Of course, she was going to her death anyway.
The quest she had been given in the lost abbey had sealed her fate. She was to go to Naess, the seat of the Dochte Mandar, to seek the High Seer of the mastons—a woman—and learn the history of the Myriad Ones and how they had once infested and destroyed the kingdoms. It was the only way to save Comoros. But how could she possibly travel into the very heart of the place that had outlawed women to read or use the Medium?
Maia stared at the bark of a fallen redwood, the trunk slender and stricken with lichen and moss. Noises and clicks filled the gap in the conversation. She and the kishion were hurrying westward, trying to return to the shores of Dahomey, where the ship that had brought them, the Blessing of Burntisland, hopefully awaited. Though the kishion was as harsh as the unforgiving terrain they had wandered into, their journey was still beset with woes. Each night brought hordes of insects to torment them. Serpents were common—dangerous and poisonous. Clean water was scarce, but thankfully a path of Leerings had been left as waymarkers to the lost abbey.
Maia turned to the Leering she had slept beside. It was a tall, rounded stone, almost her height when she stood fully erect. There was a ravaged face carved into it, a face that had nearly been rubbed away by the centuries. All Leerings had faces carved into them and could channel the power of the Medium in some way, providing water, light, fire, heat—along with many other arcane powers. The Leerings had eased their journey.
Their rations had already vanished, but the kishion was adept at living off the land, even though the fare was not to her liking—lizards and rodents and sometimes bats for meat. She was starving for a decent meal and hoped they would reach the ship within the next few days. Sailing to her doom in Naess would almost be a relief so long as she had a bed to sleep on for the voyage.
“Let me check for bites,” the kishion said, motioning toward her ruined gown.
The front of the garment had been torn when the soldiers her father had sent as her protectors attempted to snatch the kystrel from her neck and choke her to death. She clenched the fabric tighter around her throat and shook her head. “When we reach the ship,” she said. “I don’t feel any bites.”
He snorted, shrugged, and rose, surveying the Leering and rubbing his bandaged hand across the rippled edges of the stone. He sniffed at it, his expression one of disgust or superstition, and waited for her to summon water for them to drink.
Maia brushed a mass of tangled hair behind her shoulder and bent at an angle next to the Leering so that the gushing waters wouldn’t soak her. She invoked the kystrel, and the fire-coal eyes of the Leering ignited instantly. Water began gushing from the slats where the mouth had once been carved. Maia rinsed her filthy hands first, scrubbing away the dirt and muck, feeling the cool clean water play across her fingers. She cupped water into her palms and gulped it down, coming again for another drink. Then a third. The excess water dribbled onto a small bed of silt at the base of the Leering.
The kishion took his turn once she was through, burying his head under the stream of cold water before tipping his scarred lips up to the flow and gulping down deep swallows. Maia rested her palm against the Leering.
When her skin touched the stone, an image burst into her mind so sharp and clear it was as if a window to another place had opened and she could see both places at once.
Who are you?
The thoughts came from a man—a man kneeling in front of another Leering, another of the waymarkers leading to the lost abbey. She recognized his surroundings instantly, a grove of dead bones and rusted armor. It was the graveyard of some vicious battle where the participants had all slaughtered one another. The man’s hair and beard were ash blond; his countenance was tired and stained with grime. His black Dochte Mandar tunic was splattered with mud, and he clenched his own kystrel in his left hand.
Who are you, girl?
His fierce thoughts snatched at her mind, gripping her in a vise that bound her to the Leering. She could not move. She could not breathe. Soldiers wearing the uniform of Dahomeyjan knights scuttled around the man. Panic began to churn inside her. These men were also in the cursed woods . . . and they were hunting her. She could sense the blazing intensity of the blond man’s thoughts.
Maia tried to release the Leering, but her hand would not move. A surge of piercing power cut through her marrow and sinews, binding her fast.