Forest Born (18 page)

She reached for his tunic, and he pushed her hands away. “It’s nothing.”

“Then it won’t matter if I see.”

“This is not good,” she said.

“It’s nothing, really. I tried to escape and one of Selia’s soliders hit me.”

“With what?”

“His fist.” Razo shrugged. “He was a big one.”

Rin touched the bruise, and he winced. “Razo, I think your rib is broken.”

“No . . .”

“Remember when Deet fell out of a tree? That’s how it looked, and he had trouble breathing. I’ve heard you panting as we run.”

“It doesn’t matter. Broken or not, I still have to go.”

“I’ll go.” Rin spoke without thinking first, and it made her wonder if that was how everyone lived, talking all the time, speaking words before the thoughts had time to settle. “I’ll go to Castle Daire.”

Razo stared. “Were you always this eager to rush off after queens and break into fortresses?”

“Tusken needs his ma back. And I think I can do it. Sneak. They won’t notice me. I’m a better choice than you.”

“Ho there now, I thought you said I was perfect, that I could do no wrong.”

Energy was rising up in her, and she knew instinctively she could make her words very convincing. Perhaps that was people-speaking, she thought. When she got warm inside like that, when words felt tangible before she even uttered them. She took a breath and concentrated on keeping her insides cool and calm. “You should stay with Tusken. Your injury could slow you down. I can sneak right past those guards, tell Isi that you and Tusken are free, and those fire sisters will—”

“Whoa, wait—fire sisters?”

She felt herself blush. “I mean, that’s how I think of Dasha, Isi, and Enna.”

“Fire sisters?” he said again, raising an eyebrow.

She shrugged. “It . . . the name sounded good in my head.”

“Uh-huh. All right, go on.”

“So as soon as the . . . the girls know, they’ll be able to break out of the prison, and we’ll come back and find you.”

Razo sat back on his heels and stared up. Rin followed his gaze. The moon was hanging above them, white and ghostly against the blue sky as if anxious to bring on the night. Rin did not share that sentiment. Her hands were tingling cold in anticipation of Razo’s decision. She did not want him to agree. She wanted him to insist that his ribs were fine and she should stay with Tusken. He should not allow his baby sister to endanger herself creeping into a fortress brimming with soldiers and murderous fire-speakers. Even if she did get inside, what could she do if something went wrong?

Then again, what would Razo do? If either of them were caught, it was over. Better he survive. He had Dasha and home—but she had nothing. Her family would not be safe with a people-speaker around. She would risk herself. It was her gift to give.

“I’m almost tempted to agree,” he said at last. “But really, it’s an idea more worthy of our goat-brained Jef than our smart-as-Ma Rin. You stay with Tusken and run to Bayern if I don’t come back.”

She almost did it then. Panic clenched inside her, all her energy gathered together, making fists of need, and she almost punched it all into words and told him, “Let me go, Razo. You’ll be sorry if you don’t. You know you tend to fail with these things even when you’re not injured. You’d be safer with the child. Our brothers are mostly right about you—this is too important to gamble on your meager skills,” and so on, until she’d found the hole in his confidence and tricked him into letting her go instead. The words were there, in her throat, on her tongue, insistent, demanding, real. She choked, and to keep the greasy black words down, she blurted instead, “I have people-speaking.”

Razo blinked and shook his head as if she’d splashed water in his face. “Wait, whoa, what?”

“I have people-speaking. I’m like Selia.”

“Is this like your bear-speaking joke? Because it really wasn’t funny enough to keep it up.”

She pressed her hands over her eyes. She’d already figured she could not trust herself to return home, but now that Razo knew what she was, that future seemed certain, the idea of home smoke in her hand.

“I’m a people-speaker, like Selia. I’m going to turn into a monster.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No, really. I am.”

“Right.”

“Listen to me!” Instead of words, sobs gathered in her throat. “I’ve had people-speaking my whole life. It’s been inside me like . . . like an egg, growing until something foul could eat its way out. I didn’t know what it was, but I always knew there was something wrong in me. With me. And I had to hold it in or I’d hurt people and Ma wouldn’t love me. And now when I talk I’m afraid I’m going to say . . . I’m going to be Selia, I’m going to make people do things, and I can’t be Rin, whoever that is anyway. I can’t speak the thoughts in my head because by the time they reach my tongue they become infected with it, and I’m not sure when I’m speaking casually and when I’m letting that curse taint everything. No one should trust me, I’ll need to be alone and hide away. I hate it. And I hate me.”

