CHAPTER 8
The Keh’Dia found them at dawn.
Atyas heard the pursuit before Alaria did. At first, he mistook the sound for water moving over stone. Then it came again: three sharp whistles somewhere behind them, followed by an answer farther south. Alaria stopped. Her arm lay across Atyas’s shoulders. During the final hours of darkness, more of her weight had settled upon him with every mile. Blood had spread through the bandage beneath her armour and dried against her side.
“Those aren’t birds,” Atyas said.
“No.”
She listened. Another whistle came from the east.
“How many?” he asked.
“Enough.”
“That isn’t a number.”
“It is the only one that matters.”
Alaria forced herself upright and looked along the river. The forest had changed around them. The ground rose more steeply from the water, and the trees grew so closely together that their upper branches concealed most of the morning sky. Moss covered the stones. There was no road, but narrow openings appeared between the trunks where generations of feet had worn away the roots. Alaria’s attention settled upon a stone standing beside the river. Most of it was hidden beneath lichen. A crown surrounded by seven stars had been carved into the exposed surface.
The royal seal of Asehria.
Beneath it, three deep lines crossed one another.
“The stones Father mentioned,” Atyas said.
“The boundary,” Alaria replied.
“That is Father’s seal.”
“Beside the mark of the Vahran. Eridan recognised this land as theirs.”
“Will they help us?”
“If they see us, if they believe us and if the Keh’Dia do not reach us first.”
“Keep moving.”
They left the water and followed the narrow path beyond the stone.
The whistles drew closer. Alaria cut a strip from the bottom of her cloak and pressed it against her side. When the cloth had absorbed enough blood, she tied it around a fallen branch and dragged the branch north through the undergrowth.
“Take this,” she said.
She handed Atyas the branch.
“What am I doing?”
“Continue north for two hundred steps. Rub the cloth against anything it can catch upon. Then leave it and circle west.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll continue on the marked path.”
“Alone?”
“For less than five minutes.”
Atyas looked at the blood soaking her armour.
“No.”
Alaria’s expression hardened.
“That was not a request.”
“You can barely stand.”
“Which is precisely why we need them to follow something else.”
“Then we go together.”
“And lead them directly to both of us?”
Atyas tightened his grip on the branch. Alaria crouched until they were almost at eye level. The movement cost her more than she allowed her face to reveal.
“Two hundred steps,” she said. “Then west until you find the marked path. I will be waiting.”
“Promise?”
“No.”
He stared at her.
“I promise to try,” she amended.
It was not enough.
It was all she would give him.
Atyas took the false trail north.
He counted each step.
At thirty, the whistles stopped. At seventy, he heard men entering the river behind them. At one hundred and twelve, a voice called to another somewhere among the trees. At one hundred and eighty, Atyas caught the bloodied cloth against a thorn bush and pulled until part of it tore free. At two hundred, he left the branch beneath a cluster of roots. He turned west. The forest looked different from every direction. Atyas searched for the narrow path and found nothing. He moved south, then west again. Each step carried him farther from the branch and, he feared, farther from Alaria.
He almost called her name.
Seraphina’s lessons stopped him. Sound travelled. Fear made people surrender information they still possessed. Atyas pressed one hand against the trunk of a tree and forced himself to breathe. He found another marked stone beneath an arch of exposed roots.
The path ran south-west from there.
He followed it as quickly as he could.
Alaria was not waiting.
He found her twenty steps beyond the stone. She knelt on one knee with a hand braced against the earth. Her sword remained in its sheath. Her other hand pressed against the wound beneath her armour.
“Alaria.”
She tried to rise.
Her arm failed.
Atyas reached her before she struck the ground.
“You said you would be waiting.”
“I am here.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“Close enough.”
It was not.
Alaria’s skin burned beneath his hands. Her eyes struggled to focus upon him.
“We have to move,” she said.
“You can’t.”
“Then you move.”
“Not without you.”
“Atyas.”
“No.”
Alaria grabbed the front of his coat. For an instant, her old strength returned.
“Listen to me. They have orders to take you alive. You can still reach Feenix if you leave now.”
“And what happens to you?”
“That is not your responsibility.”
“You made it my responsibility when you refused to die last night.”
Her grip weakened.
“I did not refuse.”
“Then I’m refusing for you.”
