Forest Born (25 page)

Chapter 29

R
in did not approach Scandlan again but she detected a change. His eyes were still sad, his shoulders slumped as if something was reaching up for him and pulling him down by his beard. But he did not weep openly anymore, and he met Geric’s and Isi’s eyes when they spoke.

The next evening Rin did not speak a word through dinner, sneaking out of the castle after everyone drifted off to bed. She spent the night in the wood, nestled beneath the great oak, where she could see the three stone cairns keeping their hulking vigil.

Without fear, she let her thoughts melt into the tree’s core, felt that good tightness, and claimed what calm seeped into her chest. It was balm, but not healing. The timber could not take away the curse of people-speaking or even offer words of advice. She slept fitfully that night, a root arching behind her back, and dreamed that she was exhausted and could not sleep.

The next morning Rin ate a handful of hazelnuts and decided to live in Daire’s wood for the rest of her life—hunt in the winter, scavenge in the summer, build herself a hut of dead wood and never speak again. The decision was still new and daunting when she heard a voice calling her name.

“There you are!” Razo strutted through the trees, his hands in his pockets. Some time ago, he’d asked Isi’s thread-mistress to add pockets to all his tunics because he liked how casual he looked with his hands resting. Of course he had not told Rin that outright, but she guessed. “I’ve been looking all over for you, Rinty-minty-moo.”

Rin could not help smiling. “Rinty-minty-moo?”

He sat beside her and stared up into the gaudy patterns of the oak leaves, a quiet flinch the only sign he was remembering when those branches hid them from death.

Rin could not contain an angry gasp.

Razo laughed. “That was a priceless expression! Let me just absorb that for a minute in memory so I never forget . . . all right, that’ll do. Anyway, I mean because of the people-speaking, of course. And you shouldn’t worry.” He picked up a thin stick and rubbed it between his fingers, making it spin. “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone just to prove to you I’m telling the truth. There was a time when I didn’t like to be home, because I felt all squished in the family, like I was just one too many Agget-kin. Like I wasn’t really one of the brothers.

“Sometimes”—he winced, and the stick spun faster—“sometimes I didn’t even want to be around Ma. But then I went to the city as an animal worker, met Enna and Isi and Finn, became a scout and a spy for Bayern, met Dasha, and don’t know if I mentioned how I stopped a war in Tira? Did I ever tell you about that? Maybe once or twice? Anyway, I like being home now. And it wasn’t the homestead that changed. So I’m saying, it’s all right if you change some. Stay out in the world longer if you need it. You’ll figure it out. And then you’ll go home again and it’ll be just right. You’ll see. Besides, there’s nothing Jef could use so much as a people-speaker to convince him how loud he snores.”

Razo left, walking backward while he said, “We leave in the morning. Isi thinks Scandlan is suddenly better, and Enna’s determined to marry Finn now or we’ll all feel the pain. In the morning, Rinn-a-round. If you disappear, we’ll look for you till we find you, and just imagine Enna’s mood after that delay.”

He turned and jogged off.

Relief bloomed in Rin’s chest until it almost hurt. She did not deserve to be so relieved—she scolded herself for not feeling glum and coming up with a new plan to flee. This solved nothing. She still did not know how she was going to live with that disease, how to keep people safe from herself. But at least, for now, she would not be alone. Her brother would not allow it.

Back at the castle, Enna declared that if it were not for Finn’s mother, waiting for her only son’s wedding back in Bayern, she’d have Geric marry them right there in her traveling tunic and leggings, not so much as a flower in her hair.

“But how can I break a mother’s heart?” she said.

And so the party took leave of Scandlan. Formal farewells between the sovereigns lasted a good hour, and Rin waited in the wagon with Tusken, singing a song about colors. The Kelish king walked Isi and Geric to their horses, and after they mounted, he kept coming through the Bayern party and straight to the wagon. Straight to Rin.

He stared at her for several moments in silence—and so, Rin felt, did everyone else. She resisted pulling a blanket over her head.

“Rin of Nowhere,” said the king. “What was the prize?”

She blinked. “The prize, Your Majesty?”

He nodded. “Your mother said there would be a prize for whoever scavenged the most before winter. Who won? What was the prize?”

“Oh!” She almost laughed, she was so startled by the question. “I don’t think anyone remembered to ask about a prize. We just scavenged as if it was a game. Maybe the prize was that no one starved.”

The king nodded. He smiled a little bit, just with his eyes, before turning back to the castle.

