Ravenous (14 page)

WHEN MORNING SLIPS THROUGH THE WINDOWS OF THE BARN, BATHING
me in warm, soft light, I startle. I still lean against Dalen's side, and his arm drapes over me. It would be easy to stay here, hidden away from the rest of the world, far from the troubles of my family, and the witch terrorizing my brother and me.

But hiding isn't something I can do, however tempting it may sound.

I crawl to our packs and pull out the remains of a hunk of cheese for breakfast. Before I can think better of it, I check to be sure the vials of magic potion are still where I left them, hidden deep in my pack. The way the invisibility potion swept up that cloak haunted my dreams. Magic is dangerous but surprisingly helpful. And I'd be lying if I said
walking around in an invisible cloak wasn't fun.

I brush off the thoughts of magic and finish my breakfast. My entire body aches, and I notice a small wound, almost like a sore, on the back of my hand. I must have nicked myself on the way home last night, or maybe in the dungeons, and not even noticed.

Dalen stirs, and a lump swells in my throat. He's been better to me than I deserve, after he learned what I did to my other friends. He's depending on me to stop this witch.

Once I find the cornucopia, maybe King Oliver and Ren will be willing to help me find a way to defeat or even banish the witch. In his years of trying to keep the wizard at bay, King Oliver might have come across something that will stop her. And maybe I can make amends for stealing the map. But after they called me a liar, I'm not sure. At the very least, I need something I can use to make a deal, whether it's with the witch or my friends.

I wonder, did Dalen get far figuring out that map, or has he been too angry to bother? I tiptoe toward his stall to hunt for the parchment but halt—the feeling of eyes on my back is unmistakable. I whirl around to find Stump in the corner of the barn, staring. His ability to find us is unsettling. I was sure he was bored with us when he didn't follow us into the tunnels.

“Where did you come from?” I whisper, but his only answer is to twist his head in my direction.

I enter Dalen's stall and find the map wedged in the corner, half hidden by hay, so no one can see it if they give the place a cursory glance.

I carefully pull it out, noticing a dirty smudge across the top left quadrant of the map. I gasp—that same quadrant now has real lines and hints of a path. But it's incomplete. The bottom left section is also revealed with new details, and wrinkled as though it has been drenched with water and dried. An inverted triangle is etched in the bottom corner of this portion, and a similar triangle with a line through the base is near the first exposed section of the map.

Upright triangles mark the remaining two corners. A triangle with a line and the quadrant smudged with dirt, an empty triangle and damp paper . . . elements. Now I remember—we learned about these symbols in school a couple of years ago. Each triangle corresponds to an element, and exposing it to that element reveals the real map. Excitement fills me.

We've got it. We've got the map to the cornucopia.

Dalen solved it.

I rush back to my stall, ignoring Stump and clutching the map to my chest. Dalen is awake and nibbling on bits of cheese. If we find the cornucopia today, we'll have all the food we could want.

I hold out the map. “You figured it out!” I throw my
arms around his neck, this time with joy. We can find the cornucopia and save my brother and Dalen's village. We're so close.

He laughs. “I can't resist a puzzle.”

I release him and study the map again. “So these last two quadrants must also be elements? Air and fire?”

“Exactly.”

“But how do you know which is which?”

He grimaces. “That's the tricky part. I think I know, but I thought I'd wait for you, and we could decide which to try first together.”

I hold the map up to the light again and consider it. “I think,” I say, “that these inverted symbols should be the opposite of each other, don't you?” I point to the triangles. “So if this one was water, then this one should be fire. And then if this one with a line was earth, the other should be air.”

“That's what I was thinking too,” Dalen says.

“Let's try air first. Can we just blow on it?”

“I tried blowing on it yesterday, and even held it out the window when the breeze went through the trees, but it didn't work. I think we need a stronger wind.”

My face falls. “And that will increase our chances of losing it. If the wind rips it out of our hands, it's lost.”

“That and the possibility of the fire quadrant going awry, is why I made a copy of what we've uncovered so far,” he says, pulling out a piece of parchment. “I had some in my pack in case we needed it, and it finally dried out.” He turns it toward me—he's made a perfect copy of the water and
earth elemental sections, leaving the others blank. “If we do lose the original, at least we still have something to go on. Maybe we can deduce where it leads from there.”

“Brilliant,” I say, and mean it. All Dalen's anger from the other night seems to be gone now that he's invested in this map. I can't help but be relieved.

We decide to test the air section, and set out immediately for the forest and the route to the cliff's edge. It extends beyond the city, jutting into the ocean. The barn we've chosen lets out into the forest in the back, providing us access without fear of being seen. The cliff should have a strong enough wind to activate the element on the map. As best we can figure, the wizard put a spell on the map for Ensel after he hid the cornucopia, adding these elemental keys as directions for the initiated.

Now that we know the key, it's only a matter of keeping our grip on the map.

The morning is warm and sun filled, a relief after the dreariness of the past few days. This time Stump trails behind. I don't understand why he's so interested in us, but he did try to warn us once before. I'm starting to like having him around.

Every step closer to solving the mysteries of the map brings me closer to the edge of the cliff. Closer to the Sonzeeki, lurking in the waters below. I silently remind myself over and over that I am safe, Ensel is gone, and the mercenaries are nowhere near. No one will toss me over the cliff today. It helps a little, but I can no longer tell if the waves I hear crashing are the ones in my head or the real ones in the bay.

