The second portal didn’t send him to some forgotten god’s domain. The coldness of the star-studded night sky that hung mercilessly above them was replaced by the numbness of emptiness. Tiyan lost the sense of his existence, and for a small second he was nothing. His body, his heart, his very soul, frozen in time, abandoned between worlds, forgotten and buried; decaying and drying until he disappeared, his dust carried over the vast plains of Ain’asel.
When he returned and left the portal, life seemed unreal. For that small second, he went through entire stages of life, his lungs breathing in the cold air, almost choking on it, fighting for relief until he coughed violently, his whole body trying to exist again.
Qhal looked at him, seriously, without mockery. As Tiyan slowly learned to breathe again, he could swear he observed him with some understanding. Surely he had to see many people being pushed through the portals. But there was a kind of pity in his icy blue eyes.
Pitiful human.
“Keep your head up, breathe in slow, shallow breaths. Do not try to swallow air, do not strain your lungs. It will pass,” Qhal instructed, still looking at him with a certain amount of interest. Tiyan didn’t know if it was normal that he followed this advice as soon as it was given.
Small breaths. His lungs screamed for air, but Tiyan knew that Qhal didn’t want him dead. His Lord needed him. So he forced himself to breathe slowly, his head turned towards the moon, small snowflakes landing on his face, touching his warm skin, running down it. Like tears.
But Qhal was right.
These portals were cursed. But he lived. Maybe he passed the realm of death by a millimetre. But he lived, and he hoped to live as long as it would take to see if Mina was safe. And to bargain for her life for as long as it would take.
The palace was so close now that Tiyan could see the roots biting into the battlements, walls and towers. It seemed to touch the moon, and they made such good companions – both cold, vast, alien and… frightening, both glowing with something invisible, pushing Tiyan’s soul down, down, just by being there.
Dal’coler was buried in the wall of the mountain that surrounded it with stone and snow, embraced by a dark forest that sucked the light from the stars. On the nearest branches – ravens. Not blue-eyed, twice the size of normal ravens. But Tiyan could swear they were waiting for him too.
Qhal threw the dry meat, Tiyan caught it in the air.
“After the portal you will need food. Eat now. Your body is weaker and we have to pass the forest. Many creatures live there. Some might be amused that I lead a human. Some… may just be hungry.”
Tiyan knew he was right, for his limbs were made of the same snow petals that fell on his face, and bit into the strip of meat with his teeth.
“Eat. It’s good,” Qhal smiled. Tiyan devoured the strip and, taking a few small breaths, he looked at the branch that held the ravens. This time he saw only a few feathers falling slowly to the white earth.
Qhal tilted his head slightly, watching him with a strange intensity. A smile played on his lips, his throat pulsating through the membrane. Tiyan suddenly thought that Qhal would not expose himself to the light for long, and now that they were about to enter the dark forest that lay beneath the ominous fortress of Dal’coler, he would not have a chance to do so either.
But that was the last thing he needed to worry about.
Surely he could take care of himself. He had lived in Dal’coler for so long. After all, Tiyan didn’t know what other means Qhal had to feed himself.
Qhal stopped looking at him, which Tiyan welcomed with relief. The Fae seemed more amiable than he had imagined the inhabitants of Ain’asel to be, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t kill him if his king ordered it.
And… there was something new in that look. The closer they came to Dal’coler, the more silent Qhal became, and the darker his eyes were. Not in colour. By… Tiyan couldn’t even name it. But he preferred not to be the object of his all too scrupulous attention.
Mina.
That is all that matters.
The forest swallowed them like a tasty morsel. Really swallowed them, for as they passed the first trees, the branches began to close behind them. Mossy boughs separating them from the portal and the rest of the realm.
“They… are moving?” Tiyan almost didn’t ask, but somehow the words escaped his lips. His question was rhetorical and naive, but he felt he had to say something. There were no birds in the forest, no movement… no sounds. Just the creaking of the branches around them; Tiyan almost felt their touch, even if they never reached him.
“Of course,” a joyful amusement sounded in Qhal’s voice. “It’s the Sacred Woods. The God.”
So he entered the god.
But somehow, after all he’d been through the last few weeks, it didn’t affect him the way it would if he’d heard it in his village, after dinner with his parents and sister. He would not believe it if he were just feeding the dog, burying his fingers in its thick fur and scratching its sloppy ear.
Now that he saw what this land had to offer, entering the body of a Tree God was somehow… mundane.
Even if it wasn’t.
Be careful, Tiyan Markon.
The branches above them formed a canopy that didn’t let in the light of the moon and stars. The trunks and thick roots that grew out of the black earth were covered in shimmerring moss. Tiyan knew that some plants could glow, but he’d never seen them before, and he hadn’t expected to see them in the heart of winter, when the trees slept and nature fell into a long, timeless slumber. But this forest wasn’t asleep. It was alive, very alive, and Tiyan could almost feel the slow pulse of this place, beating like a drum in his own chest.
