Chapter 9: Thorns Not Leaves
A Sign to Rest
We travelled the phobward road for several suns, making reasonably good time as I continued to recover my strength and build up a measure of endurance. Jasmin – I mean Salora – made it a point to stop when I started to trail behind by even a step. If she wasn't satisfied with the progress we made, she'd pick me up with that effortless strength and carry me for miles, insisting that it was easier than waiting on me.
For her, that might've been true, but for me it was an embarrassment. But her perception was greater than my shame, so I had no choice in the matter. Poor sickly Afina Thornleaf having to be carried by her true love Salora Primrose. It was the sort of disgusting and distasteful romantic nonsense Delia's husband loved reading so much.
I hated that I couldn't call Jasmin by her proper name. We had to get accustomed to using our new names before we encountered people or else we would likely slip up. But the name Salora always left a strange metallic taste in my mouth, as though I'd been sucking on queendom argenta that I'd just gotten as change from a deal in the market.
Not that I could tell her that. She took every opportunity she could to remind me that her name was Salora.
"Salora Jasmin Primrose, at your service," she'd say with a bow to no one in particular, "and this frail waif is my dear wife Afina Roisin Thornleaf. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, my lady."
That was the story we'd settled on. Our respective parents were long lost cousins of the Thornleaf and Primrose families who were in a dreadful feud. We'd fallen in love against all advice and run away to the third district to wed and make our way in the world. And now? Now we were running away from my father who found out that his only daughter's honour had been stolen by a Primrose cur.
Jasmin absolutely beamed as she worked through the tale, building on old stories she'd read from her apparently vast library. I was astonished at the depth of our false past.
She reasoned we could go on like that for moons before someone noticed that we never seemed to kiss in public. Lots of couples tended to restrict their intimacy to closed chambers, so who could blame two young women, newly married, for being a bit shy about it?
Around seven suns after travelling the phobward road, we came to another fork. Or, I suppose, what was once a fork. The path to continue phobward was clear and well-travelled. The forked path, on the other hand, was barely visible, were it not for a sign indicating its presence.
"Jasmin," I began as the divergence came into view.
"Roisin," she said with somewhat of an irritated grumble. I supposed she must be worried that I wasn't using her cover name. She did say I was allowed to 'slip up', so I just ignored her irritation and moved on.
"I know you said we were planning to head phobward to district ten," my stomach dropped as I realised what I was about to suggest, "on account of the Primrose family there."
She sighed, rolling her eyes at me. "This isn't a dictatorship, my love," I blushed at her use of the endearing term, "so I will take any possible notions under consideration."
"Where does that road lead?" I pointed toward the barely visible overgrown path that led mornward. "I don't know why, but I feel we should follow it."
Her face went pale at the suggestion. She didn't answer. I just watched as Jasmin faltered. I'd never seen her anything less than fully committed, and something about that path was too much.
"I mean, we don't have to," my words were barely more than a rasp. "But if we want to stay away from people long enough for me to call you Salora," that weird sensation stopped me for a moment, "then a less travelled path would be best, don't you think?"
Jasmin took several deep breaths, apparently trying to work up her nerve enough to say something, anything. When she finally managed the task, she levelled her gaze at me, not breaking eye contact as she spoke. "If we take that path, we'll get to Blue Stone faster, which is probably for the best. But that's only if we make it to Blue Stone at all. I'm not saying no, but I will need a much stronger case than 'I feel we should', because I've heard no stories of anyone surviving there since before Queen Lavender's reign."
"There? So you do know where the road leads?"
"It's on the sign, Roisin, can't you read?"
Looking more closely at the sign, I saw a bunch of odd scratches, nothing resembling any words I'd seen before.
"If you're trying to tell me those marks are anything more than the deeply torn gouges of a larabrin's claws, darling," I didn't want to discredit her opinion, but I couldn't see any manner in which the sign bore words, "then I may need to look into having you taken into protective custody."
"What I'm trying to tell you is that this sign clearly says 'Thornwood Hallow, Desecrated Grove of Evil', which you'd know if you hadn't been raised in a backwater like Powell's Square in the second district."
Her hand raced to cover the mouth that had just insulted my home, but I took no offense. She was correct that I was undereducated and raised far from city life. Still, I was certain the 'words' on the sign were nothing more than cracks formed by the age of the wood. How I knew it was a sign at all was a greater miracle.
"Alright, princess, how about this," I needed to make it clear to her that she was losing it. "You write down what you think that sign says on a bit of paper. If it looks anything like the sign, then I take you at your word. Otherwise, I assume you're hallucinating, and we take it as a sign to stop for the evening."
