A cry of pain came from far behind them. It was followed by a shouted order a great distance away. The words were garbled. A distant trumpet sounded three sharp notes.

  “They’ve sounded a retreat,” Marcus said. His voice was full of wonder. His arms were still tight around her. “But the Queen’s Guard never retreats.”

  “It’s a trick.” She kicked the horse’s side. The charger sped up for several moments, bubbled out a blood-spattered breath and collapsed beneath her. Fen jumped and tumbled across the ground, avoiding the trunk of a large oak tree. Marcus rolled to a stop near her with a grunt of pain.

  The horse had ended up a few feet away. Its eyes were wide—it exhaled a massive breath, shuddered once and was dead. Fen went over and stroked its mane. “Thank you,” she whispered. There were five bolts in its side and another had sunk deep into the horse’s neck.

  “It was a good mount.” Marcus had limped over to join her. He got down on his haunches with a grunt and reached for the saddlebag, steadying himself by leaning on the horse.

  “I’ll do that,” Fen said, untying the saddlebag. The first thing she found was a thin golden flask marked with a QS.

  “It’s blood wine.” Marcus licked his lips. “Keep it stoppered. You carry it.”

  “If you drank it now, you’d heal faster.”

  “Yes. But I might become hers again. Please, put it away.”

  Fen placed it in her knapsack and returned to the saddlebag to discover a small loaf of bread wrapped in red cloth. It smelled of carrots. The Queen’s Guard actually ate the same food as mortals. There were no bandages, but that didn’t surprise Fen. They wouldn’t have any need for them. She also pulled out a short knife and a playing card with a golden cat on the front.

  “It’s a gilded cat,” Marcus said. “For luck.”

  “Queen’s guards believe in luck?”

  “Arms don’t grow back in a day. Or even fingers. And we can die, despite the stories the Royal Historians tell.”

  She slid the knife into the sheath that had held her father’s knife. “It’s as if our pursuers have vanished,” she said.

  “Even the corvuses can’t get through all these branches. We’d better keep moving and hope that Ithak, if he lives, can catch up with us.” Marcus tried to stand and fell to the ground.

  “Just stay still,” Fen said. The armour on his leg was stained red and he looked paler. “You aren’t healing at all.”

  “The Queen’s blood in my veins is mostly gone. I guess this is what happens.”

  He closed his eyes. A moment later, she realized he had passed out. This gave her a chance to swaddle the wound, using yet another section of his cloak. At least the tourniquet seemed to be holding the blood in. Her mother had taught her how important it was to wrap a wound tightly.

  As she wiped the sweat from her forehead, she noticed the blood on her hands. She spotted a large fern leaf and wiped her fingers clean. With the motion, she realized that her wooden hand felt stronger here. As though being in the forest gave it even more strength. She opened and closed the hand, held it near a massive oak tree. Could she talk to it? Nothing happened.

  She wasn’t certain she could make sense of her magic.

  Her hand may have been stronger, but her body was tired. And her cheeks ached where the branches had scratched them.

  She sat down and huffed out an exhausted breath. Marcus’s face looked as if the sheen of magic had been wiped off. His pale cheeks might even have been slightly pudgier. And he seemed younger. Would he someday not look like the Queen?

  “Just put him out of his misery,” a voice said.

  “Ithak,” she grunted. She was too dog-tired to shudder. “You really do love sneaking up on people.”

  “Your tone suggests you’re happy Ithak survived. No thanks to you and your plaything.”

  “He’s not my plaything,” she said. “He’s my friend.”

  A patch of dried blood was floating in the air. “Ah, you see me.” He made himself visible. “Don’t become a healer. You’ll kill all your patients.”

  “I saw your horse taken down. I thought you were dead.”

  “Well, Ithak slowed his horse and jumped off. The simple soldiers pursued the riderless beastie. Ithak darted into the forest like a handsome and clever fox.” He sat on a tree stump. “Ithak did see your valiant charge. Then it was just a matter of walking in this direction.”

  “But what stopped the Queen’s Guard from pursuing us?”