The thought was intimidating, sitting in the midst of hundreds of soldiers. It made sense to her now why she felt so uncomfortable in crowds. People-speaking gave intense meaning to words and expressions, and trying to truly see every person in a large group made her head hurt. She thought of what she’d said to Selia and felt its truth—it would be more comfortable to sit up high and command than to stay low and watch.

The wagon lurched forward and Tusken tumbled onto her lap, his noise of surprise turning into a giggle.

“Did you fall, Tusk? What a brave boy to fall and laugh!”

He laughed some more, and Rin remembered how easy it was to talk to that little boy. It was a start at least.

With no hurry (except for Enna’s), Geric’s party took the main trade road, checking on the rebuilding of Hendric’s inn and the village of Geldis, stopping at castles in the major towns. Rin kept to herself, caring for Tusken when she was needed. Razo was often nearby.

Before Rin could come up with a plan for her future, Bayern’s capital edged into view, the city’s walls lining the horizon in sturdy gray. It was late morning, and Rin was riding a horse named Careful, or so Isi had called him. Tusken was sharing a horse with his father and doing something that made Geric laugh as if he too were a little boy. Enna and Dasha were trotting together, and Rin could tell they were jabbering about something silly the way their voices climbed up in pitch, though both set their jaws as if determined not to laugh.

Razo rode near Isi and Rin, trying to convince the queen that what her son really needed was to spend his summers in the Forest.

“He’s got no playmates, and that’s just wrong. Who’ll teach him to take a punch without crying with no older brothers? I’ll tell you who—Agget-kin. I’ve got twenty-two nieces and nephews, Isi. Twenty-two. You ever fallen face-down on an ant hill? That’s what it’s like to live there—but in a good way.”

Rin whispered, “Actually we’ve got twenty-three,” and Razo slapped his forehead.

“I went and forgot baby Linna again, didn’t I? Don’t you dare tell Jef or he’ll have me changing her dirty squatters as penance. How could I forget Linna? She screams like a kestrel.”

Isi smiled. “You have a Rinna and a Linna in the family?”

“Names like that are common in the Forest,” said Razo. “We’ve got a Rinna, Linna, Winna, Minna, a Tin, Kin . . . let’s see, who else?”

“Finn,” said Rin.

“Right, if we’re talking about Forest folk outside our family. I know a Shinn, Kinna, Vinna, Nin—I’m forgetting some—and then of course there’s Enna, Genna, Senna, Hen, Gren, Lenna, Brenna . . .”

She was not so sure it was true, but the desire for its truth burned, red coals in her chest that she did not want to die out.

“Now that’s some sense,” said Razo. “I have a feeling about that boy. Soon he’ll be leaping from branch to branch like a squirrel, mastering the sling and preferring moss to pillows.”

Tusken heard Razo’s voice and shrieked for him, so Razo trotted up to the boy and his father, shouting, “There’s a dangerous brigand! I’ll teach you yet!”

Isi watched him go, then bowed her head, her gaze on her hands. Isi had been so relieved to have Tusken safe, so happy that Razo was alive, only now was Rin seeing past those brighter emotions and noticing the sadness that roiled beneath the surface. Geric wore a reminder of Selia’s cruelty on his face, but Rin supposed he was not the only one left with scars.

“You’re unsettled,” Rin said quietly. “Selia’s changed you, shaken your confidence.”

Isi did not look up. “Her words don’t go away easily.”

“Not everything Selia said was a lie,” said Isi. “She was right about my being a coward. I let her punishment stand, but I was too afraid to witness her execution. And since I hid and hesitated, she survived and went on to make war. How many people died due to my incompetence?”

“Selia said the Tiran were eager for war. It might have happened anyway.”

“Perhaps. But she was right—I flinch from duties. I go at being queen like a horse on a lead rope.”

Rin started with a new thought. “You don’t want to be a queen, do you?”

Isi shook her head, a little shyly. “My husband is king and I know my responsibility. I hack away at it, do my best, and hope no one notices the blunderer in the crown.”

Isi shuddered too, as if a warm cloak were suddenly lifted off her, but she seemed lighter for it. “Thank you.” She looked at Rin curiously. “What did Selia say about you?”

“That I’m weak.”

“She was wrong.”

Rin shook her head. She was still unsure if any of her words were harmless or if people-speaking laced them all. With the queen especially, she wanted to be cautious.

“You should know,” Isi said after a time, “it can be overwhelming to know only one speaking gift. Ever since our conversation in the woods—was it just weeks ago? Feels like years—I’ve been contemplating what gift you might learn to balance trees. But then I realized . . . perhaps you already know one.”

