Sarafyna

  The border stands before me, impossibly tall and wide. The stone monument in the sky silently screams at me, forbidding me from passing through. To everyone else, the barrier itself was invisible. I suppose it is for me too, but . . . some feelings are so intense they can nearly be seen. The rejection and contempt of this border are tangible, and while the air remains empty and I couldn’t describe what it looks like, I can see exactly where the border starts. This. I flew through the day and night, exhausting myself, for this. This hideous barrier, caging the people on both sides. And I don’t want to pass through it. I’m afraid.

  When I came here, only a few days ago, my divine magic failed me. My whisper spheres won’t connect with anyone back home. My hats don’t connect with the hat shop. What I’ve done to the Radiant Woods hasn’t changed, but nothing else is working. There are only two things that absolutely can’t fail me, and the hat shop is one. The other is Annie. If my divine magic fails, she dies. I can’t accept that. I refuse to accept that. As long as I live in this world, so will she. So many lives have been leaning on Annie since I met her, and I brought her here to shoulder that burden. So I am determined to carry the burden of her still heart in return. I will keep Annie alive.

  This is why I'm afraid. Because my magic doesn’t work when this wall is between me and my target. Not always. I am terrified I will walk through this border, and Annie will die. But I have to go. I know I have to go. I’d never forgive myself for the consequences of refusing. Annie would never forgive herself either. I can still feel her. If I focus, I can see her. She is okay. She is alive. And she is fighting. I have to fight too. I take a deep breath. The hat shop remained when I passed through. I can’t control it as well, but it still exists, and the Radiant Woods didn’t take my part of the nexus back. The hat shop and Annie together own almost all the magic I have access to. If the shop survived, my girlfriend will as well.

  If she doesn’t, well. I will turn around and bring her back. I’ll have to tell her then, why I can’t go back without her. I’ll have to face whatever she says when she knows the truth. Whatever she asks me to do. But she will be alive. I close my eyes and tremble. I have told myself I can save her again and again. No matter how many times I tell myself this, taking the first step toward that risk is still too hard. But I can feel her. I can feel her need to keep her remaining family safe. She is counting on me to do that. To keep everything she has fought for from falling apart. And so, because I love her, I take a step. The wall surrounds me, trying to refuse me. It feels like the slime of a priest’s gaze. The aching underneath my skin taunts me. It reminds me of my childhood. The day my father nearly killed himself trying to save me.

  But I am stronger now. Stronger than those priests. Stronger than this violent wall. Annie has made me stronger. I ignore the hostile energy assaulting me and picture Annie’s face. Her eyes of blood, her eyes of earth. Her straight, obsidian hair. Her curled, mahogany hair. She has two faces. Two bodies. I can see and feel them both. I am seen and felt by both. My mind goes back to that final night before I left. That joy and that relaxation. As I walk I live in that moment of vulnerability with the woman I love, and before I know it I have crossed the border.

  I immediately collapse to my knees, gripping my beating heart with both hands. I can feel her. I can still feel her. She’s still alive. I can do this. I can do this and Annie will survive. I taste the salt of tears as they pass my lips. Tension like a thorn falls from my back, allowing my blood to flow freely. My shoulders slump. She’s alive. I can keep her alive even from here. I can keep her alive. Which means it is time to move. I have wasted enough time already. I need to act.

  The Radiant Woods was several days walk from here, or several hours flight for me. But I don’t need to do either. I brought my own route back. Now, on the other side of the border, I can use all of my abilities again. Which means as soon as I have a decent place to hide, I can reach wherever I need to in an instant. I look around the empty meadow for anything I can use as shelter. Nothing. I sigh, idly rubbing the brim of my hat. It helps me center my mind, a little. I suppose I should contact Edward before I do anything. If they are all well, I can spend this entire week looking for Leo. I sit down on a bed of lilies and take my bag off my back. I dig through it, past the other, more magical hat I’ve brought, and grab the whisper sphere.

  When I try to contact Ed, however, the sphere glows for a few moments before going dark again. I frown a little. That’s not good. Nervous sweat forces me to remove my hat before it’s ruined. If Annie lost another brother . . . no. I can’t think about that right now. I have to try someone else. Next I call Gilbert, Annie’s oldest brother. This time a voice answers almost immediately.

  “Ed is that you? Is everything alright? We’re coming as soon as we can, hang in there just a little longer!” Gil promises before I get a chance to speak.

  “Gil? It’s Sara, what happened to Ed?” I ask.

  “Sarafyna? You’re okay, thank the– thank someone! We haven’t been able to get in contact with you! Can you make it back? We need help!” he says and my breath catches. I wasn’t gone for that long, and everything was fine when I was here. I try to control the panic climbing my mind like a rope ladder and respond.

  “Yes, I can get back. What happened, where do you need me?” I ask.

  “Visenar, as soon as you can, Ed needs help,” Gil replies immediately. “It’s the victims of the Radiant Woods. They are leaving, attacking the settlements. They have been for days.” The trembling in my hands returns as a million implications crash down around me like a falling mountain. No. They aren’t supposed to leave. They aren’t even supposed to be able to survive outside the woods. But if they are hurting people . . . there is no way to avoid someone getting hurt. I wanted to save them. I wanted to save them all. But now, after the woods finally lets them go, I don’t have Annie’s knowledge to help me. People are going to die. People have probably already died. On both sides.

