Contender, page 9
It was a cold night, but a clear one. The moon was full, and even beneath the twisted cover of the canopy, there was still plenty of light to guide my way. In those strange hours, between dusk and dawn, it gave the forest a surreal quality, streaming down in vibrant shafts and giving everything a luminous, silver gleam. I stepped quietly, knowing painfully well, I was not the only thing moving in those trees. The wind seemed to move in rhythm, the branches swaying in time with my steps.
Yarrow...where does it bloom?
There wasn’t a particular answer; it was a common plant that grew hardy most anywhere. But I had a distant recollection that it was often found by the water’s edge. With nothing else to guide me, I took this for fact and started heading in the direction of the river, casting occasional glances over my shoulder, to make sure I was still in a line of sight from the rocks.
Please, let him still be breathing.
There was a sharp pain in my shoulder, my feet were dragging with every step. It occurred to me only then, when my eyes were heavy enough for closing, that I should probably take some of the herb myself. The wolves’ claws had raked deep grooves in my arm, and the only food I’d had in the last few days was the charred remains of the world’s most unfortunate rabbit. My head was spinning, and the image pulsed with every beat of my heart. I was most likely concussed from the stables.
These were excuses I gave myself later. At the time, I could do nothing but gasp when the branches parted above me, and a large hawk fluttered down from the sky.
It settled on a branch beside me, staring at me with a single cocked eye.
“You,” I breathed, staring in astonishment. “How did you find me here?”
I didn’t know why I was talking to it like a human. I didn’t even know how I could tell it was the same bird. But I somehow knew for certain, my gaze sweeping over those tawny feathers and the bright, hooded eyes. It was still staring at me, like it expected me to say something more.
“My friend is hurt,” I whispered, unable to look away, “probably dying. I need to find herbs to bring down his fever.” I paused uncertainly, feeling more than a little foolish. “Can you help me?”
Perhaps it wasn’t the same bird after all. Because it took off a second later, rising into the air in a fluttering of wings. I took a step back in surprise, watching as it lifted into the trees.
But it didn’t go far. Just a short ways deeper into the woods.
A strange feeling took hold of me, the same as I’d gotten the last night in the tower; like I was merely the next chapter in a story, a part of something far greater than myself.
Without stopping to think, I abandoned my plan to keep in a line, and found myself racing after it, craning my neck and squinting my eyes, to keep sight of it in the trees.
If it wasn’t the same bird, it must have thought I’d succumb to madness. Every time I got close, it took off once again—squawking occasionally—as it led me further and further into the woods. My feet caught on roots, and dew-tipped ferns whipped against my face, as I hurried to keep pace. The cold air stung my cheeks, and my legs jumbled with a tired lack of coordination. There was a sound in the distance, obvious and familiar, yet I couldn’t seem to place it until—
A stream!
At that point, I left the hawk behind, nearly tripping in relief as I stumbled blindly towards the sound. I didn’t stop until the rushes cleared and my feet ended in the water. It wasn’t quite a stream, though a tiny seam of water snaked into the distant shadows. It was more of a pond; the kind of place one expected to find toads and lilies. The kind of place one expected to find yarrow.
Even in the darkness, I spotted the blooms almost at once—bright and yellow, against the silver light of the moon. I took an involuntary step towards them, but some deeper instinct held me back. I looked at the water instead, shining like a mirror below me.
A girl was staring back in reflection, one I could scarcely recognize.
What happened to her?
I’d thought Erik was merely being protective, but it would have been impossible to look at myself and avoid the same concern. The time in the tower had been worse than I’d thought. Always a slender child, I was now thin in the extreme, nearly gaunt, with bones that pressed through my fair skin and a sharp line to my jaw. Even my eyes were different, fixed and dilated, like they’d been cursed to stay perpetually open, having lifted the veil between worlds and seen too much to shut.
The hawk settled above me, alighting on a branch.
“Is this what you wanted to show me?” I asked, never taking my eyes from the pond. I saw its outline in the watery reflection, staring over my shoulder. “That I look like some kind of wraith?”
It gave a sudden squawk, and I jumped in my skin.
There was a scent in the air I didn’t recognize. Something sweet, almost like flowers, but that still wasn’t right. A breeze stirred beneath my hair, and for a split second, I forgot the yarrow, and my arm, and the boy lying in the cave, and everything else. The water rippled below me, and for a moment, I could have sworn I heard a voice in the darkness.
It was just a whisper, saying words I’d heard before.
Come to me...I am waiting...
I leaned breathlessly over the water, as if drawn by some gravitational pull. There was a wild moment when I considered getting inside. I hadn’t imagined it. Someone was speaking—
Erik.
I blinked, came back to myself.
You need to return to Erik.
A second later, I was already moving—pacing in a deliberate circle around the curve of the shore and grabbing a handful of those vibrant blooms. I pulled them from the stalk, feeling abruptly unsettled, though I could scarcely tell the reason why. The hawk made a soft noise above me, but I didn’t look at it again as I hurried from the clearing. The water was still rippling, the breeze was gone.
