Each day Cassie spent in the forest felt as long as a week, but she was almost happy. There was no true escape from the gnawing fear that the Guard or Longheirce would track her down, but she was kept so busy that she was able to ignore it for short periods of time. There was always more for her to do, more to learn. Largely, learning how to survive.
Fully committed now to protecting her, Silvana and Skylar made no mention of sending her away. It was obvious to them all that she had nowhere to go, and no idea how to survive on her own. For all the time she had spent looking out her window at the trees surrounding the manor she had grown up in, Cassie had little knowledge of the Esren woodlands. She knew there were villages scattered within it and that she was in the southwest part, but not much else. She had never had a reason to visit the forest towns before, and knew only a few of the more significant ones' names and general locations from spying on war councils.
She had little reason to learn more once she was in the forest. She was safe where she was, and that was enough. In the banisè cottage she was protected from the open wilderness and the anyone hunting her, and she found herself growing rather fond of her gruff guardians.
Silvana and her brother made a good team. Skylar taught Cassie stealth, patience with menial tasks, and which plants were deadly, while Silvana drilled her in sword, dagger, and archery, then taught her how to cook. Together, they pulled Cassie from the abyss of pampering and began to transform her into a slightly passable heathen. For the first time in her life, she was unafraid to leave the dirt under her fingernails and the grass stains on her clothes.
True, the clothes she donned these days were worn-out cast-offs of Silvana's and Skylar's, but the soft leather shirts and threadbare pants were infinitely more comfortable than the stiff dresses she had been laced into every morning before. The bandit outfits allowed her to run at a crouch, tumble through fighting lessons, and chop firewood with ease—that is, they allowed for the ease with which Cassie should do those tasks. The execution of ease proved more elusive.
Every morning they woke with the sun, ready to kill, catch, or fight something. Cassie would accompany Skylar and the morning trip to the brook to collect water or food, receiving instruction on whatever he decided she was worst at that day. It was preparation, he said, for the trip they were going to have to make soon.
Cassie's stunt with the bread dough had had another, additionally humbling, effect. She had used up their entire store of flour, and there was no ready supply of it to replace what had been wasted. They would have to journey to the closest town and trade for it, with whatever extra they managed to kill or scavenge as their only tender.
The salt was dwindling as well, their stocks disappearing more quickly with a third mouth to feed. The haggling could sometimes give you a headache, Skylar told Cassie, but they rarely had trouble bartering for what they could not make themselves. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. Villagers, locked in by the dangerous boundary of the trees, appreciated the opportunity to acquire more meat that trade with the banisè afforded. Few paid attention to the illicit trade with the outlaws, although occasionally the king would send out the Guard to burn down an offending town.
They had little to fear on the trip, but it would take them half a day to walk there, Skylar told her. And because Cassie had been the one to waste the flour, she would be the one to come with Skylar for the trading.
"You mean Silvana isn't coming?"
"No, she will walk with us, but the miller doesn't like trading with her."
Silvana snorted without looking up from the bag she was packing.
Skylar smiled slightly. "They're mostly afraid of us," he explained to Cassie.
They were not wrong to be, Cassie thought as Silvana loaded weapon after weapon in her bag.
"And Silvana can be..." He struggled to repress amusement as Silvana shot a half-hearted glare at him. "More persuasive than they're comfortable with. The miller doesn't like being intimidated into giving a fair price, oddly enough."
Instead, Silvana would collect her own supplies, go elsewhere in town, see a few people they were familiar with and perhaps collect information if there was any to be had. They would travel home that evening, without needing to stop anywhere for the night.
Cassie found that traveling in the forest wasn't nearly so frightening when accompanied by a guide more dangerous than most bandits. Walking through the woods in the early sunlight was much better—almost fun—with Skylar and Silvana for company. Not that they talked much, but having someone ahead and someone behind her as they traipsed through the invisible paths of the forest was a comfort, a reminder that she was not alone.
"Not much farther to Telyre," Skylar assured her as they skirted a settlement, avoiding the view of peasants out gathering food and caring for animals.
