Silent Kingdom (19 page)

Of course he could, because he felt like I had betrayed him. And as I’d thought before, I thought again: Perhaps I had.

~ ~ ~

Early rays of sunshine stabbed through the tent’s canvas and wrenched me out of a doze. I rolled out to find Avrik propped up against a tree trunk, asleep, but he opened his eyes when he heard me stirring. The sight of him sent my emotions spiraling—I felt a mixture of hurt and panic, guilt and rejection, all at once. Opening my mouth, I tried to say something, anything. But words that could help wouldn’t even come to mind. Perhaps because there were none.

Alone, I tore down the tent and repacked my belongings, then kicked snow over the fire’s embers to put them out. The thought of breakfast made my stomach churn, so I hoisted my pack and quiver onto my shoulders, grasped my bow, and started walking. Gradually, Avrik pulled himself to his feet and followed. He did not offer to help carry the supplies like he had yesterday. He did not say anything. He did not need to—I could feel his accusations and anger cutting deep into my heart already; the air was laced with tension and pain so heavy I could hardly breathe.

As the light grew and the silence stretched on, I struggled to find a way to break it. To try to mend things. If he hadn’t left yet, perhaps he did not hate me.

It was then that my thoughts were interrupted by new ones. Though unaccompanied by visions this time, the flash of clarity that always preceded my untimely words surged through my mind and turned my sense of foreboding into certainty. Avrik’s feelings played through my head as clearly as if they were my own: anger, skepticism, hurt, doubt.

I stopped and spun to him, my stomach taut, my fists clenched in a sudden onset of anger. It was easier to be angry than sorrowful. As always, the truth escaped my lips, even when I did not want it to. “You’re going to turn back.”

Avrik’s face twisted into a frown and he stepped back, staring off into the forest. He refused to look at me. “My father would never put anyone in harm. He wouldn’t do that to Evren—to me.”

I can’t lie, Avrik!
I thought.
Why would I ever want to lie to you? To hurt you?
But my lips would not move; my tongue was frozen in place.
Why am I speechless now?
I thought, frustrated.

Avoiding my gaze, Avrik continued to watch the trees ahead of us. “I want to believe you would never lie to me. But…” He sighed. “I can’t. You don’t say a word for four years and then when you start to speak, you share a mad, impossible story about my father?” He turned to look at me at last. “My
father
, Elena.”

His eyes shone with something. With more anger? With tears? My mind flipped through memories: had I ever seen Avrik cry?

My anger melted away, giving place to desperation that he would believe I never wanted to hurt him, never wanted this for him. I opened my mouth, but my protests remained voiceless; my emotions drowned out all words.
Speak, speak…

“I’ve heard enough of the rumors throughout Evren.” His words sliced through my thoughts as he stepped nearer, so close I could feel his breath on my face. How could we be so close, yet feel so far apart? “I don’t need to hear more from someone who is supposed to be there, to be my friend.”

My world was crumbling around me and I couldn’t do anything about it.
“
Avrik, I am your friend,
”
I whispered, forcing the tears back even as my throat burned and my voice came out tight and raspy.

Biting his lip, he stared back at me, his dark eyes searching my face, lingering. For one heartbeat, I thought he would change his mind, that he would wrap his arms around me and whisper that he was sorry for doubting me. But he pulled back, pain etched across his face in the lines on his brow and in his frown. His eyes no longer shone with either tears or longing; they were unfathomable, masking his thoughts again. He was lost to me.

“I don’t know why you would lie,” he said, “but I know my own father, and I know he would not kill. He has protected me all of my life.”

Where was the boy who had always been by my side and defended me all these years? He refused to believe the truth when it was staring him in the face, because he did not want to believe it.

Avrik’s voice rose, ringing out in the still, snowy forest, and I noticed anger biting into his tone. “Yet you want me to listen as you call him a murderer? As you claim he tried to kill you? I’m supposed to believe
that
?”

My hands shook. Tears blurred my vision and tightened my throat but I refused to let them win. “You’re supposed to believe your
friend.
” It was all I could do to keep the tears from spilling down my cheeks. But I wouldn’t cry, not now.

