“Up we go.” He leans forward, and I grit my teeth as he rises to his feet with his satchel in his hand. He slings it over one shoulder. I breathe slowly, trying to wish the pain away, but it’s still there, doing its work. As he begins to walk, I notice how high off the ground I am and realize Oskar must be well over six feet tall. The motion of his body as he moves over the rough ground makes me feel dizzy again. I lean my head against his shoulder blade and close my eyes. His hair, pulled to the side so the straps don’t tug at it, tickles my cheek. He smells like wood smoke, thankfully, and not like the inside of his game bag, which counts as a definite improvement.
As he hikes, I listen to the sounds of the forest, the crunch of his boots over twigs and newly fallen leaves, the twittering of birds above our heads, the rustle and dash of small creatures bolting up trees or into burrows. It reminds me a little of the hours I used to spend in the enclosed garden that contained the temple menagerie and aviary. I loved to run my hands over the silken fur of the gray rabbits and to watch the ferrets and badgers running in circles around their pens. I would sit so still, my hand held out to offer seeds and crumbs, and some of the blue jays and black-capped chickadees would come down and peck at my palm. We also had a grumpy crow and one majestic, silent eagle that had a cage all to itself. So did old Nectarhand, the grizzly bear, who used to loll, lazy and fat, in the beams of sun that came at midday. I used to toss him berries dipped in honey and watch his thick pink tongue slide out to capture them. His massive claws were so long that he could barely walk.
Something tells me the bears in this forest move a lot faster.
My eyes pop open. “Is it safe out here?” I whisper.
“Mmm?”
“The animals? Bears? Wolves?”
Oskar laughs. “Well, I’ve already claimed you, so the other predators are out of luck.”
The humor in his voice pushes fear out of reach. Or maybe the raging fever that’s eating my bones makes it impossible to care either way. “And are you planning to feed your family with my carcass?”
My cheek vibrates with his silent amusement. “Nah. Truth be told, you’re a bit too skinny.”
“I am not!”
He laughs again, and it’s a sound so free and happy that I actually smile. “Well, all right,” he says, “you’ve a nice heft to you, and I’m sure you’d be very tender with a delicate yet satisfying taste, but . . .” He trails off. “No, I’m not going to eat you. I’m taking you to a medicine man, because I’m fairly sure you’re going to die if I don’t get you some help in the very near future.”
Someone had mercy. It’s an island of relief in a vast lake of horror. I clear my throat, and it makes me wince. “Why are you helping me?”
Oskar’s steps are rock steady as he negotiates a steep downhill and then picks up a trail at the bottom. “No one else was there to do it,” he says, as if it should be obvious.
The trail leads out of the woods and across a stretch of grassland, strands of gold waving in the cool breeze. I’ve never seen such a wide-open space. It’s like looking out over the Motherlake, only instead of water, there’s land. No walls, no buildings. Oskar hikes like he carries people on his back all the time, frequently turning his face to the bright sun. He doesn’t offer any information about himself, and neither do I. Even though we’re not in the city, I would never tell anyone who I am.
Or really: who I was.
I’m so ashamed that I wish there was a way to remove my blood-flame mark, to scrub it from my skin. It’s been a point of pride for so long, but now even the thought of it makes me cringe. Have I deprived the people of their true Valtia? Will the Kupari fall because of me? It doesn’t matter that I didn’t have a part in this fraud; I still feel responsible.
Something else I feel responsible for: Mim. Did she make it to our meeting spot and find me gone? Is she looking for me, worried out of her mind? Or worse . . . was she caught somehow?
The farther we go, the more the grass gives way to craggy stone capped with wigs of scraggly weeds. Soon our path is bounded on either side with walls of rock, and we seem to be descending deeper into the earth. Even through the haze of pain, I feel a twinge of anxiety. “Where is this medicine man?” I finally ask.
“Where no one can threaten or harass him,” Oskar says in a hard voice. “Same as the rest of us.”
His tone, so different from his casual, joking words before, shuts me up. After several more minutes on an increasingly narrow trail, he stops, his feet skidding in loose rock. “I think this’ll go more smoothly if we pull the sack over your head. It’s not a great time to bring a stranger here. Sorry.”
Without waiting for my approval, he reaches back and pulls the edges of the sack up, then ties it over the top of my head. I tense as darkness engulfs me.
Oskar begins walking again, and only a few minutes later, I hear someone shout his name. “Oy, Jouni,” Oskar calls out in response. “Any trouble?”
“None,” says a deep buzz of a voice from somewhere above us. “We’ve been on watch all day. I expected the new Valtia to be at our doorstep by now.” He chuckles. “Or at least a horde of constables.”
My anxiety grows into a stab of fear.