Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf 1)

It was nearly a fortnight later when we reached the edge of the Ebonwilde. We were sodden, sore, and miserable after a parade of difficult days spent slogging through Renalt’s meandering back roads, sleeping in marshy gullies, and eating whatever Kellan could catch. Grouse and gnarled old field hares if we were lucky, rodents if we weren’t. The Tribunal must have figured out they’d burned the wrong girl; after a few close calls with their scouts, we gave up fires as well and were forced to scavenge to eat. Mostly pennycress and wild clover, as it was too early in the season for much else. We were carriageless now, too, after ours sank up to the sash in spring mud and could not be pulled free. Kellan had wanted to try longer, but I insisted otherwise; I could see that ours was not the first party to find calamity in that spot, and I did not fancy joining the sallow, bloated spirits hopelessly clawing at the mire. We were fortunate it was only the carriage we lost. Many others had not fared so well.

I marked the passage of days with tired resignation more than fear; it was now the first day of the month of Quartus, four weeks from my wedding day.

Morale was low for all but one. Toris seemed to get more and more cheerful the farther we traveled, often whistling an old Renaltan folk song to himself. When we first sighted the forest on the horizon, he even started absently singing the words.

Don’t go, my child, to the Ebonwilde,

for there a witch resides.

Little boys she bakes into pretty cakes,

Little girls into handsome pies.

You’ll know her by her teeth so white,

Eyes so red and heart so black,

But if you see her, child, in the Ebonwilde,

You won’t be coming back.

He was about to launch into the second verse, about a cursed and headless horseman, when I could take it no longer and snapped, “Please. No more.”

He flashed his teeth in an irreverent smile, but the singing stopped. The whistling, however, did not. It continued for the duration.

That night we camped just outside the tree line, not far from the bank of the River Sentis, and made our first fire in days. Kellan had caught a collection of perch with a long thread from the frayed hem of Lisette’s dress and a hook fashioned from one of her earrings. She protested mightily about being deprived of them until the fish were off the fire—?after that she made no more noise. It was our first decent meal since Syric.

Conrad ate quickly and fell asleep with his head on Lisette’s lap. He’d barely said two words to me the entire journey, and he cried often—?big, round tears that slipped quietly down his cheeks only to be hastily wiped away before anyone could notice. But he never complained, despite the wearying travel and the sting of being deprived of his mother and home for the first time in his young life. I burst with the urge to reach out and comfort him, but I never did; he had Lisette for that. I watched her carefully move him from her lap to his bedroll, tucking a blanket tightly under his chin before lying down herself. They fell asleep swiftly.

Toris took first watch that night and left for a better vantage point not long afterward.

Kellan and I were alone. He settled a fur blanket around my shoulders. “Toris will watch the first half of the night, and then I’ll relieve him.”

I gave a halfhearted nod, my thoughts far away.

“Aurelia,” he said, sitting next to me, “stop thinking about it.”

“Emilie died because of me. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

He took my hands. “It wasn’t your fault, Aurelia. None of this was your fault.”

I looked intently at his hands on mine, then at his face. “After everything, you can’t really believe that.”

“Of course I do. I know you.”

He knew the version of me I wanted him to see, because I was too afraid that revealing my real self would change his opinion of me. There was a hard knot in my stomach. I’d never wanted to have this conversation with him, but my mind was punishing me with never-ending images of a girl in a green dress burning to death on a witch’s pyre. I was tired of maintaining the illusion of innocence, even for Kellan. “You think you do, but you don’t.”

“I know you better than anyone. You’re stubborn and . . . and maddening and amazing. You’re brave but reckless; you have no sense of self-preservation whatsoever.” He smiled at the ground. “You care about people. You hurt when others hurt, even if you try not to show it.”

He gave me a look of composed determination. “I wish you knew,” he began. Then he checked himself, faltering, and started again. “I wish you understood what you mean to me.” He placed a tentative hand on my cheek.

I wasn’t distracted. “You saw what I did at the castle. In Syric.”

“Aurelia, I don’t—?”

“Tell me what you saw,” I ordered.

He was shaking his head. “Simon was dying and you said some things and . . . what else do you want me to say?”