“And I’m supposed to believe my
father
,” he said, his voice almost breaking on the word. “I didn’t think you’d ever make me choose between the two of you. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We were supposed to… I wanted…” He lifted a trembling hand to brush back the hair from my cheek, his fingers tracing the curve of my jaw. I reached for his hand, but too late; as if recalling himself, he jerked his hand away and clenched his fists. “I’ve already lost my mother;” he whispered, taking a step back, “I’m not going to lose my father also.”

“Avrik…”

“I’m going back. Father needs me; he has no one else.”

He spun around, plowing through the snow drifts we’d already trudged through. For a long moment I stood motionless, my mind reeling and my heart torn with too many emotions to sort through. Then, once he disappeared, clarity returned to me.

“Avrik!” I shouted, stumbling after him. “There are sedwa in this forest; don’t leave to face them alone!” A tree branch scratched across my cheek and another snagged itself in my hair. Wrenching myself free, I thrust the branches out of my way and dashed forward. I opened my mouth again, but his name died on my lips. He was gone, his form lost amidst the tangle of dead underbrush and towering trees.

Running in the direction I’d last seen him, I chased him desperately. I plowed my way uphill through a snow drift and my foot struck an unseen root, shoving me off balance. The snow swallowed me, seeping through my cloak as I fought to rise to my feet. Coldness soaked into my bones; I shivered with the chill and my anger and shock.

“Avrik!” My voice sounded broken and I hated it. It echoed through the dead forest and taunted me with its emptiness.

He would be safer in Evren, if he ever made it back home. I had to hope for the best for him now. He was gone.

Drawing a deep breath, I yanked myself up with the help of a nearby branch and let my anger fuel me. I turned my face back toward Misroth City—away from Evren, away from Avrik. Charging forward in my wet clothes, I let my exertion and raw emotion warm me until I couldn’t feel the pain or the burning in my eyes anymore. As the sun began to dip toward the west, I stopped and set up my tent. I failed to start a fire, so I retreated to the tent to change into the only dry clothes I had and bundle up in blankets. Now that the anger was fading into biting sorrow, I felt cold inside and out, and my body would not stop trembling. Tears streaked down my face.

What am I doing?
The question plagued me.
What can I do, alone?
I thought of the king and the powerful hold he had on my people—of the powerful hold he’d once had on me. He had deceived so many.
How can I stop him?
Doubts circled around in my head like vultures.

I stared up at the cloudy sky and spoke into the cold air. I wasn’t sure if I hoped to see the man from the woods again, or if I was simply angry. “Giver of Life, you gave me this…burden.” My voice broke, but anger gave it new strength. “Why?
Why
won’t you tell me what to do? Who will listen? What good has ever come from speaking the words you give me?” I bowed my head and inhaled deeply. “I need help.”

The woods were silent.

I was alone.

~ ~ ~

My eyes shot open in the middle of the night, darkness still embracing me as I lay curled in the tent. Reaching forward, I felt the reassuring solidness of my bow beneath my fingertips, where I’d laid it next to me before drifting off to sleep. Still, the weapon could only bring so much comfort. I was in the same woods where I’d been both stalked and attacked by monsters that had haunted my nightmares for years. And I was on my own.

I tried to calm my ragged breathing so I could hear whatever stirred in the woods outside my tent.
Something woke me.
Then the realization hit:

It was too quiet.

Not again
. My heart raced and my palms were slick as I clutched the bow and sat up. The stabbing knife in my stomach deepened; something inside me felt ready to snap. A giant fist was buried in my gut, squeezing, squeezing. I struggled to force air into my lungs, though panic felt like it was constricting my throat and every breath heightened the stabbing sensation inside me.

Slowly, I pulled myself from my layers of blankets and rose to a crouch. With trembling fingers, I reached for the quiver and pulled out a single arrow. Moonlight spilled onto the earth and drifted through the tent’s fabric, casting long shadows from the trees across the sides of the tent. I tried to breathe quietly and steadily as I turned my head cautiously to study each side, to search for any moving shadows, to listen for any approaching sounds. Nothing.

Where are you?
I didn’t dare move, didn’t dare push my way out of my tent only to stumble out blindly to the sedwa as it stalked me. But I hated to sit there in the tent, a blind target.

