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Chapter 10 - The Ride

Veyloran Forest held the kind of quiet that asked to be kept. No wind. No speech. Only the faint, layered sounds of things small enough to survive, crickets, the brush of wings, a ripple through leaves that never reached the ground. Catalina moved ahead, her outline breaking and reforming between trunks, the hem of her cloak whispering across damp ferns. Jaka followed three paces behind, careful not to break the rhythm she set. The night pressed close, cool against his face, heavy with the smell of bark and earth.

For hours they said nothing. In The dark just listening.

Then Jaka's stomach betrayed him with a low, hollow growl that seemed far too loud in the hush. Catalina stopped. The corners of her mouth twitched, not quite a smile, more an acknowledgment of the body's blunt honesty.

"That's not the forest," she murmured.

He didn't answer. She was already kneeling, scanning the underbrush with the same attention another might reserve for a wound. Her hand went for her bow over her shoulder, smooth and certain, the motion practiced a thousand nights before this one. The string gave a soft sigh as she drew.

Jaka could barely see his own boots. Pondered what she could possibly see.

A whisper of tension. A flash. The arrow vanished into black.

A moment later, a snap with a faint cry. A small, clean sound. Catalina straightened and walked toward it, returning with a rabbit dangling from her fingers. She knelt, said something under her breath in a language Jaka didn't know, and ended it with a short exhale that sounded like thanks. Then she began to work, quick and efficient, her knife catching stray gleams of starlight.

Jaka watched without offering help. He knew better than to break the ritual of a hunter, this was her territory.

When the fire came, it was no larger than her cupped hands could hide. She built it low, using the driest bark she could find, coaxing flame without smoke. The smell of singed fur drifted once, then was gone.

They ate in silence. The meat was plain, the warmth welcome. When he finished, Jaka wiped his fingers on the grass and stared into the coals until they blurred. The stillness around him began to thicken, not peaceful now, but waiting. A pulse formed beneath his ribs, slow, deep, not his own.

He froze.

Catalina looked up immediately, eyes catching the faint red of the fire. "What?"

He pressed a hand to his chest. "Kai." The word scraped out of him. "He's in pain."

"You need to get to him"

"How, I don't even know where he truly is."

"There's a way," she said. "Old magic, if you believe in that sort of thing."

He stared at her, the ache in his chest still pulsing, stronger now that hope had a shape. "Up until today, I just called Kai and my grandfather crazy."

Catalina doused the fire with a handful of dirt, grinding the embers flat until the night reclaimed its silence.

They packed what little they had. She slung the bow, reclaimed her arrows, checked the string with a quick pluck that barely sounded. Jaka adjusted the strap of his pack and followed as she slipped back into the trees.

The path narrowed, the canopy pressing lower. Mist pooled around their knees, silver in what little moonlight reached through. The further they went, the older the forest felt, roots like veins, stones etched with patterns worn too faint to read. Jaka kept his eyes forward, his breath steady, trying not to think of what Kai might be enduring while they walked.

Once, Catalina paused, listening. A branch creaked above them, nothing more. "Almost there," she said quietly. "You'll know when we cross into the Grove. The air changes."

He wanted to ask what she meant but didn't. Words felt heavy here, as though curiosity had weight.

They climbed a small rise and stopped at its crest. Beyond the forest opened into a wide hollow washed in faint light. Trees gave way to tall grass and pale stone. The moon, freed from the branches, hung full and cold above the clearing. Jaka felt the air thin, as if the world itself were taking a breath.

Catalina's voice dropped to something almost reverent. "Myralis Grove."

He looked down into the hollow. Roots thick as ship's ropes braided through the soil, glinting faintly where moisture gathered. At the center stood a circle of stones carved smooth by centuries of weathering. The stillness there wasn't lifeless; it was listening, it was deep.

Catalina stepped forward until the edge of her cloak brushed the grass. "We rest here," she said. "When the moon reaches its height, I'll begin the fold."

Jaka said nothing. His chest still ached, each heartbeat a reminder that every moment here was a moment lost for his brother. But he followed her down the slope anyway. The ground underfoot changed, softer, as if it remembered other footsteps that had trusted it with the same desperation.

At the circle's edge, Catalina unshouldered her pack and drew out a slim wooden case. She set it carefully on the nearest stone but did not open it yet. Instead, she looked to him, the lines of her face caught halfway between resolve and exhaustion.

"Eat again if you can," she said. "It may be a long night."

He shook his head. "I just need to move."

"You will." Her gaze flicked to the horizon where the first pale edge of the moon climbed clear. "If I play it right, you will feel it, keep your focus on Kai. The path will open to the thought you hold closest."

"And if I lose it?"

She met his eyes. "Then the forest will decide where you belong."

For the first time since the pain struck him, Jaka felt something steadier than fear, a direction, fragile but real. He looked toward the rising moon, fists clenched at his sides.

Catalina gave a single nod, neither approval nor comfort, only acknowledgment. From her pack she pulled out a violin. She knelt by the case and brushed a thin layer of dirt from its lid. The clasp clicked open.

The violin inside caught the moonlight like still water.

She glanced once toward Jaka. "Take Neris, When it's time, you'll ride."

The mare waited just beyond the stones, dark as river rock, her coat shifting between black and silver where the moon touched it. Long strands of her mane drifted in the breeze like threads of water, and her eyes caught the light, calm, knowing, unafraid. She looked less born than shaped by the night itself.

He didn't ask how. He only watched as she lifted the instrument, the bow resting lightly in her other hand, and the first small wind stirred through the clearing, as if the forest itself leaned closer to listen.

Moonlight pooled over the clearing like spilled water.

