You can read Chapter One here.
“Where are we going?” Rael asked. “We’re not going towards the village.”
“No.” Sonja kept her eyes open for any sign of a blue livery among the trees.
“Hello?” a voice called. Both girls stopped dead, bodies tense and eyes wide.
The voice came again. “Hello? Hugo? Margrit? Anyone?”
It was Oren.
“Who is that?” Rael whispered. Her hands were resting on the hilts of her knives.
“That’s the town huntsman. He must have been away when the soldiers arrived.” Sonja pressed on into the trees. “Let’s go.”
“But where are we going?” Rael’s voice was quieter this time. Then it sharpened. “How do I know I can trust you?”
Sonja turned around to face her. “Because you’re armed,” she said slowly, “and I’m not.”
The two girls stood and looked at each other. Then Rael slowly lifted her hands away from the knife hilts and nodded. “No, you aren’t.”
“And I’m not going to hurt you.”
“All right. I believe you.”
They began walking again. Before long, they reached the robar trees and stepped onto the path. Sonja’s heart was starting to pound. Her fingers were tingling and her head felt light.
“Sonja.”
“Yes?”
“Why is it getting darker?”
Sonja stopped dead. The blue sheen hung in the air like mist. “Can you see it too?”
Rael was looking around her, frowning. “Yes. It’s not even midday yet. What is going on?”
“A couple of days ago, I found something in the woods. I don’t know if anyone from Wildkeep knows about it; if they do, they haven’t told me.”
Rael fell silent again, and they kept walking through the trees, staying close to each other. The blue in the air grew thicker and thicker until the shield was in front of them, barring their way.
“It’s beautiful,” Rael whispered. She reached out a hand.
“Be careful!”
The veil rippled where Rael’s fingers touched it. Rael stepped forward and her hand moved through the blue surface as it it was water. She froze and withdrew her hand, staring at it. “How?”
“That wasn’t what happened when I touched it.”
Rael frowned. “What happened when you touched it?”
“It caught fire and then part of it burned away.”
Rael looked around her. “How can the people here not know about this? And what’s on the other side?”
“Do you want me to show you?”
The other girl looked hesitant for a moment. Slowly, she nodded.
“It’s safe,” Sonja told her. “I’ve been here before - twice. I told you I wouldn’t hurt you - and I mean it.”
“If you’ve only been here twice, how do you know it’s safe?”
“Because nobody’s been here for a long time. You can tell from the state of the place.”
Rael’s eyes narrowed. “So how did you find it?”
“I promise I’ll tell you when we’re inside.”
Sonja placed her palm on the veil and waited as the flames licked away at the surface, forming the archway. She took a deep breath and stepped inside the cool blue tunnel, looking back in the hopes that Rael would follow her.
After a moment of hesitation, she did, her right hand resting on the hilt of a knife. “Lead the way.”
When the house came into view, Rael drew in a breath through her nose and tightened her grip on the knife.
“Who built that place?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but whoever it was, they haven’t been back. There was dust on the floor when I found it.”
“How do you know they aren’t going to come back? And if the villagers do know about this place, they should have told you when you first arrived. They haven’t, so they likely do not know it is here.”
They probably didn’t, Sonja realised with a jolt of shock. It would be easy for her - or worse, that soldier - to stumble across the veil. Hareld and Gunther would spend hours in the glade if they got the chance.
Besides, nobody had been keeping the house in a respectable condition.
Sonja held the wooden door open so that Rael could step inside. “There’s a bedroom through there,” she said, gesturing in the right direction, “and there are three necklaces in a box. Do you want to see them?”
“How did you find this place?” Rael’s eyes and hair had a faint sheen of blue from outside.
“The day before she died, Lady Adessa asked me to look at some old maps with her. I noticed a blue circle in the centre of one of them, but Lady Adessa and Hanna couldn’t see it at all. I’m not sure why I could, but the circle was very close to Wildkeep and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I went to see if I could find it.”
“You went by yourself?” Rael cried. “You’re an unarmed woman, and you went wandering alone in the woods?”
Suddenly the heat was back in Sonja’s palms and it was fiercer than before. Her chest was burning as well; she felt as if something was pouring from her heart right into her hands. She dropped to her knees, trying not to cry out.
“Sonja?”
“I can’t…I can’t breathe…”
Rael was standing over her now. “Don’t fight it.”
“What?”
“I know what you are. Don’t fight it.”
Slowly, Sonja closed her eyes, opened her palms and calmed her breathing. The warmth in her chest turned into a glow that burned brighter and brighter until her entire body felt warm.
She opened her eyes.
Blue fire was flickering on her palms.
Sonja stared at it in wonder. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“When I was little, my nursemaid would tell me stories about people who could summon fire with their hands. She called them soulfires.”
Was that what Sonja was? Why wasn’t she afraid?
“How do I make it stop?”
Rael shook her head. “The fire belongs to you. It’s part of you.”
Sonja shut her eyes again and imagined the fire slowly dimming until it was no more than a candle flame, then sinking back into her skin. When she dared to open her eyes, the fire was gone and her palms completely unblemished - except she could still sense the fire inside her, like a live coal where her heart should have been.
“Now I have something to show you.”