We follow the path to the cliff's edge through the thickly wooded forest, until brush and scrub begin to replace the trees. The dark loamy earth lightens with hints of sand. Soon the trees fade entirely, and the ocean spreads out before us as far as we can see. I clench my fists at my sides. I never did get used to all that water swallowing up the horizon. Dalen paws the ground nervously at the sight. Stump remains at the tree line and hoots.

“That's the ocean?” Dalen says, eyes full of a strange mix of wonder and terror. “It looks impossible!”

“Doesn't it?” I shiver. The ocean holds no majesty for me. It's cold and grasping and suffocating. But I'd better not tell Dalen that. Not if I'm correctly judging the fear flickering over his face. “It must end somewhere.”

“Gods, if we drop the map, we'll never get it back.” Dalen swallows hard.

I take his hand, as much for myself as him, and lead him closer to the edge. He balks about five feet away. Wind whips over us, pushing, pulling, and tugging my hair from its pins to toss it back in my face. Knowing what evil lurks below, I don't dare get much closer to the edge either.

“Give me the map,” I say, and Dalen cautiously hands it to me. I unroll the parchment, keeping as tight a grip as possible, then hold it above my head to let the air currents buffet our treasure.

Something tingly runs over the map. Not the wind, but something that shivers all the way down my arms and almost causes me to release it. Dalen yanks my arms down and grabs hold of the other corners, as we examine the map
together. The bottom right quadrant we suspected was air has become more intelligible, making sense of the other two quadrants already exposed with additional paths and notations.

Now all we have to do is run fire over the last one, and we'll have the entire map. Excitement trills over me like a living thing. Dalen's eyes mirror the same thrill.

“We should wait until we get back to the barn and use the fire pit to try the fire section,” Dalen says. “We'll be out of this wind and better able to control it.”

I tuck the map into my satchel, and we leave the cliff face behind, taking shelter in the cool forest. Despite our lighter mood, the shadow of Hans is inescapable. He would've loved the mystery of this map. He'd be fascinated by Dalen, too. And Stump. He's missing everything.

“How can we use fire on the map without burning it up?” I ask Dalen. This part of the mystery I don't quite understand. “The water got the map wet, and the earth got it dirty, and the wind nearly stole it away. What do you suppose fire will do?”

Dalen frowns as we meander into a grove with tall, thick-trunked pines. “I'd suggest we begin by holding it over a candle flame, but we don't have any left. We'll have to build a fire, run the map over it, but not close enough to light it on fire. Then move it closer bit by bit until the magic is unlocked.”

“That sounds slightly better than tossing it in the fire pit.”

He laughs. Then he pulls me to a stop in the middle of the grove. Stump hoots louder than before, and it distracts
me momentarily. But nothing strange appears.

“Greta, we'll get your brother back. I know how important he is to you. I understand how much you need him. I don't want there to be any bad blood between us. I'm sorry I was angry with you last night. I've been thinking a lot about what you did—how you stole the map from your friends. The more I think about it, the less I can say I'd do any differently. My little sister, my mother, and my friends are all in danger too.”

My face is hot. “Dalen, I wouldn't do that to you. I—”

“Yes, you would. If I were working at odds with you, and Hans was at stake. But my point is, I would understand. I would forgive you for it. Help you, even, if you told me why.”

An unsettled feeling wanders through the pit of my stomach. Once, I thought Ren and King Oliver might do the same. “I don't— Ow!”

Something sharp nips at my heel, and I see Stump duck away and off to the side of the grove again. He hoots menacingly this time. He didn't draw blood, but it hurt. “Something is wrong,” I say, a feeling of dread washing over me. But there are no shadows out of place in the woods surrounding the grove, and as far as I can tell, nothing is amiss here. The sunlight warms us despite the chill I feel inside.

Dalen frowns. Stump has returned to his usual tilting and staring, which only perplexes me more. “I don't know. Maybe he just feels neglected?”

“He has an owl brain. I can't imagine he thinks much.”

“Never mind Stump. You have to go to Ren and King
Oliver. Tell them. If they're truly your friends, they will understand. They may even help us save Hans and keep my village safe. Wouldn't it be better to have assistance? That way if the witch turns on you, we'll have more people to try to stop her.”

Part of me sees the logic of what Dalen suggests. I was thinking the same thing only this morning. But I'm also terrified of my Bryrian friends' anger. Of losing them forever. Not to mention hurt that they refused to help me before. If they don't know what I did, they can't be mad. They can't know I betrayed them. Not until I have the cornucopia; it won't matter as much then.

I also don't want them to know that if what my parent's letter says is true, then Hans and I are the last living heirs of the Belladoman royal line. It seems so unreal.

“I already went to them for help once, when I first discovered Hans had vanished. They thought I was lying, hoping to keep their guards otherwise occupied instead of heading here to Belladoma. They won't believe me now. Not yet. They'll only see that I stole the map from them.” Shame colors my cheeks. “But I've been thinking, and you're right. We can't trust the witch to keep her word. When I have the cornucopia, I'll go to Ren and King Oliver. Maybe they'll help when they see how serious I am and that I was telling the truth before. Maybe we can make a deal with them to help us with the witch, and then we'll give them the cornucopia instead.”