The Will and the Wilds(60)

Clutching the vial, I say them. I feel a warmth deep in the hollowest parts of myself, but it fizzles out as I trip over the fifth word. Steeling myself, I try again, building the warmth up, losing it. My fourth try is the one that makes it stick.

Warmth shoots out of my lips, making me gag. A faint white shimmer hangs in the air, like dust caught in sunlight. It’s the width of my thumb, and I watch, entranced, as it springs past the glade, winding east.

I stand up, blood racing, energy renewed. “Do you see it?”

Maekallus searches. “See what?”

Only the caster can see it, then. Something to document later. “A path. To the gobler.” I turn back, almost taking his hand. Then I shiver, remembering how very cold I am, and keep my hands fisted at my sides. “Come.”

We follow the trail a short distance before Maekallus hits an invisible wall. He says nothing, only waits.

You need to actively want my company, he said the first time. I don’t want to want it, but I can’t go alone. Can I?

I shiver and wordlessly will him forward. Maekallus takes another step and inhales like he’s coming up for air after too long underwater. I should find satisfaction in the fact that I’ve made him suffer, however briefly, but I only feel the vastness of my cold and empty being.

I follow the trail, Maekallus half a step behind me, almost close enough to tread on my heels. The shimmering trail is about knee high. Sometimes it shoots through trees or over shallow ravines, forcing me to find my way around in the dark. The eagerness of the discovery keeps me going, but my body starts to fail me, and unnatural fatigue takes over. Maekallus touches my arm, but I slap him away. Moments later, my shaking legs give out beneath me.

I’m so close, I beg them. Please.

Not even the Will Stone will lend me the strength to go on. Maekallus crouches beside me, silent. I turn my head, refusing to look at him. Nod. The movement is small, barely detectable, but Maekallus sees it and slides his arms under my knees and shoulders. Lifts me like I’m nothing. My body acts against my will and curls close to him, savoring the heat of his skin. My heat, for it comes from my soul. In that closeness, I listen to his heartbeat. It’s almost in sync with my own.

I squeeze my eyes shut, willing my thoughts to die.

Maekallus stops moving. “I can’t see it, Enna.”

I open my eyes and find the glimmer trail to our left. I point, choosing to remain silent rather than speak to him. In part because I believe this punishes him. In part because I don’t know what to say.

He walks with me in his arms for about half a mile before he slows, though I’m still pointing the way and see no obstacles in the path marked by magic. I lift my head to question him, but he shushes me.

It’s then that I realize I’m so cold, so distracted, that I didn’t sense the Will Stone’s warning. I feel its deep freeze now, and I clamp it in my hands. The ice it sends through my body hurts. Mystings. More than one.

Maekallus’s grip on me tightens. He treads more carefully now, ducking to avoid brushing low branches with his shrunken horn. His red hair falls from his shoulder onto my forehead, but I don’t move it aside. I don’t ask the questions bubbling up in me, the most pertinent being How many mystings will the stone control before its power stretches too thin?

I shudder when I see muted red light between distant trees. When I hear the garbled, cryptic language of mystings.

Maekallus moves silently. Again I wonder how old he is, how much time he’s had to practice such stealth. He sets me down two dozen meters from the grove of red light and whispers, “Will them not to see us. Not to hear.”

I sense the mystings through the stone, each its own shiver of warning. I do as Maekallus asked, all the while clenching my jaw so my teeth don’t chatter.

Maekallus presses his lips together. “Wait here.”

“I will not—”

He grasps my shoulders. “Please, Enna.”

It’s the please that gets me, its imploring tone. It fuels the ache that resonates in my chest.

I nod, and he vanishes into the shadows. Not long after, the stone turns so bitter I have to drop it to save my hand. Hurry. Please hurry.

Maekallus isn’t gone long—less than a quarter hour—but the stone never warms. When he returns, he motions me forward. The glimmer of red light before us, so like that of my nightmares, sparks my limbs back to life. Tugging my sleeve beneath my icy bracelet, I follow, matching Maekallus’s footsteps until we’ve cut our distance from the grove by half. We duck behind a pine. If I crouch and lean to the right, I can see into the grove. That bloody light emanates from the odd, round lanterns ringing the space, but the forest floor glows as well—a whitish blue. I spy two short freblon near it, as well as a rooter, one much darker than Attaby. It walks with a hunch, back and forth, back and forth. When I squint, I can just make out the glimmer of the scrying spell, leading right up to that bluish-white light. Dipping down into it.

As if sensing my thoughts, Maekallus whispers, “Portal ring.”

I look at him in question.

He crouches beside me, his mouth close enough to my ear that his breath stirs my hair. “Portal ring. I’m surprised to see one. It’s . . . like a more permanent summoning ring. Used to summon multiple mystings at once. This one is big.”

And the gobler is just beyond it. I can feel him. I roll the scorching Will Stone between my fingers, but Maekallus grabs my hand and murmurs, “Wait.”