“What’s wrong with her?” Tamis asked, bending down beside Bek.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
He passed his hand in front of her eyes. She neither blinked nor evidenced any recognition of him. He whispered her name, touched her face, and then shook her roughly. She made no response.
The tracker and the boy stared at each other helplessly. Tamis sighed. “I’ve no cure for this. What about you, Bek? You seem to be full of surprises. Got one to deal with this?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
She brushed at her short dark hair, and her gray eyes stared at him. “Well, don’t be too quick to make up your mind about it. What happened back there with those creepers suggests you’ve got something more going for you than the average cabin boy.” She paused. “Magic of some sort, wasn’t it?”
He nodded wearily. What was the point of hiding it now? “I’m just finding out about it myself. On Mephitic, I was the one who found the key. That was the first time I used it. But I didn’t know it could do this.” He gestured back toward the ruins, toward the creepers he had destroyed. “Maybe Walker knew and kept it a secret. I think Walker knows a lot of things about me that he’s keeping secret.”
Tamis sat back on her heels and shook her head. “Druids.” She looked off into the trees. “I wonder if he’s still alive.”
“I wonder if any of them are still alive.” Bek’s voice broke, and he swallowed hard against what he was feeling.
The tracker stood up slowly. “There’s only one way to find out.
It’s getting dark. I can move about more easily once the light’s gone. But you’ll have to stay here with her, if I do.” She nodded toward Ryer Ord Star. “Are you up to it?”
He nodded. “But I’d rather go with you.”
Tamis shrugged. “After seeing what you did to those creepers,
I’d rather that, too. But I don’t think we can leave her alone like this.”
“No,” he agreed.
“I’ll be back as quick as I can.” She straightened and pointed left.
“I’ll skirt through the trees and come at the ruins from another direction. You wait here. If anyone got out, they’ll likely come back this way and you should see them. But be careful you know who it is before you give yourself away.”
She studied him a moment, then leaned close. “Don’t be afraid to use that newfound magic if you’re in danger, all right?”
I won’t.
She gave him a quick smile and melted into the trees.
It grew dark in a hurry after that, the last of the daylight fading into shadow until the woods were enveloped by the night. Clouds and mist masked the sky, and it began to rain again. Bek moved Ryer Ord Star back under the canopy of an old shagbark hickory, out of the weather. She let herself be led and resettled without any form of acknowledgment, gone so far away from him that he might as well not have been there for all the difference it made. Yet it did make a difference, he told himself. Without him, she was at the mercy of whatever found her. She could not defend herself or even flee. She was completely helpless.
He wondered why she had rendered herself so vulnerable, what had happened to make her decide it was necessary. It was a conscious act, he believed. It had something to do with Walker, because everything she did had something to do with the Druid. Was she linked to him now, just as Bek had been linked to him those few moments on Shatterstone? But this was continuing for so much longer. She hadn’t spoken or reacted to anything in several hours.
He studied her for a time, then lost interest. He watched the trail instead, hoping to see someone from the company emerge from the gloom. They couldn’t all be dead, he told himself. Not all of them. Not Quentin. Not with the Sword of Leah to protect him. Bitterness flooded through him, and he exhaled sharply. Who was he kidding? He had seen enough of the fire threads and the creepers to know that it would take an army of Elven Hunters to get free of those ruins. Even a Druid’s magic might not be enough.