There it was. Rin was sitting firmly in the saddle but felt herself tumble a long way down.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” asked Isi.

Rin did not answer. Shaking her head would have been a lie.

“You were born with it, perhaps?” Isi’s voice was soft. “But maybe by the time you were old enough to understand something of what you could do, you realized it was dangerous. Maybe you often want to speak but stop yourself.” Isi waited, but Rin stayed silent. “A few times you may have used it in earnest and been frightened by what you could do.”

“That may be true.”

Now Rin looked up. “True? But—”

“You can allow yourself to be powerful, Rin. That’s not a bad thing.”

Rin shook her head, truly wordless now.

“You saw Selia. You know what not to become. So, what will you be? I have a feeling that discovery will be an adventure to make these last weeks look like a stroll through the wood.”

They were entering the city gates, and conversation hushed with the relief of arrival and the hurrahs from the gate guards. Rin let her horse fall back and rode alone up the long, twisting streets of the capital.

Chapter 30

A
ll who had journeyed were given three days’ leave from duty. Most spent it sleeping, Rin and Razo included. Enna spent it planning. On the fourth day, Enna and Finn were married.

It was not a day too soon. Rumor was that the palace kitchen-master had resigned his post due to Enna’s aggressive planning style, only to be cajoled back by Isi, and the thread-mistress had on three occasions faked a wakeless slumber to avoid the bride. But at last the court gathered in the great hall, lords and ladies alongside soldiers and Forest born. Pine and fir boughs entwined the pillars, filling the hall with the deliciously sweet scent of evergreen, transforming the chamber into its own forest.

Isi stood on the dais dressed in bright yellow, and with her pale skin and yellow hair, she had an inhuman beauty, like an image stamped on a gold coin. She spoke lovingly about the couple before Geric performed the ceremony. Gilsa, Finn’s mother, was positioned beside the king and queen in a place of honor. She wore what were no doubt her best woolens, a bright yellow top with deep blue skirt and a red scarf in her hair, but must have shunned the idea of dressing in finery. The way she glanced at the crowd with a carefully concealed eye roll, Rin felt certain that Gilsa would not have cared if Finn and Enna had married in Kel. She was just looking forward to grandchildren.

No one stood for Enna’s family on the dais—she had none. Her mother and brother had both died in the past few years. Rin wondered that she had not thought of that before. How lonely Enna surely would be, if she did not have Finn.

Enna and Finn held hands before the dais, directly on a square of sunlight cast by a window high in the ceiling. Enna wore a long red gown with Kelish lacing at the bodice, a style she fancied at the last minute. Her hair was wound together and pinned up, twining posies making a band of white across her crown. Rin barely noticed Finn’s black tunic and jacket, because whenever she looked at the Forest boy, her eyes naturally traveled back to Enna again. He stared at her as if she was so stunning, so perfect, nothing else needed to exist. His gaze made Rin want to stare at Enna too and reason out her perfections. Did love make him blind to any faults until his Enna was a lie? Or did love imbue him with a specific kind of people-speaking, so that only he in all the world saw her truly?

Rin felt a tiny crack in her heart as she realized no one would ever look at her as Finn looked at Enna. Rin must keep herself silent and apart.

Geric pronounced the final words. Finn held his hands to Enna’s face, his fingertips light on her cheeks, and leaned down to kiss her. Enna blushed, a thing Rin never thought she’d see. The whole room cheered till the pine boughs swayed.

“Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah for the woman and the man,” the crowd shouted in the traditional chant.

“It’s about time,” Razo muttered at Rin’s side.

Dasha wiped a tear and shouted loudest of all. “Seven children, seven hearts, seven lives of happiness!”

Rin grimaced and figured it must be something they said in Tira.

“Seven cats too!” Razo shouted.

“With seven fleas!” said Rin.

Dasha bumped against Razo. “Oh stop it, you two. It is a perfectly normal wedding wish.”

Rin and Razo laughed.

The crowd poured out of the palace and into the gardens, where a path lit by small white candles led to tables laden with sweet things. Razo and Dasha hooked arms and began to stroll in a manner that suggested Rin’s brother had been more affected by the romance of the ceremony than he’d let on. Rin left them, making her way through plants heavy with growing, shrubs pulled low by their leaves, waiting for autumn to relieve their burdens. She felt a little autumnal herself, wearing a brownish red dress with fancy thread work around the sleeves. She patted her head, feeling the nice clean crown of braids Dasha had put in. A shrub had lost a few yellow leaves, and Rin swept them up and stuck them in her hair.

