“One more step back,” Loelle said. “Then you’re safe with us.”
“Return to the forest and you do so as their prisoner,” Celia said. “Or come with me and be a free leader of the Dominion.” She cried out again and I knew Endrick was continuing to torment her. Why was he doing that? “Please, Kestra. He will kill me otherwise.”
I held out my hand for Celia. “No, you must come with me. It’s only a few steps, and I will save you.” I looked up at the archers. “I will save all of you, if you will drop your weapons and come to me as friends.”
“They are not friends,” Joth said. “They cannot be allowed to enter.”
I began to argue with him, until another cry from Celia forced my attention to her again. She was half bent over, clutching her chest, and in her pained voice, she whispered to the disk archers, “Release.”
My eye immediately shifted to the girl who shared Simon’s brown eyes. She didn’t flinch as she sent her disk flying. In that same instant, Joth’s arm curved around my waist, yanking me backward, fully within the borders of the forest. The disks collided in the air where I had just stood, exploding into dust against each other, then falling to the ground.
“What sort of game was that?” Joth snarled at me.
“He’s killing her—let me go!”
I broke free of him and tried to run out of the forest, but the sam
e half-lives who had just protected me now barricaded me from leaving. A scream pierced the boundary, then it was cut to total silence.
“Celia!”
When I saw her again, she had collapsed to the ground, but her body was still now. Dead.
“No!” Desperately, I turned to Loelle. “You can save her.”
“It’s too late, and even if I could, not with those archers out there.” In a sterner voice, Loelle added, “Besides, she would not have needed saving if you had not come to the border.” To Joth, she said, “Put Kestra in the wagon and keep her there until I can get us deeper into the forest.”
He half threw me into the back of the wagon, immediately climbing in next to me. If he wanted a fight, he’d get it. I reached for his arm but was repelled by the same half-lives that had prevented me from going to Celia.
Fuming, I shouted, “Celia was right. I am a prisoner here!”
“We’re all prisoners here!” he countered. “You’re our only chance at escaping, and you might have just ruined it. You should have left the instant you saw the Ironhearts. If they suspected you were here before, now they know it!”
“Well, I won’t be here much longer. First chance I find to escape on my own, I will be gone.” Still furious, I leaned against the sideboard of the wagon and folded my arms as Loelle drove us away.
Once the border was no longer visible, he said, “You might thank us for keeping you from being shot.”
“Us? You and your half-life slaves? Does Loelle control you all too? Of all your people, why are you and Loelle the only two who escaped the curse?”
Joth hesitated, but Loelle looked back long enough to say, “We’ve got to tell her the truth.”
He nodded but still said nothing until we had returned to his home. Then Loelle excused herself to go inside while Joth waited with me in the wagon. My arms remained folded, and I stared up at the trees rather than acknowledge him.
After a lengthy silence, he began. “My father was the king of the Navan, many years ago when we lived across the Eranbole Sea. But there was a great war and only a few of us survived. We escaped, coming to Antora only to face another war. Hoping to preserve our people, we took up refuge here in the forest, but so did many of the Halderians. When Lord Endrick cursed these woods, that curse became ours as well. I was very young then. My mother and I were saved only because my father had placed us in hiding outside the woods, but my mother has never forgotten our obligation to restore what has been lost to them all these years.”
“Loelle is your mother, Navan’s former queen.” Suddenly, it made sense why she resented the poor treatment she had received from the Brill.
“Titles mean nothing to us now. It’s only the survival of the Navan that we care about, and the Halderian half-lives as well. My mother is a healer, but her powers do not extend to these curses. I’m a communicator. I can speak to the half-lives and hear them speak to me. No matter the distance, and no matter how quiet.”
I smiled. “No offense intended, but if they were going to save someone from the curse, they should have picked someone with greater magic than a communicator.”
“I am the only link between their world and this one,” he said, obviously offended. “We have used that link to protect this forest. When a person from outside attempts to enter, the decision becomes mine. If the half-lives judge the person to have a good heart, a non-Dominion heart, I will let them in. If they are Dominion, I may order the spirits to attack.”
“I’ve experienced both of those welcomes,” I said. “And if you believe me to be corrupt, then I likely haven’t faced my last attack.”
He shrugged. “That’s possible. Though based on what you experienced at the border, the attacks out there will be worse than anything we might do.”
“Based on what I’ve experienced in here, I disagree.”