Forever Green

~ 32 ~ A Violent Escape

Lenesa set off to the right, boots sinking in the mud as she progressed. The other thing about heading upstream was that she was closer to the wall that the river passed through. She could already see the shadowy crenels in the distance, and soon came to see how the river passed into the city.

The wall had been built out into the river, only arching over the water at the deepest point in the middle to grant a narrow passageway no wider than seven horses standing shoulder-to-shoulder. The wall was higher here, too—whereas by the front gate, the stones were only stacked as high as two people, here the wall rose to the height of four. The looming immensity of the wall here was almost enough to make Lenesa want to turn around and try to run out the front gate, but—there were fewer guards.

Lenesa forced her panicked breathing to slow and focused on calming her rapid heartbeat as she took a closer look. Whereas the front gate had a total of sixteen men who rotated out in groups of eight from the guard station every half-hour, this part of the wall near the river only had five positions, with a one-person guard station that the soldiers must take turns switching out from for a break. It would be much easier to overtake the guards here.

You have the strength, the voice whispered to her. Don't hesitate.

Lenesa took a step back, shaking her head. Her powers were meant to heal, not harm. There was no way she could attack these people without furthering the damage marked by the inky stains on her arms.

The answer swiftly floated to the surface of her mind.

Don't use your magic.

Lenesa paused. The suspicion had always been in the back of her mind, ever since the day Aunt Mona had died and Audeste had Turned. But she had managed to shove it aside until only recently, when she had rescued Theiden from Audeste and carved a path through the forest for his escape. It had been part of an amplified homing spell, but she didn't have the strength in her magic required to move earth and trees. At the most, it should have only resulted in a misty ribbon for him to follow—not an actual trail. It had bothered her at the time, but she had been too preoccupied with other worries to think back on it much until now.

It would also explain why the dark marks had never fully disappeared from her arms ever since that fight.

Lenesa cast a wary gaze out to the water, and slowly raised her hand. She could feel the hidden force of the river, a deceptively calm exterior that could snatch a child from its banks in a flash and crush rocks to sand with the weight of its sheer volume alone. Her fingers tingled, and she knew—its power was hers to command. She closed her hand into a fist, grasping on to the flowing water and pulling back with her magic.

It hurt! Every nerve screamed with the awareness of what she was doing, but Lenesa gritted her teeth and ignored it. She was desperate—a caged animal that would gnaw at the bars of its cage until its teeth were nubs if it meant gaining her freedom.

Slowly, slowly, the river changed. The rushing water became sluggish, then came to a stop. Lenesa took a breath and pulled again, this time yanking harder and angrier. Her breath left her in a pained gust and she screwed her eyes shut to just focus on the motions. Reach, grasp, pull. Reach, grasp, pull. She could hear the startled exclamations from the guards at the wall as they finally took notice of what was happening.

The current switched, the river streaming backwards nearly faster than it ordinarily went forwards. Somewhere further upstream, perhaps halfway to Völpúnsgard, it was beginning to flood where her influence ended and the backwards current met the regular one. But Lenesa couldn't worry about that just now.

A guard raised his torch, looking further downriver through the rain, and finally spotted Lenesa standing by the river in the shadows of the city wall.