The underbrush was thinning gently, the walk easier. Was there somehow more birdsong, too? The trees looked different, more cultivated. Relaxing slightly, Skylar and Silvana drifted from the tight formation they had held for several hours, walking more abreast now. Silvana slipped in and out of view as she wove between trees.
They had not stopped for a rest or to eat, yet Cassie felt an irrepressible lightheartedness welling up. Despite the circumstances that had forced them to take the trip, the walk to Telyre was a new adventure, a break in the monotony of her new life. And the opportunity to learn something new, like how to haggle with tight-fisted, suspicious peasants.
Distracted by thoughts of what lay ahead, Cassie forgot to notice what lay before her and tripped over something big and immovable and painful.
She should have been pleased something from Skylar's training had taken root—she managed to go down without a sound (how it looked was a different matter entirely)—but was too distracted by the pain to care much. Not even Silvana had yet noticed anything amiss, leaving Cassie alone in a sea of trees, gripping her throbbing shin.
What fool had left that metal-rimmed basket of nuts out here? She was in a grove of nut trees, sure enough, but why bother filling a basket with the things, only to abandon it for someone to trip over? Appearing to answer her unspoken question, a head popped out from behind one of the nut trees.
"You okay?"
Cassie looked up with a glare that had been known to send a servant or two scurrying for the door. The only effect it had out here was in widening the peasant's grin. Uninvited, he moved closer.
The rest of him was as dirty as his sweat-darkened hair. His broad shoulders barely fit inside his patched-up, red linen shirt, and his bright eyes were twinkling with amusement. Instead of apologizing profusely, the man seemed content to lean against the long pole he carried and laugh at her.
Up ahead, she could finally hear Skylar and Silvana pause and then return, faster now that they had realized she was missing. Growling gradually reached her ears—Silvana was muttering under her breath.
"We made it this close," Cassie heard over the gentle crunch of the fallen nuts underfoot as Silvana stomped her way back, not caring to disguise her footfalls now. "Five feet from the doorstep, and she has to..."
Silvana was annoyed. Understandable, really. All Cassie ever did was cause trouble for the two of them. Not that it was her fault this time.
The one at fault held out a hand, grin faltering slightly. "You need help up? Where did you come from?"
Her leg was likely broken and he was what, expecting her to share a laugh with him? Cassie would rather stand on a broken bone than accept help from whoever this was. Cassie pushed herself to her feet, swallowing back a curse at the resulting pain. She grasped at the closest tree, waiting for the pain to recede enough for her to stand unassisted.
Skylar and Silvana appeared from opposite directions, knives drawn, ready to get Cassie out of whatever mess she might have found herself in this time. Their guarded, ready-for-battle expressions were not a surprise. It was a surprise, however, when they instantly relaxed and sheathed their blades. Silvana even nudged her brother with a smirk.
The filthy peasant grinned widely when he caught sight of who was behind him. "Silvana, Skylar!" he exclaimed, sounding truly delighted. As though he was seeing his favorite people in the world, these two rough-edged banisè who half a minute earlier had been ready to kill. They knew this imbecile?
"You trip?" Skylar asked Cassie, quickly taking in the situation with his sharp eyes.
Mutely, she nodded.
"Usually when I take a girl for a tumble, it's not quite so literal," the peasant laughed, clapping a hand on Skylar's shoulder.
To his credit, Skylar did not return the laugh, but Silvana snorted. Cassie's neck burned with anger. Take her for a tumble, indeed.
"What are you doing here?" the peasant asked the banisè. "Hunting?" He turned a calculating eye on Cassie, but clearly saw little threat in her and refocused on the siblings. "You're a little early for your usual trading. And who's your companion?"
Cassie stayed quiet, waiting to see how Skylar would explain her presence. Would he disavow their connection entirely, or admit to the truth and reveal a potential weak spot? Would they know about the Guard search parties in the towns?
"We weren't expecting to find you this far out," Skylar said, rather than answer any of the other man's questions. "Shouldn't you be in the stables?" He looked the peasant over, his assessment friendly but frank. "You look like you sleep there."