She gulped her breath down and shut her mouth. She had not intended to say so much. People-speaking or not, she never should have spoken those last words aloud. Never, not to Razo, not to anyone. That part of her was a tight, ugly clump best left in the dark.

She stared at Razo, her chin trembling with the effort not to cry, terrified that he would acknowledge what she should not have said and try to console her with hollow words.

He was watching the fire burn. It took him a long time to speak, and when he did, his words were measured and slow. “I’m not the smartest boy, I know that. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing—smarts seem like a load of fancy clothes that you have to wear all the time, and they’re heavy and rip easily even though you’re supposed to keep them clean. A hassle, that’s what that is. So I’m not so smart, and I can’t say whether or not you have people-speaking, but one thing I know”—he looked at her, his eyes golden in the light—“you’re nothing like Selia, and you’re never going to be.”

Rin laughed without humor and pulled her knees up, resting her forehead so Razo would not have to look at his sister’s face.

His voice got hotter. “No, you listen to me now, Rinna-girl. You’re never going to be. Never. Selia’s the queen of Kel, is she? She’s so smart and powerful and can just lock up Dasha and Isi and Enna, can she? Ha! She’s a grunting piglet. And if it came down to a fight, you and Selia, I’d bet the last tree that you’d win without ever opening your mouth. Because you’re Forest born, Rinna-girl.”

Rin was crying then, so she kept her face down, hoping Razo would not notice.

Razo cleared his throat. “See? I know you believe you have people-speaking, but you haven’t tried to talk me into sending you to the castle. You wouldn’t do that, ’cause you’re Rin. I’m your favorite brother and not so dumb for being not too smart, and I say, go on and rescue those girls. Show that Selia what it means to be Agget-kin.”

She looked up then. “You’re going to let me go?”

“No chance you’d ask if you didn’t think you could do it. I don’t like sitting here while you go off asking danger for an evening stroll. I think my sneaking skills are rather impressive and I enjoyed the idea of bursting into the prison and shouting, ‘Tusken’s safe, my girls. Break out of that stone box!’ And Dasha rushing up to me and kissing me and—well, anyway, I think my plan sounds like more fun, but you wouldn’t insist if you didn’t mean it, and besides, you did manage to get away last night without being seen, and you were right about keeping us hidden in that tree. And if nothing else, Tusken’s probably safest with me.”

She nodded. Her middle relaxed in relief, even though the thought of stealing into that castle alone made her feel iced over.

“All right.” He rubbed his hands together and his tone became as serious as she’d ever heard out of his mouth. “You should head out in about two hours. There’s only one entrance through the castle wall, and it’ll be well guarded. I was going to try and scale the wall—you think you can manage that?”

Cold dripped over the skin of her back and down her arms. Could she? She’d try. If she could only get close enough to the girls to shout the news, then it would all be worth it. Rin nodded.

Razo sucked air in through his teeth. “I don’t know, Rin . . .”

“I can, Razo. No problem. Really. I’m Forest born, aren’t I?” He was not going to let her go. She scrambled for something else to say. “Besides, I have tree-speaking, so that will help.”

“Oh, right, I didn’t think about that. Good.”

Would it help? She wondered if her knowledge of tree-speaking somehow endowed her to be better at sneaking, if it was just a matter of practice, or if she was just so boring no one noticed her. But tree-speaking was not like fire-speaking, not a weapon to be used. Isi said animals were living things and could not be controlled, not like fire or wind. Trees were living things too. She could not make them do things they would not normally do.

Razo was scratching a map of the castle in the dirt. “Castle Daire is a five-tower structure—a central tower with four towers around it. Once inside the wall, you’ll see a main entrance into the central tower. It’s nicely guarded, so I’d planned to find an entrance through one of the side towers. If there’s a kitchen in one, it’ll have its own little door—look for smoke or smell for grease. If they keep pigs, they’ll be housed near the kitchen since pigs eat the scraps and bits. I’ve had pretty good luck getting in and out of kitchens. Once inside the side tower, you should be able to get into the central tower. Take the stairs down and you’ll find the dungeon right enough. That’s where Selia put me and Tusk, so I guess she’d put the girls there too. All you’ll have to do is speak the words ‘Tusken is safe’ and the girls should do the rest. Now, are you really sure you can do this? That you want to do this?”