Something moved in the forest behind them. Alaria released his coat and reached for her sword. Her hand closed around the hilt, but the blade moved less than a finger’s width before she collapsed.
“Alaria?”
Her eyes remained open, but she did not see him. Then they closed.
Atyas dragged Alaria behind the roots of a fallen tree. There was no time to remove her armour. No river in which to conceal the blood. No second path waiting to save them. He drew the short sword Alaria had given him. The weapon felt heavier than it had the night before. His hands remembered the unused courtyard behind the armoury.
Steel does not want to protect you. It does not care whether you are frightened, angry or right.
Alaria had shown him how to hold a true blade. Seraphina had taught him to watch shoulders rather than weapons. Neither lesson had promised he would win. Atyas crouched beside Alaria and listened.
Boots pressed into wet leaves.
There were voices to the north and east.
The false trail had delayed them.
It had not fooled them for long.
Three Keh’Dia appeared first.
One carried a short spear. Another held a curved sword. The third wore no helmet and had blood dried across one side of his face.
The spearman saw Atyas.
“There.”
More men changed direction behind them.
Atyas raised the sword.
The soldier with the curved blade looked at Alaria’s motionless body.
“The guard is down.”
“Alive?” the spearman asked.
“Doesn’t matter. The boy does.”
Atyas stepped between them and Alaria.
“Move away from her,” he said.
The man without the helmet laughed.
“You heard the prince.”
They knew who he was.
The knowledge frightened Atyas more than their weapons. The spearman approached.
“Put the sword down. We’re not allowed to kill you.”
“You killed my mother.”
“I wasn’t in the palace.”
“You came with the people who were.”
“And you’re standing with the woman who killed twelve of ours beneath the western wall. Should I blame you for each of them?”
Atyas had no answer.
The soldier lowered the spear until its point aimed at his chest.
“Drop it.”
Atyas watched his shoulders. He tried to settle his breath beneath the pain and find the current. It answered in one broken pulse through his legs, too little and too poorly balanced to make him older, larger or ready. The right one moved. He turned as the spear thrust forward.
The point passed beneath his arm.
Atyas struck at the shaft. His blade bit into the wood without cutting through it. The impact nearly tore the sword from his hands. The soldier pulled the spear back. Atyas followed. Alaria had taught him that a longer weapon became less useful when there was no room to use it. He stepped inside the spear and drove the pommel of his sword into the man’s mouth.
Bone cracked.
The soldier stumbled.
Atyas cut at his arm.
The edge opened leather and skin.
The man shouted.
For one heartbeat, Atyas thought it might be enough. Then the soldier with the curved blade struck him across the ribs with one forearm.
Atyas hit the ground.
Pain emptied his lungs.
He rolled as the man reached for him. The curved sword remained held away from Atyas’s body. They truly had orders not to kill him.
A boot struck his shoulder.
Atyas lost his sword.
He crawled towards it.
The unhelmeted soldier caught him by the back of his coat and pulled him upright.
Atyas drove his head backwards.
The back of his skull connected with the man’s nose.
The grip loosened.
Atyas twisted free, reached the sword and turned. Five more Keh’Dia had entered the clearing.
He could not defeat them.
He knew that.
His body knew it too. His legs shook. The cut on his forearm had opened again, and every breath sharpened the pain in his ribs. Behind him, Alaria remained still. Atyas lifted the blade anyway.
“Take him,” the spearman said through the blood filling his mouth.
Two soldiers came at once.
Atyas avoided the first hand.
The second caught his wrist. He tried Alaria’s turn—the step that surrendered the centre and stole the attacker’s balance. His foot found the correct position. His hips began to move.
He was too small.
The soldier simply lifted him from the ground and threw him against the fallen tree.
Light burst across Atyas’s vision.
He fell beside Alaria. Fingers closed around his ankle. Atyas kicked until the grip disappeared. He reached for his sword and touched only leaves. The unhelmeted soldier stood above him. Blood ran from the man’s broken nose.
“Should have dropped it.”
The metal guard of the soldier’s sword struck Atyas above the temple. His cheek hit the leaves. Through the ringing in his ears, he heard the forest strike back. A heavy spear cut through the clearing. Its broad head struck the soldier above Atyas and carried him away from the child before burying itself in the fallen tree. Something large descended from the branches behind the remaining soldiers.
Men shouted.