She took me up on that, hoping to prove a point I assume, and spent several minutes writing, looking at the sign, then shaking her head in irritation before trying again. At the last, she held my gaze and apologised softly. "I know what I see on the sign. But every time I write it, there's no resemblance whatsoever. Do you at least believe me?"
"I don't believe you, no. That's just a bunch of deep gouges in the wood to my eye." Her desperate expression moved something in me, prompting a caring correction. "But I trust you. I still say we should take a trek through this 'Desecrated Grove of Evil', even if that's what the sign says." I moved to the horse's side and reached for a bag. "But the deal was that we rest, so help me set camp for the night."
As an act of goodwill, Jasmin insisted that we get far from the fork before settling in, and she led us another mile down the road. Specifically leading us along the path to the place called Thornwood Hallow, she valiantly didn't even put up a fuss after the first bit. When she was satisfied with our distance from the path, we set up and took the evening to rest.
We should have listened to Jasmin's worries.
The Familiar Stranger
The trees of Thornwood Hallow were frightening things. Each one's branches hung low with the weight of age, presenting sharp burs for unobservant passersby to impale themselves upon. The worst of it was directly at eye-level, a fact whose dangerous significance was not lost on me.
While Jasmin was displeased with our presence, the horse was downright shaken, even though nothing presented itself as particularly foreboding or dangerous beyond simply the atmosphere weighing down on all of us.
Thornwood Hallow wasn't just a terrifying place. Entry into it was explicitly forbidden by order of Queen Lavender Lilliana Liatris, second queen from the Liatris family many generations before I was born. There was no way I could know that. The path was as worn out as the name itself.
During our first sun in the Hallow, I surmised that it must have been called 'evil' due to the fact that every squeak, chirp, growl, and stick snapping echoed throughout, reverberating and replicating itself to give the illusion of constantly being surrounded. Could anyone be blamed for their anxieties multiplying exponentially in the face of such rancour? But even without those extra intonations, I found myself feeling the pressure of eyes upon me.
Jasmin, desperate as she was to get through the 'desecrated grove' as quickly as possible, insisted we not travel after sundown within Thornwood Hallow, so we halted and made camp each sun long before dark.
The fifth sun, my fears began to mount. Someone or something was travelling with us in lock step, and it did not take its eyes from me. But every time I would look over my shoulder or behind my back, there was nothing. There never had been anything. How could there have been.
"Darling," I said the word, only breath articulating its sound, "I know you'll say I'm mad, but I think we're being followed."
"My dear," her voice was more hushed than my own, "I don't think you mad. We are certainly being followed."
The relief I felt at the reassurance was tempered deeply by the rising fear at the confirmation. I didn't know how she could have known that with certainty, but I trusted that she knew well enough to be able to identify any interlopers.
"And what, exactly, are we planning to do about the person following us, darling?"
"I never said it was a person, though that does seem likeliest now you mention it, my dear."
"That didn't answer, darling, what I asked you just now."
"Don't you think, my dear, I would have answered your question had I known a clear answer?"
"What a fine sun it is," the voice was neither mine nor Jasmin's, but some third being who'd not been there moments before, "to find the good lady Salora and her champion Afina in this fine and hallowed grove." Wherever the voice came from, something poked at my side. By the sound of her shriek, the thing poked Jasmin as well. "Though I will say, fine ladies, that you appear to have lost some of your figure."
Jasmin frantically jerked her head about, trying desperately to lock her gaze on the voice's origin, but the echo of it through the wood made that impossible. "Who are you? Show yourself!"
"Now fine sister Salora, you needn't be so harsh with your beloved Vessa." The name came out like a question, and whomever it was began to laugh. "No, that's not right. Not Vessa. Who was Vessa."
Another shriek came from Jasmin. "Well, Not Vessa, who are you? And more importantly where? But most of all, please stop poking and pinching at various parts of me. The only person allowed that privilege is my wife."
Not Vessa laughed in a delighted squeal. "But fine sister Salora! Your dearest Aurelin isn't here!"
At the last I caught a glimpse of the being – woman or beast, I was uncertain – and managed to take hold of their arm, preventing them from running another time.
"Now you're just as dull as ever, are you not, Afina?" They were crazed, hardly present in their own head. "Wait a fair moment, there. You are not my fine Salora or her Afina, are you? My mistake, kind ladies." Looking between us for a while, they finally settled. "I'm sorry. What was it you were saying, Miss Grip-of-Iron?"