  “Helwood has a grudge against Her Majesty. Which reminds me, don’t try and chop down any trees.”

  “You still speak as if the forest has a mind of its own.”

  He knocked on the trunk of a tree. “Ithak doesn’t think forest thoughts. But she’s a bitter old biddy.” He jabbed a finger at Marcus. “Ithak doesn’t trust his suddenly deciding to save you.”

  “He wounded his own brothers. And when he jumped off the horse and stood to ward away all of those Queen’s guards, it was rather brave.”

  “Brave? It was the height of stupidity!” He rubbed his chin. “But he may have been following someone else’s command.”

  “What point would there be to have him thwart our pursuers and accompany me into the forest?”

  “You are such a self-important child! The forest hides hermits, wildmagics, even whole tribes . . . all the people who have fled the Queen in the last one thousand years. In numbers she cannot even guess at.”

  “How many?”

  He held up all his fingers. “It’s more than ten. The Queen may be using Marcus to find her enemies. This lump”—he gave Marcus a kick in his good leg—“would be her eyes and ears in Helwood.”

  “Don’t kick him! And why wouldn’t the forest reject him?”

  “Does Ithak look like a tree? Ithak cannot read Helwood’s thoughts.” He licked his pale lips. “Do you have anything to eat?”

  She remembered the bread she’d found in the saddlebag. Her stomach rumbling, she retrieved the cloth-wrapped loaf. She gave a lump of the bread to Ithak.

  “Straight from the Queen’s ovens,” he said. “Ithak wonders how many children she’s burned up in there. Oh, of course Ithak is not including your sister. Ithak is certain she’s alive and well.”

  “Don’t joke about that!” Fen said, but Ithak was already obliviously chomping on his bread.

  She took a couple bites too, finding it dry and tasteless. She checked the dressing on Marcus’s leg and discovered that blood had pooled on the ground. But it wasn’t enough to cause her concern.

  Marcus opened his eyes. “I am not healed,” he said. He sat up slowly and grimaced. It made him look years older.

  “Can you stand?” Fen asked.

  He nodded, though he had to lean on her. There wasn’t a new spurt of blood through the dressing. “There’s still some magic in you,” she said. “You should be bleeding more. Do you think you can walk?”

  He limped around a bit. Then he nodded. “Yes. Not with much speed, though.”

  “Then let our motley group make our way into the heart of the forest,” Ithak said. “My benefactor awaits.”

  “Which direction?” Fen asked.

  Ithak opened his mouth. She expected a quip, but he placed his hand on the small pouch on his belt. Then he pointed. “That’s the direction to warmth, safety and heartwarming accolades.” After a few steps, he said over his shoulder, “I’m joking about that last one, of course.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  A Trail of Words and Blood

  “THE SOONER WE ARE WITH MY BENEFACTOR, THE BETTER,” Ithak said. “Though Helwood has often been Ithak’s home, she still makes Ithak shiver.”

  “Marcus can’t walk a thousand leagues!” Fen said. She’d let him lean on her. He was growing heavier by the moment.

  “It’s not much farther. Ithak told you that.”

  With each step, Fen felt the forest close around them. Helwood was nothing like the smaller forests near her village. Here the trees reached into the heavens and blocked the light. There were no sounds of birds or other animals.

  They passed a section where the leaves on every plant were red. It smelled like decay. Ithak guided them around it and deeper into the forest. Some trees were so thick and large it took several steps to pass them.

  In time, the path opened up into a glowing grove with three throne-sized stones in the centre. Each bit of flora was a ghostly, luminescent white, as if someone had painted every leaf. The place smelled sweet.

  “Let us rest here. Ithak needs to air his dainty feet.” Ithak sat on one of the rocks and removed his shoes. He picked some green substance from between his pale toes and wiped it on the stone. “Nap if you can. Ithak will watch you.”

  “I don’t think I can sleep.” Fen sat on a nearby stone.

  “Perhaps you need a sleepy-time tale.” Ithak rubbed his hands together.

  “Honestly, I’ve had my fill of tales,” Fen said.