Metal crashed against metal. A two-handed blade swept through the space where three men had been standing, forcing them apart. A second figure entered beneath it with a curved weapon in each hand. Atyas heard a roar that belonged to no human throat. He tried to turn towards Alaria. The leaves beneath him tipped and slid away.
The forest disappeared.
Atyas woke beneath a roof made from roots. He did not know how long he had been unconscious. Light entered through a narrow opening above him. It was daylight, but whether it belonged to the same morning or another, he could not tell. His head hurt before he moved. When he tried to sit, the room tilted so violently that he fell back onto the bedding.
“Do that again and I will tie you down.”
The voice came from beside a low table. A figure stood over a metal bowl, washing blood from a curved needle.
She was not human.
Grey fur covered her arms and the sides of her face. Her jaw extended slightly beyond a human shape, and two pointed ears rose through hair bound with strips of blue cloth. She wore a leather apron over a dark woven tunic. Atyas reached for a sword that was no longer beside him. The figure watched his empty hand.
“If we intended to kill you, allowing you to wake first would be inefficient.”
“Where is Alaria?”
The figure nodded towards the other side of the room. Alaria lay upon a raised bed beneath several blankets. Her armour had been removed. Clean bandages surrounded her ribs and thigh. Her face had lost so much colour that for one terrible instant Atyas thought she was dead.
Then he saw her chest rise.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
“Will she stay that way?”
“The spear missed her lung, and your stitches prevented the wound from opening entirely. She collapsed from blood loss, pain and exhaustion. None of those improve when someone runs through a forest.”
The figure placed the needle in boiling water.
“She needs clean bandages, food and several hours in which no one tries to kill her.”
“She’ll try.”
“Then you understand why I kept the straps.”
Atyas touched the side of his head. Bandages crossed his temple. His fingers came away clean.
“Who are you?”
“Seyra. I am the healer responsible for both of you.”
“You’re a Beastman.”
Seyra’s ears shifted backwards.
“And you are a skinman.”
Atyas frowned.
“That isn’t what we’re called.”
“Now you understand the problem.”
He looked at her.
“What should I call you?”
“Vahran.”
“I’m sorry.”
Seyra studied him as though apologies from humans were more suspicious than insults.
“You were struck hard enough to lose consciousness,” she said. “I will decide later whether that damaged or improved you.”
She came to the bed and held one finger before his face.
“Follow this with your eyes.”
Atyas did.
The movement made him nauseated.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Late afternoon.”
“I was unconscious all day?”
“Most of it. The blow was hard, but your skull remains inconveniently intact.”
“Where are my swords?”
“You had one.”
“The other belonged to Alaria.”
“Then your habit of claiming everything around you is less severe than it appeared.”
Voices sounded beyond the entrance.
A tall Vahran entered.
He wore layered leather armour and carried a long, broad-bladed spear across his back. The weapon was taller than the doorway and thick enough that Atyas would have needed both hands merely to hold it level. A white scar divided the dark fur along one side of Tovan’s muzzle.
“He is awake,” he said.
“Keep your voice down,” Seyra said. “His headache has only just eased.”
The hunter ignored her.
His attention moved over Atyas, measuring him.
“You killed the soldiers?” Atyas asked.
“Some.”
“What happened to the others?”
“Two ran. They did not run far.”
Atyas remembered the spear crossing the clearing and the enormous shape falling from the branches.
“Why did you save us?”
Tovan’s ears lifted slightly.
“We were watching armed strangers cross our boundary. Then I saw the silver clasp at your throat.”
“The seven stars?”
“Eridan pressed the same seal into the charter that recognised our sovereignty.”
“The clasp could have been stolen.”
“Yes. The symbol gave us a reason to intervene, not a reason to trust you.”
Tovan glanced at Alaria.
“The colours of the Phoenix Guard gave us a second reason.”
Atyas tried to sit again.
This time Seyra placed one hand against his chest and pushed him back without effort.
“My father made that agreement.”
Tovan looked at him.
“Many fathers make agreements.”
“Mine is King Eridan.”
Silence entered the room.
Seyra’s hand remained against Atyas’s chest. Tovan stepped closer.
“Your name.”
“Atyas.”
The hunter stared at him.
“Prince Atyas?”
“Yes.”
Tovan looked towards Seyra.
“He does not look like the description.”
“What description?” Atyas asked.
