1462 Winter
Chapter 1
The wall of thorns rises from the ground and into the sky. My sister and I stand before it, holding hands. No one remembers when it appeared, but it’s been here for generations, isolating our village from the rest of the world.
At least a hundred years ago, a whole other era it seems, our village of Minnen traded openly with many other villages, and a town named Lanenn. But then the wall appeared. If you were to ask, no one would be able to tell you why the wall appeared or what happened to the other villages and the town of Lanenn. The wall is too thick to see through to the world beyond. It is possible there is nothing beyond the wall anymore, that something happened to the world and this village is the only one that remains.
Save for a few resilient shrubs and the crops that the men of our village spend their lives carefully cultivating, the world on this side of the wall is barren. Nothing grows here. Since the wall appeared, our village has been enveloped in drought.
I glance over my shoulder. In the pink light of the rising sun, I can just see our village, a smattering of little wattle and daub huts in poor repair.
Perhaps I should remain here, I think to myself. Then my stomach grumbles, as if reminding me, You must escape. There is nothing to eat, nothing to drink here.
Nadi’s hand squeezes around mine. “Come on, Elodi. I’m running away with or without you.”
“I’ll follow you wherever you go,” I say, sounding more confident than I feel.
I set my eyes on the wall again. People say if a thorn pricks you, you’ll fall asleep. If you fall asleep near the edge, someone will eventually come looking for you and pull you away from the wall. They’ll splash precious water on your wound, then you’ll be up. If you fall asleep deeper inside, you’ll be trapped inside until you die of thirst.
An unpleasant shiver runs over my skin. Holding hands, my sister and I step into the thorns. This feat might be hard for adults, but Nadi and I are thin, starving girls. We slide carefully through the wall, stepping over and ducking under to avoid the needle-sharp thorns. They snag on our clothes, but none graze our skin.
Sunlight filters through the thorny stems arching over our heads. I feel light-headed from hunger and my mouth is parched. Nadi is hogging our water skin.
How long have we been in here?
“I think I see the end!” Nadi calls, quickening her pace.
“Wait for me!” I cry, stumbling after her on wobbly legs. I feel something jab me and look down to see blood dribbling down my lower leg. I’ve been stabbed! “Nadi!” Don’t leave me here alone!
I only want to be with my sister. It’s the only thing I dared hope for.
The last thing I see is my sister emerging into the new world while I’m enveloped by thorns.
I hear the soft trickling of water running over pebbles and know I must be dreaming, but when I blink my eyes open, the first thing I see is green grass. I rub a crisp blade between my fingers. I haven’t seen a plant this green in, well, I’ve never seen a plant this green.
Something wet pours over my leg, abruptly pulling my attention away from the blade of grass. I lift my head to see Nadi drowning my wound in water.
“You’re finally up!” Nadi wrings her hands dry on her dress. “Do you know how much of a chore it was to carry you here? Clumsy girl,” she teases, though I can see relief flooding her face.
Ignoring my throbbing headache, I sit up and gape at the stream. This is my first time seeing running water. My reflection stares up at me, a meek-looking girl who just turned thirteen, wrapped in rags with uncombed black hair, golden-beige skin, a flat nose, and almond-shaped eyes. The only thing I like about myself is how much I resemble my sixteen-year-old sister.
After having drank my fill from the stream, I stand up unsteadily, my toes curling around grass and moist dirt, and stare in wonder at the lush world around me. On the other side of the creek is a forest: trees soaring even taller than the wall of thorns, long branches splitting off in various directions. A wind blows through the trees, rustling their green leaves interspersed with orange blossoms. I stand still and quiet, completely awestruck. One movement and this dream might vanish.
Nadi, being a lot more carefree than me, whoops in excitement and jumps over the stream, sprinting up to a tree and wrapping her arms around it, breathing in its woody smell. I trod through the stream clumsily, still feeling drowsy as I trail after my sister through the forest.
She taps each tree we pass, as if checking they’re real. Then she gasps gleefully, sprinting up to a tree with thin branches, purplish orbs hanging off them. She plucks one off and bites into it, juice dripping down her fingers.
“Oh, this is delicious!” She rips another one off a branch and tosses it to me. “It’s a plum.”
I turn the plum over in my hands, mesmerized. Has anyone in Minenn seen fruit in a decade? I bite into it gently, letting the sweetness erupt on my tongue.