She was not so sure at all that she could, and she definitely did not want to. But worse would be waiting in the wood for days, not knowing if Razo was killed. Worse would be the searchers coming upon her and Tusken without Razo and his sling there to protect them. Worse would be hearing that Isi was killed because Rin had been too afraid. Besides, Selia would never endanger herself to save her friends, Rin was sure. And it felt very good to do the opposite of what Selia would do.

Rin nodded, and made her expression brave. She’d wanted to see if going out in the world could change her as it had changed Razo, if following Isi could make her more like the queen. Now it was time to leave the wood. No matter that Rin felt made of paper. She would see it through.

Chapter 20

T
he sun was scraping the western curve of the sky when Tusken woke from his nap. Rin shouldered her pack, now slightly heavier with the roots and nuts she and Razo had gathered throughout the day.

“Win go?” Tusken asked.

She nodded. “I’ll be back.”

“I go.” Tusken held up his arms. “I go, Win. I go.”

“You’ll stay with me, little man,” said Razo. “We’ve got games to play.”

Rin was on her knees, hugging Tusken. “Razo will keep you safe. I’ll see you soon. And I’ll bring your ma too,” she added recklessly. She looked at Razo, who was burying the remains of their fire. “If I’m not back the day after tomorrow—”

“We’ll inch our way to Bayern and send a message to Geric.”

“And not try to come after me?”

Razo groaned but nodded. “Tusken’s life is first priority. Don’t worry about us, little sister. You just stay safe yourself. And when you see Dasha, tell her . . . tell her . . .”

His brow furrowed.

“They’re smart,” Rin said, echoing his earlier words.
They’ll keep themselves nice and safe. They’d better.
“Two days.”

Razo took Tusken’s hand, and the little boy waved goodbye to Rin until she was out of sight.

“Keep him safe,” Rin whispered. “Be safe, both of you.”

She walked as quickly as her trembling legs would take her. Wound with worry and aching for the peace of trees, she kept one hand outstretched and let her fingers glance off trunks in passing. She tried to imagine how they were murmuring of deep water, the satisfaction when the roots were nestled in good soil, the urgings to dig ever deeper, the peaceful swaying of leaves as they rested in dim light, waiting for the sun to return again. She tried to pull that peace inside her and let it strengthen her core, imagined it surrounding her like the toughest bark, making her strong and fearless.

The afternoon cooled, and she could not hear anything over the crackling and clicking of cicadas, the storm of rasps and croaks. The wood teemed with insects so noisy her ears rang, though she could not see a one. What else was out there that she could not see?

She had to hurry, directing herself by slant of sunlight. Twice she thought she heard the rhythm of hoofbeats or footfalls, so she hid, then ran, losing time and direction. So little sleep, so much toil was wearing her down. When she began to stumble more than step, she stopped for a rest, curling herself into the leggy roots of a large tree, feeling as tiny and vulnerable as she had as a little girl climbing onto her mother’s lap.

Evening sunlight grazed through the canopy, slashing at an angle into her eyes. She closed them, just for a minute, just to hide from the brightness.

Rin startled and opened her eyes.

Darkness. She felt odd, as if someone had dropped a heavy blanket over her head, and she could barely see or move. Her arms ached, her face was sore from pressing against the bark of the tree, her legs were cold from being scrunched up beneath her. She moved. That hurt. She sat upright, stretching her legs, and felt the painful pricking of blood rush through her. The lack of light was confusing and frightening. If she did not ache everywhere, she would have feared she was dead.

An owl called a warning, and only then did Rin understand that the world was dark because it was night. She had fallen asleep.

“No,” she said. “No, no, no.”

She lurched to her feet and began to run, her body still waking up, her legs feeling like straw sacks. It was not long before she admitted that she had no idea where she was going. She tripped, felt against a tree, and stayed there, breathing hard.

Stop it
, she scolded herself, taking her ma’s tone.
Calm
down and do what you need to do.

She did not have time to panic. The girls were locked up. Razo had bet on her to succeed. Maybe it was not too late to find her way tonight, if she could just think it through.

She found herself remembering another time she’d been lost in a wood. After Nordra and the stick, after Ma had turned her back, seven-year-old Rin had gotten lost. That was the first time she’d opened herself to listen to the trees. After, she’d known her way home.