* * *
The night had grown thick, by the time I returned to the little cave in the rocks. It was so dark, beneath the cover of those heavy branches, the moonlight was all but blunted and I could scarcely see farther than my own hand. It was cold as well, but less—given that we’d moved further away from the water. Those clouds of mist had dissipated in the trees. It was freezing, but dry.
Erik hadn’t moved an inch from where I’d left him. At a distance, it looked like he was dead already; his arms and legs resting loosely on the cloak, his head rolled limply to the side.
Dead already? Don’t think like that!
With a fresh sense of urgency, I knelt quickly beside him, taking the haphazard fist of herbs I’d gathered and laying them carefully side by side. Some for the fever, and some for the wounds. It would take time to start a fire and heat the water. Not until I realized this, did it occur to me, I didn’t have so much as a pot. We’d roasted the rabbits on stick, there was nothing I could use to boil the plant over the fire. I couldn’t even warm it. And it needed to be pliable and warm.
I considered for a moment, letting my thoughts drift back to my childhood kitchen, hoping for some long-remembered wisdom from my grandmother. When that didn’t work, I rubbed the nearest stalk between my fingers, before the idea came all at once.
Without stopping to think, I tore off a handful of flowers, grabbed a few tiny branches for good measure, and stuffed them unceremoniously into my mouth. The taste was overwhelming, like being suffocated by a well-meaning garden. It took everything I had not to swallow or spit it out by mistake. I started chewing rapidly, breathing hard through the nose, and before long, the flavor had abated somewhat and the herb had been reduced to a kind of paste. I spat it into my hand, kneading it a little and gauging the texture. It was perfect, and warm enough to take effect.
With delicate hands, I peeled back the bloody fabric on his legs.
Twisted hells...
It didn’t matter how many times I’d seen it, or even that I’d spent the better part of the last hour, pressing my hands over those grisly wounds. The sight of them still shocked me. They were so brutal, so violent. Given the strength it must have taken to inflict them, it seemed a miracle his leg hadn’t been torn straight off.
I took the yarrow paste and smeared it liberally over every puncture, grimacing in apology every time he flinched from me, and taking care to rub the mixture deep inside. There was another set of bites on his shoulder; I tended to these as well. By this time, he was stirring a little, probably trying to fight me off, but he was lost in the grip of the fever, unable to wake from his dreams.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, knowing full-well he couldn’t hear me. “This will help, I promise.”
The second I was finished, I headed back into the forest—moving faster now, and with greater confidence, though I’d never know the reason why. Instead of heading back to the same pond, though I knew it was close by, I headed back down the way we’d come—winding through the rustling ferns and solemn trunks of the evergreens, until at last, I heard the sound of the river.
The trees opened all at once to the vastness of the valley, making me freeze on instinct at the forest’s edge. I lingered there a few moments, feeling stark and exposed, then I took in a deep breath of the open air and started heading down to the pebbly shore.
If it was cold in the forest, it was absolutely freezing at the water’s edge. I started shivering halfway down the slope, and by the time I reached the river itself, my entire body was shaking uncontrollably. It wasn’t just the temperature, although that would have been enough. The clothes I’d been wearing since we left the settlement had been reduced to little better than rags. The cloak Erik had given me had helped a little. Helped, it had probably saved my life. But out here in the open, there was nothing between my skin and those icy winds sweeping down from the mountains.
I must finish my task quickly. Otherwise, there was a decent chance I would freeze.
With nothing more than the light of the moon to guide me, I picked my way across the rocky shoreline, squinting into the darkness, until at last, I found what I needed: a hollowed piece of rock. Broken, was more like it. But curved in such a way, it could carry water inside.
I dipped it quickly in the current, throwing a precautionary glance over my shoulder, as if the rest of the wolves might take that very moment to sweep down from the forest. But the shoreline was empty in both directions, nothing but silver rocks and a gleaming river, far as the eye could see.
It took a lot longer to get back to the cave, mostly because I didn’t want to risk spilling a single drop of water. The path was rough, and I spilled a great many anyway, but it was still over halfway full by the time I got back. Erik had turned slightly in his sleep, fiddling with the strip of cloth I’d used to bind the yarrow. The knots held, and his fingers scraped uselessly against it.
I took this as a wildly good sign.
With another fortifying breath, I went about starting another fire. It was harder this time, given that most of the wood in that part of the forest was damp with either dew or rain. But it wasn’t long before I got the flames started. If there was anything else prowling in the woods, looking for an easy target, it would simply have to come back at a more convenient time.
The rock was lodged against one of the logs I’d used to anchor the fire—close enough that it was practically sitting on the coals. It wasn’t long before there was steam rising from the top. A short while after that, I began to see bubbles. I took the remaining yarrow, shredding whatever clung to the stalk until I was holding a handful of blossoms and leaves. Not knowing which was better, I tossed them both into the water, watching as they swirled and danced. It had taken a faint yellowish tint. The tiny cave was soon filled with the fragrance of scented steam.
“Alright,” I murmured, taking the rock from the coals. It was heated, but not unpleasant. In light of the current temperature, it took all my strength not to cling. “Time to wake up now.”
