We were both guilty of needing to leave it all behind – Pantheon, its cruel perversions and terrifying creations – and somehow that desire had turned into a fire we couldn’t quench. And there was an irrevocable feeling of needing to know whether it could mend us.
So, he’d stepped inside my world completely and when he gripped my hand that night, our bodies fused, we unlocked a door we couldn’t quite close.
It hadn’t happened again, despite the burn in Max’s eyes, but the memory was there now, binding us, dividing us.
And Eli didn’t like it one bit.
‘At least my dreams are tamer than the rumours!’ I winked.
Eli grinned. The whispers about the Inside flourished despite our attempts to quash them, and were more exaggerated every time I went into the village school. Most of them were fireside stories, embellished to entertain. But an echo of the truth was always there, despite our pact to say as little as possible about what we’d actually seen.
‘Kai asked whether Insiders breathe fire yesterday!’ I signed.
‘Ha! Hope you told him only his schoolteacher can do that!’
I smirked and shoved him.
‘Time to run,’ he challenged.
I smiled as he grabbed my basket and passed it to Mathilda, one of the Elders who invigilated the trials with members of Arafel’s Council. The trials were an important village event, honoured every ten days, and we raced according to our age and ability. Eli and I both competed as adult hunters; although Max and I often ended up leading the field, much to Eli’s irritation. Today, though, I wanted to run with my brother.
‘Time to fly,’ I corrected, pushing my tongue into my cheek. He grinned his response, and just for a moment it was just like old times.
‘Hey, foraging queen! Hope you weren’t expecting me to go easy today!’
Max’s strong arms lifted me clean off my feet and swung me round, despite my protest. He put me down rapidly, but the damage had been done. Eli’s sunny expression dissolved as he turned his back to watch the young tree-runners line up. And with his tight shoulders and folded arms, he might as well be a million miles away now.
I glared at Max who only held up his hands a little guiltily. We’d discussed keeping things low on the village radar. For Mum and Eli’s sake. But I also knew Max suspected me of an ulterior motive, and that he wanted Eli to know about us. He was saved by the sound of a sonorous ibex horn, followed swiftly by a whole cacophony of whoops and cries as the youngest tree-runners set off. Dressed in small trial tunics, with their faces painted the colours of the forest, they looked every inch a feral, tree-living tribe – worthy inheritors of Arafel.
‘Come what may, nature finds a way,’ I whispered under my breath. My ancestor Thomas’s legacy looked to be alive and kicking. Seconds later, they had been completely enveloped by the thick mass of trees and bushes, their presence only evidenced by the occasional rustle or flurry of surprised birds.
‘We’re up?’ Max tested.
‘Great,’ I responded in a way that told him he wasn’t off the hook.
But I knew my brother too well to attempt a clumsy retrieval of the situation just now, and the three of us made our way across to the hunters’ start point in silence.
Rief, Saba and Fynn, old school friends, were already waiting by the maple and I nodded briefly. There was always an air of anticipation at the tree-running trials. Learning to move and live within the trees had saved our ancestors from extinction, and the trials served to remind us of the survival skills that brought us through the dust.
‘Chalk?’ Rief asked.
Eli accepted the piece of dusty rock, and rubbed his hands ceremoniously, before passing it to me. The white powder helped with grip, but also focused our thoughts before the race began. Although most of the hunters knew the flying routes well, the Council occasionally added special challenges. The intention was to replicate the unpredictability of the outside forest as much as possible. This week Max, Bereg and a few of the older hunters had helped construct a sticky net between three acacias to challenge the younger runners.
I took the chalk from Eli, and whitened the palms of my hands methodically. The older trials were usually judged by speed, our acumen as hunters not expected to be in any doubt. But the Council weren’t above throwing in wild-card obstacles for us occasionally either. Either way, it paid to be prepared.
‘Hunter … Positions!’
Art’s command hung in the air and the majority of Arafel’s most skilled hunters suddenly melted out from the trees, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. I stepped between Eli and Max, casting a swift glance down the starting line. There had to be more than eighty of us this morning. And with long, lean limbs, faces streaked with dirt and waists hung with seasoned weapons, the hunters were an impressive sight to behold.
A pregnant hush descended, before the pulse of the ceremonial chant thickened the air. It was a simple repetitive beat, low and rhythmic, supposed to replicate the drum of a hunter’s heart. A feral heart. I inhaled deeply. It was time. I focused my gaze on my leather-soled feet, and silently repeated the words that had come to feel like a prayer.
‘Why run when you can fly?’
I reached out to squeeze Eli’s cool hand, and he returned the pressure without looking. Then the ibex horn sounded again and it was just me, the forest and the sun at my back.
We flew like birds, running through trees as though we were animals that had always belonged there. Occasionally I caught the flash of a green tunic or brown hand, dirtied with dust to make it less visible, but no greetings were exchanged. Tree trials were sacrosanct, and no serious hunter would compromise their time with mischief or chat.
At first I hung back for Eli, hoping he might still run with me, but when I finally caught sight of him, he’d paired with Fynn. I swallowed my disappointment and flew on, Grandpa’s advice lulling me into a swift rhythm:
‘Remember what Thomas taught us. An Arafel hunter believes in natural order, respect for his place in the forest, and takes only what he needs to survive.’
His words were as good as imprinted in my mind, and it was several minutes later when I finally dropped to the floor to pause beside a drinking hole. This part of Arafel’s forest was lush and dark, and the water came from a deep underground spring, which made it reliably fresh and cool to drink.
I leaned over the water, and watched two hazel eyes gaze back from an earth-stained face. I stared back, trying to read them before I bent to drink. August had always seemed to find it so easy, but right now they seemed as closed and secretive as the dark pond water in which they danced.
I glanced over my shoulder. All was still. Max and Rief had run into a nest of fire ants, which had left me out in front. Fire ant nests were more usually found at the base of trees, but this particular nest had somehow managed to find a home in the centre of one of the well-used tree forks. I frowned. Art’s Council were clearly upping the stakes, and I had a suspicion it wasn’t just to keep things interesting. Art was nervous, and he had every reason to be.
We’d all but razed Pantheon to the ground, and then taken off. August had been left in charge, but who knew how that had gone down in the twisted, archaic world of Isca Pantheon. And now our existence wasn’t