Page 41 of Moonmarked

I survived, though. The wolves retreated, one sniffing the air still, one sneezing three times in a row, the last already ahead. Maera’s face filled my vision.

“They have her scent now. They will take us to her. Come, let’s keep moving.”

That my legs still held me was a wonder on its own. I walked side by side with the alpha werewolf as my mind turned on itself with all the questions I had no answers to.

We walked all day,taking breaks whenever we got tired, and we never once came across anybody or anything. No altars or temples or strange sorcerer gardens. The wolves knew their way, and they had their noses, their senses, Maera said. They would keep us far away from anythingthat could harm us, and if we kept going at this pace, we would be in Blackwater territory before dawn.

I said I could handle taking quick breaks. She believed me.

The more we moved, the more she talked to me about the names of the trees, the scents in the air, the waves of magic, where they were thick and where they were weaker.

I came to understand that I could actuallyfeelall of it. I could almost see the currents of magic hanging in the air if I focused long enough, and I could tell with almost perfect precision which direction each one of the wolves were, even when I couldn’t see them.

It was so strange, but incredibly cool at the same time, and I couldn’t fucking wait to tell Rune.

Eventually, my legs did get tired, but I knew there was no more food in Maera’s bag, and I didn’t want to stop, anyway. I just wanted to keep going while I could, take advantage of these werewolves—in the back of my mind, I thought they might realize soon that they didn’t want to take me all the way to Blackwater, after all—and cover as much ground as possible.

To be completely honest, I didn’t actually believe that I would make it. To run away from the Seelie Court, get out of those gates and survive Mysthaven? I couldn’t even joke with myself that I’d ever get to Blackwater, yet I still kept going.

Even when my knees shook and black dots were constantly taking away my vision, I kept going.

We must have walked for hours and hours, and then my legs just refused to work anymore. The sky was dark. The ground looked so soft.

My eyes closed and I fell.

I was sure I’d end up face first against the patchy grass. Instead, I fell on soft, fluffy fur.

There was no energy in me to even be afraid at that point, so when I was grabbed and pulled up, my legs rearranged so that I was in a seated position, I didn’t even try to resist. Maera’s face was in front of me, and she was smiling. She was so beautiful, especially in the night. Her eyes were extra bright now.

She said, “We can stop to rest, or we can keep going. We only have about an hour left.”

An hour.

I was sure she meantan houruntil we had to stop, until the wolves got tired, too, untilshegot tired. So, I said, “No rest.” My words were slurred together, but she understood.

“As you wish,” she told me, then grabbed my hands and put them on the soft, long fur, wrapped my fingers into fists. “Hold on tight.”

I did, at first. While I had energy, I did hold onto the fur in my fists, and when the wolf moved underneath me, that’s when Ireallyunderstood what was going on. A wolf was carrying me on his back—the brown one, the guy with the longish hair, and he was walking slowly, and he wasmassive,and I was so damn comfortable it was ridiculous. I’d ridden horses here in Verenthia on saddles meant for people to sit on and it had been hell, butthis? The way his body moved underneath mine, the way I felt all of his strong muscles against my legs, the way I was steady as though we weren’t moving at all—this was a completely different story, and now I wished I’d listened to Maera all along.

Still, exhaustion won even when I wanted nothing more than to keep my eyes open, my attention about me, to see where we were, where the wolves had taken us. It was soabsurd to me that they really knew the way, that they could take me where I needed to go, but…

I blinked, and sometimes slept there sitting for seconds, even minutes at a time, and then the trees had changed. The barks had become black, their leaves a dark grey.

Blackwater.

We were actually in Blackwater—and when I finally understood what that meant, I woke up almost all the way. Looked around. Held on tightly to the fur of the wolf underneath me.

Surreal.

All of it was surreal. The silence in the background of the footsteps, the three wolves walking through the trees, two of them carrying women on their backs, the sky that was dark still.

Then the wolf walking by himself started to run deeper into the woods and disappeared from our view completely. My instinct was to be afraid—why did he suddenly start running? But a look at Maera riding the wolf on my left told me she wasn’t alarmed. Her shoulders were relaxed, eyes half closed.

Even like that, she looked…regal.So much morequeen-likethan the Seelie Queen I’d met before.

“What’s anoxavira?” I asked in a whisper, almost accidentally.

I thought I would spook her, but Maera must have known that I was awake because she didn’t even bat an eye, barely glanced my way as she answered. “It’s a word in the old Veren. It meansthe shadow between truths.”

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