“Young. Human. Usually accompanied by too many guards.”
“That could describe thousands of children.”
“Which is why we did not know it was you.”
“But you knew about me.”
Tovan returned his gaze to Atyas.
“We knew Eridan had a son. We knew his name. Your father did not bring portraits when he negotiated peace.”
“You met him?”
“Rhaen did.”
“Who is Rhaen?”
Tovan moved towards the doorway.
“The person who must now be told that Eridan’s son was carried into our home covered in blood.”
Atyas was not permitted to leave the healer’s room that day. The restriction had less to do with secrecy than with his inability to cross the floor without becoming dizzy. He stayed beside Alaria. Seyra cut away the stitches he had made and closed the wound again. Her tools were boiled before use. Her assistants changed the water and cloth repeatedly. Alaria lay still through it all, her breathing shallow but regular. The current could help her body repair itself once she could eat and rest. It could not replace the blood she had lost. Seyra kept her warm and watched each breath.
Near evening, an old Vahran woman entered. Her fur had once been red, but age had turned most of it silver. One ear was missing above an old scar. Small metal rings decorated the other. She leaned upon a dark wooden staff, although Atyas suspected she needed it less than she wanted people to believe. Tovan followed her. The old woman looked first at Alaria.
“Phoenix Guard,” she said.
“Her name is Alaria.”
“I know the name.”
Atyas straightened despite his headache.
“You’re Rhaen.”
“And you claim to be Atyas.”
“I don’t claim it. I am.”
Rhaen’s gaze moved across his face.
“You have your mother’s eyes.”
Atyas stopped breathing for a moment.
“You knew her?”
“Isolde accompanied Eridan when the final agreement was signed.”
“When?”
“Before you were born.”
Rhaen sat beside his bed. An assistant brought bowls of hot roots and a little fish. Atyas lifted one towards her, but she touched its rim and turned it back to him. The youngest assistant ate first beside the stove. Rhaen waited until every patient had a bowl before accepting hers.
Tovan remained at the entrance.
“The eastern households want them moved,” he said. “They saw the patrol following this way.”
Seyra set Alaria’s untouched bowl beside the warm stones.
“She cannot move.”
“They are asking me what happens when the next patrol comes.”
“Move those households to the upper shelters,” Rhaen said. “I will speak to them before the watch changes.”
Tovan’s ears flattened. He called a runner to the entrance and passed on the order, then returned to his place behind Rhaen. He did not touch the food.
“Many years before you were born, three neighbouring kingdoms decided the forest would be easier to divide if no Vahran remained inside it.”
Atyas looked towards Tovan.
“They wanted to kill all of you?”
“They called it a defensive campaign,” Rhaen said. “People often give fear a respectable name before turning it into permission.”
“What did Father do?”
“He refused to join them. More importantly, he refused to let their armies cross Asehrian land. When they attempted to move around his borders, he placed soldiers in the passes and declared that an invasion of our forest would be treated as an attack upon Asehria.”
Rhaen rested both hands upon her staff.
“Later, he placed the seven-star seal upon a charter recognising Vahran sovereignty over the deep forest.”
“He gave you the forest?”
“No.”
There was no anger in the correction, only certainty.
“The forest was already ours. Eridan gave that truth a form the other kingdoms were forced to respect. He drew a border, recognised our right to govern ourselves and promised Asehria would defend that recognition.”
“What did you promise him?”
“Peace. Trade. Safe passage for ordinary travellers. And that no Vahran warband would cross into Asehria without invitation.”
“Did the other kingdoms accept it?”
“They accepted that removing us would require fighting Eridan first.”
“Father never told me.”
“You were a child.”
“I’m still a child.”
Rhaen examined the bandage around his head.
“The forest has been informed.”
Atyas almost smiled. The expression vanished when he looked at Alaria.
Atyas touched the clasp at his throat. Tovan had recognised that before he knew his name.
“Then why did Father tell me to seek the heart of the forest?”
“Because he believed we would remember what he had done when his name could no longer protect you by itself.”
“Is my father alive?” Atyas asked.
Rhaen did not soften the truth.
“We do not know.”
“The palace fell,” Atyas said. “I don’t know what still holds beyond it.”
Tovan’s posture changed behind her.
Rhaen remained still.
“Tell me.”
