Calla

We stopped on the outskirts of Durid, right before the border with Olmdere. I’d wanted to keep going, to get back to my home court, feeling like an army of Ice Wolves was on our tail the whole ride, but Mina and Ora had both insisted that we could contact Sadie from here, and so we stopped.

Ora had tried to explain what had just happened over and over on the ride, but no words seemed to permeate the barriers erected in my mind. I wanted to feel hurt, betrayed even, by their lack of faith in me. They had secrets that they never shared, magic that they’d never used, or at least if they had, I hadn’t been aware of it. I’d shown Ora the quietest and rarest parts of my soul, and they had seen and accepted me for them. But still, I knew there was so much of their life I had barely scratched the surface of. Of course, the mysterious musicians of Galen den’ Mora had their secrets, and from what I’d seen, clearly ones that should be kept from Wolves. It made sense, and yet I couldn’t seize hold of that information, couldn’t turn it around in my mind and inspect it the way I wanted to. I heard the words: Songkeepers, magic, Sawyn . . . but they meant nothing. Ora went on and on, and I barely moved, barely reacted. At some point I’d need to figure out how to use everything they’d told me to help with this war, but first I needed to find a way to get the horrific memories out of the way.

All I could think about was Briar, the echoes of my screams, the rush of blood from my wounded leg. Briar was so much a part of me, the other side to my coin, and Sawyn had stolen her from me, my only family or friend at the time. I’d fought through three kingdoms to get her back, died to save her, and now she was gone again. The loss felt like a missing piece of me, so numb and hollow without her.

Where did they take her? Was she hurting? Was she locked up in a room like the one Nero had left her in that dreamless slumber? Forgotten?

I wished with everything in me that I could turn around and race to Damrienn, sword in hand. I hated, too, the way I felt tugged in a million different directions now: Queen and sister, warrior and diplomat. I wanted to slaughter every single Wolf who stood between me and my twin, and yet I was going in the opposite direction, preparing to protect my people. I knew Briar would tell me to do as much, and still, I loathed myself for it, because it meant I was still weak, still able to be threatened with the people I loved.

The sun shone high above, warming the chill that filled my body. Grae had to guide me like a dog herding sheep as we disembarked from the carriage. My legs moved, my arms swung, but my mind was stuck reliving Briar’s abduction over and over. Ora had acquired us some clothing from a washing line on our journey northward. My velvet robes waved in the breeze, flapping like the sound of a crow’s wings.

Tears carved lines down my ruddy cheeks as I stared at my vacant reflection in the gleam of my golden bracelet. Everything in me felt both numbed and heightened, the strangest senses being pulled to the forefront—the smell of limescale and blood, the soft squish of the loamy earth below my feet, the rustle of the pine trees . . .

When we arrived at a crumbling stone well, I tried to pull some of my worries back into myself, tried to meet Ora’s gaze and speak some wooden words.

“Why are we here?”

My words were scratchy and foreign to my ears.

“To contact Navin and Sadie,”

Ora said, leaning their elbow onto the tumbledown wall. “It’s a whispering well. Around the continent we speak through these wells when the sun is highest in the sky. If Navin’s near one, he will hear it.”

Ora let out a long, trilling whistle, the song echoing down the cavernous well and ricocheting back up again until it morphed into a sound unlike the one Ora had originally created. This new song was lower, more throaty and slow.

Ora held out a hand to me and beckoned me over. Their eyes bracketed with sympathy as I stumbled over the patchy muck and leaned over the well. I opened my mouth to speak, and my treacherous bottom lip wobbled. If Sadie was on the other side, I’d have to tell her. I’d have to tell her that I killed the Queen of Taigos, that Briar was taken, and that her brother was a part of her abduction.

More warm tears streamed down my cheeks, and I cleared my throat. Grae strode over to me, his warm broad hand on the small of my back, reassuring me that I could do this. That I must. That hand told me he’d hold me together even if this shattered me into a thousand pieces. But I had to keep going, had to push forward, had to lead even as it broke me.

I leaned my elbows onto the well, my skin pinching where the jagged stone dug into my still-raw skin. I couldn’t tell if it was the wind cupping my ears or I was imagining it, but I swore I heard a shaking breath rise up the well and bounce off the stones.

I swallowed and said, “Sadie?”