Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf #1)(25)

I couldn’t go to Renalt, either. Simon was keeping my mother safe for now, but if I showed up on their doorstep, the Tribunal would waste no time fixing the mistake they’d made when they killed Emilie. And endangering myself meant endangering Simon, my mother . . .

I took out the bloodcloth, running my fingers over its surface. The three circles of blood remained, but one of them—?Kellan’s—?had faded to the point of being nearly invisible.

A third choice emerged: keep going. Find another way to get inside Achlev’s Wall. Stay hidden from Toris and make my plans from the shadows.

It was about more than just me now. Whether I liked it or not, the fate of my nation was wrapped up in every choice I made from here on out. A cut had been made in the center of my life. I’d left behind the before and now had to face the after.

I took a step. Then another.

I’ll always consider that decision—?to move instead of lying down to die in the Ebonwilde—?my first victory.

As I went along, the only breaks in the monotony of the forest were little sightings of the Harbinger. She’d appear and vanish in the space of a breath, always just ahead, always out of reach. Whether Falada and I were following her or she was following us, I was never certain. But as the time drifted past—?one day? Two? I couldn’t tell—?and my hunger and exhaustion began to toe the edge of delirium, the sight of her became a point of clarity upon which I could fix my attention.

Despite all, Falada never faltered. She carried me through that long darkness and across the edge of the Ebonwilde, stopping only when the trees suddenly broke and revealed the city in the distant basin below, as if she, too, was stunned at the reminder that others existed in the world.

Eons of glaciers had carved out the bowl and left the cobalt-blue water of the fjord, flanked on every side by rocky peaks. At the center of it all, where the mountains and forest and fjord water converged, stood the fortress city of Achlev. Storm clouds hung low and thick over the basin, but there was a perfect circle of clear sky above the city, as if the storm was circling an invisible barrier, angry at being denied entrance.

This was the famed Wall of Achleva—?spelled to keep the uninvited from ever passing through its gates, and the reason Achleva’s capital city had never fallen in all the long years of war with Renalt. It was as if King Achlev had hewn it straight from a mountain and reassembled the stones as tightly as they were cut. Fifty feet tall and at least fifteen feet thick, the wall stretched in an unbroken ring over the crags and hollows and across the narrowest width of the fjord. Behind those unassailable walls was a complicated series of gray towers and steep turrets. The tallest of them stood in the center, pricking the circle of bare sky like a rapier. This was a place meant to endure even the worst assault.

It was a place built to withstand armies and ages.

It was dusk when Falada and I finally made our approach. There were fires dotting the outskirts of the wall, travelers’ camps, mostly. People, I guessed, who’d been ejected from the city and those who’d yet to be invited in. They clustered around the fires in threadbare blankets, and I shrank underneath the weight of their gazes as I dismounted Falada and led her past them.

“You’re a long way from home, aren’t ye, miss?”

The speaker was a man of late middle age, tall and thick, with gray-tinged stubble growing in unkempt patches across his ruddy cheeks and chin. He stood, a hammered tin cup in hand.

“It’s none of your business where I’m from,” I said.

He grinned, revealing a row of yellow teeth spread across his gums in irregular intervals.

“You look tired and hungry, miss. Here, here, come sit with me. Rest. Have a drink.” He clamped a fleshy paw around my wrist.

I was staring at his offending hand and wondering which would be a more effective way to decline his invitation—?kicking him in the groin or gouging out his eyes—?when a raucous laugh came from nearby.

“Go ahead, Darwyn. Put the lassie on your lap. Get friendly. I’d pay a gold sovereign to see what happens when Erda comes back and sees it. Maybe this time she’ll get yer other ball.” The man was pulling down papers tacked to the wall every few feet and gathering them into a pile in his arms.

Darwyn released his grip on my wrist. He said defensively, “It was just a nick, Ray. Erdie didn’t mean it. I still got both my balls.”

“For now,” Ray replied, tugging another paper down with a laugh. Darwyn glowered at him and went back to his place next to his fire, self-consciously crossing his legs.

“Thank you,” I said to my would-be rescuer. “Mr. . . . ?”

“Thackery. Raymond Thackery.” He shifted his pile of papers into one arm and rubbed his close-shorn white hair with his free hand. “Darwyn isn’t even the worst of ’em, miss. This place is crawling with the unseemly, who’d do a lady harm if given the chance.”

“And you, Mr. Thackery?” I asked tenuously. “Are you one of them?”

He barked another laugh. “Gonna get right down to it, aren’t ye? I could say no, but there’s no real way to tell, is there?”

“Please, sir. I just need someplace to rest, just for a little while. And some food and water for my horse.”

“Nothin’ comes for free, miss. I won’t try to peek beneath yer dress like ol’ Darwyn there, but I ain’t in the habit of feeding every stray that comes along, neither. You got any money?”