The Forest

-34-

Darkness had swallowed the land. She could feel him shivering, but she wasn't sure whether it was from fear or from cold.
Not a sound was uttered save the muffled crunch of his footsteps. Occasionally wind would usher through the spindles and they would all glance up, mistaking it for birdcry, but that was all.

Something was wrong.

The river was minutes behind them. And yet nobody had appeared to stop the human from crossing onto Hawthorn land. It was night, yes, but Wren would always have a guard posted, even if it was just two people.
Her stomach went queasy. Wren.
Or, if not Wren, whoever was in charge.

Silk's fever had broken, but that was about the only good thing. She refused to admit it might have been due to the human. How he had cradled her brother to his chest as he walked, warming him with his own shivers, protecting them from the wind. His knuckles were bloody and cracked with frost.

Even in the dark, she could hear his breathing. A melodious, tired thing. And part of her knew he was gentle, part of her saw Lucius in his eyes, yet still she couldn't help imagine it was her people's blood on those ridged knuckles, that the crunch under his foot was bone.

She couldn't take it anymore.
"Stop." She broke.
Avery obeyed her. They jerked to a stop in the dark, and the only sound was his uneven breathing.
"Are you alright?" He asked.
She didn't reply, just listened. But the woods were silent. Not a soul in sight.

Silk sat up and wiped his runny nose.
"We should be there by now." He sniffled.
Exactly what she was thinking. She squinted at their surroundings and tried to make out shapes between the tree boughs. It was so dark. Not yet moonrise.
Avery looked around. A moment later, she heard his soft gasp. "What's that?"

It was impossible to see where he might have been pointing.
"Where?" She leant over the edge of his fingers and squinted.
"Over there."
"I can't see your hand, stupid boy. North, south?"
His silence spoke volumes. She wasn't surprised he didn't know his compass point. The doe-eyed, soft-palmed creature was helpless as a cub, never having worked a day in his life.
Avery turned his body to where he had been pointing, and yet it still took her a moment to seek out what he had seen.

There, far in the distance between the cuts of rock, lacing the floor. A glow. Amber and lucid in the dark of the night.
Fire.

"Go." Her stomach was full of lake water, "Go, hurry up, go!"
He stumbled forwards. Commanding him was like riding Amaryllis— she yelled for him to turn left, and he lurched that way, she told him to go faster and he did, no matter how his breathing rasped and he stumbled. Her hair whipped behind her and the wind stung her face. She squinted in the cold as the glow swelled closer and closer, licking the surrounding rocks with its heat. Avery was wheezing for breath when suddenly he released an ear-splitting cry, and fell. She and Silk were thrown from his hand.

Snow absorbed most of her fall. She skidded across the cold before slowing to a gradual stop in its icy embrace. Winded, but otherwise unscathed, she picked herself up to find vast sweeps of rock rising around her. Silk was coughing a few steps away, covered in snow. The fire's glow was at their backs. And the human was moaning in pain.  
Her hair was all over her face, and she mopped it out of the way to see him. His face glowed orange in the sheen when he sat up. Avery lifted his hands, and she found them bloodily gashed, one palm entirely split open. He must have caught his ankle on the jagged rocks and fell straight into them. Now he mewled like a newborn mouse, tearily holding his gashed hands to his chest. He looked to her, like she would have a cure.
She might have felt a little sympathy for him, unlikely, but it suddenly hit her where they where. Rocks tall enough to trip up a human— The wall.