The peasant held his dirt-encrusted hands out, examining them. "That bad?" he asked, smile undimmed. He sounded amused that he looked likely to bed down in a stable. Cassie doubted she looked much better, after so long in the forest—but she was vain enough to still feel self-conscious about it.
"You smell of goat," Silvana said, pushing past them, her shoulder bumping against the peasant's with an intentionality that was somehow not unkind.
"We can't all smell of roses like you," he said with a smirk, the good-natured sarcasm something that Cassie would never be able to say—not without Silvana cutting off one of her ears.
Silvana's steps did not falter as she continued toward the village, but she raised a hand in acknowledgement—then flipped it into a crude, vulgar gesture.
The peasant guffawed. "I missed you, too," he called after her.
"You've missed our protection, not our presence," Skylar said. "And this is Cassie. We're—she's—"
"Another one of Silvana's wounded birds?" the man asked, gaze suddenly too alert, too perceptive for Cassie's liking.
"I can't stop her bringing them home," Skylar sighed, shaking his head in fond exasperation. "It's like she's collecting them."
Cassie looked between the two men. She was not the first person Silvana had brought into their home and helped? Was that why Skylar had been so reluctant that first night? And why was it Silvana, who was about as warm as a rock, who apparently had a habit of taking people in and helping them?
"She gets lonely," the other man said, gazing in the direction Silvana had disappeared, his tone unexpectedly serious. It did not last long. "It's hard for her, I expect, with only your ugly face for company." He turned to Cassie. "All the more pity for you as well, Cassie," he said, his smile like they were sharing a private joke. "Thankfully, the scenery is now much improved for you. I'm James."
Uncertain how to answer him—was he serious or in jest? Nobody could be that self-assured, could they?—Cassie settled for a simple, "Hello."
"How is Sarita settling in?" Skylar asked. "It's been a few weeks now."
James shrugged. "As best as can be expected," he said, the shadow of a grimace crossing his expression, revealing a chipped tooth.
Skylar looked less than happy at the information.
"She's good with the spinning," James said, "And that's what matters. You resettling this one, too?" he asked Skylar, examining Cassie with a critical eye. "She looks a little rough around the edges yet."
Although Cassie had difficulty gauging whether any word that came from this peasant's mouth was serious, she had no trouble telling her own opinion of him, his last words pushing her firmly into dislike. She was rough around the edges? At least she looked like she had had a bath in the past year.
Skylar merely shook his head, leaving the peasant more curious.
"So what are you doing here, then?" Although the question could be rude, it was not.
Skylar conspicuously resettled the deer meat he carried over his shoulder. "Just trading. We're low on a few things."
James' eyebrows rose into his hairline. "And you brought her with you? And then what—back home with her? For how long?"
Skylar shrugged.
Cassie shifted nervously on her feet. "I still have a lot to learn," she offered, when Skylar did not speak. They had never discussed the future, what would happen once Cassie improved enough. If she ever improved enough.
"You must be something special," James said, looking almost impressed. But that couldn't be right. People were never impressed with Cassie.
Unexpectedly, Skylar spoke up, giving away information Cassie thought they would want to keep quiet. "You are meeting the only person to beat Longheirce—and escape without a scratch." Fluke though it may have been, and all three of them knew it, there was no denying it had happened.
James did a double take. "That was you?" he asked her.
"You've heard?"
"You know how I like to keep informed on our favorite bandit's happenings," James said, eyes never leaving Cassie. "A few banisè were here last week for trade and were talking about it. He's hunting for her, Skylar."
Was it her imagination, or did Skylar stiffen and move marginally closer to her? Was he that worried?
"You sure it was her?" James asked. His gaze flipped up and down her body once more, appreciatively, despite the doubt in his voice. "She doesn't look like she could tell one end of a knife from another."
This peasant had insulted her more thoroughly than most, and Cassie had long since lost her patience with this uncouth, disrespectful peasant. Drawing her knife, Cassie deliberately tested the edge's sharpness before tapping the tip once against his long nose.
