Page 171 of Dare
And we ran.
Veering around, we bolted into the rainforest with Aire bringing up the rear. Ferns rattled as we catapulted through the thicket, the trees patrolled by birds of prey, hundreds of caws scratching my ears. Jeryn and I had hewn a wider path through here ages ago, but the rainforest was immortal and unpredictable. No matter how much we knew of it, The Phantom Wild knew more. It grew itself back, clogging the spaces quickly, with new surprises burgeoning out of nowhere.
We ducked under creepers and sprinted around trunks. But shit. We’d left our wood slings behind for the convoy to see. With that evidence in sight, there was no telling whether they’d comb the beach first or brave the wild straightaway.
How had they known where to look? How could the rainforest have let them in?
The Phantom Wild was sacred. They didn’t deserve this privilege.
Although I no longer wore a collar tattoo, my flesh sizzled where the sunbursts used to be. A growl rolled up my throat. Like hell would I let Summer or Winter take me again.
Bromeliads flashed in the darkness. An insect flew into my clothes and pricked my side with its stinger. Our race kicked up an ugly, rotten stench from the undergrowth, its rancidness clashing with overripe floral whiffs.
I inhaled dampness and sweat. More than that, I felt the dip in heat and shift in the fog, pushed by an incoming force. Jeryn and I stopped. As did Aire, who’d sensed the change in his own unearthly way.
We couldn’t see or hear beyond the canopy, but the hairs on my arms rose.
Jeryn halted next to a compact batch of shrubs and flung aside the branches. “Inside.”
I released his fingers and snatched the knight’s arm, tugging him toward the enclosure. At first, Aire protested, his call-of-duty instincts resisting. But after checking the terrain again, he hunkered behind me. After scanning the environment, the prince crashed through, his body alongside Aire’s walling me in like a barricade.
Thunder rain fell, the droplets slamming into the ground. We huddled there, with Jeryn’s arm reaching behind to shield me, while I swiveled my face into the ravine of his shoulder blades and breathed him in.
He said something over the deluge, and Aire said something back, their voices getting louder and faster. Yet I heard them in only snippets, the story patching together.
In low tones, the details flew out of Aire’s mouth. “We arrived from Autumn for a meeting with Giselle. This morning, a tower guard noticed your drawing on the cell’s ceiling. They questioned everyone, asking what it was.”
Poet, Briar, and Aire had traveled to Summer for a conference with the queen. While there, they’d sought an update about Rhys, but although they hadn’t gained new information, word about the map had reached Giselle while the clan had been present. Such a simple thing. The guards had never looked at the ceiling, not once when I was there, because they’d had lots of practice looking without seeing. Our cage wasn’t worth inspecting.
Yet this time had been different. But because the jester and princess had already given my tower mates sanctuary in Autumn, Lorelei, Dante, and Pearl weren’t the ones to expose me during the interrogation. Instead, one of the other prisoners had. Because of my penchant for sleep talking, they’d noticed my mouth moving one night and made the connection.
Few people could read my lips. Still every soul in that cell block had learned to see in the dark, to understand how my lips moved. In fact, I had spent time helping them, teaching them to understand me. Although I’d been closest to my tower mates, I’d lived on-and-off with the others for almost ten years. With nothing but time on our hands, they had learned to communicate with me. But none of them had ever told me I talked in my sleep about the song.
“The wardens threatened them for details, then had the map copied,” Aire whispered while glaring through the foliage. “Autumn’s ship was a risk, so we took a skiff before the fleet set out.”
Jeryn grunted. “A remarkable coincidence that Winter happened to be in attendance.”
“No, Sire. Your Queens had grown desperate. With Giselle and Rhys’s approval, Winter recently ordered a fleet to be permanently stationed in Summer, lest your whereabouts should be discovered. In any case, our clan disbanded to find you upon docking.”
“Where are they?” I whispered. “Poet and Briar?”
Jeryn translated my question. To which, Aire consulted the forest, his attention riveted, scanning the atmosphere for a sign. His jaw tensed in frustration, his grip tightening on the broadswords. “I do not know.”
I deflated. The absence of Autumn’s ship would have been noticed on the mainland. Its presence here would have identified the clan. Taking a skiff from the wharf stood to reason. Likely, they had docked somewhere hidden, which meant searching for me and Jeryn had taken a while.
Splitting up made sense, and it was no wonder the instinctual knight had located us first, alongside my butterfly companion. But now our friends were alone in the wild, where predators roamed and thunder rain punched craters into the earth.
If Summer or Winter caught them, what excuse would the jester and princess give? They were clever. Yet fear for their safety thrashed inside my chest.
The troops couldn’t find our friends. The troops couldn’t find the ruins either.
Our fortress. Our home.
The ancients, whose existence needed to be preserved for this campaign. If Summer stumbled upon and reported the rainforest’s castle, Rhys would demolish it.
How had my homeland deciphered the hidden map? The prisoners had explained what the sketch represented, but it would have taken a chosen one to see through the lyrics. Or at least, to enable others to see them.
Jeryn squeezed my fingers, aware of my thoughts. He would say a talented Summer captain or cartographer could have decoded the map, along with the help of a Winter genius. But what about my calling? Unless the forest had a purpose for bringing these ships here.