Chapter 220: The Thistle Witch
After an hour of navigating the treacherous footing and narrow paths through the fog and prickly vegetation, Ashlynn’s shoulders burned and her feet felt like they’d been cramping constantly from the tension of maintaining her footing.
Heila had fared even worse and Ashlynn didn’t hesitate to relieve her lady-in-waiting of the heavy rucksack she carried, shouldering both of her packs herself instead. While Ashlynn benefited from the vampire-like strength and endurance conferred by her bond with Nyrielle, Heila had no such power to rely on. It was already impressive that she’d managed the hike down from the top of the cliff with so little complaint.
Jacques seemed to move effortlessly through the Briar, his prickly aura blending in naturally with the plentiful sandbox trees that served as his namesake. Seeing them up close, Ashlynn finally understood why she felt such sturdiness from him underlying the prickly exterior. The thorns, some as large as her thumb, looked terrifyingly large up close but seen against the giant of the tree trunk itself, they seemed almost undersized.
"Dey’s poisonous too," Jacques warned when Ashlynn paused to take a look at the prickly spikes covering the thick bark of a tree. "As much as you’re carrying, you shouldn’t get so close you could tip over and hurt yourself, non?"
"You could help," Ashlynn said, gesturing to the second rucksack on her back.
"Nah, cher, you wanted to bring ma petite into da Briar as part of your coven," he said, shaking his head. "Don’t go thinking dat’s an easy ting."
Behind Ashlynn, Heila looked down in embarrassment. In the mountains of the High Pass, her cloven feet had moved swiftly and surely over the rough, rocky terrain. Now, however, mud sucked at her feet and she had to work twice as hard to pick her way carefully from one exposed root to the next if she didn’t want to risk becoming mired in the soft soil.
Ashlynn never once chastised her though, she just silently took up Heila’s burdens and helped her along when she needed an extra hand. Finally, at a point when Ashlynn was beginning to worry about her diminutive friend and if she should call for a rest, things changed.
Up ahead, the fog began to clear, revealing the warm glow of a lantern hanging from a pole at one end of a wide, flat-bottomed boat. Sitting within the boat, Ashlynn got her first look at one of the other witches of the Briar, a woman with skin almost as fair as Nyrielle’s and features so delicate they seemed almost fragile.