Princess Nymeria's Arc

Chapter 5 of 32

Nymeria followed the water south all night. The wolf padded beside her, black as the dark itself. When the moon slipped behind cloud, she raised one hand. Purple flame bloomed above her palm. It threw pale light on the mud and reeds. She kept the fire small. It warmed nothing, but it showed the path. The marsh went on for hours. Her boots sank and pulled free with every step. Twice she stopped to rest, and the wolf pressed its side to her leg. She laid her hand on its shoulder and felt it breathe. "Not far," she told it. She did not know that. She only knew the water still ran ahead of them. The reeds thinned as the sky grayed. Nymeria let the flame die. Ahead, the wet ground rose into firm earth. The last of the marsh drained into a shallow ditch. Beyond it stood a wall of trees. They were tall and close, their trunks black, their branches bare. No birds sang in them. The forest sat in silence, the way a held breath sits in the chest. Nymeria stopped at the ditch. Cold came off the trees. The wolf halted too. Its ears went flat. A low sound rolled from its throat, not at her, but at the dark between the trunks. "I know," she said. "I feel it too." She had wanted the forest all night. The fishing woman had promised it. Past the last reeds, the trees, and in them a witch in a tower who could help Nymeria in some sort of way. Now the forest stood in front of her, and it did not feel like an answer. It felt like a mouth. She looked back once. The marsh spread behind her, empty and gray. Somewhere far to the north, her father's hunters still searched. She could not go back. The village would not take her. There was only forward, into the trees. Nymeria stepped over the ditch. Her boot found root instead of mud. The ground was dry and hard here. She waited for the wolf. For a moment it did not move. Then it crossed after her, close at her heels, its body low. The first trees closed over them. The gray dawn vanished behind the branches. Under the canopy the dark returned, thicker than the marsh night. Nymeria raised her hand again. The purple flame answered. It lit a narrow ring of trunks and roots, and nothing beyond. A path wound ahead through the trees, if it was a path. It was too straight for nature. Someone had cut it, long ago. It led deeper in, toward whatever tower waited. Nymeria drew a breath and followed it. Behind her the marsh was gone. Ahead lay the witch, and maybe the door out. Between them stood the whole dark forest. She walked into it with her flame in one hand and her wolf at her side.