I drew a shaky breath.
Giver of Life, you gave me my life, and you saved it for a reason. You gave me my gift for a reason. Don’t leave me now. If I die tonight…it will all be for nothing.

I nocked the arrow to my bow, slung the quiver over my shoulder, and creeped toward the front of the tent. Pulling one of the flaps back a sliver, I peered into the night. The forest was drenched in shadow, a wispy layer of clouds shrouding the stars and moon. Even the snow looked grey and dull. The bare branches of the trees were waiting claws; my breath in the chill air was a ghostly fog. Nothing moved and no golden eyes glared at me from the blackness, but I could feel the sedwa’s presence as surely as if it were standing right in front of me.

It’s there. It’s waiting
.

The thought sent my heart hammering even harder. I could picture its eyes glaring at the tent, preparing to leap. Flashbacks from when I’d last encountered one of these monsters shot through my head. I saw the eyes watching me, saw the leaping form, saw the fangs. I felt the sharp pain of the claws digging into me.

Not this time
.

I tightened my grip on the bow and steeled myself. The monster would leap without warning, without a sound. I would only have one shot before it was upon me. I slipped from the tent, crouching low to peer around in every direction, searching for any sign of the creature.

Any moment
.

The silence was nearly unbearable. As I strained to hear any sound, any movement, even just a breath of wind, my ears started to ring. I clenched my jaw and prayed for them to stop so I could concentrate on the outside world, but the ringing persisted.

My dry throat and mouth refused to let me swallow when I tried. A trickle of sweat escaped from my hairline and dripped down into my eye.

And then I saw it.

The sedwa’s glowing eyes stared down at me from the branches overhead, poised to strike. I released my arrow, but it glanced harmlessly off the scales covering the sedwa’s chest. Snarling, it launched toward me and I leapt backward, my fingers clawing for another arrow.

In the night, the creature was a part of the shadows, soundless as it charged. My second arrow pierced its left eye, extinguishing its glow as quickly as the snuffing of a candle. But the sedwa did not hesitate, did not slow. It sprang again, a blur of claws and fangs too swift for me to stop. I threw myself backward, tumbling down a hard-packed snowdrift and desperately clinging to my bow.

The sedwa landed two yards from me, its open maw dripping saliva and revealing even more fangs, these ones smaller than those protruding from its mouth but still as sharp as daggers. I leapt to my feet and nocked a third arrow to my bow, my body shaking with cold and adrenaline as the sedwa and I stared one another down. Exhaling, I concentrated on stilling my arms so my shot would fly true.

Find its weakness
. I inhaled, watching hundreds of pounds of muscle and impenetrable scales prepare to attack again. This time it would not miss. It was too near, too angry. I was close enough to see the creature’s chest rise and fall as it breathed, to see the line of black fur bristling around its neck like a mane, to see its pupils dilate before the leap.

I crouched low, firing as soon as the sedwa soared into the air, its powerful legs propelling it high above me in an arc. At the height of the sedwa’s jump, my arrow struck its mark, piercing through the soft folds of skin on the creature’s underbelly. It roared—like a great cat, like a bear, like no other beast I’d ever heard before—and I rolled to the side to avoid its teeth as it crashed into me.

The impact jarred my bones, my left side taking the brunt of it. I kicked at the sedwa’s head as it went down, still snarling and snapping and leaving a trail of black blood in the snow. It swung a heavy paw for me, but I ducked.

Jumping to my feet, I backed up to put distance between the sedwa and myself as it rolled and stood, its head low to the ground, its body shuddering in agony. Still, it wasn’t finished. It circled me, its one good eye glaring as it assessed its next move and mine. I aimed an arrow at its eye, but when I drew back the bowstring, it charged straight toward me, snapping the shaft in half with one bite before I could shoot. One swipe of its paw at my left hand and my bow flew from my grasp. Pain sparked in my wrist and the blow threw me sideways.

I fell and the sedwa bore down on me, spilling its warm blood down my front. Even as the light began to leave its eye, as its body spasmed and it panted out its last breaths, it was still trying to take me with it. In one swift movement I drew the dagger from my belt and shoved it upward into the soft skin near where I assumed the sedwa’s heart would be.