"I was saying nothing," I insisted calmly, not releasing them, "or at least nothing more than to ask you to calm yourself. And perhaps to ask your name. All we have gathered is that your name is decidedly not Vessa."
"Well of course not? Why would it be? That's not even a real name, Fake Afina." They considered for a moment. "Vanara, I believe. That feels right. Well, mostly right. It's missing something. Like a snake's hiss."
Jasmin moved closer to us and seemed to inspect them for several breaths. "Do you promise not to run away, Vanara? We likely can not find your 'snake hiss', but we can at least provide companionship."
Vanara tilted their head at Jasmin a moment. "This one is Fake Afina, but I'm not so certain of your Salora." They looked between us for several seconds. "But perhaps not a fake Afina?"
"Focus, Vanara, or I shall feed you silverthorn and send you to the goddess." Jasmin was growing impatient, and I couldn't help finding it somewhat impressive. "Do you promise not to run?"
They shook their head, then nodded, then repeated the actions several times before squeaking out, "I'm sorry, what was I saying? Have we met? My name is not Varula or Velira. Who are you?"
"We've been over this." Jasmin breathed deeply. "Your name is apparently Vanara. You seem to recognise me as someone called Salora and my wife as a 'Fake Afina'. Are you going to run?"
"I'm not going to run, but I do have a question."
Jasmin signalled me to release the person's arm. "What is your question?"
"Who are those people? Afina and Salora? I've never heard those names before."
"Here I thought a few suns ago that you were losing your mind, darling," I said to Jasmin, "but now we have in our possession a veritable lost soul."
Vanara looked between us. "So, what are your names, anyway?"
Jasmin beat me to it, giving me a stern glare before she responded. "Well, so long as we are travelling, I am using the name Salora. And my wife is using the name Afina. As you somehow surmised before properly introducing yourself."
"Did I?" Vanara returned to poking at my various muscles and soft points. "You don't seem like an Afina. A bit soft. That name sounds very strong to me."
Without another word, Vanara laid down at my feet and was snoring in seconds. I might have thought them playing some joke, but they didn't move for the rest of the evening. In fact, Jasmin and I opted to make camp right on the spot, since we couldn't in good conscience leave Vanara in such a terrifying locale.
"I certainly hope, my dear," Jasmin said lazily as we lay down in our tent to sleep, "that rest calms them enough to actually carry on a conversation."
"With any luck, darling," I giggled, "a wandering larabrin will pass through and bite off just Vanara's tongue so that their incessant chatter subsides by force."
Jasmin's laughter in response was the beginning of the same lullaby I heard every night with her arms around me. She pulled me tightly, the scent of Queen's Heart filling my whole mind as the cloth wraps on her arms rubbed my skin a little more raw every night.
The Temple
For better or worse – I'm fairly certain worse – Vanara followed us the next morning when Jasmin and I struck camp. They didn't say much after the night we met them, opting less to chat and more to observe the terrifying place we were traversing. It was refreshing, if a little unsettling.
Somewhere about our seventh sun of travel, Vanara finally made a point to address us directly, but it was largely just a means to ask – again – who we were and why they were with us. They made no further mention of Salora or Afina, leading me to believe it had been some mutual hallucination.
The tenth sun within Thornwood, Vanara was nowhere to be found when we woke, so we took the sun to rest and bathe, assuming they would return we broke camp the next morning. And they unfortunately did.
Each night from the time we met Vanara, I had the same dream. In the dream I was sitting at the top of a high stair looking out over what used to be the foundation of a building. In my hand was a flower, each night a different sort.
The first night's flower was deeper than blood red. It didn't seem real in my hand, but there it was all the same. As I looked about the enormous space, my hair's symmetrical tied sections brushing along my shoulders, there seemed to be four other raised platforms similar to my own. I smiled bittersweet at the image.
On the second night I had a delicate white iris, one I knew somehow grew only in the mountains. Despair oozed from it, reminding me of love and peace long dead. My hands bore the callouses of one who builds. I sat bolt upright, a low ponytail resting on my neck. Confusion and emptiness consumed me.
When the third night fell, I held a weed with a brilliant golden blossom. It evoked visions of innovative genius. The tight plaits of my hair seemed to pull my head up, seeking a goddess I knew I wouldn't find. She was gone. They all were.
Next I held a black woody stick. Its leaves and blooms, though impressive, allowed no light to leave them. Hot to the touch, I became obsessed with knowing the secrets it held. My hands seemed to engulf every part of it, even as I tried my best to handle the flower delicately. Somehow, I knew something was coming. A change.
