At her command, the company galloped on. I did not stray from Wynne’s side as we rode.
A quarter-hour later, we passed the first scattered young maples and birches of the outer forest—mere heralds of the thicker, older growth that lay beyond. A single fireleaf with rich green leaves grew nearby, and I was surprised when I heard no voices creeping through my mind.
Perhaps further in, where the trees are older
. At the heart of the woods, I had read, the trees had trunks as thick as guard towers. We would find the Wyddin there, I was certain of that. Whether or not we
wanted
to find them, I was less sure.
We were not far past the forest’s edge when Wynne fell. Swaying in her saddle, she sagged abruptly to one side, and then, before I could do anything to stop it, plummeted to the ground. Her foot caught in the stirrup, and her confused mount dragged her a step before I grabbed its reins.
“Stop!” I shouted to the others, leaping from my horse. After freeing her trapped leg, I knelt beside her.
She looked at me with glassy eyes. “Scriber Dennon… it hurts…”
“I know,” I said. “Be still. I can help you.” My hands went to the arrow. It entered her left side through the unprotected area just beneath the arm, and angled towards the center of her back. As far as I could tell it had not pierced all the way through; I had not seen the arrowhead come out the other side.
The women were gathering around us now, and I pointed at the nearest two: Deanyn and Ivyla. “Sit her up and get her armor off.”
They followed my instructions without hesitation, lifting Wynne into a sitting position and stripping off her boiled leather plates so that I could probe her back with my fingers. As I had thought, the arrow had not penetrated completely—the head was lodged somewhere in her body. “I need to see what the arrowhead looks like. Do we have any others?”
“Got one here.” Debra yanked free the arrow that had struck Ivyla’s saddle and handed it to me. As I had feared, it had a viciously barbed head.
Bryndine knelt at my side. “What will you do, Scriber?”
“It didn’t go through. We need to”—I swallowed and wiped my brow—“push it through her to safely remove it.”
Bryndine frowned. “That seems dangerous.”
“Less so than pulling it out—the barbs would do too much damage. But yes, it is dangerous. I do not know how badly injured she is inside. Removing the arrow may…” I glanced at Wynne, but she hardly seemed aware of my voice. I lowered it anyway. “It may cause too much bleeding. It could kill her. But if I leave it she will die for certain before we can find help.”
“Take it out… please…” Wynne gasped. I had not thought she was listening, and I cursed myself for not being more careful. I didn’t want her to be afraid.
Bryndine reached out to brush a strand of damp brown hair from Wynne’s face, and I had never seen her look so sad. “He will, Wynne. He is going to save you.” She looked back at me. “What can we do to help, Scriber?”
“I need a knife, and alcohol. A needle and thread, and bandages from my bags.”
Bryndine pulled a dagger from her belt and handed it to me, and Sylla rushed to my horse to fetch my supplies. Orya rummaged in her saddlebag for a moment and pulled out a small flask. “This good enough, Scriber?”
“It’s fine. Bring it here.” Taking the flask from Orya, I cut Wynne’s tunic open around the arrow and doused the shaft and the wound with alcohol. “You are stronger than I am,” I said to Bryndine. “I need you to break off the fletching.”
Bryndine grasped the arrow in one giant hand, snapping the feathered end off with the other in a single motion. “What next?”
“When I say, push it through. Carefully, at the same angle it entered by.” I moved around behind Wynne and lifted her shirt to expose her back, where the arrow would emerge. “Wynne, this will hurt, but you must remain still.”
“I’m ready,” Wynne whispered.
“Now,” I said to Bryndine.
Inhaling deeply, Bryndine gripped the broken shaft and began to push. Wynne screamed, but Deanyn and Ivyla held her tight and kept her from thrashing. A moment later, the bloody arrowhead split the flesh of her back, just to the left of her spine.
“It’s through,” I said. Grabbing the shaft, I slowly drew it the rest of the way out. After pouring the last of the alcohol over the new wound, I took up my needle and thread. “Hold a handful of bandages over the entry wound,” I instructed Bryndine. “You’ll have to keep pressure while I sew this side.”
Blood poured from the hole in Wynne’s back. Too much blood. I stitched the wound shut as quickly as I could, then packed cotton bandages over top and wrapped them tightly against her. “The other wound now,” I said. “Lay her down.” Deanyn and Ivyla lowered her gently to the ground.
