"Ah, so that's where you disappeared off to."
"I guess it didn't hurt you too bad."
Naji shrugged. "It wasn't as bad as yesterday, no."
"Well, I figured we needed shelter. And fire, too, although I don't know if I'll be able to start one in all this damp." I stood up and rubbed at my arms, trying to work out the chill. "Do you want me to show you? I don't… I don't much like staying in the woods."
Naji tilted his head a little and looked at me like he wanted to say something. But he only nodded.
It was slow going back to the beach. Naji stumbled over the underbrush and kept getting caught up in the woody vines that draped off the trees. Although he let me carry the sword, I was on edge the whole time, waiting for something to come creeping out of the shadows. It didn't help that every now and then I'd hear these weird chiming animal calls off in the distance, and the wind had a quality to it that sounded like a woman's whisper. At one point, Naji slumped against a tree, his forehead beaded with sweat. I only just caught him before he collapsed.
"Not safe," he whispered. His face twisted up and he pressed his hand into his forehead. "Not safe. For you."
"What's not safe? The woods?"
He cried out in pain and groped around my shoulders. His fingers were clammy and cold. I peeled the collar of my shirt away. The charm he made me was still there.
"Thank the darkness," he whispered, and he slumped up against me, as if all the air had been let out of him. "I'm sorry I can't protect you better."
The forest was rustling around us, dropping down feathery green leaves, and my breath was coming out fast and short. I knew we couldn't stay here – knew I couldn't stay here. But I wasn't leaving Naji behind.
"Here," I said, shoving the sword at him. "To protect me with."
His fingers fluttered around the handle. He straightened up a little, and his face no longer seemed so drawn and haggard. Stupid curse. It ain't like I don't know how to use a sword.
"Let's run," I said. "To keep me safe."
He stared at me like he didn't understand. But then he said, "Yes, I think that might work."
So we ran.
I ran faster than him, flying over the ferns and fallen tree trunks, but he kept up better than I might have expected, and I guess the running really did count as a way of keeping me safe. We burst out of the forest and the sea wind didn't carry the same cold whispers as the forest wind. I collapsed on the sand, panting, my stomach cramping up from the berries I'd eaten.
Naji knelt down beside me and took a long, deep breath. "Thank you," he said. "I couldn't think straight."
"Yeah, you looked pretty rough." I sat up and twisted around so I was facing the forest. I didn't like having it out of my sight. "You want to see the lean-to?"
I stood up and helped him to his feet, cause he was shaking and trembling like an old man. The lean-to wasn't far; I could see it crouched next to the treeline like an ugly gray toad.
"Ain't much, I know," I said. "But hopefully it's sturdier in a rainstorm. I bet it can last us till we find the wizard." I tried to sound sure, cause I figured it wasn't too fair to burden Naji right now. But inside I was afraid we'd never find the wizard at all.
I helped Naji crawl into the lean-to. He stretched out on his back and closed his eyes. I hardly had a chance to ask him how he was doing before his chest started rising and falling in the rhythm of sleep.
I took the sword off him and crawled back out onto the beach. I didn't want go too far – I certainly didn't want to go into the woods. We did need a fire, though. Papa had shown me how to start fires back when I was a little girl, since Mama couldn't start 'em with magic on account of her being a water witch. I figured it was safe to burn the wood since nothing had happened with the first fire, plus I'd already built a lean-to out of it, and I'd drunk the island's water and ate its berries without any trouble. And I was shivering so hard, too. This time it wasn't just 'cause of the fear.
I wandered down the beach looking for driftwood I hadn't already gathered up for the lean-to. When I got my courage up, I'd dart into the woods and pluck some dead, fallen branches off the ground. Never went in more than a few feet, though. Never went into the dappled shadows.
Stones were easier to come across. They were scattered across the beach in big piles, like someone had come through and set them that way as a message to the gods or to the spirits of the Isles. Part of me hoped it was the Wizard Eirnin, that maybe I'd stumble across him and we wouldn't have to wait for Naji to heal himself. But I never saw anybody. No animals, no birds, no wizards.
The lean-to was glowing when I came back, intense pale blue, a color that made me feel colder just looking at it. I checked in on Naji and the light from his tattoos seemed to overpower his whole body.
Maybe he'd heal quicker than he thought.
I piled up the wood and sat in the sand and struck stone against stone until a spark caught. You're supposed to feed the fire dead dry grass, which is easier to find in the south, so I made do with twigs from the dead tree branches. Luck was on my side. I had the fire going just as the sun, what little of it I could see, was dropping down to the horizon. In what I was pretty sure was the east.
I tried not to dwell on it.
The fire grew and grew as the island fell dark. Naji kept on sleeping, the blue from his tattoos mingling with the orange firelight. I never crawled into the lean-to myself, 'cause I didn't want to leave the heat and light of the fire, and so I fell asleep out there in the open.
The next morning, I rolled over onto my back, sand crunching beneath my weight. It was still dark, although whether that was 'cause of the time or 'cause of the rainclouds I couldn't stay. At least the fire was still burning, casting light up and down the beach–
Except it wasn't.
I sat straight up and screamed. The fire was nothing but a pile of dark ashes. The light was coming from me.
I screamed again and pushed myself up to standing and stumbled down to the edge of the island. Streaks of light radiated out behind me, and I froze in place, terrified. The sea crashed and churned beneath my feet. I took a deep breath and held up one of my hands and squinted at it, and I could see bright lines moving beneath my skin, those veins and arteries where my blood should be.