Page 58 of A Crown of Deceit & Ruin

“And we have to go through there?” She shuddered at the thought. “To get back to Irongate?”

“Dragon’s fire, no!” exclaimed Micah, a little too loudly. It earned him a hush from multiple knights in nearby sand-gliders. Leighton, too, glared over his shoulder at his younger brother with a look that threatened to lock him away if he wasn’t more careful. Micah merely rolled his eyes and held his hands up in mock surrender before he continued explaining more quietly, “There’s a small pass between the mountain range and the Lake of Shadows. That’s how we got to Vallonde, and that’s our way back home.”

Kestrel nodded as if she understood, but something didn’t feel right.

If they were safe to travel the route they were headed, why was everyone so on edge?

Every member of the Thundersworn Brigade had eyes as wide as the moon, their fearful glances darting to every cornerof the forest, even though they were still a safe distance outside of it.

“The creatures you said were in the Hollows, can they get us out here?”

“No,” Micah said at first. Then frowning, amended, “Maybe. I’m not really sure.”

“What do you mean you’re not sure?”

He shrugged with a near-apologetic grin. “Mostly it’s superstition to be quiet when passing by the Hollows, but that’s because this place has been expanding for centuries. It’s the roots you gotta look out for. They’re not just tree roots.”

Not just tree roots?

Kestrel hugged herself tighter. She inched even closer to the center of their sand-glider, even though they were nowhere near any of those gnarled roots.

“If they aren’t roots, what are they?”

“Gravemoors, mostly,” he said. “They’ve been known to reach for travelers and drag them under.”

Gravemoors, she repeated in her head. Something about that name sounded familiar. Maybe Thom had mentioned them by accident one of the times he overshared about an adventure with her. If he had encountered them, she supposed she should be grateful they hadn’t done to him what Micah was describing now. But something else he said snagged her attention.

“Mostlygravemoors? What else is in there?”

Now it was Micah’s turn to shudder. “We call them the rootless, because unlike the gravemoors who are stuck at the bases of trees, the rootless meander about. Mostly they stay deeper inside the Hollows. But some people say they’ve seen them climb up from the earth, like they’re being born from it. Call it myth or superstition, but most around here believe that the rootless are what becomes of the travelers captured by thegravemoors, that they turn them into these walking, tree-like monsters that haunt the Hollows.”

Now her eyes scanned the root-line for nefarious signs of movements.

Part of her wanted to ask him why they hadn’t placed their father here. It seemed like that would’ve been a better plan than keeping him somewhere so far away and where it would be difficult to monitor him.

Before she could though, the sand-gliders all came to halt.

“We’re on foot from here,” Micah informed her before he and the rest of the fleet made quick-but-quiet work of tidying the sails and gathering their belongings. Even the prisoners were brought out of their jail, though their heads were bagged so it was difficult to spot Thom among them at first. Not that she wanted to see him like that, so Kestrel averted her gaze, her head fixed forward.

The Thundersworn Brigade used hand signals from then on, and directed the group to travel by two’s, steering clear of the ominous reach of the blackened woods to their right. Kestrel locked her arm with Micah, refusing to let go, while he followed closely behind his two brothers, both of whom kept glancing back to check on them. Every time Efrem did, Kestrel could’ve sworn he was doing so specifically to glare at her—though she wasn’t sure why—while Leighton seemed worried that one of these times he’d glance back and his entire fleet would be gone.

She had read about mountains before, cold places with winds so powerful they could blow down trees and snow so deep it could swallow people up to their waists. This mountain pass was nothing but lush, green, rolling hills. It didn’t make her shiver once the entire way through. And by the time they reached the other side, the ominous weight had lifted.

Every knight collectively sighed at the sight of Irongate’s formidable walls. Kestrel, however, shivered.

The great, towering stonework was chilling. Everything grey and sharp. Even the slate blue banners that hung evenly around the perimeter were cold. But what really took her breath away was how gargantuan the place was. If Kestrel had thought Mutiny Bay was large, Irongate was easily three or four times the size. As far as she could tell, it was entirely surrounded by this towering wall.

“Allow me the pleasure of being the first to introduce you to the great kingdom of Irongate,” Micah said with an air of boastfulness. He gestured to the right, “East of us is Hingsol Lake, which leads directly into the Skogar territories—that’s where your mother was from. And to the west, a few more Irongate territories we adopted over the years, before you reach the lands of the Ashen and the Sky-Blessed.”

Aside from the Sky-Blessed, it was more names and places and people that her ears had never had the pleasure of hearing before, but still she couldn’t be more elated. Her heart fuller. It was as if she was standing at the precipice of a new life, and Kestrel was eager to leap into it.

Not too eager, she reminded herself.

Once she was inside these gates, she would need to keep her wits about her. She was on a mission: speak to the queen and get her to release her father. Adventuring and exploring could come once she knew he was safe.

“And Queen Signe? Where is she?”

Micah smiled, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Patience. We’re not even in the main kingdom yet.”

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