Solvei sighed as she took another bite of her lunch, surveying the area ahead of her.
At a casual glance, it looked little different from any stretch of arctic wilderness, with a snowy forest of evergreens spreading out to the north. But having been probing at the edges of the place for the better part of the afternoon, Solvei knew that the taiga – a term that her master had taught her during their trip to the pony village – wasn’t nearly as peaceful as it looked. Her current meal was proof enough of that.
The large spider she’d killed wasn’t nearly as tasty as yesterday’s glacier toads had been. Whereas the large blue frogs had been full of deliciously chewy meat, the spider was nowhere near as big – only about the size of a pony – and its hard exterior, covered in bristly white fur, concealed very little meat within. That she still felt hungry despite this being the fifth one she’d eaten, a nest of the things having rushed out to try and overwhelm her as she’d paced the forest’s perimeter, was a testament to how little nourishment they provided.
But at least they were better than those trees that had attacked her.
That nearly a dozen of the smallest pines – the largest of them only a little taller than her natural size – clustered around the edge of the taiga had come to life and attacked her when she’d tried to enter the frozen forest had taken Solvei completely by surprise. Fortunately, despite having superior numbers and having gotten the drop on her, the timber creatures had been quite weak. Or at least, they’d seemed weak in the face of the incredible gifts her master had given her; had she still been the utvalgte she was before she’d met Lex, Solvei knew things might have turned out differently.
That was because, unlike the straightforward aggression of the spiders, the tree-creatures had fought intelligently. During the course of their fight, they’d used the terrain to their advantage, luring her into traps they’d set up ahead of time. Patches of snow that had concealed thick splinters wedged upright in the ground, a deadfall that had been set up just inside the forest proper, and a pit that had been covered with loose brush and branches; the entire place had been booby-trapped.
Fortunately, the ploys had availed the mobile trees little. Her armored paws had easily crushed the splinters, her enhanced speed had let her dodge the deadfall, and thanks to her master giving her the power to increase her size, the pit trap had been too shallow to contain her. Still, the entire exercise had been irritating.
All the more so since the tree-things had been completely inedible. While the bulk of them had escaped into the forest once they’d realized they couldn’t stop her, Solvei had still managed to down several of them. Any doubts she’d had about them being actual trees had been dispelled once she’d bitten into them, getting nothing but a mouthful of wood and sticky resin for her trouble.
At least I didn’t get any splinters in my tongue, Solvei consoled herself silently as she finished her spider, taking care to not embarrass herself by accidentally sharing that thought with her master. Since she was already going to have to share bad news with him, the least she could do was try not to make a fool out of herself as she did it.
Still, this definitely won’t make him happy, she knew, her ears folding back as she surveyed the terrain again.
After they’d left the mountain cave earlier that morning, their adlet prisoner had told them that, after exiting the mountain pass, they’d need to go north in order to find the rest of his people. Given that they’d already been headed that way to begin with, that had seemed like good news. But the adlet – being meek as well as a faithless wretch – had warned them that they’d be heading through dangerous terrain; apparently, it was no coincidence that their kind usually turned into mist and flew over it.
But while Solvei had sneered at the creature’s cowardice before, she had to admit that it’s lack of bravery wasn’t entirely unfounded. While there had been plenty of wooded areas in the valley where she and her family had made their lair, the forest that spread out to the north of the pass was vast and wild. That much had been made clear after spending almost half the day trying to circumnavigate it, with little to show for her effort.
Since going around the wintry woodland seemed like it would take too long, that only left going through. But while Solvei was certain that she and her master could fight their way through without too much trouble, she was less certain about keeping Drafty – and those other ponies, even if her master didn’t like them very much – safe in the process. Finding a cave to sleep near the pass to sleep in had been a stroke of good luck, but Solvei doubted there’d be any more such alcoves in the forest.
Not to mention how, if there are big spiders and moving trees at the edge of this place, there are probably even worse creatures that live inside of-
Solvei’s thought was interrupted as her master’s emotions suddenly flooded her mind.
Or rather, one single emotion:
Panic.
Normally, Solvei couldn’t feel what Lex was feeling. While she knew he was aware of her own emotions – although he apparently didn’t experience them himself – the reverse wasn’t true…most of the time. Moments when her master experienced some extremely intense emotion, she’d learned, were the exception. In such instances, whatever barrier kept his feelings hidden from her came down, and his emotions flowed into her through their link.
To date, that had only happened a few times. Right before they’d arrived in the pony village, when he’d stopped to spend the day chanting at nothing, he’d suddenly become intensely angry for some reason, though he’d refused to talk about why. She’d also felt a brief spike of rage from him shortly after they’d arrived in the pony village, when (she’d learned later) those other females had attacked Drafty. And sometimes, if she was awake while he was sleeping, she’d receive brief flashes of loneliness, regret, or grief.
But she’d never once felt fear from him.
Until now.
