He was quiet, letting her find her composure, seeking his own understanding. He answered with the first thing that came to his head.
“Some things cannot be healed. They must simply be endured,” he whispered, and grimaced. It was the truth, but it sounded like something Tiras would say, something that the old Kjell would have raged against, simply because endurance signified an acceptance of pain. He wanted to defeat suffering. Not live with it.
Sasha didn’t answer, as if she too had trouble accepting it, but she took his hand the way she used to do, helping him endure. She rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes, but she didn’t let go. They stayed that way for a long time, leaning against opposing walls but facing each other, knees touching, hands clasped. He thought she was asleep, but she spoke again.
“He will want you to leave, Captain. Aren is a good man. A kind man. But he is still a man, and he will not want you in Caarn.” She spoke so softly, he knew the words were difficult for her to say.
“Then I will go,” he reassured. And he would. But he would slay Ariel of Firi first.
The road to Caarn was indeed paved with neatly placed rocks—mile after mile of them—and Kjell drove himself mad seeing trouble beneath each one.
On the second day they skirted a river, the water sweet and cold with a waterfall high enough to stand beneath, providing natural showers for the travelers to wash. The ladies, all three of them, went first, and the men withdrew, giving them the privacy necessary. He wanted to forbid Sasha, to insist she stay by his side, but instead walked, fully-clothed except for his boots, beneath the spray and averted his eyes from the three women, who laughed and talked, their teeth chattering, and their bathing brief.
When he couldn’t see Sasha, he made sure he could hear her, and asked that she humor him by keeping a running commentary when his back was turned or she was out of his sight. He knew some of the travelers and even many of his own men thought him overzealous. He didn’t care. They didn’t know what he knew. Everything was a threat. A lizard, delicate and apple green, darted through the grass, and Kjell’s heart seized. Without thought he threw his blade, skewering the little beast. He watched it die, waiting for the change that would occur at death if it wasn’t in its true form. But it remained a lizard, its limbs growing brittle, its color fading as life fled. Kjell chopped it into pieces, ignoring the voice in his head that told him he was being obsessive. He’d watched Ariel of Firi play dead before, lying still and compliant, an eagle snared by a Jeruvian poacher. When the danger had passed, she had simply flown away.
He was going to have to kill her. He knew that. He couldn’t live with the constant threat to those he loved and to the people around him. At some point, he was going to have to concoct a plan to rid the world of Ariel of Firi. But until they reached Caarn, until he knew what they faced and what steps could be taken, he could only be vigilant and pray that her purposes, whatever they were, were not focused on the queen . . . at least not yet.
When they began to descend into the valley on the afternoon of the second day, the travelers grew lively and Kjell courted a sense of doom. Sasha walked beside him, her eyes gobbling up the countryside, lingering on the trees, touching the sky, reminiscing and reconnecting as they approached the end of the road and the dawn of never again. But the road ended in a mass of brambles and a wall of trees so high and thick, the travelers stopped and gaped.
The forest had grown over the road.
Jerick withdrew his sword, and some of Kjell’s men followed suit, preparing to cut an opening in the wooded obstruction.
“It will take more than swords to tunnel through that, Jerick,” Kjell said.
“Put your swords away. We will ask them to move,” the Spinner sniffed, placing his twitching fingers upon the tree in the center of the road. He smoothed the trunk like it was the hair of a beloved child and laid his grey head against it, beseeching.
“I am Padrig of Caarn. My nephew is King Aren. My blood is of Caarn, my heart and loyalty are to Caarn. Pray you, let us pass,” he boomed.
The tree seemed to hear, even to awaken, but though it stretched its branches and shifted its weight, it remained directly in their path, blocking the road into the valley of Caarn. Padrig tried again, pleading with the trunk of the tree to do as he bade, but the tree continued to guard the way.
The group waited, breaths drawn, watching the shivering trees who in turn seemed to be watching them.
“Can anyone ask it to move?” Jerick asked. “Or just Padrig?”
“Anyone can ask. But most people don’t. Most people just draw their swords and start hacking away,” Padrig snapped, caressing the bark as if trying to woo compliance. He seemed stunned that he could not convince the wooded wall to open.
“Pardon me, leafy mistress. I would like to pass.” Jerick bowed gallantly, drawing laughter from the travelers.
“It takes a bit more than a polite request, Padrig,” Sasha corrected the Spinner. “Yes, Jerick, anyone can ask. But the trees will not answer or obey. It takes the blood of Caarn and pure intentions to command a tree to move. We all have the best of intentions . . . but Padrig is the only one here who has the blood of Caarn flowing in his veins.”
Padrig moved to the next tree and to the next, coaxing and cajoling, and though the trees inched and quaked, listening to him plead, the road remained impassable.
“No one doubts your blood, Spinner. But maybe the problem lies with your intentions,” Kjell observed and placed his hands against the tree, mocking Padrig’s posture but not his tone. He would not beg, but it couldn’t hurt to ask. They had not come all this way to be denied now.
“I am Kjell of Jeru. Bloody move so we can pass,” he grumbled. The branches of the tree Kjell touched began to lift skyward, separating from the boughs of the tree next to it. Straightening and stretching, a narrow divide opened between the two center trunks.
Jerick hooted in amazement. “Even the trees are afraid of you, Captain!”
“Who are you, Healer?” Padrig gasped. “You . . . y-you . . . must carry the blood of Caarn.”
“I am Kjell of Jeru, Spinner. And you are trying my patience.” The others gaped at him, awestruck and open-mouthed. “I have never set foot in Dendar before, much less Caarn.”
“Impossible. Do it again!” Padrig insisted.
Kjell, too dazed and curious to be contrary, repeated his request on another tree, though this time he didn’t curse. “I am Kjell of Jeru. We need to see to the welfare of the people in this valley. Please let us pass.”
The ground began to quake, and the cobbled road began to split and crack. The tree Kjell addressed started to withdraw its roots—great tentacles coated in dirt—and climb from the earth, dragging itself free from the broken road and widening the gap in the forest wall, clearing the way before them.