The King Trials 2: Beyond.

“Welcome to the Silverwood.”

The entire riding convoy slows their steeds to a steady trot.

I can feel my jaw slacken. My eyes explore the metallic forest, everything in sight shines under the lustre of a scintillating sun. Though every gnarly tree and shrub are bare, all the twisting limbs and knobby branches are coated in sheer metal. The earth beneath the horses’ hooves is like star dust.

I cannot smell a thing. Nothing in the air, the wind itself is scant. The only thing I feel is the mounting heat, bearable, but the further we venture, the more the temperature seems to spike.

“This is…remarkable,” Solaris breathes from beside me.

My gaze glides up the prevailing trees encrusted in steel. No leaves nor foliage or any kind of vegetation burgeons. Everything is entombed in a veneer of silver.

“What…made this forest to look like this?” Treyton asks from my rear.

Anthia and her brother trek on foot ahead of Kelan’s horse.

“Time,” Anthia says. But the way she uttered the word with such a meld of grim and sorrow. “The Silverwood is known as the place of last blood. The end of Pavelia. A futile, final battle between the reminder of the Ulris’s forces and Urium battalions.”

Aries instantly picks off from where she left, and says, “The predecessors had successfully managed to close the portal, the breach between the hellscapes and here, cutting off their means of sending in a surge of reinforcements. Thus ending the war, the Eternal Eclipse had passed and with it, Vilnus’s strength and the might of his malign soldiers dwindled.”

The time of black sun.

Anthia adds her voice and says, “This place is where the last of them fought. The result of their dark magic resulted in this territory looking like it was plagued by the Black Death. Even powerful Hitsches were not able to heal it completely but salvage it in a different way.”

“So nothing grows out here?” Markiveus questions with a raised voice, loud enough to be heard from all the way at the back. “No fruits or anything?”

“Everything is literally steeled in silver, you imbecile,” Brennon spews. I can practically hear the eyeroll in his tenor. “What do you think?”

“Unless you want rejoin with our dead Herems, I suggest you learn how to speak to your betters.”

Brennon snorts a wry laugh. “We bear the same title?”

“And yet you are still inferior to me,” Markiveus retorts.

“Enough,” Vince exclaims with a fatherly reproach. “Stop squabbling like children, your mere voices make my ears bleed.”

My shoulders keep slouching no matter how many times I amend my posture. My torso bopping to the rhythm of the Arabian’s gait. “Wait.” I stare at the back of Anthia’s hooded head.

“If the devastation of this place mirrors the Black Death. And if even powerful Hitsches were not able to restore the land to not only what it was but to revive its fertility. What does it mean for the farmlands that have been infected by this blight?”

Anthia sneaks a look off her shoulder, her hood still shielding her face.

“Yes,” Treyton harmonises. “The Black Death is a sickness that is rapidly spreading through Urium. Never mind its origin, is there a way to reverse its affects?”

“The place of last blood has been like this for thousands of cycles,” Aries says gravely, his voice devoid of hope. “And still now it remains. If there is a way, it is still to be discovered.”

The majority of our journey are intervals of cumbersome silences and fleeting, informative exchanges. As the hours go by, the westering sun makes its gradual descent. When it dips below the horizon, sparking the skyline alight with eddies of fiery oranges and a stria of flaming red.

Eventually we reach a sizeable clearing, wide enough to host our encampment. The Avangard soldiers start pitching up their makeshift tents, and by Herem Brennon’s demand, they set up his, and graciously the rest of ours as well.

“So should we…collect firewood?” Markiveus asks with his thumb pointed behind him.

Anthia leans against the steel trunk of a tree, staring at him as she frees a condescending laugh before she nudges her brother’s side and murmurs scornful whispers in his ear. Aries barks an uproarious laugh before he turns his attention to Markiveus.

“The wood is completely inflammable,” he says with a derisive smile. “And I think it’s for the best. Many creatures of the dark are attracted to the light.” His eyes then shift on me, sending me an enigmatic look before he trades a few furtive words with his sister.

“Excuse me for interrupting your gossip session,” Markiveus says, his face affixed with a hostile look. “When the northern raiders lit up the little village. Where were you? Or are you just all talk and no show?”

Aries’s fine face mutates into an enraged look. “I can demonstrate a show.” He lurches forward but Anthia smacks a hand to his chest, halting him where he stands. He visibly calms at her touch.

“Do not let the aresling provoke you, brother.” Her broken accent refined in scorn. Her gaze like an icicle that impales right through Markiveus. “We were paid to navigate, not to play hero.”

Markiveus offers a mock applause and gives us purebloods a quick, once over. “And you all think I’m cruel.”

“Nobody thinks that,” Treyton mutters.

After a while, all the tents are standing in a dispersed clutter within the clearing. Reinsbure hands out our dinner: a loaf of bread, cured and smoked meat that was being preserved since we departed Umtera. Heavily seasoned and salt-enriched meats that appear raw are my least favourite meat. I know that the treatment process for preserving properties of taste and texture whilst keeping them edible and safe to consume is imperative for long, length travel such as this. But still.

I would kill for a good, fire-roasted pheasant or a sauced, hind leg of a wild boar.

From what feels like a lifetime ago. This would be the time when Pinta would call on Seliah and I and we would be escorted to our dining hall to feast on the platters of choice food, already wondrously cooked and prepared for us.

Oh, how I treasure that luxury.