Strolling farther into the woods, we stumble upon more fruit trees and berry bushes and happily help ourselves to their offerings. For the first time in my life, I feel full. In Minenn, there was never enough food, and what little existed I cooked and served my father first, then my brother, the middle child. When it was finally the girls’ turn to scrape porridge from the bottom of the pot, most times there was nothing left.
Under the night sky, after a day full of more success than we could have hoped for, I curl up beside my sister and we wrap ourselves in our tattered blanket.
With the light of the full moon guiding us, my sister barrels through the woods in single-minded search of Lanenn.
Nadi says, “Once we get to Lanenn, we’ll become maids for a family. Then we’ll have a place to live and neighbors to chat with. Then I’ll be able to find a boy to propose to me.”
I immediately tell her, “I don’t want you to marry.”
Nadi scoffs. “Don’t silly, Elodi. All girls must grow up and marry. Besides, I want to marry. I’ll have a nice dependable husband to look after me, and I’m sure you’ll like it in Lanenn. Don’t you want friends like a normal girl?”
“No, I’ve got you.”
People didn’t really talk to me in our village. People disliked us since our mother was ill and our father was short in stature and sour in demeanor. Though Nadi was able to charm boys by flirting with them, even she had trouble convincing girls to be friends with her. So, we were one another’s only reliable companions. We spent most of our time doing chores together—well, I was doing chores. My sister was likely braiding her hair beside me and asking me if I think a boy will make a good husband and if I think he’ll propose to her someday.
I didn’t waste time dwelling on the fact that I didn’t have any friends. I had my sister, and that was enough for me. But for my sister, I’ve never been enough. She dreams of something more. When my whole life I’ve hardly gone more than a couple hours without seeing my sister, thinking we might someday live in two separate houses makes my heart ache.
“Do you smell that?” Nadi says, scrunching up her nose. “Smells like smoke, like a fire! Smells like something’s cooking! Perhaps we’re closer to Lanenn than we thought!”
Without a second look at me, Nadi runs ahead. All those days having to rush home to avoid being discovered she’s been out flirting with boys around the village has made my sister quick and light on her feet. I stumble through the underbrush as I try to keep pace.
I almost smack into her from behind as we enter a clearing. The men encircling the campfire are stunned for a moment, our appearance clearly as shocking to them as theirs is to us. Then, stomping forward, they surround us. I shift closer to my sister. Remembering the proper conduct for greeting adults, we bow.
A man laughs. “What are women doing in these parts?”
Nadi, her head still lowered, asks, “We are traveling to a town called Lanenn. Is that where you hail?”
“We’re from Mukalam City,” another man says.
Mukalam City? Where’s that? I want to ask, but I don’t talk out of turn to strangers.
With a dastardly smile that makes me shiver, the man who first spoke says, “Why don’t you join us?”
“Our parents will be expecting us home soon,” Nadi lies. We turn to leave.
The man grabs Nadi’s arm. “It’s been terribly long since any of us have had the company of a woman.”
Nadi kicks the man in his shin, forcing him to let go of her. “We aren’t women. We’re girls, and we’re going home.”
The men pull out knives. Everywhere I look I see the glint of metal. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
Nadi bends down and grabs a stone and chucks it at a man’s face. While he’s distracted, Nadi and I slip past him. Cursing, the man shouts, “Get them!”
They run after us. As Nadi’s long legs carry her through the forest, she tugs hard on my hand. My bare feet smack the ground. Thorny shrubs scrape my sides. Something clutches my arm. For once in my life, I’m glad my clothes are a sloppy patchwork of fabric that’s been in my family for generations. The threads snap, shedding the sleeve.
Suddenly, my sister and I halt. The ground drops off in a steep slope into a ravine. Turning around, we see that the men have caught up to us. With them in front of us and the gorge behind us, we’re trapped.
I glance at the ravine. Even if it’s deep enough for us to land in, if we miss, we’ll hit the jagged terrain and be cut in half.
In Minenn, Nadi always protected me. As a little girl while I was still learning the basics of keeping a house, if I spilled a little porridge or had to undo a bad stitch, wasting thread, our father hit me. Nadi screamed and bit him until he forgot all about me and whirled on her instead. Our brother and his friends used to knock me down or trick me into climbing onto a chair or up a ladder then shook it until I fell. Our mother mocked me for being stupid enough to go along with it, even though I was just a toddler, but my sister hurled sticks at the boys until they apologized.