Rin wrapped her arms around the tree, closing her eyes and resting her head against its smooth bark. She did not demand of the tree what she wanted, as she had after Wilem. That was foolish, she realized now. And tree-speaking was an odd phrase anyhow—it was more like tree-listening. She could not tell the trees anything, only think through their calmness to understand her own thoughts better.

Her breathing slowed, she entered into the greenness, or perhaps it entered her, and there in the tree’s depths she met again the tightening fear that she was a people-speaker.

Enough
. She’d had enough of being chased away by what she’d done to Wilem and she felt angry enough to chew a stone to dust.
I know I’m bad. This can’t shock me anymore. I need
to do this task, and I need to be calm and able to think. I need a way to
find where I’m going.

Ignoring her own circling thoughts, she focused on the tree. With no sunlight to lure the tree up, the leaves curled slightly for the night, the center of the tree pulled downward. Her thoughts followed that motion into the roots, thousands of tips that touched other roots, leading to another tree, and another, the trees of the wood connected as if holding hands.

Her mind burned, her heart raced. All those trees, all connected. She followed the net of roots, finding a place where the trees stopped.

There. That was her direction, she hoped.

She had opened her eyes and was just about to push herself away from the tree when a horse cantered by.

Rin froze, not moving, her body still tight to the tree. The horse stopped. She closed her eyes and waited, her arms shaking in the effort to hold still.

Please, please, please . . .

The sound of hoofbeats continued on.

After that, she traveled cautiously, scurrying from tree to tree, weaving her way to avoid detection. When she discovered a spring, she took a little damp earth and packed it into her ears. The sounds of the night wood dimmed, and she missed the vibrant rattle of crickets, but she hoped the precaution would save her from the danger of Selia’s voice.

Twice she scrambled up a tree to get out of the way of horse men galloping toward the castle. Once she dropped to the ground, huddled behind a trunk, as two soldiers passed by heading east. She inched closer and closer, until at last there was the castle. She could see the gates now, and she moaned at the sight, thinking she might as well try to swallow a pumpkin whole as get inside. The gates were shut. She’d fostered a delirious hope that she could sneak inside without trying to scale the wall, but that hope withered away.

Keeping her distance, Rin made her way around the castle, searching for a spot where she could climb. Soldiers moved everywhere like ants crawling over dropped meat. Her heart was thudding so hard it made her head hurt.

Calm
, she told herself.
Be calm.
But just the narrowest thought of trying to scramble up those sheer walls under sight of armed sentries made her nearly whimper in fear. After circling the perimeter, she retreated into the trees. She’d taken herself so far the castle was out of sight before she realized that she was running away.

Rin climbed a tree, wrapped an arm around the trunk, and whispered to the tree, to the night, to herself, “Please. I need to do this. I need some courage. I need to bring Tusken his mother and keep Razo safe. And I need to believe I can do something of my own, because Razo’s the only one who does.”

The reality of her situation came down on her like a hard rain. She had to get in to night. It would be a three-hour walk at least to get back to Razo and Tusken, and no chance Razo would send her back a second time. He would wait for the next night, then try to scale those impossible walls, an easy target for a crossbow. And in the meantime, what would happen to the girls? No, tonight. It had to be.

Anxiety was taking her farther away. Rin closed her eyes and opened herself inside, listening to the tree. For the first time in months, the dark remnant of the Wilem memory did not accost her. Instead, she was buoyed and floating on ideas of rain and soil, warm air hovering on a leaf. Soothed, she focused her thoughts into the first soft layer that ran with sap, down into the roots, and then out.

It was like a game, letting her thoughts pump through the network of roots and trees, her trail a dizzying maze of growth. Following the lattice of roots, she hunted for trees near the wall, hoping to approach the castle under shadow of the wood.

There she found a bundle of roots hunkered down under stone. Long ago, someone must have axed its trunk to make way for the wall, but the roots survived, sending up shoots, unfurling new, thin leaves to wave at the sun. Years upon years its shoots were cut away, but it lived on, and slowly its growth eased rocks loose, cracked mortar, made room to stretch.

Rin opened her eyes. A tree might have opened a hole in the wall.

