Chapter 8
There was a heavy, comfortable weight on me when I woke next. It was warm, and I was reluctant to budge, but my legs were numb and I really needed to relieve myself.
The pressure in my bladder finally forced me to stir, but when I started to move, I was horrified when the weight on my legs actually shifted. Shifted.
My eyes flew open, and I froze. A large grey wolf lounged contentedly over my feet, his big jaw open, his tongue lolling lazily. It took everything I had not to scream.
“By Silveet!” I whispered harshly, my hand coming up to cover my mouth, my eyes wide.
I had seen wolves from the distance. I had even seen sketches of them in the Archives, but this wolf was larger than I expected a wolf to be, and he was eyeing me as cautiously as I was eyeing him, although I was pretty sure my green eyes were nothing compared to his black ones. I was food. I wasn't the least bit intimidating. Oh, but he was!
“His name is Oran,” the trees said suddenly.
The raspy voice made me jump, and the wolf rolled off of me before standing, his legs apart as he faced me. His stance looked defensive enough that I backed up against the tree, wincing when I accidentally rubbed my marked wrist against the bark.
“Great,” I said slowly. “It has a name. Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Leaves rustled and there was laughter. The urge to pee was more than insistent now.
“He means you no harm, child.”
For some reason, the reassurance didn't make me feel any safer. I slid slowly up the tree, my eyes locked with Oran's.
“You are a petite thing to be the One.”
It wasn't the trees' voice that spoke, and it wasn't mine. It was male, and it rumbled. I stared at the wolf. It wasn't possible. It just wasn't possible!
“No,” I gasped.
Oran sat back on his haunches. “You accept talking to trees, but you deny my speech?” He licked his paw, the move sulky. “Wolves are wiser than trees, you know.”
Branches swayed, and leaves waved wildly.
“Wiser indeed!” the trees huffed.
I quickly excused myself, my need for privacy a convenient moment to think. The wolf had spoken. He’d spoken. It didn’t seem possible. None of this seemed possible. But it was. Everything about this whole situation was surreal, terrifying. My nurse had been murdered, I had been branded, protected by trees, and spoken to by a wolf and plant life. All within two days time. If I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend it was all a bad dream. But then there were Aigneis’ screams. Those couldn’t be imagined. Nothing that horrible could ever be imagined.
Aigneis had told me the forest would speak to me one day. I had to trust her even now, even with her gone. Aigneis had known more about magic than I ever would.
“Why did you call me the One?” I asked the wolf once I had returned to the tree where he stood.
Oran blinked before dipping his head. He had a white patch near his ear. It stood alone, out of place among the rest of his silver fur. I concentrated on it.
“You don’t know?” the wolf asked.
A large limb moved behind me, but I didn’t turn to see what it was doing. I was disconcerted enough as it was.
“She knows nothing,” the trees said. “And we can’t be sure this girl is she.”
Oran lifted his leg, scratching himself behind the ear, close enough to the white patch it brought me out of my reverie.
“Has any other two-leg ever understood you before?” Oran asked.
The trees grew still.
“Who do you think I am?” I insisted, my eyes meeting the wolf’s gaze.
Oran stretched before lumbering into the forest, stopping only long enough to see if I followed. I grabbed my water skin, and patted my pocket where the meat still rested before I plunged into the undergrowth after him.
“Where are you going?” I called out.
Oran looked over his shoulder as he walked, the muscles in his back bunching as he moved. His footsteps were silent. He was more graceful than I assumed a wolf would be.
“To the Ardus,” Oran answered. “The trees told me you have plans of crossing it, which is foolhardy in my opinion.”
His tone made me bristle.
“I will die regardless. I would rather die free,” I said.
Oran stopped moving, the hair on his back standing straight up. “Is that what you think? You think you will die free if you enter the Ardus? Do you not know about the Wyvers, Little Phoenix?”
I paused just behind the wolf.
“Wyvers are Medeisian natives. The trees promised me no creatures would harm me.”
Oran sat, but he didn’t look back at me.
“Wyvers are poisonous little lizards controlled now by Raemon. The creatures of the forest will not harm you, but the creatures of the sands beyond may not be so kind,” Oran warned.
I simply stared at Oran’s back. I had only one plan; survive the forest and cross the Ardus. Grief and images dominated my thoughts. Only one thing infiltrated the pain; Kye’s words. Surviving the Ardus meant refuge in Sadeemia. Maybe I was seeking the wrong kind of refuge?
“Who do you think I am?” I asked Oran softly.
The wolf did look back at me then, his eyes shining in the dim tree cover. Only the occasional conversation between birds, or the snap of a twig as things moved through the foliage disturbed our exchange.
“The phoenix,” Oran said finally, his voice lower than before, a growl just beneath his words. “The girl who will save us.”
I was stunned into silence. The what who would what?
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
The wolf looked away, standing carefully before walking again. I followed.
“None of us understand it, Phoenix. There is nothing more told about the savior other than the phoenix will be a girl with forbidden magic.”
I dug in my pocket for the dried meat. I was light headed. I wasn’t sure if it was from the conversation or my lack of consistent meals. Either way, I didn’t think consuming the meat would hurt. I pushed a piece of it into my mouth and chewed thoughtfully. It honestly tasted like dirt.
The phoenix? In the old language, phoenix meant savior. Protector. It was a word I’d learned in the Archives. It once represented a mythical creature, but was later more popularly used as a description of someone great. I wasn’t great.
“I have magic, yes. My nurse told me I would inherit it from my mother, but it is not forbidden unless you mean Raemon’s edict. I do not bear the mark of the mage,” I said around the meat in my mouth.
Oran marched steadily on.
“Many would view forbidden as a girl who will bear Raemon’s mage mark, but not us. Not the creatures of the forest, the creatures of our Goddess Silveet.” Oran’s steps faltered, but he didn’t stop. “We of the forest have never been understood by humans. It is said a falcon, not unlike the one that follows you, made a pact with our goddess when humans first invaded our world. Man was never to understand us. Our world was to remain our own. We like it that way. Many of the trees are old enough to remember, are old enough to know one thing . . . .”
Oran’s words trailed off. My heart was beating furiously, the light headedness curbed by the meat, but the numbness traveling over me now wasn’t from hunger. It was unease.
“And what is that?” I asked.
Oran glanced swiftly at me and then away.
“You are the first to ever understand us. Man was never to understand us. It was and is forbidden.”