These men, though, are larger and more numerous than our usual opponents. What can we do?
Then something with pounding footsteps stomped out of the forest. A… tree about the size of a house with squat legs. Two sets of branch-like arms spring out of its sides, sporting thin, long fingers. Slits on its ribs for filtering air. Three dark, sappy orbs for eyes.
The men are too trained on us to notice the monster until it steps behind a man and shears his head off, soaking the ground with blood. That finally gets their attention. They turn around and immediately cry, “Kill it! Kill the eldaran!”
Digging its heels into the dirt, the eldaran raises its arms. The thorns on its arms grow, then shoot off like mini spears. Whizzing through the air, not all find their mark, but enough puncture the men’s flesh and dig into their eyes.
A lanky man plunges his knife into the eldaran’s shoulder. With the knife buried there, the eldaran grasps the man around his throat and smashes him against a tree. His spine cracks. He falls to the ground, unmoving. Then the eldaran pierces another man’s stomach with its arm, lifting the bleeding man into the air and heaving him at the ranks.
Just then, a third man dives his knife into the eldaran’s arm, faltering the monster’s aim. Missing the target, the man hurtles straight toward us. Nadi dodges artfully, but I’m rooted to the ground, shaking, and feeling like throwing up. So much blood.
The man slams into me, knocking the air out of my lungs. I’m tossed back. Over the edge.
My sister’s eyes widen. She grabs for me, but I’m just out of her reach.
The last thing I remember as I fall into the jags is her screaming my name.
Sunlight streams through the slits in the walls and gaps in the roof, but I know I’m not in a house—at least not a normal one. The walls are made of overlapping branches, and the roof is made of leaves. It looks like I’m inside a bush that’s decided to grow itself into a house shape.
I sit up and my blanket falls off me. I realize I’m not wearing anything, but it hardly matters since most of my body is covered in bandages. But they aren’t cloth bandages. Rather, they’re a light see-through material stitching my very skin together. You wouldn’t notice them unless you were staring.
I would spend more time inspecting them, but a dress folded at my side steals my attention. It’s brand new. I put on the pastel green sarong and button-up beige blouse and realize a piece of clothing has never made me feel so comfortable. I’ve never had all of me covered before. In Minenn, we had to scrounge for scraps of cloth, so I’m used to wearing rags and not thinking much about it. But now, I think—I know—I’ll forever treasure the first new thing I’ve ever owned.
Hearing people outside, I duck my head as I pass through the low doorway.
My sister crouches by the campfire, shifting uncomfortably while watching two figures. An eldaran stands at the edge of the clearing, shorter and slimmer than the one who killed the men. Leaves sprout from its back and arms, blanketing its body.
A being hunches over the campfire. His celestial black fur is painted with strokes of glacial blues curling up from beneath his silk garments, fading into silver on its twin tails. With a paw, he grips a ladle, stirring the pot.
“Elodi!” Nadi jumps up and runs to hug me, but the furred being chases after her, grabbing her by her collar.
“Careful!” he snaps, though his snout remains motionless. His eyes glow like citrines, and golden ornaments dangle from his triangular ears. “She’s still healing. You took quite a nasty fall,” he tells me. “Ala’hana spent hours tending to you.” He cocks his head at the eldaran standing guard over the camp, but I’m too busy staring at him to look anywhere else.
I remember my sister telling me bedtime stories about various animals that people saw while traveling through the forest before the wall of thorns appeared, but they generally walked on four legs. “So, you’re a wolf? And you can talk?”
“I am not a wolf! Do I look like a wolf to you?” his voice rings out, sounding offended. I hastily bow and apologize. “It’s fine,” he says, waving away my error. “Your sister made the same mistake. My name is Tsutsumi Shinji. I am a nogitsune, and we are descended from foxes, totally different from wolves. And technically I am not talking. I can understand the human tongue, but my vocal cords cannot produce it. I am communicating through a spell.”
“A spell?” I interrupt, forgetting my place again. “You’re casting magic?”
