As Dark as the Forest

Chapter 5

Ori

The Quercian girl was sitting upright when Ori visited her next. But her eyes were closed and she leaned her back against the cool stone wall.

After she'd set up her easel and supplies, Ori handed a cup of water to the girl without preamble.

The girl opened her eyes, and accepted it. "You should just let me die." She said to Ori with a scratchy voice and cracked lips.

Ori winced, "I can't."

"Because you need me for some... game. Whatever game that man you report to is playing?"

"Not exactly," Ori said. She lowered her voice, "I'm going to try to get you out of here. But if he finds out, we're both dead."

The Quercian's eyes widened and she nodded.

"Pastry?" Ori asked, offering the girl a small baked good that she'd procured from the kitchen.

The Quercian accepted it and ate it slowly. She's very smart to not eat it in one gulp. Ori thought. Wondering if she'd be just as conscious of her own decisions in that state of starvation. She watched the girl eat for a moment, then offered her a handful of nuts. "What's your name?" Ori asked.

"Sylvonna," Said the Quercian between bites.

"I'm Orianne - Ori. If you didn't know that already." She handed the Quercian more water.

Sylvonna nodded. "I knew it."

"Where did they take you from?" Ori asked. Eating her own handful of nuts.

"Where else?" Sylvonna asked, "The Quercian Forest. I was outside of my city, Oakhaven, traveling to meet with the elder council in another of our towns when I encountered an Inlander trader and his half-quercian partner. They offered to let me stay by their fire for the night, and I accepted. I was traveling alone and..." her voice cracked and Ori offered her another drink of water. Sylvonna took it gratefully, and then continued. "And, it was welcome to have the security of others in the dark of the woods. But soon after drinking the tea they offered me, I began to feel strange. I grew very tired, and the next thing I knew, I was being locked in this prison." Her green eyes flashed as she looked at the iron bars that surrounded her.

"I'm sorry," Ori said softly. "You must miss it - your home." It was a stupid, obvious thing to say, but Ori was at a loss. She didn't know how long she could keep up this charade in front of Remo. Just a couple of days. Long enough to get her stronger.

"I do," Sylvonna said her eyes growing distant, though they stared at dark stone and not lush forest. "I miss the way it was. Healthy and green and full of life."

"It's not like that any more?" Ori asked.

Sylvonna shook her head, almost imperceptibly. "There has been an abuse of power. The forest is not what it once was, Quercus help us all. And now this..." She expanded her arms to the walls that surrounded her.

Ori both heard and felt Remo enter the room, his presence filling it up like water filling a cup, using up all the air. Ori felt lightheaded, but kept her cool. She stood and turned to Remo, wiping crumbs off on her pants .

"What are you doing?" Remo's voice was ice.

"Research. And reviving her enough so that I can study her in a position that isn't dead on the floor." Ori nearly spat.

He looked into her eyes and she knew he could see right through her. Remo could see through just about any facade. He grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the room. Ori gritted her teeth. She could shift right now. She could grow quills and he'd be sure to let go. Or she could shift into a mouse and slip right out of his grasp. Then she could run away, never to be heard from again.

She could do that. But she couldn't stand the thought of leaving that Quercian here to die.

Her mother was in the hall, arms folded across her ample chest. Ori barely gave Isyrria a second glance.

"You can kill her as soon as we're done with her," Ori said to Remo before he could reprimand her. She wanted the upper hand. "But I need a little more to work with if I'm to do my job and do it effectively, my lord." Try as she might, she couldn't wring the spite completely out of her voice.

"I'm not confident you can do your job at all, little bird." He challenged, brown eyes flashing. "You can't transform for extended periods of time. You haven't been practicing enough. You're weak."

Ori bit the inside of her cheek, holding back anger. She glanced at her mother, to avoid looking at Remo. Sometimes she wondered if her little scheme had worked. All of her practicing out from under Remo's watchful eye. Feigning exhaustion from a full shift. Apparently it had. He had no idea that when he wasn't looking she was doing all of those things and more. It was part of the plan that she and Asher had concocted. A plan to make him underestimate her. So that when the time came...

But now the Quercian girl had been thrown into the mix, and that had thrown a wrench into things. Because Ori wouldn't be able to live with herself if she left the girl here to die of starvation. Remo saw himself as this lord of morality. Take from the rich and give to the poor. But he only cared about his poor. The poor who could give him something in return.

"Come back in with me, and watch what an expert does..." Remo marched back into the room.

"What?" Ori said, her voice coming out shrill.

"Remo!" Isyrria called, but he didn't turn.

The next series of events happened in a whirlwind. Remo pulled Ori back through the door, and dragged her towards the cage, then unlocked it. Ori barely felt her mother wrap her arms around her from behind, as Remo stepped swiftly inside the iron bars, and pulled out his knife. When she looked back at this moment, she would wonder if Isyrria had intended to comfort or restrain her.

"These creatures are free of the sickness that plagues our city. And you know why, little bird?" He looked at Ori, and grabbed Sylvonna by her upper arm, and hoisted her up. "Because they have exclusive access to healing magic. Healing magic that they are keeping all to themselves. They frolick about in their magical forest, sucking the life magic out of it and only allowing us to have a small amount, even though our people are dying. It's not bad now, because I've been able to do what I can to get us healing stones - but those will drain one day soon and the guild and this city will be susceptible to the disease that is spreading across our kingdom. All because of the greed of the Quercians. So I took their princess hostage."

The Quercian looked at Ori, her green eyes fierce, and Ori screamed, but it was too late as Remo slit the girl's throat, blood spurting - emerald green blood as her life poured out of her. The sparkle in Sylvonna's eyes faded and she went limp. And in the same moment, Ori enacted the plan she'd had with Asher. She shifted into a mouse. A small, sly creature, capable of squeezing through tiny holes and crevices. Capable of escaping the insanity that lived in the Nest.