I sat alone in that space the fifth night, seated atop the highest platform and holding silverthorn, its deadly defences removed for safety by one who knew how better than any. Waiting for someone I couldn't be certain was still alive, my heart raced when I heard the trees rustle before a small-ish woman with messy brown hair stumbled in from the corner opposite me.
Her. The troublemaker. I'd saved her time and again when she was a young girl. And here she was in the place I held most dear. I longed to know her as a friend. She was, after all, her mother's daughter.
The flower's weight shifted in my hand, and my trusty sword was at the ready. Danger was approaching, and fast. Salora would never forgive me if I let this one fall before her time, not after everything I'd given up for her.
After that fifth dream, I awoke in somewhat of a hazy place. The world around me didn't seem quite real anymore, and shaking that feeling was about as possible as hoping hunger would vanish without food. Or rather, without food or death. Goddesses around us, I hoped it wouldn't be death, but nothing seemed to work, even Jasmin teasing me with everything she could.
Several suns passed, the cycle repeating, always ending with the flower becoming a blade, always desperately seeking to protect that girl. Always every time trying with all I had to tell her who I was and why I kept protecting her.
It reminded me of the dream I'd had when Jasmin confessed her role in the conscriptions, like the body I was occupying in the dream wasn't my own, and yet somehow entirely mine.
Each sun, I tried to tell Jasmin about the dreams, and each time I struggled to remember the details beyond 'I was in a great open space, and there was a flower', with the exception of the last dream.
"Describe her to me," Jasmin said after the second cycle. "I know you can't see yourself well, but describe the woman to me, the one with messy brown hair."
"Well," I tried, slowly and tentatively, to recall her features. "She wore the clothes of a traveller, practical, tight enough to avoid snags but not enough to prevent motion. Her walk had a subtle limp, like something was out of place and she was compensating. The hair I called messy was cut short like that of a man, but unkempt, like it hadn't been trimmed in three or four moons.
"In the dream, she recognised me, but not in a knowing way. It was more suspicious than familiar. Like a 'why do I know you' and not a 'it's good to see you again' kind of way. I caught hints of scars all over her body. They drew my eyes, and for some reason my guilt.
"She was a troublemaker, but my troublemaker. And I faintly recalled thinking 'well, now, doesn't she look just the image of her mother' before the dream would shift, and I'd be fighting something."
Jasmin and Vanara both stared at me as I finished the description. Neither seemed to have anything to say, probably certain I'd gone mad. Eventually they looked at each other and laughed.
"Would someone tell me why this is so funny?"
"I'll defer to Vanara about this," Jasmin's smile was a refuge from my own confusion. "since they met you most recently, but it sounds to me like you're describing someone we all know fairly well."
"Fake Afina," Vanara seemed to have some thoughts as to my quandary and was delighted to help, even if they were still calling me 'fake', "would you mind getting up and walking around your camp?"
I complied, not wanting to be held in the dark longer than necessary. They and Jasmin gave me direction for various movements and steps to take before eventually calling me to sit back down.
"Would you like to do the honours, Vanara, or shall I?" Jasmin's grin looked foolish and bright. I probably would have kissed her if I weren't quickly losing my patience.
Why did I say that?
"The honours for what?" One of Vanara's brows raised. Clearly she'd forgotten what was going on, again.
Jasmin shook her head slightly. "Never mind," she turned to me. "You're dreaming about yourself, my dear." The words were sweet, but the tone sounded like she really meant 'you five-times goddess-cursed idiotic moron of a beautiful creature'. It was a very complicated tone.
As my stomach fluttered in response, I almost missed the point of Jasmin's words. She thought – probably incorrectly ... I hoped it was incorrectly – that the messy-haired woman in the dream was me. But that couldn't be right. I had left out an important detail. The woman's eyes glowed silver.
And my eyes had always been brown, dull, muddy. Like Delia's. Like Da's. My mother was gone too soon for me to remember her eyes, but people's eyes didn't glow. That wasn't normal. So even if my eyes were somehow silver, they couldn't possibly glow.
As I thought about that, I caught a glimpse of Jasmin's radiant eyes. Golden amber, bright and shining in the shade of the Thornwood's trees.
"She can't be me," I whispered, and that was it. Neither of them brought it back up.
I had lost track of the suns we spent in the Thornwood before we stumbled altogether upon an impossibility.
Off the path a good ways, I spotted it, disbelieving my eyes. After convincing Jasmin to stop, I went to investigate, leaving her with Vanara.
A cracked stone foundation shaped vaguely in a pentagon. In each corner stood the sad stump of a pillar that likely once served to support the roof, now long since crumbled to dust. Centred on each edge of the pentagon was a raised platform with steps leading up to it.