And if I survive the King Trial, I will never take it for granted again.

I have never felt a night so still.

No night mammals scampering their way through the woods. No wind, even so there are no leaves to rustle. There are only the sounds of muffled, scattered snores. At least they are enjoying the sweet bliss of slumber.

I release another built-up cough, forcing it low so it doesn’t disturb the others.

Curled on my side in my bedroll. My body fluctuating between scorching heat and a cold sweat. I try to summon sleep, but it evades me still. A familiar pain clenches my chest, sitting heavy. I have not felt this way since Sorcia. Perhaps residual affliction, belated aftermath of that ordeal.

I must rest. We are still far from Velheim, to reach it we have to cross through the Night Desert.

A shuffling sound outside sends alarm tearing through me. I flop on my back and heave myself up to settle myself on my elbows. A shadow knifes the thin drape of the tent. I bolt upright.

The shadow mounts with size, outlines jagged and round. I jerk my hand out and I grope the cold, uneven ground beside me for one of my scabbards. I find it and my hand stills on it. Abruptly, the drapes split in half and Solaris pokes his golden mane inside my tent.

“Solaris?” I whisper, dazed and confused.

I glance down at his bedroll swathed around him, which gave his silhouette a bulbous outlook.

“Can I kindly request that you move aside?”

Blinking slowly, I rub my eyes to make sure this is not an illusion conjured because of sleep deprivation. But it is truly him, slotting his head inside my tent like a child peeking into his parent’s bedchambers at night after enduring a night terror.

“Uh,” I stammer. My blinking accelerates. “No?”

“Well, I was merely asking to be a polite. But that does not mean I am not coming in.” He wobbles forward, dragging the trail of the sleeping bag with him.

Baffled beyond comprehension, my will sapped, too exhausted to fight against it. I lug my body to the edge which is only a few inches away since the makeshift tent was only made for one occupant.

Solaris lays down his bedroll beside him and dramatically collapses on it. He folds his arms behind his head with his eyes cast upward. His face obscured by the intangible shroud of darkness.

I flip myself onto one elbow to glare down at him. “You have gone utterly mad. Do you know what will happen to you if—”

“Vince finds me in here?” he completes with a defiant tone. “Are you expecting another midnight visitor?”

If only he could see my scowl. “No, just you apparently.”

“No need to fret, Hera. I will be out of your hair in a few moments. So you do not need to fear of your lover finding you with another, even one that has no interest in you.”

“He is not my lover,” I whisper back aggressively, wresting my volume under control.

“Who says I was speak of Herem Vince?”

My frustration strikes a new apex. I hit his shoulder with a sloppy punch. “I’m not in the mood for a mind maze. You need to leave; how did you even know I was awake, anyway?”

“I could hear your thinking from my tent.” I meet with the blue glimpse of his eyes. He turns his head straight, face melting back into the black. “I could hear you coughing, at least you trying to stifle your coughs. Truth be told…I was concerned.”

I lower myself to my side, struck by a pang of guilt. “Was I that loud?”

“No, no, I simply could not sleep either. Stricken by nostalgia.”

I smile wistfully, though he cannot see it. “You miss your Regnum?”

“My family.” He sighs sadly. “I miss them all. I used to loath my siblings’ quirks, their unified determination to irk me. My meddlesome parent’s forcing me to event after event, trying to foster an advantageous marriage alliance. But now I would do anything to relive those moments. Now, I only remember the good.”

I slump down on my back, twining my fingers on my stomach. “You will see them again.”

I hear him move agitatedly, accidently elbowing my arm. “You cannot ascertain to that.”

“I cannot,” I agree. “But I believe. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, Zekei and Tamani are testimony to that. But you are not them, you are just as good of a being, but you will survive this, no matter what—” I lapse into a short fit of coughs, hacking into my fist. Eventually they fade into haggard breathing. “No matter what perils we may face. I cannot promise you victory but only mutual survival, and for now that is enough.”

“How can you be so optimistic when you sound like you are dying?” I then feel his cool, smooth hand examine my forehead. I swat it away.

“Aurora, you are burning up,” he says with increasing worry. “Your head is as hot as a furnace.”

“I’m fine—just a fever,” I say quickly. “It will break, but for that to happen I need rest.”

“And I will not starve you of much needed slumber,” he says whilst scrambling up to sit upright. “Besides, Primus Kelan will have my head if he catches me in here.”

“Wait.” He goes stagnant. “Wha—why would the Primus care?”

He tries to hold back a laugh, but a chuckle slips through. “Do not act coy with me, Hera. It took a while to confirm the reciprocation of his allure to you. The meta has the emotional capacity of a rock. But I have seen too many of the long-suffering looks you two share.”

A mild singe stings my cheeks. “We do not give each other… long-suffering looks,” I mumble to the ground.

“You do, and if I have noticed, lover number two—Herem Vince—has noticed as well.” He then makes a contemplative sound, struck by an epiphany. “It is probably why he has been so volatile of late or he is sexually frustrated. Possibly both.”

My mouth rounded, I slam a blanketed foot into his side and it triggers another chuckle from him as he tries to feign a mock groan. He bends forward to gather his bedroll, bundling it into his arms.

“Sleep well, Herem Solaris,” I bid through clamped teeth.

He starts to reverse out of the tent in a hunkered position. “Farewell, Hera. May only the worthy win the lone Hera’s heart.”

Unbelievable.