With my free hand, I gave Erik a gentle shake, watching closely for any signs I might have missed before—a bluish tint around the lips, a sudden darkening beneath the eyes. When he didn’t stir, I set the rock down and slipped behind him, propping him up ever so slightly, so his head was resting in my lap. He let out a sharp breath, when his leg jostled, the quietest of moans.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, brushing back his hair. The fire had done strange things to our shadows, dancing them high upon the stone wall. “I’ll let you sleep again, I promise. But you need to drink this first. It’s the only way to bring down that fever.”
Another gentle shake, and he moaned again—turning his face into my leg. After a few seconds, his eyes fluttered open. It scared me more than anything yet to happen.
They were wide, and beautiful...and utterly blank.
“Erik?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer.
He gazed up at me with a vacant expression, like he was still tumbling through some fevered dream. The flushed reds that circled his eyes, made the blues stand out all the more brightly.
They seemed almost to be burning, fixing with unnatural attention onto mine.
“Honey...you need to drink this. Can you open your mouth?”
He stared at me, flushed and chilled, yet not part of him was shivering. I was shivering, but it was like he could no longer feel it. Like he’d journeyed some place beyond the cold.
Our gaze held for an endless moment.
“What are you?” he breathed.
My heart stopped beating.
It was in that moment, I discovered a new kind of fear. Fear of something I couldn’t fight or touch. Fear of something that had already happened. The word rose to the tip of my tongue, witch, I had grown strangely good at saying it. But it was the last thing I wanted whispered in his ears.
In the end, it didn’t matter. He answered for himself.
“You are a Valkyrie,” he said knowingly, almost smiling. “You have come to take me away.”
I stared down at him in the flickering light, every muscle freezing in perfect stillness.
He thinks he’s dead.
Of course he did. How could I blame him? What better explanation could there be, after everything that had happened? He had died somewhere in the woods, or perhaps even sooner.
My lips parted, but I couldn’t answer. Streams of tears poured down my face.
“It was the wolves,” he murmured, his voice surprisingly steady. “They must have...” He trailed off, eyes flying suddenly towards the trees, like they were searching for something. Whatever it was, he didn’t find it. A moment passed. “I left her,” he concluded faintly. A kind of delayed understanding shook through him, bowing his head in shame. “...I told her I wouldn’t do that.”
By the end, his voice was so quiet I could barely hear it. But each word ripped into me with the sharpness and precision of a knife. I gripped him fiercely, trying to make him lift his eyes.
“Erik, that never happened.”
“I promised her,” he rasped, “I promised I wouldn’t leave her alone.”
“Hey, listen to me.” I spoke each word slowly, firmly—willing them to break through the fog. “You’re not dead, all right? You’re right here, with me. It’s Liv,” I insisted, taking one of his hands and placing it on my cheek. “I’m right here. You didn’t die, Erik. You saved me.”
You’re always saving me.
The words echoed into silence, and he stared at me for a long time. Such a long time, I was half-convinced he was actually dreaming. Then after a small eternity, the corner of his mouth lifted in a wistful smile. “...I really liked her.”
His eyes fluttered, and he didn’t speak again.
With desperate hands, I wrapped my fingers around his forehead and tilted it back, opening his mouth in the same instant. He stirred a little when I tipped the liquid down his throat, coughing weakly and trying to turn his head. By the time the rock was empty, he was already sleeping.
The drug was in his system, I could only hope it wasn’t too late.
I really liked her.
I stared at him in the sudden silence, those quiet words ringing in my ears. It seemed too much he would have said them, too much for a single person to withstand. My breath had calmed, but the tears were still flowing. I no longer noticed as they slipped quietly down my cheeks. The fire danced behind us, and I leaned forward ever so slightly, touching my lips to his.
I really like you, too.
Chapter 8
Sleep came in little bursts throughout the night; coming on thick as fog rolling over a rough sea, and then lifting at the slightest sound or movement from Erik. He never opened his eyes, not a single time, although sometime in the early hours he made a suicidal subconscious attempt to roll into the fire. I entered some kind of fugue state, no longer able to differentiate between the times I was sleeping, and times I was awake. In a lot of ways, it wasn’t dissimilar to the average night cycle of a new parent. Only with slightly more rain and smoke, and danger and blood.
By the time dawn finally cracked over the mountains, I was sleeping like the dead. A herd of stampeding bison couldn’t have waked me. My muscles had sunk deep into the ground, finally rising in mutiny at their vicious overuse, and my head felt heavier than the rocks which supported it. If left to my own devices, there was a chance I could have happily remained for the next several years.
Yet at the slightest rustle of fabric, my eyes flew open.
Erik was looking at me, sitting propped up by the fire.
Thank the gods!
“You’re awake,” I breathed, like I had to hear the words out loud in order to believe it.
Even then, I needed to check for myself. With thousand horrible cracks of protest, I lurched painfully upright and half-staggered across the stone to where he lay. His skin was cool, without a trace of the fever that had ravaged it. His eyes were bruised around the edges, but the blues were clear. It wasn’t until I reached to peel the cloak from his legs, checking on the cuts below, that I realized he was no longer wearing it. Sometime in the early hours, he’d placed it over me instead.
