Wiping his mouth clean, Bo crawled to the nearest tree and slumped to the ground with his back against the trunk, heart battering against his rib cage.
“You are hurt,” said the Korahku, doubling back to crouch in front of him. Nix growled quietly as she inspected Bo’s leg.
“Why aren’t they following us?” panted Bo. He blinked slowly, trying to clear his woozy head: instead of rough, woody trunks, the trees were smooth like metal and glistened in the mottled Light. Was he seeing things? He had never been to the east side of Squall’s End before, never known an entirely different forest from his own hugged the edge of the village.
“Lindberry, heldung, longthor leaf, and nokki paste,” muttered the Korahku, reaching into the folds of her robe. Underneath she wore a tunic and fitted trousers. She pulled out a small leather pouch. “Does your creature understand words?”
Bo shrugged. “Seems to. The villagers think it’s because he’s a Shadow Creature but he’s just always seemed to understand me. We understand each other.”
With the end of a feather plucked from somewhere under her robe, the Korahku drew a shape in the dirt, a leaf with five sharp points. “Are you listening to me, strange little dog? I need longthor leaf for his calf. Looks like this.” She jabbed at the dirt drawing. “Comes from a tree no bigger than your Irin friend here and just as scrawny. The color of half-Light in the Burning Season. Go!”
Nix sprinted off, his gold-red fur vanishing into the tangle of metal trees.
Bo tugged at the neck of his shirt. Despite the icy chill, the lack of a breeze was stifling, making the air feel thick and syrupy. “I asked you a question,” he said. He dared not look as the Korahku gently rolled up his trouser leg. “Why didn’t the villagers follow us?”
The Korahku mixed a foul-smelling paste from the berries, leaves, and potions in her pouch. She laughed. “You Irin. Scared of everything.” She waved a hand at the trees. “This is the Forest of Tid. Your friends think it is haunted. Ha!”
“Not my friends.” Bo cursed and balled his hands into fists, clenching his teeth as the Korahku slathered the paste on his calf.
“I think,” said the Korahku, “that this ‘Skugs fud’ you speak of is not nice.” She laughed all the same and Bo found he liked the sound—deep and rough and warm.
His brows drew together as he watched her work. She could have left him to be torn apart by the villagers and their dog but hadn’t. And now she was carefully tending to his injured leg. Bo let out a long, shuddering breath—his fists unclenched and the knot of worry in his chest began to untangle itself.
Perhaps I will be safe after all, he thought.
“But why do the villagers think it’s haunted?” he asked.
“You ask many questions, child. But I have one for you: How does an Irin boy know nothing of the Forest of Tid? Do not you live a hen’s peck from here?”
Bo frowned. “Yes, but . . .” The paste was already soothing his pain. “The villagers think I struck a deal with the Shadow Creatures because I was left in the forest as a baby and didn’t die. They think I cursed the land even though there’s been Dark and Shadow Creatures long before I was born. Bunch of trollheads. And my guardian, Mads, never told me about the Forest of Tid—I didn’t even know there was more than one forest here. He told me about cutting down trees and how to jelly pig’s trotters. That’s it. We never left our forest much—just into the village and back again to sell wood at market.”
The Korahku laughed as she packed her things away. “But you never asked? You walked from forest to village and village to forest time and again and you never say, ‘What is over there?’”
“At least I know the difference between a fox and a dog,” snapped Bo. The truth was he did ask questions. Mads just never answered them.
The Korahku considered him with unblinking eyes. With a sigh, she picked up her feather and drew more patterns in the dirt. “Listen, because I only do this once, yes?”
Bo watched as she drew a map, an island shaped like a wolf’s head—if you squinted. All throughout were villages, forests, mountains, lakes, and even a castle right where the wolf’s eye would be.
“This is the land of Ulv,” she said, retracing the outer edge of the island. “And this speck in the southwest here is your village. Your home is here.” The Korahku jabbed northwest of the village. “The Forest of Long Shadows.”
Bo didn’t admit he never knew his forest had a name. All he knew was that the villagers thought it was where Shadow Creatures came from.
“East of Squall’s End is the Forest of Tid.” The Korahku jabbed the dirt. “Us. Right here. More Irin villages here, here, here, and here. Irin Un-Royal City is here.” She stabbed the earth where she had drawn a monstrous-looking tree on top of a hill, its multitude of branches reaching for the sky like waving arms. “There, you will find your Un-King.”
Un-King?
“And all the way over here is Korak, where the Korahku live.” She pointed to the opposite side of the island, jutting out her beak, haughty and proud. “Seven provinces in total. Nev’en.” She jabbed her finger in the center of the drawing. “And Lahesi. And Qirachi. And Rakoo. And Maledian.” Jab, jab, jab, jab . . . The unfamiliar words bounced awkwardly around Bo’s head, refusing to make sense. “The Seven Great Kin of Ulv.”
“The Seven Great what?”
The Korahku glared at him with beady black eyes. She sighed. “They really never told you anything, did they?”
Bo’s cheeks flushed—anger or embarrassment or both.
“Long ago there were two kin: the Elfvor and the Ulvians. Many years and conflicts and borders later, there are seven, but they are all related to one or both of the original two.”
“But who were the Elfvor and the Ulvians?”
“Ulvians were ordinary folk and Elfvor were . . . not.”
“What does that mean?”
The Korahku waved away Bo’s query with a sharp flick of her hand. “I thought you did not ask questions but you ask too many.”
“But what’s that?” Bo pointed to the castle.
The Korahku sighed. “Aud. The Sovereign State. Queen of Ulv lives there.”
“Queen? You said there was an Un-King.”
“The Queen of Ulv rules all,” she said. “But each province has its own ruler, who answers to her. Some are royal families, some are not. Irin had a royal family until my people beheaded them.”
Bo spluttered with shock. “You killed the entire Irin royal family?”
The Korahku’s shoulders stiffened. “Not me personally.”
Bo shivered, folding his arms across his chest. Perhaps he wasn’t so safe after all . . . “But what’s an Un-King?”
The Korahku clicked her beak. “After the noble Korahku relieved your royal family of their heads, no one wanted to take their place because Irin are a superstitious people. So they decide it is safest to be ruled by a king who isn’t a king—no crown, no throne, no glittering gold. The Un-King. Very silly business.”
Bo frowned at the map. So much he did not know. He pointed to a cluster of squiggly lines in the middle of the Forest of Tid. “And that?”