Chapter 59

Cat

“Are you coming?”

Silvi called me, and I turned back to the path and followed her. Three days since we’d left the horse land, and still no soldiers in sight. Maybe we’d been lucky, and they’d given up. I didn’t know why Almerious would let us go, which worried me even more, but there was nothing we could do about it now.

I caught up with her.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better,” she whispered.

I took her hand.

“It will be okay.”

She nodded weakly. I had tried to understand what had happened, but despite Sara sitting me down to explain, I had a hard time grasping the elves’ magic. I knew they were connected to their forest, of course, but what that actually meant was so far from anything I had ever experienced, I didn’t fully understand it. Balancing the harmony of the tribe. Taking on everyone’s emotions to stabilise them. I didn’t know how she did it, but I saw how much of a toll it had taken on her.

“Would you like to make camp here?”

Sara halted and turned to us. I still flinched every time she opened her mouth to speak, but I had stopped staring at her in disbelief after the first day. A Unicorn who asked for permission rather than demanding to be obeyed. I’d never thought I’d see that in my lifetime, but losing her horseland seemed to have taken her harder than I’d thought.

Kim dropped the reins of our packhorse and began to set up the camp. Aicha stood at the edge of our group, watching us. She was a strange girl. I knew her uncle, it turned out. A lazy good-for-nothing, but one of the Queen’s favourite trackers. It was an ironic twist of fate, but then he’d always been a bit of an outcast in their tribe. At least we knew how Almerious had found out Sara was coming.

I let go of Silvi’s hand to help Kim. Sara began collecting wood, taking branches in her mouth and carrying them to the camp. She’d done that every evening since we’d left the horse land. One day, I would have to talk to her, but she seemed so forlorn after leaving the other horses there hadn’t been time. Who knew that the arrogant Unicorns could have feelings?

Once the fire had caught, we gathered around it, Sara standing next to Silvi, staring at the flames in silence. We hadn’t talked much since escaping Almerious, but we still had no other choice but to continue north. Sara still swore we would have a place for the winter. At least it would give us time to regroup and come up with a plan.