She’d felt safe for the moment, and exposing herself again to the night was almost painful. But she kept breathing, and picturing herself in the tree, imagining that she was that peaceful, with roots deep and branches high. And the panic held off for the moment, as if she were tucked away in her ma’s house with the shutters closed against a storm.

She approached the back side of the wall from the northeast along a worn footpath. Guards walked the battlements, looking out. If they spotted her, she hoped a lone girl approaching from the direction of town would not warrant much suspicion.

Two guards met in the middle of the wall and spoke a few words, then turned their backs to each other and ambled forward, their eyes looking out.
Now
, Rin thought.
Go now!
She hesitated, then stumbled forward, took a deep-as-knees breath, and forced each foot to feel the ground beneath her before letting her weight pull herself forward. Best to be quiet, best not to draw notice, to be slow and easy as if she were nothing but a shadow.

“A night forest dreaming,” she whispered to herself. “Nothing to ponder but years and rain.”

She felt so aware of everything, the stick that might snap beneath her foot, the breeze about to rustle some leaves. The walk seemed to take days, but she reached the wall before the guards turned back again. She pressed herself against the stones, allowing herself now to shudder, cold prickles of sweat trickling along her neck and back.

She dropped to her knees and found it—a very old tree, its stubborn roots still living, still growing, right through the wall. Rin yanked out a few stones, pushed her pack in before her, and crawled through, shoulders and hips scraping rock.

The castle courtyard was empty and dark and gray, a hollow skull. No cover, no trees to hide beneath. She sat by the arching roots of the old tree and listened to its thrumming thoughts, trying to pull that peace inside her. The tree did not mind that its trunk had been cut away, that it was not tall and beautiful as it once had been. It was still alive, and it would just keep on drinking water through its roots and shooting out new leaves as long as it could. The rhythm of water and sap, soil and growth circled through. Rin hummed it to herself like a song.

“Deep water flowing,” she whispered. “Leaves curled and resting under the moon.”

Her pace was casual, her steps quiet. She kept breathing, kept that silent hum rumbling through her, kept her body relaxed, walking along the inside of the wall, passing a stable, until the five joined towers of the castle were before her. But first she had to go around the garrison. Through the open doors and windows she could see the building was stuffed with soldiers, many spending the night on the floor. Others slept on the ground outside, while those awake sat playing quiet games of stones.

Move like you belong
, she reminded herself.
Like you couldn’t
sleep and came out for the privy. Nothing to worry. No trouble at all.

No one stopped her. She was in the moon shadow of the castle now.

She followed pig prints to one of the four smaller towers. Just as Razo had said, there was smoke on the air and a pile of kitchen scraps emitting rot.

And there was laundry drying on a line.

She slipped between two lines of laundry, stripped out of her Bayern travel clothes, and pulled on a white shift in the Kelish style with sleeves dangling from her forearms. Over that she donned a yellow sleeveless dress, tightening the lacing at the bodice. They were both a little short and the dangling sleeves felt cumbersome. She pulled a string loose from the hem of her discarded tunic to tie back her hair, then hid the dirty bundle under a slop bucket.

The kitchen door was narrow and low, meant to discourage invaders, she figured. It was also unlocked. Rin stooped and ducked inside. The kitchen fires were banked, and children her age and younger slept on the floor, waiting for dawn and the work day to begin. She tiptoed around their bodies and ducked through another door where the wall was as thick as her leg was long. Now she was in the large open chamber of the central tower. It was adorned as a banquet hall, with long wooden tables still scattered with the remnants of dinner. In the center of the chamber, stairs wound to the upper floors and deeper into the ground. She was so close. Over to her right was the huge wood door to the castle, shut and bolted, a dozen soldiers on the inside, standing, yawning, slumping. Her body yearned to hide, but she forced herself to keep moving casually through the chamber toward the stairway.

Someone was coming down the stairs—a thick woman with a square face, wearing a long-sleeved gray tunic with draping sleeves. Instead of a sleeveless dress over the tunic, she sported leggings like Kelish men. Around the hem of the tunic and sleeve, a pattern was worked in orange and red thread, loops with pointed tips.
Flames,
Rin realized. The woman was staring at her.

The stairs were there. There. Rin tried to lift her foot, to walk that insignificant length, to disappear into the darkness below. But the stare of that woman held her. Sweat was thick on Rin’s forehead, itching down her back, across the palms of her hands.
I’m nothing, nothing, don’t look at me. Please. I’m nothing.