When Bryndine removed the wadded bandages from Wynne’s side, they were soaked crimson, and still blood rushed forth from the wound.
There is too much bleeding inside
. But I could not simply let her go—she had taken the arrow in my place. Threading my needle, I put it against her skin and began to stitch.
“Scriber,” said Bryndine. When I glanced up, she was looking at Wynne’s face.
There was blood on Wynne’s lips, and a thin red trickle ran from the corner of her mouth when she spoke. “It doesn’t… hurt anymore.” She met my eyes. “Am I going to die?”
“No,” I said, but we both knew it was a lie. “No, I can still—”
“It’s… it’s all right, Scriber Dennon.” She patted my arm, and her eyes seemed to focus on something very far away.
“Wynne?” Bryndine took Wynne’s hand in her much larger one, squeezing it tightly. “Wynne, look at me.”
As if from a dream, Wynne said, “I was going to be a Scriber.”
My eyes blurred with tears. “You are, Wynne.” Fumbling at my neck, I unclasped my Scriber’s pin. “It’s as you said. Being a Scriber is about serving the Kingsland. Seeking knowledge and keeping oaths. You
are
a Scriber.”
Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “I am?”
“One of the best.” With trembling hands, I attached the golden inkwell to the collar of her tunic.
She smiled before she died.
A sob tore itself from my lungs, and the world lost focus. I was aware only distantly of women crying, comforting one another. Deanyn, I think, was kneeling beside me, holding me, saying my name. Bryndine, still holding Wynne’s hand, called for something to wrap the body. None of it mattered; I was barely conscious of any of them. Their voices were dull murmurs, their faces featureless blurs. All that mattered was Wynne. She was dead, and all my hopes for redemption had died with her. That I had found her a sponsorship meant nothing anymore—I had still gotten her killed. Like all the others.
It should have been me
, I thought, reaching out a hand to close her empty, staring eyes.
And then she blinked.
Chapter Thirty-four
We know the truth now. We may even have a chance to stop the Burnt.
If I were a pious man, I would pray to the Mother and the Father not to let me fail Bryndine and her company. But I have never been pious. When I close my eyes, I don’t commune with the gods. I just hear Korus saying, “Don’t botch this, Lark.”
— From the personal journals of Dennon Lark
Bryndine’s dagger still lay by my side, and I had it at Wynne’s neck before she could move. “Get out,” I hissed through gritted teeth. “Get out of her.”
“We are not your enemy.” It was Wynne’s voice, but at the same time it was not.
Beside me, Deanyn started at the sound. “Dennon, what…”
“The Burnt.” They had fooled me with Uran Ord, and with Genna I had let hope cloud my judgement, but I had
seen
the life leave Wynne’s eyes. I had already let her die; I would not let the Burnt have her body. “Get
out
.”
Deanyn and Bryndine were on their feet instantly. The women drew their weapons, making ready for battle. “Are there others coming, Scriber?” Bryndine asked urgently. “Do you hear them?”
I frowned. I could hear nothing, not a single whisper since we entered the forest. I let the dagger stray from Wynne’s neck as I glanced down at the half-stitched wound in her side. The bleeding had stopped. I looked up at Bryndine, confused. “The Burnt have her, but… there are no voices.” It made no sense. If the Burnt could hide their voices from me, why had they not done so before?
“We are not of the Burnt,” said the thing inside Wynne. “We have come to help you.”
Bryndine’s eyes were hard and her voice was cold. “We will not hear you while you desecrate our friend’s body.”
“We are sorry. This is not our way, but we had no other choice. You must listen.”
I did not remove the dagger. “You are one of the Wyddin?” I asked.
“We are of the Wyd,” it said, which I took to be an affirmative answer.
“Then why can I not hear you? Why don’t you speak into my mind?”
“We are of the Wyd, but we can no longer touch it, human. The madness of the Burnt consumes it. We would become as they are.” It gestured at Wynne’s body. “This is the only means by which we could speak with you, though it is sacrilege of the worst kind to use a human body in this way.”
The Wyd
. I knew that word. Fyrril’s books had spoken of it, but its meaning had never been clear. “What is the Wyd?” I demanded.
