. He was so tiny; his wings had only recently grown large enough for him to fly, and he was yet to realize it himself. And Mari, so quiet and mature. When had Mari grown up? In Moira’s dream, Mari glanced over the top of her book and smiled at her.
Thinking of them hurt, Moira cried loudly, sobbing in despair and regret over her lost world.
Immersed in her grief, she didn’t hear the rustling of the leaves, so when something grabbed her arm, Moira shrieked in fear. She tried to back away from her attacker, the grip on her arm reminiscent of the queen’s strong fingers.
“Let me go! No!” She had no means of escape.
“Wystan?”
The voice was old and dull. Moira stopped moving and opened her eyes. A creature, unlike anything Moira had ever seen before, stood in front of her. It was about her height, with long, thick wisps of hair almost like the branches of a willow tree, but black. Its skin was wrinkly and dark like a tree trunk, and layers upon layers of rough fabric made up its clothes. A pair of wise but sad eyes regarded her.
“No, not Wystan.” It withdrew its hand, with skin as bark-like as its face, from Moira’s shoulder. The creature turned around to move away. It did not appear threatening, only unsightly. In any other situation, Moira would never have addressed it, but the creature was the only living thing she had encountered so far—and it did not seem entirely hostile.
“Wait!”
It stopped, as if with a sigh, and turned to Moira. It camouflaged so well with the forest, Moira almost lost sight of it, though she was staring right at it.
“You are not Wystan. Must keep searching,” it said.
Moira stood, her feet still aching, traces of tears over her cheeks. She must look awful. She was ashamed of her appearance, unused to being anything but presentable. But she was talking to some kind of tree creature looking to be at least a hundred years old, so she forced her appearance to the back of her mind—no matter what she looked like, she looked better than the creature.
“Who is Wystan?”
The tree trunk creature looked at her with kind eyes. “My grandchild. They took him.”
Moira couldn’t help but ask, “Who are they?”
The creature’s expression darkened. “The humans. They stole him, and I have to take him back.”
“Oh.” Moira had no answer to that.
The creature turned away again. In a rush, Moira grasped for something to say, anything to avoid being alone.
“Do you want,” Moira began, hesitating, seeking the appropriate words. “Do you want help to search for him?”
The creature stopped and peered at Moira. Its gaze wandered from her tousled tresses, over her dirty body, down to her bleeding legs. The creature clicked its tongue, thoughtful. Moira wondered what it thought about itself to judge her appearance.
She forced herself to remain silent.
“You seem to require help yourself, child.”
Moira bowed her head, warm embarrassment seeping into her cheeks. From birth, they had donned her in the finest materials and adorned her with exquisite gems; servants pouring rose-scented baths whenever she wished and brushing her hair until the curls fell like black gold, and of course, beautifying her make-up to perfection.
Now she faced a talking tree trunk who thought Moira needed help, based on her appearance.
The realization shot like a sharp pain through her body because it was true: she needed help.
“A princess from the air can’t find my Wystan,” it said.
Before Moira could protest—or ask how the creature knew Moira was a princess and of the air people—it exhaled and continued, “But come, I’ll help you with your feet.”
Under ordinary circumstances, she would never have followed a wandering tree trunk into the forest—but the circumstances were far from ordinary. She was alone in a giant, gloomy forest with nothing to eat or drink, in clothes that were falling apart and no plan. She remained on guard, as best she could, while she stumbled over roots and tried to keep up with the surprisingly quick creature.
It continued, “I can’t do anything about the wings. You would need to visit Ea for them.”
“Ea?” Moira’s heart skipped a beat.
Was there someone with the ability to restore her wings?
“Yes, beyond the mountains. A long way off. And perilous. You won’t make it there with those legs. I’d get used to walking on the ground if I were you.”
The creature waved its hand, and Moira assumed a mountain existed in that direction and somewhere there was a witch or a good fairy, as in the storybooks. Who else could Ea be, but someone who could use magic to restore her wings? The mere thought of a solution to her problem made Moira burst into a smile.
She ran after the creature and almost forgot the burning pain in her legs.