“Hello, Rin—Rinna.” A boy Razo’s age with a face thick with freckles stood suddenly before her, his ever-present orange cap in his hands.

Rin sighed. “Hello, Conrad.”

The misty autumn evening welcomed her, pulling her deeper into the garden. She walked and walked, through the ordered garden, the fountains of late roses dipping their branches into the grass. Then she saw it—the elm tree, the trunk’s girth as wide as all six of her brothers wrestling in a knot. It seemed so out of place beside the garden trees and flowering shrubs, an ancient, gnarled grandfather waiting patiently for a visitor. It had changed in the few weeks Rin was gone, looking shabbier and a little unloved now, many of its leaves brown and ragged around the edges. She knew the tree did not care—autumn was part of circling time, a reason to shed and exhale, prepare for sleep. But Rin mourned the loss of its lustrous summer glory.

She guessed the elm had stood on that hill since before the castle was built. Some early king or queen must have taken a fancy to it and ordered it be spared the ax, the gardens and stables growing around it. Rin wondered if she could drown in the memories of such a thing. Just then, the thought was appealing.

She placed a slippered foot in the crevice of trunk and branch and climbed into its crossing limbs. Like diving into a deep pond with arms still at her sides, Rin lay her head against a branch, closed her eyes, and fell into the tree’s thoughts. She did not leave a thread of thought behind her to hold on to, did not worry about finding her way out again. She just let herself plummet through dry, woody memories and left herself behind.

Her fears encircled her like rings in a trunk, and she existed in the core of it, spinning, facing them, seeing them—speaking a serpent’s words, turning into a monster, becoming Selia, harming those she loved, spending forever alone. She spun and spun, fighting to face herself, trying not to fear so she could see her own face clearly. But she spun so quickly, the rings were a wall higher than any fortress, and she had no hands to climb. She wanted to scream at the tree, demand solace.

She stopped fighting, leaned against the wall of rings, and decided to be comfortable inside confusion. As she waited, listening to the pulse of sap, what had felt hard and rough melted into softness. Walls lowered and she began to see again. It was a memory of Isi riding toward the capital, telling Rin she needed balance.

Rin looked at herself as if she were a tree, saw the circles of her tree-speaking and people-speaking growing side by side since she was a child. After she broke her own rules with Wilem, the rings of tree-speaking thinned, and the rings of people-speaking thickened, turning dark and ragged.

She turned in the elm and saw Selia, her face full of fierceness and need, slaving for her own desires, clawing her way to a crown, words leaving her mouth like cast stones.

Rin turned and saw the elm, passionless, calm, rumbling of deep soil and sunlight on leaves.

The elm creaked in contentment, its trunk settling a little deeper into the soil.

Rin imagined herself thick with the voice of the trees, her center calm, her hands outstretched, words leaving her mouth like falling leaves. Bright autumn leaves, rich in golds and reds. She saw Scandlan, Razo, and Isi gathering her fallen words and weaving them into crowns.

The tree-speaking pulled her down and center, roots deep, content and sturdy in the soil; but people-speaking branched her up from herself and out toward sunlight—and people.

Finally she turned and saw herself, a thin, quiet girl with haunted eyes. An uprooted thing that longed to anchor herself and grow. She had been Ma’s shadow, and Razo’s and Isi’s—but there she was now, ready to let herself be changed. She was not a queen—not Isi, and not Selia. She would be the Forest girl who listens to people the way she listens to trees and speaks truths the way leaves fall.

Rin was glowing with joy there, spinning inside the tree, weightless and without worry, whirling through images of good things, tree branches filled with people, people she loved crowned with leaves. She spun and glowed and maybe laughed until she felt ready to stand, to stretch, to look on the world with her own eyes.

And with that decision, she came crashing back and found herself sitting upright on a branch, her heart pounding, her breath coming into her lungs like blows of a hammer. She smiled, then began to giggle, throwing herself out of the tree and onto the ground. Her fancy dress was wrinkled, stuck with leaves and flecks of bark, her woven crown of braids coming loose at the ends. She felt pretty.

And new, too. Remade. Ready to move again. Listening was the start, she decided. Doing was the next step.

She patted the tree in thanks for letting her share its thoughts and come out again. By the light in the east, it was nearly morning—hopefully just the next day, she thought. Her limbs quivered with cold and exhaustion, and she was thirsty enough that the trough near the stables looked enticing. But she could not help giggling some more as she stumbled toward the palace.