  “Indulge me. Ithak wagers that our little Queen’s guard didn’t get too many bedtime stories.”

  Marcus nodded. He’d chosen to lean against the largest stone. “Lights were snuffed out after last trumpet.”

  “Well, well.” Ithak leaned back and cupped his hands behind his head. “What do you two know of Mansren?”

  Fen shrugged. “Only what the Royal Historians told us. He started the War of the Ten Cities. He was a creature born purely of magic. A god.”

  “Yes, a god. That’s closer to the truth. And you, Marcus?”

  “We had a statue of Mansren in our latrine. We peed on it every day.”

  Ithak guffawed so hard he nearly fell off his stone. “Oh! Mansren as a target for boys with full bladders. What else can you tell me?”

  “Just that the Queen was the only one who could defeat him,” Marcus said. “After he sacked the nine cities, she ordered the Queen’s Guard to charge his shirker army. She came down from the skies on an equusa and turned him to stone. Marcellus, the first and greatest Queen’s guard, broke Mansren into a thousand pieces.”

  “Ithak assumes you heard a similar story,” Ithak said to Fen.

  She nodded. “Every Shattering Day the Royal Historians would tell the tale. After we smashed the Mansren statues, we’d gather up the candy and eat it while we listened.”

  “Do you ever wonder who tossed the stories, like seeds, into your minds?” Ithak asked.

  Fen shifted her position on the stone. “The Queen did. I’m starting to wonder how many of them are true.”

  “Oh! You’re getting wiser! The Mansren you know came from the Queen’s imagination. She writes all the histories. Lies, each and every one. And yet there are bits and pieces of the past, of the truth, let us say, that still exist. What if Ithak were to tell you Mansren was a hero?”

  “Impossible!” Marcus nearly spat out the word. “He was pure evil.”

  “Those who win wars write the histories. But Ithak was able to find a few passages written in an old book that told a different tale. Ithak got it from a stinky old librarian.”

  “A what?” Marcus asked.

  “Librarians are those who cradle books like children. No magic in their heads but the magic of stories. Long ago there were librarians who collected knowledge in tomes. Stories about love. Poems too. The history of the last ten thousand years. Did Ithak just enlarge your mind? Yes, ten thousand years of history. Ithak stole inside the librarian’s hut and found a thousand-year-old book that had secrets inside its rotted pages. For instance, do you know where the corvuses come from?”

  “The hatcheries in the Red Temples,” Marcus replied. “The winged creatures were discovered in the north and trained by the Royal Falconers.”

  “Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!” Ithak shook a finger at Marcus. “The corvuses are spawned from the children given up to the Queen. She keeps the people poor and they can’t feed all of their offspring. So they give her the ones who are a burden. Obedient children become servants, strong ones become soldiers, the best—like Marcus—become Queen’s guards. But the unluckiest of infants—or should Ithak say pluckiest—are melded with the wings, bodies and brains of birds. Given beaks and talons. They become the corvuses. The Queen’s eyes.”

  “That’s—that’s horrible,” Fen said. An image of the corvus she’d killed flashed in her brain.

  “Not the worst, though. The children they have no use for become the wine they call the Queen’s blood.”

  Marcus swallowed. “Is—is that true?”

  Ithak sniffed loudly. “It stinks of truth. Ithak found so many truths in that book. Ithak read a different history of Mansren. It, too, stank with truth.”

  “But what did it say?” Fen asked.

  “Oh, there was a lot of thus this and thee that. Ithak supposes neither of you would know. You can’t read.”

  “I can read,” Marcus said.

  “Yes, Ithak forgot. For you must read the execution decrees and battle orders.”

  “Who needs those squiggles on paper,” Fen said. “Did they ever feed a family?” But the moment after she spoke, she thought of the pieces of vellum inscribed with her family’s names. How she wished those lines her father had created made sense to her.

  “The right squiggles could feed a family for a hundred years,” Ithak said. “The book was written by a historian. A real one, not like the royal fakers. The book spoke about how Mansren was found as a child over a thousand years ago. He’d been born in one of the magic pits inside a rare black seam. No one understood how he was created. He was raised by Sophos, a philosopher—that is someone who thinks the deepest thoughts. They are all dead now, so don’t worry about them.

