10 March 2373

  Faerie Adventure Day 6,

  A long day's march showed us the mud dried and the forest once again unnaturally whole. Along our path, we scavenged for fruits and berries to supplement our lost food. However, when consumed raw, I found these had a heady effect much like wine. Faerie fruits indeed live up to the legends. When previously we cooked them, they nourished without the side effects. I will consider myself fortunate if any of these wild fruits make jams, even without sugar to preserve them. I suspect it is possible; they taste sweet enough. For now, the pair of us lack a stove. Details on the fruits and seeds we have discovered will no doubt be logged by Fennorin Willowbirth, Professor Emeritus.

  Until next we rest,

  Mellark

  From The Truth and the Fae: A Memoir

  By Mellark Brandybeard

  At the sound of shuffling brush, Fenn stifled Mell’s snoring. With the other hand, he braced further back into the nook where they hid. Mell stirred with a jolt and he motioned for silence. On the other side of a fern, a sounder of cladafrum shuffled through the brush, tossing up roots, licking, and replacing them stripped of insects.

  When Mell nodded, he lowered his hand from her mouth. Together, they watched the creatures pass, observing in tense silence how they cradled the plants in their tusks and replaced them gently so as not to enrage the forest. One grubbed near their shelter, but the two went unnoticed in their quiet.

  When at last the group ambled off, both of them sighed out.

  “I thought we were going to die for sure,” Mell admitted, closing her eyes and leaning back against the bark that had minutes before been her pillow.

  Fenn pushed aside a stack of freshly restored books, too exhausted to respond. When they had stopped, neither of them had made a move to unfurl the tent. It simply wasn’t worth the effort. Or practical. According to Krid’s rules, one of them should’ve been standing watch. Neither of them knew what they were looking for, much less how to fight off predators, so they had decided it was better to shelter together in this nook naturally carved between two trees. There, an animal would not know of them til it scented them or ran right atop them.

  Fenn plucked up a waterlogged biscuit and chewed it dutifully. Then, he pulled open his notebook, intending to analyze the day’s events. He stared at the empty page as he sucked on the soggy bread in his cheek, thinking. Or rather trying to think, to consider the storm and its mysterious origins. It was hard to focus on that when they were all wandering around, separated, lost in the Faeworld because of his failures. It wearied his mind where the travel wearied his body.

  A huge clepshoth swooped in front of him, snatching up a screaming fox-like critter which had been well-hidden in the ferns.

  Mell startled from her rest. “What?!” She gazed around, putting a hand on the staff beside her.

  He pressed her back to the tree with a hissed “S,” peering out between the foliage. The shoth had been huge.

  “It’s gone.” He sighed and leaned back into their nook. He looked down at his page.

  “Strange how guilt and soggy bread both turn to gum in the mouth,” was the only sentence there, written in his own hand.

  Mell groaned softly, pinching her eyes. “Fenn, do you have any ideas for what we’ll eat tomorrow?” They both knew the bread would mold now that it was wet.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. He could eat the fruit, his body was built for this realm, but her… I shouldn’t have asked her to come. “I’m sorry, Mell. I don’t know. We don’t have the stove to cook yuka for you, and it would be best if you didn’t grow intoxicated every time we ate.”

  “Could we catch shoth?”

  “I’m no trapper.”

  “Me neither. But what about shooting them?”

  “With what?”

  “Your light crossbow–or, no, it broke didn’t it?” She yawned and laid her braids against the bark again, her shoulders sagging in defeat. “I’d think better if I could sleep more than a few minutes.”

  He nodded in agreement. “I can probably build a new one, but it’ll take days we don’t have.” His thumb rubbed the page, and he let the familiar texture comfort him. We’re not dead now.

  Mell heaved another sigh. “There isn’t anything about edibility in any of those books, is there?”

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  Fenn pulled one from the stack of dried tomes. “This one has information on flora. I never studied it for edibility, but it mentions properties for potions and medicines–probably the reason they’re remembered at all. It might help you… I hope…” he trailed off, not wanting to linger on the morbidity of the situation. It seemed more likely they would become food than find any for Mell.

  “Well, as long as we’re resting, I suppose I could browse,” she said, grim.

  He added another line to his notebook: And fear and dehydration both sap it of moisture. Fortunately, we lack no water, though we may soon if the former continues.

  Dysren stood in a world he did not know. It was barely past dawn, but a bright white sun beat down on his dark hair. That morning, he had stood upon frosty grass, but now he choked on hot, humid air unlike any he’d felt before. Creatures squawked and screamed all around them, some high above in towering trees with long, fanning leaves; some in low branches of pudgy trees with wrinkly bark; and some even hiding behind broad, fingery leaves that sheltered the trees’ matted roots.