"I can assure you, I know what to do with this end."
Rather than shutting up as she had hoped, James grinned widely with delight. "Where did you find this one, Skylar?" he asked. "I like her!"
Cassie's lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl, but Skylar regretfully intervened. "Cassie, let's not kill anyone this morning. And James, I would step carefully." Skylar's long fingers wrapped around Cassie's wrist, gently urging her to lower the weapon. "She has a temper that could burn down the forest."
"And this time of year we like to avoid fires," James said, glancing up at the drying, browning leaves beginning to appear on the trees. His good cheer remained undampened.
"What are you doing out here?" Skylar asked him as Cassie sheathed her knife. "This far outside the—"
James waved away Skylar's concern. "A favor to Robert," he said. "We're beginning the nut harvest, and he's off wooing." He hoisted the overlarge, full basket up. Cassie had tripped over it and it had not budged, but he was carrying it without any indication of its substantial weight. "I offered to take his place for the day."
"You should not be taking the risk." His expression more severe now, Skylar at last began walking in the direction of Telyre. "If you let down your guard—" This sounded more like the Skylar Cassie knew, constantly fixated on the threats around them.
James brushed off Skylar's chastising without flinching, easily keeping pace with him. "I'm close enough," he said. "And I get cooped up. Need to feel the wind on my face."
"I understand." And Skylar's face was understanding. "But my sister did not save your miserable hide just for you to get picked off within shouting distance of town."
Cassie tripped over a tree root. James was another one of Silvana's rescues? Had he lived with them, too?
James smiled at her when he caught her astonished stare. "Me, too," he said, with a confirming nod. "Just about half the town is at this point," he added, winking at her.
"How is Sarita settling in?" Skylar asked.
James bobbed his head with a hint of a grimace. "Oh, you know, as best as can be expected."
It was not the answer Skylar would have liked to have gotten, that much was clear from his expression. "It's been weeks at this point. Are they not making her welcome?"
"Give it time, Skylar. We all have an adjustment period, and she needs it more than most."
As he spoke, they emerged from the nut grove and the town appeared before them.
Rickety buildings, some two levels, some three, were strewn about as if by some careless god's hand, creating a dizzying array of streets. Nearly every door was brightly colored, with reds, purples, oranges, blues all blending into a swirl of excited madness. It was a far cry from the cool green and brown of the forest and the sad, dull grey of her father's castle.
The chaos of activity was almost the same as the castle, however. Streams of peasants walked to destinations, from destinations, paused in the middle of the street to talk. Songs drifted out of open doors and windows and floated through the road, weaving together a tune of contentment. Above shops were homes, formed by timbers that hugged each other out of fear of coming apart and that gave a general shiver every time someone banged a door open or closed.
Nothing in the cold, stone castle she had grown up in could have prepared Cassie for Telyre. After two decades of being boxed in by the chill that radiated up from the foundation of the fortress, she was hit suddenly by heat, by vitality. The music, the bustling activity, the warmth all made the town feel like a living, breathing entity, like she had walked into the heart of a dragon. It was overpowering. The energy caught her and swallowed her whole.
Her steps were halting as she followed James and Skylar, head swinging back and forth, trying to take in the entire town at once. Half the buildings looked ready to collapse and dry dirt, kicked up by each step down the streets, threatened to choke her, but the sun was shining and from somewhere the scent of fresh bread wafted by, warming her from the inside out.
"Flour and fruit are getting more dear," James was quietly saying to Skylar as they walked. "I hear the new strains they were trying did not handle the summer well. Wynne's doing her best, but even she is struggling. Ever since the Fields were lost—" He broke off, shaking his head. "You might have trouble getting what you need."
"We'll get what we can." Skylar was grim but unsurprised. Had he known that the war would make their mission difficult? "And if we run into too many difficulties, there's always Silvana."
James glanced around. "Not that I would complain to have a few of these people blackmailed into behaving," he said, even quieter than before, "but they're trying not to starve, too. Don't leave them with nothing."
Skylar made no promises, and perhaps James understood he would not.