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  But why does he want me in Visenar? Then it occurs to me. The great tree, by the gallows. The tree I put there. ‘Ed needs help’, he said. Annie’s brother needs help, because of me. “I’m on my way,” I promise, then put the sphere away. I wanted to check in, then talk to Dad and Pete. I was hoping to find Leo quickly, then return to Annie. But this . . . this is a nightmare. The Radiant Woods won’t leave me alone. They won’t stop torturing me, long after I escaped them. Long after I conquered them. They still hurt the ones I love.

  I glance around again. Nowhere to hide the hat. I don’t have time to look. I could maybe grow a new tree of the Radiant Woods here, but that’s what caused the issue in the first place. I’ll just have to risk it. I pull the hat from my bag, gently replacing it with my old one. With no time to waste, I put the new hat on. The hat I brought from my hat shop. The one still connected to it. A breath later, I am inside the Nexus, surrounded by my hats. The safest place in the world, except next to Annie. We were supposed to use this method to travel back regularly, before the border got in the way. I don’t wait longer than a moment. I won’t let Annie lose another brother. I run to the nearest exit, making a sharp left and running into the Radiant Woods the second I emerge.

  “Welcome back, Sarafyna. We all missed you.”

  Years of fear and abuse stab me like needles the moment I enter. A thousand times I have felt this, for Annie’s sake. For everyone’s sake. Recently only for Leo. I ignore them. I tune out the voice. I simply find Visenar in my mind, and leave the woods again. I don’t have time to confront the Collector or listen to his taunts. I’m not the child he owned anymore. And I don’t much like the woman I become when I’m reminded of what he did to that child. I emerge into a cage of ice and broken glass. It’s empty, except for stains of blood in the dirt and rotting wood. The ice is clear as a window and I can see a group of mages surrounding me, and the radiant tree, on all sides. I can see evidence of abuse on the ice, like something had been hammering and cutting at it, trying to escape. But there is nothing here. No one.

  The urgency that rushed me here is replaced with confusion. I look up to see the ice and glass extends all the way to the top of the tree. If there is somewhere Ed needed my help, it was surely here. It’s obvious there was some kind of struggle to keep something contained. The victims of the Radiant Woods, according to Gilbert. But why did they leave? Why now? The answer to this question seems obvious, considering the timing, but I don’t want to accept it. Because if it’s what I think it is . . . the implications rest on my shoulders like stone.

  As I am examining my surroundings, desperate for my theory to be wrong, the ice begins to melt in just one spot, creating an opening large enough to walk through. A woman with braids appears in the opening and tilts her head at me. “How did you make them leave?” She asks. I clench my fists and close my eyes. So they did leave just before I got here. And, if I had to guess, they showed up just after I crossed the border. It’s going to be longer than a week before I can see Annie again.

  Charlotte

  We emerge, for the first time, in a clearing we have already been in. We have been heading in one direction this entire time, but it could not be more obvious that we have circled back around at some point. I recognize the stones and the moss of this spot. We found one of our new allies here. The path we previously took is clear as well. The Radiant Woods is toying with us. We can’t afford this. There are several dozen of us now, and it’s growing harder to feed everyone. Everyone we save seems to have mana, but few of them have access to it in a meaningful way. I’ve needed to change all of my aspects in order to keep everyone fed and clothed. And if we start retreading land, even that will be more difficult.

  “I thought everyone was going in one direction, why are we here again?” Frey asks from slightly behind me. They quickly became one of Leo’s closer friends and are often near the front of the crowd with us. They aren’t the only one wondering what's going on, and an uneasy whisper ripples through the group further behind us.

  Leo looks around, his almost constant smile wavering for the first time in days. “I’m not sure,” he answers. “Something has changed.” He’s right. I don’t know what’s changed, but I think I know why it resulted in us coming back here.

  “We are here for the same reason we have only found other people like us. Other people born in the entirely wrong body and abandoned here,” I answer.

  “What do you mean?” Leo asks. I glance back at the nervous crowd.

  “We’re being led somewhere. I don’t know where, and I don’t know why. But the people we are saving . . .” I trail off as I think about the new, hope-filled Leo I have grown to love since he first brought someone back. I don’t want to ruin that. But he has to know. “They’re being used as bait. Bait to bring us somewhere,” I finish. I expect Leo’s expression to fall. I expect the hopelessness of his isolation to return. But instead, he grins.

  “Well, wherever they are leading us, they are delivering us to our lives, our bodies, as we are supposed to be. I say we use that as long as we can and face whatever they are trying to trap us into together,” he responds. I’m a bit taken aback. All that time around Lillith, I have seen a lot of people grow more passionate. More hopeful. But usually, more desperate and angry at the same time. Leo’s unassailable and unbridled joy is all him. How long must it have lived inside him? How long have I held it back, in the name of earning a real life for him. How long have my concessions to the world I thought was unchangeable kept him from this joy? How many years could he have felt like this, had I helped him fight sooner?

  “Then why would it take us back here?” Frey asks. “I know the nexus, and the assholes who sent us there, are a bunch of stupid pricks but surely they wouldn’t want to turn us around for no reason?”

  He’s not wrong. Unless they want to drive us to starvation. But eventually, we’ll just stop and start growing food locally. Going on trips to find more victims of the woods. We won’t starve. “Something has definitely changed,” I answer. “Wherever they are leading us, they don’t want us to get there right now.” What, I don’t know. But something has changed.