Still, that advantage would soon end.
She glanced back to the chasm, cut with ancient mossy steps that climbed alongside the river. They needed to put as much distance as possible from those others. Even now, she could pick out faint shouts carrying over the flat waters.
Jace called to her, “We can’t wait any longer.”
She understood. Gramblebuck seemed to, too. He had his rump to her now, huffing at the howls. He turned his ponderous head at her.
She waved to him. “Go now, off with you.”
He still simply stared, looking ready to defend this beach, even if it meant being mauled by a pack of thylassaurs or peppered with arrows and spears. She knew he would do it if she asked it of him.
“Go,” she said more emphatically.
Her command was reinforced by a sweep of wings through the air, accompanied by a high-pitched cry directed at the beast. Nyx’s little brother harried the huge bullock, until Gramblebuck finally harrumphed, turned his head, and lumbered toward the dark bower of the swamp.
Nyx waited until the bullock vanished. Once he was gone, she felt as if an anchor had been cut loose. She could finally turn and cross back to Jace. She gathered her friend in her wake and headed over to Frell and Kanthe.
Jace dubiously eyed the endless climb of steps as they joined the two. “How long will it take us to reach the wild forests at the top?”
“All the day,” Frell said. “At the very least.”
“If we keep a good pace,” Kanthe added, raising a brow toward Jace’s girth.
Nyx scowled at the prince. Jace placed a protective hand on his belly, looking wounded, but Nyx gave her friend a reassuring touch on his elbow.
Kanthe shrugged and turned haughtily away.
She studied his back, trying to fathom if this prince could truly be her half-brother. She didn’t want to believe it for many reasons. Frell noted her attention, his expression both apologetic and maybe guilty for shattering her past. After so many years, she had come to an uneasy peace, embittered though it may be, with the faceless father and mother who had left her in the swamps, abandoning her until a new mother, one with wings, rescued her.
Over the past two days, she had struggled to fit this new history into what she knew about herself. Alchymist Frell had explained his belief—one shared by Prioress Ghyle—that Nyx’s history of abandonment in the swamp might tie to a story that ended in these same swamps, the tale of the Forsworn Knight, a cautionary fable of broken oaths and forbidden love.
Whether true or not, she suspected the alchymist had kept certain details from her. She caught Frell and the prince sometimes whispering to each other, sneaking glances at her, while she pretended to drowse in the back of the sledge. She overheard something about prophecies spoken by a dark Shrive, something tied to this same tale.
And maybe to me.
She followed the others toward their meager supplies at the base of the steps. Jace had already filled their waterskins from the freshwater flow of the river. The prince had managed to shoot a summer-fat duck and three marsh hares. She had showed him how to salt-pack his game by soaking gunny sacks full of meat in the swamp’s brine and sun-drying them. By repeating this a few times, the hunter could ensure the salt coated and penetrated everything.
They gathered their packs and skins and readied for the climb. From the corner of her eye, she studied the prince, searching for any features she might have in common with him. She certainly lacked his ebonwood complexion and gray eyes. While both had dark hair, his was far blacker. Their noses were both thin, similarly tipped at the ends. But the same could be said of many.
She gave a shake of her head and turned her attention away.
Her tiny brother winged low over her head and flew up into the chasm, as if urging them to follow. But the bat’s true intent was plain as it rolled and dived, catching the last of the swamp’s buzzing hordes, which the river’s flowing mists held at bay.
Finally, another blare of horns pushed them all toward the chasm.
Frell led the way, climbing onto the first mossy step. “Take care,” he warned. “Any slip means death.”
“Maybe that’s why they call it the Path of the Fallen,” Kanthe said sourly, following behind the alchymist.
Jace waved her ahead, then continued behind her. “According to Plebian’s Annals of Lost Ages,” he said sternly, “the pass was named long before our histories were written. Possibly by those who carved these very steps. No one really knows where the name came from. But what has been carried forward out of the mists of time is how dangerous and treacherous this path can be. Some believe it’s cursed. Others that it’s haunted or daemon-riven.”
“It certainly looks like no one has trodden here in centuries,” Kanthe admitted. “I see no crush to any of these moss flowers.”
As they climbed, Nyx noted the tiny white blooms in the emerald, shiny and pearled with mist droplets. She caught a hint of minty oils rising with their treadfalls.
“I doubt the tales of spookens and curses are what kept people away,” Frell said. “The other two passes to Cloudreach—near Azantiia and up in the northern Brau?lands—are far more accessible and better groomed for travel. You’d have to trek half the swamp to reach this pass, one overgrown and crumbling with age. It’s why I chose this nearly forgotten route to get us to Havensfayre.”
Reminded of their goal, Nyx raised a question that nagged. “Do you truly think the knight, Graylin sy Moor, will meet us there?”
A man who may be my father …
“We must hope,” the alchymist answered. “We need a strong ally—one we trust absolutely—to get you out of Hálendii and somewhere safe. And if Graylin doesn’t show up, the misty forests of Cloudreach will offer some refuge all on its own.”
Nyx knew little of those highland woods. They were wild and untamed, one of the rare stands of untouched ancient forests. Few made their home there, only a handful of pale-skinned nomadic tribesmen, said to be as wild and untamed as their woods. Even Havensfayre was less a town than a part of the forest that had been carved into a trading post.
As they continued up the chasm, the way became steeper, sometimes requiring them to crawl on all fours to keep their perch. Exertion and concentration soon silenced them, while the roar of the falls, trapped between the high chasm walls, grew deafening. Still, it was not loud enough to block out the occasional blare of hunting horns behind them.
Frell stopped ahead on the stairs.
Though anxious to keep going, Nyx gasped in relief, needing a break. A glance back showed Jace panting, his red face streaming with sweat and spray. His clothes were plastered to his body as if he had fallen into the river.
Kanthe swore ahead of them, drawing her attention forward.
Frell shifted, revealing his halt was not a mercy but a warning. Past the alchymist, a section of the steps had broken away long ago and tumbled into the churning cascade. Only mossy stubs were left sticking out of the wall. Frell glanced back to them with a forlorn expression.
“I can make it,” Kanthe said, and tried to shift past Frell on the stair.
The alchymist blocked him with an arm. “It’s too dangerous.”
Kanthe waved back at a faint blast of horns. “Is it any less perilous than the Vyrllian assassins on our trail?” He pushed Frell’s arm down and brushed past him. “I’ll cross and rig a line.”