She stopped in the castle to change into her old Forest clothes and pack her few things. The waiting women were asleep, the door to Isi’s chamber shut. Rin glanced once at her bed and thought longingly of rest. But her heart was pumping hard with life, and she could not bear to lie down and close her eyes again, to say good-bye to the whole world even for as long as a nap.

She meant to search out Razo, but no sooner had she left the antechamber than she bumped right into him, his upright hair matted on one side.

“You’re up early,” she said.

Razo swept his fingers through his hair, encouraging the tips up. “When I couldn’t find you after the wedding, I bribed a few sentries to wake me if you turned up. Where were you anyway?”

“Sleeping in a tree.”

He snorted. “Of course. And now . . .” He looked pointedly at her pack. “Sneaking off again?”

“I’m going home.”

He exhaled. “That’s all right then. Be sure to give Ma a hug from me and do something spooky to Jef—could you tell a tree to bend down and wrap its branches around him while he naps? No? Shame. But do something good, and make sure you tell me all the details when I come back. Dasha and I . . . you know, we’re going back to Tira for the winter, so I won’t see you till spring.”

She nodded. There was a burn of sadness against her heart at the thought, but the burn did not consume her. She was Rin, Razo was her brother, and that would not change through autumns and springs.

He rubbed the top of her head. He did it fondly, but in the process pulled more hair loose from her braid, and she shoved him back before he could make a complete mess of her.

His eyes brightened with a sudden thought. “Maybe you could come with us! You’d love the boat ride, and Ingridan is . . . well, it’s amazing. You’ll see.”

“Maybe sometime. But I can’t leave Ma waiting any longer.” She was not ready to explore the wide earth yet, not when home still felt mysterious. Besides, she aimed to visit the capital now and then. She might help Isi unstitch the words Selia had stuck inside her. And she could not imagine leaving Tusken for good. But she still felt like a shadow of a girl, sitting at the feet of the fire sisters, half-formed and callow. Home was a good, safe place to learn some and grow some.

“You going to want a horse for the trip home?” Razo asked.

She looked at him without humor.

“Oh. Right. But I don’t know if you should make that walk alone.”

“Razo.” She lifted her palms up. “I’m Forest born.”

Razo nodded.

“Will you let Isi know I went home for a bit? I’m no waiting woman—she knows that, and she expects me to go. I could tell. But I’ll miss that Tusken. Hug him for me? And invite them both to the homestead before winter.” She spoke lightly, aware of a low heat she could draw up and pour into the words, make them stronger than what they were, but just then she found it easy to resist.

“I swear on my life.” Razo gave her a quick kiss on the top of her head before turning away. She was halfway down the stairs when he called after her.

“I finally thought of the right nickname for you. What do you think about Rinna-girl?”

She smiled. “Perfect.”

Rin took three days to get home. Autumn was young, breathing freshness into every gust. Instead of feeling bone-frozen and homesick for sunshine, Rin was enlivened by the weather. It made her shiver and remember that she was alive.

She took her time on the journey, listening to the pines and firs of her home. She was startled and delighted to discover how much of what she heard from the trees was just her own self echoed back. When she was filled with self-loathing for what she’d done to Wilem, that was all she heard from the trees. And in the same way, when she brimmed with sweet calm, she was not borrowing the tree’s peace but actually tapping into her own. Hers was the core strong, roots running deep, branches reaching high. Hers was the radiating peace.

After realizing that, she just had to run for a while, skipping over ferns, weaving around firs. Running again, but this time toward home.

On the third day, she slowed to greet an aspen, running her hands over the papery bark and hard black knots, a contrast she found more beautiful than sunsets. She let her thoughts go in and down, listening to an aspen for the first time since she’d left home. Now she was not seeking the calm but listening for their silent green voice of life. She startled and opened her eyes. This was not an individual sapling. Every aspen in the Forest was part of the same tree. How could that be?

She touched that delicate bark again and listened. Aspen roots were part of a network that stretched over the entire Forest, thousands and tens of thousands of saplings growing up out of the same shared roots. And that root system was ancient, older than the elm, older than anything she could have imagined. Memories of fires hummed deep in its fibers, flames that had wiped out everything growing, except the aspens. Safe underground, the roots had lived to sprout new trees. Windstorms and mudslides, fires and droughts and axes, nothing had been able to kill those aspens. The tough roots survived, new trees bloomed, and the Forest kept on.