Master! What’s wrong?! she yelped across their link, her concerns about how to cross the woods completely forgotten in the face of Lex’s distress.
But no answer came.
As unnerving as it was to think that something could actually frighten her master – whom she’d seen stand undaunted in the face of numerous life-or-death situations – his lack of an answer made Solvei’s anxiety skyrocket. Master, please summon me back! Let me help-
She didn’t get a chance to finish as she felt him slam their telepathic connection closed. That was something else he could do, she’d learned. Although she’d received a power similar to his, protecting her mind from any attempt to intrude upon it, Lex himself was the exception. She couldn’t shut out his mental voice, or refuse his summons, or otherwise use the powers he’d given her to defy him.
But as with the emotion-sharing nature of their link, the reverse wasn’t true; if Lex wanted to suppress their telepathy, he could. He’d never done so for very long – she wasn’t sure if he could do it for very long, having the impression that it was something that required his deliberate maintenance, like flexing a muscle – but when he did, there was nothing she could do but wait for him to open it again.
Until he did, however, she had no idea what was happening to him.
For a brief moment, Solvei hesitated. Her master had sent her to scout ahead, knowing better than to trust everyone’s safety to a tattered old map and the word of a vile adlet. While his refusal to listen to her now was upsetting, it stood to reason that he wanted her to continue doing what she was doing. After all, if he wanted her there, he would have summoned her. By that logic, she should keep skirting the edge of the forest until her master called for her.
But the panic she’d felt from him just now…
Just remembering it now made her want to whimper. It hadn’t been simple terror or a sudden sense of alarm. Rather, it had been something deeper, fear laced with a sense of…of…dread.
That was it. Whatever had frightened Lex, it had been something he’d been worried about for a long time, some fear that he’d long anticipated and had just now come to pass. Solvei couldn’t imagine what that was, though; if something had hurt Thermal Draft, his response to his mate being injured would have been rage, rather than panic. Nor would he have been afraid of those other ponies betraying him, not with how easily – according to what Drafty had told her after the fact – he’d subdued them before. And that was doubly the case for that pathetic adlet he’d captured.
Which means this is something else, she decided. Something he thinks I can’t help with, and my talking to him was only making it harder for him to concentrate.
That thought made her tail droop, and she glanced toward the forest again. Although it was still the middle of the day, the woods were an impenetrable haze of gloom, the heavy cloud cover above and snow-filled canopy serving to keep its interior in state of perpetual murkiness. Although Solvei could see in the dark, the range of her nightvision wasn’t very far, and even that was curtailed by the mess of trees and undergrowth. There could easily have been more snow spiders or tree-creatures or numerous other dangerous monsters silently watching her from concealment, especially since the wind had died down, making it hard to smell anything that wasn’t already close by.
The right thing to do would be to continue measuring the boundary of the forest, so that when her master called her back, she’d be able to tell him if trying to go around it was worthwhile or not. And the more hostile creatures she encountered, the more she’d be able to warn Lex about what they’d be up against if he decided that they needed to plunge through the woods instead. Besides, the more monsters she killed now, the fewer he’d have to deal with when he eventually made it here.
That was the smarter course of action, determined using the logical and rational analysis that her master championed. Solvei felt certain that it was what he expected of her now, which made it what she needed to do. And yet…
He’s afraid. He’s afraid, and I’m not there to help him.
That knowledge wasn’t just painful, it was enough to completely break her heart.
Even when her father had been killed, Solvei had known that he was in a better place. Losing her family to Prevarius’ corruption – even if she hadn’t fully understood what it was at the time – had been awful, but even that had been tempered by her desperate hope that if she found help and defeated the creature, her family would recover from the “sickness” he’d infected them with. In both cases, those beliefs had given her something to cling to, blunting how badly she’d been hurting by what had happened to her loved ones.
But there was no such belief to sustain her now, and that made knowing that Lex was in trouble absolutely unbearable. While the smarter choice was to respect her master’s decision that she couldn’t help and continue doing his bidding in the meantime, that wasn’t a choice that Solvei could live with. Not when the person who’d put everything on the line for her and asked for nothing in return except that she stay with him – and who’d already gone through so much anguish and suffering – was facing some long-held fear come true.
Even if she couldn’t do anything to help, she wanted to at least be there for him.
Whirling in place, Solvei took off running back the way she’d come.
Her master might have cut off their telepathic communication, but he hadn’t – and, Solvei was pretty sure, he couldn’t – shut down her ability to sense his direction and distance from her. And although she wouldn’t be able to get to him for a little while, at least now she was doing something to help him. Not his plans, not his strategies, but him personally.
That desire – to ease his pain, even if only a little – was the reason she’d accepted him binding her soul to his.
Master, I’m coming! She knew he couldn’t hear her thoughts right now, but that didn’t stop her from sending them his way. Right now he was afraid, and she wanted him to know that whatever was happening, he didn’t have to go through it alone. Not anymore.
Your Solvei will always be with you!