  Two other Everguards followed behind him as he shoved his way through a thicket of broad, smooth leaves like great big lily pads on stalks. Other groups of three had fanned out in each direction, each seeking signs of where Fenn might have gone.

  They were quiet, tense. This mission was the first dangerous one any of them had ever been on, and they didn’t even understand the dangers. The threats that they had been briefed on were the consequences of betrayal. Their citizenship was on the line, as well as a generous amount of time imprisoned under the mountain. A secret of a national conspiracy, this unnamed “other realm” was. He knew it to be the Wildlands of lore, but what that meant, he did not know. Or the reason anyone would go there.

  Fenn… why?

  While he thought, he kept an eye on the bug-infested surroundings. He had discovered that the threatened “LOT” seventy-two the Ceanns had mentioned was a Law of Tradition. Exile under threat of death for those who refuse to silence their “heresy.” He could only assume it was the fate which awaited Fenn if he returned: immediate imprisonment followed by permanent exile. No trial needed.

  A cry rose up in alarm. Dysren spun. It must have been from two or three groups over. “Let’s go!” he told his squad. He need not have. They plunged through the thick forest. He could see a flock of scaly bird-things rising into a spiral. They circled their threatening ring faster and faster, their cries growing in aggression. He led his two on a full charge. They arrived just in time to see the trees retreating as the not-birds lowered into them. The trees had been bent over the other squad.

  “All I did was cut a bush out of my way!” One elfman postured to another. “What did you do?!”

  “I haven’t done anything. And neither has Pamonel, so leave off the accusing tone!” his squadmate returned.

  “Then what happened?”

  Cut a bush? Dysren had a thought. He pulled his sword and held out one of the broad leaves from its stem. He sliced. The plants around him quivered as a hot, angry wind circled him, the birds screeching. Slowly, it stilled. The members of both squads stared at him.

  He gritted his teeth and sheathed his sword. “Looks like the forest is alive. I wouldn’t cut any more plants if I were you.”

  The others looked at one other, as if no longer sure what to do. Dysren kicked aside the big leaf he’d cut and turned to resume his route. Before he set his boot back down he saw it: a hawk feather on the ground. He almost looked over it, as common as those were on the mountain. But he wasn’t on the mountain.

  “Aha!” He scooped it up. Its vanes were clumped and the shaft was full of mud. But that meant it was hollow. He poked his finger on the bottom. Sharp. This was a quill. “He’s been here.”

  The others gathered around to see, all nodding their affirmation.

  “Spread out, look for more signs.” This was not his squadron, but Dez took command by habit, and the others obeyed.

  A call rose from further lateral to the sun, another squad. They also had found something. Dysren kept his group seeking clues along their path until they came upon what the others had found. At the edge of a patch of grass, a busted-up box of swollen firewood was propped against a tree. Another tree had ruined, wrinkled books tangled in its roots. There had been a camp here, and it had been flooded.

  Anger boiled up inside of Dysren. Fenn better not have gotten himself killed. Or Galendria for that matter.

  Ceann Willowbirth stepped into the clearing, cooly surveying other clusters of campsite litter left behind. For once, he had not worn his superfluous robes but had opted for a more practical tunic and pant set with rich embroidery and a metal-woven jerkin. “Gather up the books and bring them to my office. Leave the rest. None of you are to speak of this with anyone.” He set his sights on Dysren, tilting his chin up to look down his nose. “Not even your families.”

  Dysren’s jaw clenched. “We aren’t going after him?”

  “Surely you must have noticed. He either has drowned in a flood, or is long gone and his tracks erased by it. Seeking him would be dangerous and of no value to us.” The Ceann turned toward the way they had entered, two guards accompanying him.

  Of no value to seek your own son? Dysren’s fists balled, ready to swing. He would not, of course. That would be suicide. Still, Fenn’s own father had abandoned Fenn as easily as if he were a rotten peach on the ground. Does he care at all?

  Dysren thought of his matron and the second babe he would soon hold in his arms, and was thankful to know that his children had a father who cared. And he would be around to care, despite the risks he took. He was determined that he would.

  Against his nature, Dysren picked through the camp meticulously, hoping for some sign that Fenn had moved on. Though the belongings had trailed far, and many a torn sack and piece of basket or barrel lay strewn, the evidence was not in what he found, but in what he didn’t. Not only were there no signs of any tents, but Fenn’s satchel, the sacrilegious leather one that never left his side, was nowhere to be found.

  Fenn was still out there. If nothing else, Dysren could tell both their mother and the Silverstems this: whether or not Fenn ever returned, whether he was a traitor or not, he was alive. Probably.