Blackveil

“Uh-huh. If he saw us, he’d have brought the others to help us.”

“I hope,” Yates said, “this problem you’re having is a temporary thing.”

“Me, too,” she replied, leaning against his shoulder. She wished it were all temporary. Their chances of survival were dismal at best. They were without food or a reliable source of water. Alton had somehow survived for days in Blackveil under similar conditions, but he’d found the wall and Tower of the Heavens. Karigan and Yates were far away from the wall. For all Karigan knew, they’d passed into one hell or another, and the chances of finding their way out were growing less likely, especially with Yates blind and her own sight unreliable.

At the moment, she didn’t care. She just needed a little rest. She’d rest then somehow make them a shelter. Before she fell asleep, she had the presence of mind to remove her moonstone from her pocket, its brightness raising her spirits for a moment, but even that light could not hold back the darkness of deep exhaustion, and she dropped off even as the rains came once again.

THE ELETIANS’ TASK

Darkness seeped into Karigan’s dreams, though she could not swear it was all dreams. She became aware of her head tucked against Yates’ chest, his arms wrapped around her, and his hand keeping hers clasped around the moonstone. Dozens of green eyes shone beyond the edge of the light. The shadow beasts had found them again. They nudged their noses at the light, but whined and backed into the dark as if it burned them.

“Keep the light shining,” Yates whispered to her.

Karigan did not awaken again until her world shifted. Yates moved and laughed, and there were other voices and enough light that she thought Blackveil must have been a dream and she was back in Sacor City in the full sun of summer. The green eyes of shadow beasts were gone, replaced by the shimmering faces of Eletians.

“They aren’t real,” she told Yates. She curled into a ball at the base of the tree, wondering vaguely how it could be that Yates was now talking to her hallucinations, unless he was a hallucination himself. Maybe nothing was real, just all in her head, and if that was the case, then the vision she’d seen of the king on his deathbed was similarly false. She smiled to herself and slipped away.

Someone tipped her head forward and pressed a bottle to her lips. She drank eagerly thinking it was just water, but it tasted of the cordial of the Eletians, of spring rain and ripening fruits. It was taken from her after just a few swallows. Were her hallucinations now taking over her other senses? Could one slake her thirst?

The clouds in her mind parted with the drinking of the cordial, and when she peeled open her eyes, she found Graelalea kneeling beside her.

“Are you real?” Karigan asked.

The Eletian tilted her head as if considering, the light of her moonstone flaring around her pearlescent armor and pale hair like a halo. On closer inspection, the armor was mud-splashed and beaded with rain, wet feathers and flaxen hair plastered against her head.

Karigan heard the patter of rain, but did not feel it. She was in a tent. She sighed in relief.

“You are real,” she said to Graelalea.

The Eletian smiled. “Yes. You were elusive, but we have found you. You should have remained in one place when we lost you.”

“But I . . .”

“I know. The poison of the thorns in your blood played tricks in your mind. We shall do our best to draw it out, but Hana was the one with the healing touch among us, and she is gone.”

“How did you find us?”

“Excellent tracking skills, and your Lynx felt the hunger of the beasts, felt their drive to hunt and that they had caught the scent of something unusual. He presumed it was you and Yates that excited them, and he was able to follow their desire.”

Karigan didn’t want to imagine what it must have felt like for Lynx to touch the minds of those creatures.

“What about Yates? Can you help him?”

“Help him see again?” Graelalea asked. “That is something beyond our power. Perhaps with time, on the other side of the wall, he would regain his vision.”

“Have you told him?”

“We have not hidden the truth from him. We shall help him navigate the forest. It is remarkable the two of you survived on your own.”

Karigan thought she detected respect in the Eletian’s voice. If so, it meant the two of them had come a long way in their relationship since the first time they met, when it seemed Graelalea held only contempt for Karigan.

“For now you must rest,” Graelalea said.

“What . . . what about my leg?” Karigan realized it did not hurt presently. In fact, she did not feel it much at all. She wiggled her toes to make sure it was still attached.

“The cordial will help with the pain,” Graelalea replied, “and for the poison, Lynx suggested leeches. They are, after all, abundant here. We examined them closely and determined they are untainted by the forest. We have attached some to your wounds. Would you care to see?”

“No!” Karigan recoiled out of reflex at the thought of the leeches, mouths attached to her flesh and sucking her blood till they became bloated. Leeches were commonly used to treat a number of maladies, but Karigan had just about had it with creatures wanting to suck her blood or eat her.

“We did consider hummingbirds,” Graelalea said.

By the time Karigan realized the Eletian had made a joke, she was gone and the tent darkened. The energizing effects of the cordial faded and heaviness descended on Karigan. For the first time in a long while, she felt safe, as safe as she could be in Blackveil Forest. Someone else could be responsible for Yates, and someone else could keep watch over camp.