“Yup,” Shinji gracefully sits by the campfire again. With a wiggle of his fingers, the nogun vanishes. I stare intently at the vacant space left behind, waiting for him to reappear. Suddenly I hear footsteps right behind me and almost jump out of my skin when I turn and see the nogun flash back into existence. “It’s an invisibility spell,” he says. “I can also do this.” Lifting his hand, he gives life to bright blue butterflies. One flutters to me and lands on my arm, though there isn’t any weight to the little thing. Then it dissipates.
I gasp. “You can make things out of thin air?” I ask.
“No, it’s just illusion magic, but it certainly comes in handy,” Shinji says. “Are you interested in learning magic, perhaps?”
I nod fervently. Who wouldn’t be?
He pours the rice porridge with onions and pickled plums into two bowls and hands them to Nadi and me. “Humans can’t learn illusion magic, but you can become an Elda mage and manipulate plants like the eldarans. I can bring you to Samathali Academy, a magic school in Samathali City.”
Gasping, I say to Nadi, “We’ll become powerful mages!”
A bit of her apprehension about sitting in a clearing with two beings she didn’t know existed until today seems to fade, and she smiles.
Until Shinji gives Nadi a long look. “As humans grow older, your souls become less malleable, less changeable—I’m sorry, but you’re too old.”
Nadi’s smile falls. I try to keep mine up. “Don’t worry. I’ll learn magic and look after us both.”
“I’ll be alright,” she says, though she sounds disappointed. “I’m sure they’ll be plenty of boys for me to marry.”
Shinji corrects her. “Human boys can’t learn magic, so there won’t be.”
I smile smugly. For once, fate is shining on me.
Then Shinji continues, “I’m sorry, but since only mages belong in the city, I can’t bring you both.”
My heart shatters, and I let out a small whine, “You got me excited to learn magic for no reason…”
“Perhaps you should go alone,” Nadi says.
“No, I’m not going without you! We’re going to Lanenn!”
Nadi places a warm hand on my shoulder. “We don’t know if it’s much better in Lanenn compared to the village we left. Perhaps this will be best for both of us, Elodi. You can live a magical life, and I can live without having to worry about the well-being of my little sister. This way I’ll know your future is secure.”
Is she actually suggesting we split up? I blink back tears. How could my sister say something so cruel to me? All my life she’s been my only friend. Our mother fell sick shortly after giving birth to me, so my sister basically raised me. She taught me all that I know, from how to cook to how to respect elders. I remember toddling after her, relying on her. Meanwhile, our parents treated me like I was born to cook and clean for them, and our neighbors ignored my presence. In Minenn, it often felt like it was us against the rest of our village. I can’t imagine how I would’ve survived my childhood without my sister. “You can’t abandon me!” I wail. “I’m not going! I’m not!”
Tears fill Nadi’s eyes too, then locking eyes with Shinji, she utters, “Bring her to the city, force her if you must. Just promise me she’ll be happy there.”
“I promise you,” Shinji says.
“Nadi, no!” I scream.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could go. I wish I could learn magic too, but I’ll be satisfied knowing my little sister is becoming a mage.” she shudders. “And a normal girl your age shouldn’t be clinging to her older sister. You’ll understand my choice when you grow up.”
“Then I’ll never grow up!” I feel faint. I look between Shinji and Nadi, and I realize there’s nothing I can do. I will be separated from my sister and there’s nothing I can do about it. For the first time in years, I can’t help the tears flowing down my cheeks.
One morning a couple days later, Shinji tells me it’s time.
“I’ll miss you,” Nadi says. We hug. My cheeks are covered with layers of tear stains since I’ve been silently crying all night, and I wish to do something rash, like pitching dirt in the nogitsune’s face and escaping with Nadi. At the thought, my body remembers the bruises I received from my father for disobeying, and, in the end, I know my sister doesn’t want me around anymore.
“As a sign of trust,” Shinji offers my sister, “I’ll return to bring you to Lanenn after I return from the city.”
“Really? Thank you,” Nadi accepts.
I meekly allow Shinji to lead us through the forest to a simple station built of wood. A pair of giant boars arrive pulling a wagon behind them. With a pit in my stomach, I let Shinji help me into the carriage. Inside, three girls my age are already waiting, huddled tight together in a corner.
As the carriage rolls into the forest, my eyes begin to sting, and it’s only out of discipline and knowing I shouldn’t disturb the people around me that this time I keep my sobs at bay.