Catalina stood within the ring of stones, hair pulled back, sleeves rolled past her wrists. The violin rested beneath her chin, the bow poised but not yet moving. Around her, the roots of Myralis breathed, the faint, slow pulse of living wood deep under soil. Jaka felt it through his boots, a rhythm older than blood.

He kept to the edge of the circle, hands clenched. The pain in his chest had eased, but only because it had sunk lower, coiled tight around his ribs. Kai was still alive. He could feel that truth. What he couldn't feel was how long that truth would last.

Catalina drew a single note.

The sound was small, almost nothing, yet the forest reacted as if struck. The grass stilled; the night insects fell silent one by one. A thin tremor ran through the ground and into Jaka's legs, then steadied.

The first true phrase bloomed soft as breath. No melody, only tone, drawn long, bending at the edge, the kind of sound that makes distance hesitate. The moonlight thickened, turning the air pale and fluid. Catalina changed chords, the bow trembling in controlled vibration. The new tone struck something in Jaka's chest; the ache for Kai flared sharp, then spread outward until he felt it in his arms, his hands, his teeth. He bit down against a cry.

Catalina didn't flinch. Her eyes were half-closed, the bow hand steady, drawing circles through the air as if stitching the world back to itself. The light over the clearing began to bend. It didn't brighten, it thickened. The trees at the edge of the Grove blurred into each other, trunks elongating, branches smearing across the sky. The night's shape was being rewritten.

Catalina's voice entered the music, a whisper more breathed than sung. Words in no language he recognized, rising and falling in rhythm with the bow. He couldn't tell if they were prayer or command. Either way, the world listened.

A gust of wind swept outward from the center, carrying the smell of stone after rain. Jaka stumbled a step forward before he realized the air itself was folding, curving inward like a tide pulling everything toward a single point.

At the edge of the Grove, the dark mare stood waiting where she had been tethered. Jaka hadn't even seen her move there. He ran, heart pounding, grabbed the reins, and swung into the saddle. The animal trembled beneath him, not with fear, but with some knowledge of what was coming.

Catalina's music shifted again, faster now, the bow flashing like light off steel. The soil between the stones split open along a pattern too deliberate to be crack, lines of faint silver spread outward in geometric arcs. The mare sidestepped, hooves clattering against roots that pulsed once, twice, then went still.

Catalina's gaze found him through the shimmering air. Her lips shaped words he barely heard over the music:

"Hold the thought. Only him. Nothing else."

He nodded, gripping the reins. The world narrowed to the ache of his brother's name.

Catalina took a breath that seemed to draw the whole forest with it and played the final note.

It cut the night clean in half.

Everything tilted. The silver lines blazed white. Wind screamed without sound. The mare reared, Jaka clung to her neck, teeth clenched. For a heartbeat the ground dropped away, and he saw, impossibly, miles of dark country rolling beneath them. 

Then the world snapped. The Grove was gone. Grass whipped around him, flattened by the sudden rush of air. The moon still hung above, but larger now, brighter, the stars rearranged. The mare galloped without being told, hooves drumming over new earth, open grassland, dew glittering in the light. Behind them, nothing remained of Myralis but the faint scent of ash and cedar.

Jaka leaned forward, eyes fixed on the horizon. The land fell and rose wide, breathing waves. Wind tore through his hair; the cold made his eyes water. He didn't dare look back. The fold, Catalina had said, would last only as long as the song did, and he didn't know how long she would play.

They crested a low ridge. Below, a shallow river braided through stone. Neris, he remembered the name now, took it at a bound, hooves splashing cold spray across his boots. The sound shocked him with how real it was. He laughed once, short and breathless, half disbelief.

The ground changed again, hills giving way to broken farmland, the black shapes of old windmills turning slow in the distance. Their blades caught the moon and flashed like signal mirrors. He found the faint tracks of old wagons and followed, the mare's stride sure even at speed. The music had left the air, but a residue remained, a pressure against his skin, guiding, holding the world thin around him. He clung to it, urging the horse on.

The horizon darkened. A line of mountains? No, walls. Not natural stone but built, rising from the plain like a scar. Towers jagged and uneven, joined by shadowed ramparts. Torash.

Off in the distance he could see torches, no movement. The silence of the place reached him long before the distance closed. It wasn't absence, it was containment, the same kind of hush he'd felt in the forest before Catalina loosed her arrow. The air itself braced against intrusion.

Neris slowed on her own, muscles shuddering under his knees. The last trace of light in the ruts dimmed and went still. The fold had ended.

Jaka drew her to a halt at the crest of the final hill. Behind him the wind carried nothing of the Grove, not even a scent. Ahead, the fortress crouched against the plain, stone walls black under the moon. The air smelled of iron and sand.

He exhaled slowly. The pulse in his chest answered from somewhere inside those walls, faint but certain.

"Kai," he whispered.

He dismounted, letting the mare breathe. Steam rose from her flanks. She turned her head toward him, one ear flicking back, patient, waiting for command. He rested a hand on her neck.

"You did well," he said. "I'll take it from here."

The horse tossed her head once, as if she understood.

Jaka looked once more toward Torash. A gate cut into the wall like a wound stitched shut. No guards, no torches, only the suggestion of depth beyond. He felt the pull in his chest again, pain, need, something calling him forward.

He tightened the strap on his pack, adjusted the knife at his belt, and started down the hill.

Behind him, the air shifted, the faintest vibration, the echo of a last note finally fading. Somewhere far away, beneath the silver canopy of Myralis Grove, Catalina lowered the bow and pressed a hand to the ground, whispering a single word the forest would keep for her.

"Goodluck."

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