Atyas began with the silent beacons. He told her about the stolen uniforms, the false orders and the gates opened from within. He described the palace attack and Rian remaining behind as the passage closed. He did not describe Isolde’s death in detail.
He could not.
When he finished, darkness had gathered beyond the healer’s doorway.
“The Keh’Dia were ordered to take me alive,” he said.
“Do you know why?” Rhaen asked.
“No.”
Her claws tightened slightly around the staff.
“Our scouts saw Keh’Dia companies moving through the eastern forest before the smoke appeared. They travelled paths outsiders should not have known.”
“Could they have found them?”
“Food and replacement weapons had been hidden along the route. Trees were marked at dangerous crossings. Someone prepared their march.”
Atyas thought of the false orders within Asehria.
“Someone from my kingdom helped them.”
“More than one person,” Rhaen said. “A force large enough to take Asehria cannot be concealed, supplied and guided by a single traitor.”
“Who?”
“We do not know.”
Atyas hated the answer.
It was still better than a lie.
“Can you warn Feenix?” he asked.
Rhaen drew her staff across the soil beside the bed: a fork, then a line across one branch.
“The messenger road crosses here. Our last patrol watched them take the bridge. The western signal post no longer answers.”
“Is there another road?”
“Around the occupied crossings. More than a fortnight for a runner, if the southern posts still stand. A patrol will try to reach our people there. I cannot promise your queen a warning through them.”
Atyas watched the blocked branch of the drawing.
“We have to get through.”
“Alaria knows Phoenix challenges and the smaller stations. Our scouts can show her where the enemy patrols end. Beyond that, she must choose.”
“What if she can’t travel?”
Rhaen looked towards Seyra. The healer had been listening while she changed the water beside Alaria’s bed.
“Then she stays,” Seyra said. “Standing here needing her will not mend the wound.”
Rhaen rubbed out the direct road with the end of her staff.
“You have food and shelter here. I will not send her out unable to walk.”
“Alaria will take me there,” Atyas said.
“If she is the woman described in the stories, I doubt any of us could prevent it.”
Atyas looked at his hands.
“She is.”
Alaria woke during the night.
Her hand searched for a weapon before her eyes opened. Atyas caught her wrist.
“Seyra threatened to tie you down.”
Alaria’s eyes found him slowly.
“Who?”
“The healer.”
“Where are we?”
“With the Vahran.”
Her brow tightened.
“The Beastmen?”
“They don’t like being called that.”
“Most people dislike being called things they did not choose.”
“You could have told me that before I said it to their healer.”
“I was unconscious.”
“Convenient.”
Alaria tried to move.
Pain stopped her. She looked down at the new bandages.
“How long?”
“Since this morning.”
“What happened?”
Atyas told her about the false trail, her collapse and the Keh’Dia patrol. He told her that he had drawn the sword she gave him.
“How many?” she asked.
“Eight by the end.”
Alaria closed her eyes.
“You should have run.”
“You were unconscious.”
“Which made me considerably less aware that you had abandoned me.”
“I wasn’t leaving you.”
“Atyas—”
“No.”
The force in his own voice surprised both of them.
“You don’t get to drag me out of Asehria, make me close your wounds and then decide your life means less than mine.”
Alaria watched him.
“That is exactly what I was ordered to decide.”
“My father ordered you to protect me. He didn’t order me to become the kind of person who leaves you to die.”
Silence passed between them.
Alaria looked at the bruises darkening his wrist.
“Did you kill anyone?”
“No.”
Relief moved through her face before she concealed it.
“I hurt one.”
“With the sword?”
Atyas nodded.
“The real lessons helped.”
“Seraphina will be delighted to learn I secretly prepared you to disobey a direct order and confront eight soldiers.”
“We aren’t telling her.”
“A carefully supervised secret,” Alaria murmured.
“You weren’t supervising.”
“Then clearly the arrangement has failed.”
Despite everything, Atyas almost laughed.
His head punished him for it.
Alaria saw his expression change.
“How were you injured?”
“One of them hit me.”
“Where?”
“In the head.”
“With what?”
“The guard of his sword.”
Alaria’s fingers tightened around his.
“And the Vahran arrived after?”
“Just before. I heard them attack.”
“You remained conscious long enough to see them?”
“I saw something fall from a tree.”
“That was probably the hunter who brought you here. Tovan, Seyra called him.”
“You know him?”
“No. But anyone who chooses trees over doors is usually memorable.”