“You do not know? The Wyd is everything. It is the Earth and the Sky. It is the voice of the world.”
The books had said that the Wyd gave the Sages their power. I wanted the Wyddin to leave Wynne’s body, but I could not let this opportunity pass—I was very close to the answers I had been seeking for months. “Why can I hear it?”
“Some humans are born with the Gift of the Sages, as it was called in Elovia. Many were blessed in those days. Now, perhaps one in a thousand.”
A question formed in my mind, one I could not think how to ask without sounding foolish. “Am I…” I hesitated, glancing self-consciously at the women around me. But I had to know. “Am I a Sage?”
It chuckled in a way Wynne never had, with a mild, patronizing sort of amusement. “Is a rock a mountain? Is a pond the ocean? No, human, you are no Sage. Their power rivalled our own. We can feel the Gift in you, but it is very weak, as it is in all humans born after Elovia fell.”
I had not been prepared for such a flat dismissal. All this time I had been expecting some great revelation that would give meaning to everything I had been through, but apparently the voices were little more than a random fluke of birth, so meaningless and unimpressive that this creature barely cared. I had never asked for this “gift”, but after all the pain it had caused me, I felt an absurd need to defend it. “I stopped the snow in the Salt Mountains,” I said. “The Burnt called it down and I stopped it.”
“The Salt Mountains belong to the Dragon,” it said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “The Burnt strayed far from their birthtrees to follow you there. Even without your intervention, their power might have failed. But we do not mean to insult you, human—your gift is necessary to put the Burnt to rest. We are here to tell you how.”
I do not think the Wyddin intended arrogance. It simply took for granted many things that I did not know, and was not used to having to explain them. But hearing that slight condescension in Wynne’s voice—Wynne, who had never been anything but completely earnest—made my hand shake with anger. The dagger’s blade nicked her skin, opening a small wound that did not bleed. “Tell us then.”
“You will need to release this body, human. There is a place we must bring you.”
“Not while you have Wynne.” I would not risk the Wyddin fleeing with her body. “Tell us what you have to say and go.”
Bryndine laid a hand on my shoulder. “Let the creature stand, Scriber Dennon.”
“But—”
“I do not like it any more than you do, but this is why we came.” She looked down at the Wyddin without expression. “You say ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. Do you speak for all your people?”
“All who were not burned.”
“Then we will listen. Say what you have come to say, and take us where you must take us, and then leave Wynne in peace.”
It nodded Wynne’s head. “As you wish.”
Shaking my head, I kept the dagger against Wynne’s throat. I knew that Bryndine was right, that we had come to speak with the Wyddin, but I was not entirely certain whether I cared anymore. Releasing the creature felt like letting Wynne go.
“Please, Scriber Dennon,” said Bryndine. “Wynne died for this. Do not rob that of meaning.”
She was wrong. Wynne had died for
me
. Nothing we found would make that a worthwhile trade. But I handed Bryndine the dagger with a wordless grunt of frustration, and stood.
The Wyddin climbed awkwardly to its feet, then stumbled, as though it did not understand how to balance on two legs. Bryndine grabbed Wynne’s arm and helped the creature find its footing.
“You are free,” she said. “Take it as a gesture of good faith. Now tell us how we can stop the Burnt.”
“We will tell you how you might,” the Wyddin answered. “There is no certainty in this.”
Sylla stood inches from Bryndine with her sword in hand, watching the Wyddin with a level of distrust she usually reserved for me. “Why would you help us kill your own kind?”
“You misunderstand,” it said. “We will not help you slay the Burnt, nor could we. We wish to give them peace.”
“Doesn’t seem to me like they much want peace,” said Orya.
“They want it badly, but do not know how to achieve it. They live in constant, unending anguish. In their madness, they think that vengeance will end their suffering. It will not.” It described the fate of the Burnt in a flat, factual tone that I found unsettling, though it made sense—the Wyddin were accustomed to sharing thought and feeling directly, not showing them in ways humans could understand. “Our trees had never been harmed on such a scale before your Burning. When the forest was set aflame, the pain of it echoed and grew with each birthtree that burned. As long as the Burnt remember, it will never stop. But if you do as we say, you can give them sleep, for as long as the life of the world, and without dream. It is all that can be done.”