  “Ithak won’t bore you with Mansren’s childhood or how he formed the first shirker out of his blood and magic dust and pee.” Ithak scratched at his nose. “The Queen heard tell of him and came to see this Mansren, now grown. Sadly, his philosopher father died. Or perhaps Ithak should say conveniently. Ithak suspects poison stopped his heart. And speaking of hearts, Mansren fell in love with the Queen.”

  “That can’t be true.” Marcus shook his head. “They were always sworn enemies.”

  “Everything she’s told you is a lie. Servilia may have been able to hide her darkness from him. So he helped her to conquer the nine cities, believing she would set the rabble free. Ithak even memorized some of the book: ‘And Mansren saw the evil in the queen’s heart, her plan to subjugate the people and to rule for all time. And he rebelled. And was cast down.’”

  “That’s all?” Fen asked.

  “Oh, there was so much more!” He gestured around him. “The land from one side to the other was once called Irthra. But she changed it to Illium after her own name. That’s how big her lies are. And the dominion Mansren believed Servilia would create was to be a place where there were no kings or khans or emperors! Where we learned to read, to shout out our thoughts, our dreams to each other. No queen skulking in your mind every morning. Freedom.”

  All Fen’s life, the Queen had been watching her. Waking her up.

  “That’s traitorous talk,” Marcus said.

  “Ithak is a wildmagic. Just by existing, Ithak is a traitor. But this is the simple truth. Mansren wanted the people to be free. When Servilia is gone, the people will finally be liberated.”

  “And you found all of this in a book?” Fen asked.

  “Oh, not the book alone. Ithak saw wondrous creatures that made me believe.”

  “What creatures?” Marcus asked.

  “Shirkers.”

  “The magical army of Mansren?” Fen snorted. “They sneak into your room and steal your stockings. They eat the last piece of salted pork. At least that’s what my mother told me. They don’t really exist.”

  “They are as real as you two.” Ithak pointed at both of them. “And they are watching us right now.”

  Marcus grabbed the hilt of his sword. “What game is this, Ithak?”

  “It’s no game.” He stood and raised his hands as though he were about to embrace the air. “Show yourselves, my friends. You have been following our trail of words and blood. Ithak names you shirkers. Flesh of Mansren’s flesh. Ithak calls you forward into this dim light.”

  Fen stood slowly, tightening her hands into fists. “There’s nothing there. This is a stupid joke.”

  A branch several feet away creaked. Something dark and tall was moving alongside the tree. It touched a leaf, which turned black, and the leaves next to it also went black. The darkness swept across the white grove in a heartbeat.

  What magic could do that? Fen’s breath was tight in her throat. She, too, put a hand to her sword.

  A shirker stepped into the open and revealed itself.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Children of Mansren

  FEN COVERED HER MOUTH IN SHOCK. THE SHIRKER WAS a tall and lanky creature. As it blinked its amber eyes, it seemed to float toward the centre of the grove, where it stopped. Its arms and legs were muscular and lean and each had an extra joint. It had smooth humanoid features, but wore no armour or clothing. There was nothing to indicate whether it was male or female. Its shadow fell in five different directions at once.

  No. Not shadows. They were smaller shirkers. They walked as high as the thing’s hips, hissing as they moved. They’d been cut from darkness. From the fabric around the stars. From the gloom inside Mansren’s heart. That was how the Royal Historians had described them.

  “See!” Ithak jabbed his finger at the tallest shirker. “Ithak was right! The shirkers exist. Though the once-great army of Mansren is shattered, these few have survived for over a thousand years.”

  Fen’s heart was beating rapidly. This was not like seeing a wild animal. This was a creature of pure magic. It had an intellect. It had will. But it wasn’t human.

  “It’s real.” Fen kept one hand on her sword hilt and touched the jade necklace to be sure it was still there. “They’re real.”

  “Ithak told you!” Ithak repeated. “They are his children. And they will not die.”