Atyas rested his head against the wall.
“I couldn’t stop the Keh’Dia.”
“There were eight.”
“I know.”
“You are twelve.”
“I know.”
Alaria looked away from him.
“You could have stopped them.”
“Not in my present condition.”
“Before.”
Her hand went still beneath his.
“I should have.”
Atyas had expected an explanation. The admission left him with nowhere to place his anger.
“I kept moving,” Alaria said. “I told myself that was how I protected you. Part of the truth is that I was frightened of what would happen if we stopped.”
“Then what was I supposed to do?”
“You should never have been the one standing between them and me.”
“That doesn’t sound heroic.”
“It wasn’t.”
She turned her hand beneath his and held it properly.
“You stayed anyway. You shouldn’t have had to.”
“That sounds like luck.”
“It was.”
“So we’re alive because you made a mistake and then we were lucky?”
Alaria gave a tired breath that almost became a laugh and failed.
“That is the least heroic account of our escape.”
“Is it true?”
“Some of it.” She looked at him again. “I don’t know whether another choice would have saved us. I only know I wasn’t there when they struck you, and I will remember that longer than you want me to.”
Atyas looked at her.
“Father made an agreement with them.”
Alaria’s expression changed.
“The sovereignty charter.”
“You knew?”
“I knew Eridan had stopped the campaign against them and recognised the forest as Vahran territory. I knew the peace allowed travellers to cross without bloodshed. I did not know where they lived or that his seal still carried this much weight here.”
“Rhaen knew my parents.”
“Eridan trusted very few people with useful secrets.”
“He trusted them.”
“Enough to send you here.”
Atyas thought of his father standing beside the hidden door.
When night swallows the light, seek the heart of the forest.
It had sounded like a riddle.
It was an agreement.
“Feenix must be warned,” Atyas said.
“I know.”
“The direct messenger road is taken. Their patrol may need more than a fortnight to reach a working post.”
Alaria closed her eyes.
“Too long.”
“She said you know smaller stations.”
“If they still answer. We take what the scouts know and stay off the messenger road.”
“Solara needs your account.”
“She needs to know an army is coming. Anyone who reaches her can tell her that. The rest I can explain when I get there.”
“Can you walk that far?”
Alaria looked at the bandage around her side.
“Not tonight.”
“And tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow is not tonight.”
They remained with the Vahran through the night. Seyra woke Atyas repeatedly, asked him his name and made him follow her finger with his eyes. Each interruption annoyed him more than the last, which the healer claimed was encouraging.
Alaria was standing before sunrise.
She had made it three steps from the bed before Seyra caught her.
“Sit.”
“I need to know whether my leg will carry me.”
“It carried you three steps.”
“Feenix is farther.”
“A discovery worthy of the royal academy.”
Alaria ignored the chair Seyra offered and walked to the doorway. Her wounded leg remained stiff, and one hand pressed against the new bandage at her side, but she did not collapse. Seyra watched every step.
“The wound reopened when you ran,” the healer said. “I closed it. You lost enough blood to fall unconscious, but the spear did not damage anything vital.”
“Then I can travel.”
“Slowly. You stop when the bleeding returns, you eat whenever food is available and you do not fight unless the alternative is worse.”
“The alternative is usually worse.”
“Then try to become less popular with armed men.”
By midmorning, Seyra allowed both of them outside. The Vahran settlement was larger than he had imagined. Homes curved around trunks wide enough to contain palace chambers. Bridges ran beneath overlapping branches and disappeared behind living screens of leaves. Roofs were covered with moss. Smoke from ovens passed through channels in the earth and emerged thinly across a wide area, making the city difficult to see from above.
Nothing magical concealed it.
It remained hidden because generations of Vahran had built it to survive armies that might one day break their promises. Hundreds moved through the part of the settlement Atyas could see. There had to be thousands beyond it. Some resembled Seyra and Tovan. Others had shorter fur, wider jaws or features that reminded Atyas of great cats and wolves painted in old natural histories. They wore leather, woven cloth and metal tools repaired through generations.
Their weapons had been made for bodies far stronger than a human’s. Sentries carried spears and glaives long enough to reach around the immense trunks without exposing themselves. Heavier warriors rested two-handed axes across their shoulders, while those moving through the narrowest passages wore a short, curved blade on each side. Even at rest, nothing they carried looked ceremonial. Children stopped to stare at him.