"I've got to get this to shelling," James said, hoisting his enormous basket higher. "Give Silvana my love. Skylar, take care of yourself."
"Try not to get gutted," was Skylar's idea of a fond farewell, apparently. Neither sang, and neither looked to expect it.
"Cassie," James said then, startling her from taking in the buildings around them. "It's been a genuine pleasure." His smile was different from the one he had given Skylar. Was he—was this was flirting looked like? Was he flirting with her? "You ever get tired of this lout's company, we're less than half a day's walk away."
Skylar glowered as James veered off on one of the myriad streets with a carefree wave, Cassie staring after him, too astounded to think of responding.
"Are they all like that?" she asked at last, still blinking at the street James had disappeared down.
"No," Skylar said carefully. "No, James is—for good or ill, he stands alone."
Cassie nodded without understanding. Was he an outlaw too, who had found a way to live in town rather than the forest? Or did he belong to neither?
"Cassie, the miller?" With a quiet word, Skylar reminded her of the purpose of their visit to Telyre. Of the waste she had caused, and now the extra expense they were likely to have to pay.
"Do you think it's true, what he said?" Cassie asked, following Skylar closely. "About grain being more expensive?"
"He would know." There was a resignation in his voice that had not been there before, or perhaps it was bleakness. Worry.
Didn't he worry enough?
"Skylar." She nervously drew him to a stop in the shade of the nearest building. "The extra cost—I know this is my fault, and I am sorry."
He shrugged, because it was true, but what was the point of rehashing it?
"I'd—well, I want to help," Cassie said, plunging a hand in her pocket. "But I don't know if this—if it could." She pulled out the necklace she had kept with her all this time. "Maybe if we had it melted down, it could help pay for the flour."
Ever-careful Skylar's eyes went wide at the sight of the gleaming stones. "Where did you get that?" he demanded, gaze darting around them for any observers.
"I've always had it," Cassie said. "But Silvana said it would just make you guys more of a target, so I didn't—"
"I bet she did," he muttered to himself, eyes still glued to the gold links in Cassie's palm.
"Would it make you too conspicuous, trying to trade this for flour?"
Skylar shrugged. "They think of us as thieves already. This would not surprise them."
She slid the necklace into his cupped hand, happy to feel some of her debt dissipate.
"If the meat is enough, I will return this," Skylar said, slipping the jewelry into his own pocket.
Cassie shook her head. "I owe you a dozen of them for saving my life, at least."
"You value your life highly," Skylar murmured with the hint of a smile, gesturing that they should continue.
She did not take offense. "Doesn't everyone?" Except for Silvana, it seemed. She had placed no worth on Cassie's life, so saving had been worthy of no recompense. "So if I had offered it to you instead of Silvana, you would have taken it?" she asked as they turned yet another corner.
Skylar chuckled once. "Immediately. But Silvana, she has these...ideals. Integrities."
And yet Silvana was the one who always acted ready to throw Cassie out into the cold. "That she'll help people who need it?"
"Only if she feels like it." Skylar looked up, squinting against the midday glare of the sun, before making another turn.
"And she won't accept payment for it?"
Skylar stopped and turned to Cassie, but there was no aggression in him as he towered over her. "What you need to understand about the forest, Cassie, is that just because no money changes hands, it does not mean things are free. A life-debt is more valuable than anything, because when it comes time to collect, you can demand most any price."
"Is that what she does? Gathers life-debts?" Was it a way for Silvana to feel powerful? Or was it how she protected herself and her brother?
"Sometimes. But we haven't made you take an oath for one yet, so..." Skylar turned away with a shrug, looking unhappy to know as little as Cassie did.
"What happened to her?" The question was accidental, slipping out as Cassie followed Skylar's footsteps but allowed her mind to continue racing its own paths.
Now Skylar did turn to her with a scowl.
"I just mean—she's always so mean," Cassie said, nettled by his reaction.
The tension disappeared as Skylar laughed.