So vast was the space, one's eyes couldn't possibly take in more than one of the raised platforms at a glance unless she stood deep outside within the cover of the trees, which themselves would have prevented the view.
It welcomed me, drew me in like I belonged, warmed me to my core as I stepped from the shade of the trees into a space I knew from my dreams, even as much as I'd never been there. As my gaze swept from corner to corner, platform to platform, I knew without doubt where I was. The word forced itself from my lips. "Temple."
"It is, little troublemaker." The voice was gently gruff, a loving caretaker, not unconcerned but not ready to cast judgement. "Though I'm surprised to see you here after all this time."
My head tilted instinctively when I finally found the source of the voice. A blue-haired woman seated on the platform farthest from me, familiar yet distant. The platform she used as a perch stood highest of all others. Despite our distance, words travelled without trouble between us. "Which part of that is most shocking? Me? This place? The time?"
"Every time, I worry you have died despite my effort. Every time, without fail, you call on me again. I thought you dead after the last time, little troublemaker," she smirked before laughing mirthlessly. "Goddesses around us, I believed myself dead the last time. Then again, you'd never allow that, would you?"
All at once, it clicked. I knew who she was. "You're her. From the dreams."
"How should I know? Who is her, little troublemaker?" Her face belied her words. She knew that I had managed to reason her identity, even if I didn't know her name.
"The night of the attack," I pulled the collar of my shirt to show the line of scars that were far more healed than they had right to be. "You saved me."
"I suppose it's my fault if you don't remember all the other times," she stood and began descending the steps, "given that you had to give up a lot for me to save you time and again. But even so, it hurts to know I'm so easily forgotten."
My feet held firm in their position. "The 'other times'?" Without thought, my right hand raced to my abdomen. The leaf-shaped network of scars. My left brushed Mrs. Reed's dagger as it settled on the thigh where one of my worst scars seemed to pulse beneath my touch. "How many?"
"By my count, at least twenty. I thought you doomed four years past, troublemaker," she reached the bottom of the steps and paused, "until I heard your call almost three moons ago. I can't tell you my relief."
As she spoke, memories flooded me. Accidents. Falls. Attacks. I wasn't a particularly careful child. I'd thought myself incredibly lucky, but misfortune seemed my calling card at every turn.
She resumed walking toward me. Tentative steps were separated by seconds that dragged on like hours. I was desperate for answers, but my voice wouldn't come. My feet held firm where I stood.
"There's only one thing I've wanted in all these long years protecting you," her soft smile spoke a sadness unfathomable. "Well, I suppose two. The second is that you'd stop putting yourself in such horrid positions, troublemaker. That you'd finally live safely without my intervention."
When I didn't ask for the second, she obliged.
"But more than that. More than anything at all," she was close enough I could smell a perfume coming from her. Floral, but unfamiliar. "The one thing I've wanted above all else was to get to know you."
I felt myself nod at the words. "Then why do you always leave? Why do you run after you help me?"
"There are some things we cannot say, troublemaker. But one I'd love to be able to say is your name. Just once."
"It's Roisin," who could have been certain if it was safe to tell her? Even if it cost my life, I felt she should know. At the word, her deeply melancholic expression shifted.
"Roisin," the name sounded like a song as she spoke it. Something in the sound reminded me of someone. Someplace. Flashes of metal I couldn't quite recall. "It's a good name. Not too bold, not too meek. It suits you, though I always wished your mother would've named you after herself."
"You knew my mother?"
Before she could answer, a low growl echoed throughout the temple. We both knew the sound. Her instincts took over, and she pushed me out of the way. "Go, Roisin. Now is not your time. Salora would be dreadfully disappointed in me if I lost you after all this time."
In her hand, quick as lightning was a long silver sword whose hilt and crossguard seemed to wrap around her like vines as she held it. She hadn't been wearing a sword so far as I could tell moments before, but it was there all the same.
She'd told me to go, but I stood there watching as the first larabrin leapt out from the shadows of the woods.
I'd never seen one in sunlight before. They were terrifying beasts of blood and fur. Long claws from every foot scraped the stone of the temple floor beneath them. One might confuse them for small bears, except they weren't small. And I've always been certain bears didn't have the knowing look of a killer when they moved to tear into the neck of a victim, dried blood and viscera from the last creature they ate still clinging to them.
The blue-haired woman fended them off well, even as the fifth one joined its kin within her range. That was enough. I regained control of my feet, and I ran.
I ran, and I hoped that the blue-haired woman would survive.