He followed Qhal, trusting his sense of direction… at least much better than his own. The forest was not as dark as he had thought, for the moss gave off a strange, eerie light that was reflected in the clumps of snow. But it was so dense that Tiyan could not see in which direction they were going, nor if he had been here before. Qhal could lead him to the same place hundreds of times and Tiyan would not notice.
“How could the forest… be a god?” Tiyan removed a branch from his path. To hear any voice, even if it’s only his own. The words left his mouth in a cloud of vapour. “I thought the gods were dead and they spoke to me through the portal,” he realised how stupid that sounded.
“Not all gods are creators,” Qhal said enigmatically. “But not all gods are destroyers.”
Tiyan lost the energy to question him further.
He dragged himself one foot at a time, hiding behind scarves and pulling up the collar of his jacket as high as he could. The cold was less here than on the open plains and in the mountains, but the dull darkness, lit only by the faint glow of the moss, worked ill on the remnants of his almost non-existent confidence. He felt as if he were in the belly of a huge beast, slowly digesting him, giving him the illusion of purpose, only to end up surrounding him with sour juices.
He never complained about his fate when he still had life. Now it would be even more pointless, when the only ears that would listen to him belonged to an ageless Fae, sent to him by the Shadow who had kidnapped his sister and killed his parents.
Tiyan would be even happier if they actually met some of these dangerous creatures. It would show that they were not alone, trapped between trunks and branches. Even Tiyan found these thoughts absurd. The aura of this place seemed to suck away his strength and common sense.
When they had stood on the hill before, Dal’coler had seemed close, almost tangible, standing in the crisp air like a sliver in the mountain’s finger. They had only stopped twice, but it felt as if they had been walking through this forest for months. Nothing changed, except that sometimes Tiyan would see shining eyes in the darkness, looking at him from a distance. When that happened, Qhal tensed, he could clearly see the muscles around his transparent throat, playing a silent melody of restlessness.
“Do you think we could hunt something here?” tiredness was taking its toll, he could not shake it off even at the stops Qhal had arranged.
Qhal’s smile was as friendly as ever, but his eyes had taken on a darker shade.
“Only Unseelie can hunt in the guts of the gods. If I tried, I would be betraying my king’s trust.”
“Oh, you would never do that, would you?” Even weak irony is better than none.
“The human creature knows nothing of the laws that rule here. Nor of the disease that spreads among these trees. It’s invisible, but rest assured, it’s real. If I hunt here, the balance between the Fae and the forest could be broken.”
“But you say Unseelie can hunt,” Tiyan tried.
“Don’t you like your dry meat any longer?”
“It’s surprisingly good. But fresh meat is always better.”
He didn’t add that he hadn’t eaten fresh meat for years, thanks to his lords.
“Oh, I’m sure Lorian Ain’Dal gives you plenty of fresh meat,” Qhal smiled, and Tiyan suddenly didn’t want any more.
As long as he leaves this place and – finally – takes Mina in his arms, safe and unharmed. Untouched. She was just a child, for Goddess’ sake. Who knows what they forced her to do between those merciless walls.
The woods creaked and moved above their heads, reaching out but never touching. Eyes followed them out of the icy darkness. And somehow the cursed snow found a way to fall, even between the branches.
Their footprints soon disappeared, buried in the white silence.
Qhal did not smile – again. Tiyan knew that the last time he had smiled was before he fought the Anglor, in another realm, in another time.
A small figure appeared in the distance.
At first it just stood there, no matter how fast they walked, always between the trees. It had the same clothes as Mina, the day he lost her. He could swear he heard his name carried by the wind.
Qhal’s voice was almost angry when he spoke. Tiyan thought that he probably expected him to jump at the first elusive promise Ain’asel gave him. But Tiyan had learned something in the time he had spent here.
“I know what you see, but it’s not your sister.”
“How can you…”
“The god is sick and needs help. And humans can only help him in one way.”
Tiyan preferred not to ask what he meant. Somehow he could guess for himself. This mirage was similar to Wisps, pulling him by the weak thread of his heart and dragging him into the maw filled with rooty teeth.
Now it was closer and he could see that half of Mina’s face was rotten, white worms boring corridors in her decaying skin. The murmur of the trees whispered softly to him, and each of those whispers was a plea to save her.
Tiyan tried not to look at the mirage, but his eyes seemed glued to the rotting corpse that was his sister. Mina was in the palace. Kept there to force him to offer himself to the darkness.
He wasn’t too late.
She was alive.
What else would keep him alive now, after what he had been through and what he had lost?
Qhal led him through the white and shining prison, and Tiyan saw his dead sister everywhere his eyes landed, feeding on the horror of… possibility.