"And she acts like every word costs her a year of her life. Every time I try talking to her, it's like my presence is a personal affront, much less the conversation. She can't have always been—like that." What could have happened to them in Trenoriah to make turn her into the banisè Cassie knew?
"She was, though," Skylar said, thoughtfully. "Quiet, anyway. She never liked talking much. She had friends, they would have entire conversations and she wouldn't say a word. She liked it that way, and they liked how she listened." He paused as group of peasants walked past, the trio of women giving the banisè a wide enough berth one would think he had the plague. "Nothing wrong with someone who doesn't need to fill every silence with nonsense."
There was perhaps a difference between someone who did not need to fill silences, and someone who chose to create silences, but Cassie kept that thought to herself.
"When we were—banished," Skylar continued, forcing the word out, "she was injured. We could not afford a healer, and there are no doctors here. I had to do the best I could with the little I'd learned." He stared at the tops of the buildings, clearly disliking this story. "It was not enough. She healed badly, and the pain—she still carries it. It's better some days, worse some. But always there. It makes a good mood difficult to maintain."
So her constantly short temper was because she was always in pain? "You're always so patient with her." Cassie chose not to mention the one time she had heard Skylar lose his own temper, when she was eavesdropping on them.
He stared at the ground. "It's not her fault, not really. Living with pain—it changes you."
Silvana seemed to enjoy that change, seemed to relish her own rudeness, but Cassie knew better than to say that. Skylar sounded like he took his sister's perpetual bad mood as his own personal penance. "It's not your fault, either," she said, nearly bumping into him as he stopped without warning. "She can't blame you for doing the best you could."
He shrugged without looking away from the building he had stopped in front of, what looked like a vendor of grains. "She doesn't blame me," he said quietly. "But someone should." He did not bother waiting for a response, instead raising his voice abruptly and shouting for the shopkeeper.
"What do you want?" came the rude shout back from within the shop.
The door opened, releasing a fine cloud of whitish dust into the street to mix with the dust of the dirt. From the cloud emerged a man wiping his hands as he peered through the dimness of his shop. The apron he wore did little to contain the dusty white and yellow powders streaking his clothes. His expression, pinched with consistent worry, did little to alleviate Cassie's concerns.
"We need some flour," Skylar said, remaining on the street and stooping slightly to talk to him.
The shopkeeper eyed them doubtfully. "I hope you have enough for it," he said.
The deer carcass was only worth a handful of the flour they needed. The shopkeeper's eyes had narrowed in accusation when Skylar produced the necklace, offhandedly asking how much it would get them. But he took it, and when they left Telyre without so much as a goodbye from any other citizen, they were carrying twice the weight the deer had been in flour.
"Anything good?" Skylar asked when Silvana joined them a short ways from Telyre's boundary, silently falling into step behind Cassie.
"A draft dodger, somebody is watering down beer, black market dye trading, and one of them sold out Hazel." As she spoke, Silvana passed them pies, the crisp crust still warm. Cassie did not ask how she had gotten them.
Skylar glanced back with raised eyebrows. "On purpose?"
"Does it matter?"
He considered this, then acknowledged her point with a bob of his head. "Well done," he said.
"And you," Silvana said around a mouthful, considering the sacks they bore. "Prices go down?"
Skylar glanced at Cassie before looking away quickly. "Something like that."
The journey home was easier, somehow feeling faster than it had that morning. Perhaps it was nothing more than Cassie's eagerness to be beside a warm fire, to be done walking and worrying about someone seeing her and asking too many questions. Perhaps it was simple familiarity with the path they had already taken that morning.
And perhaps it was the feeling that Cassie somehow fit into this life, into their lives, rather than being an outsider and an imposition. At some point on the walk to Telyre or while they were in the town, they had slipped into acceptance. She and Skylar had shared the burden of buying the flour and he had trusted her enough to share some of their history with her. Silvana had gotten them all the same simple pies, and as they ate them Cassie had passed her the wineskin they had filled with a clear brook's water, which the banisè had drunk from and then returned as though it was natural. A simple meal, shared while they walked, without a word needing to be spoken—was there any higher intimacy than that?