One carried a wooden sword.
“Are you the human prince?” the child asked.
“Apparently.”
“You’re small.”
“I’m twelve.”
“I was taller when I was nine.”
Atyas looked at the child’s broad shoulders.
“That seems unfair.”
The child considered this, then offered him the wooden sword.
“Do you fight?”
“Not today,” Alaria said from the doorway behind him.
The child retreated a few steps, still clutching the wooden sword.
Atyas turned. Alaria stood without assistance. Her armour had been fastened loosely over the new bandages, and she carried her sword at her hip. The exhaustion remained in her face, but her eyes were clear again.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” Atyas said.
“I rested all night.”
“You were unconscious for half of it.”
“The body is less demanding about definitions than you are.”
Seyra emerged behind her carrying a roll of clean bandages.
“She may leave after she eats,” the healer said.
Atyas stared at her.
“Already?”
“Keeping her here would require restraints, guards and more patience than our settlement possesses.”
Alaria held out one hand to the Vahran child.
“May I?”
The child surrendered the wooden sword.
Alaria tested its balance, then returned it hilt-first.
“Too heavy near the point,” she said. “Ask whoever made it to narrow the last handspan.”
The child nodded with complete seriousness and ran away.
“You criticised his sword,” Atyas said.
“I helped him retain all his teeth.”
Before they left that afternoon, Rhaen showed Atyas the charter his father had signed. It had been written twice upon the same sheet: once in Asehrian script and once in the angular marks used by the Vahran. Eridan’s seal remained visible in dark wax beside the print of Rhaen’s claw. Isolde’s name appeared as witness beneath them. Atyas touched the letters with one finger.
“Did they speak about me?”
“Your mother did.”
His throat tightened.
“What did she say?”
“That she was tired of every ruler asking when Asehria would have an heir.”
Atyas gave a small laugh.
“That sounds like her.”
“Later, your father sent word that you had been born. We knew your name, but not your face. The agreement did not require us to watch a child grow from a distance.”
“Why didn’t he bring me here?”
“Perhaps he expected there would be time.”
Rhaen folded the charter.
“Will you help us fight the Keh’Dia?” Atyas asked.
“Not today,” Rhaen said.
“They crossed your land.”
“And we will decide what that requires of us. Sovereignty means we choose when our people go to war. It does not mean another kingdom chooses for us because its prince asks.”
Atyas wanted to argue.
Then he remembered that Eridan had once defended the Vahran’s right to make precisely that choice.
“I understand,” he said.
“Do you?”
“No. But I’m trying.”
Rhaen accepted the answer.
Tovan returned both swords. He offered Atyas the short weapon first.
“Our scouts recovered it beside the fallen tree.”
Atyas fastened the plain weapon at his side, then touched the silver clasp at his collar.
He handed Alaria her weapon.
She fastened it at her side herself. Seyra gave Alaria a leather roll containing clean bandages, thread and a fresh needle.
“Change the dressing before nightfall.”
“I know how to care for a wound.”
“Your arrival suggested otherwise.”
“I was busy being chased.”
“Try not to repeat it.”
Rhaen waited beside the first marked stone beyond the settlement.
She placed one hand against it.
“These markers once warned human armies to stay away,” she said. “Your father made them the edge of a sovereign land.”
Atyas looked at the Asehrian crown carved above the Vahran lines.
“Did you trust him?”
“Not when we signed.”
“Then why agree?”
“Because he had already placed his army between us and the kings who wanted us dead. The charter gave words to a decision he had proved with soldiers.”
Rhaen held out her hand. Atyas took it. Her claws closed carefully around his fingers.
“We knew your name before you entered our forest,” she said. “Now we know the person carrying it.”
“Is that good?”
“We have not decided.”
Atyas smiled despite his bruises. Rhaen released him. Alaria adjusted the strap across her wounded side.
“The western river bends south beyond the red cliffs,” Rhaen told her. “The direct road to Feenix begins on the far bank.”
Alaria nodded.
“Thank you for saving him.”
“We saved both of you.”
“I noticed.”
“Then do not make us do it again.”
Alaria turned west. Her first steps were stiff, but they were her own. Atyas walked beside her. The Vahran remained at the boundary as Alaria led him deeper between the trees and towards Feenix.
End of chapter