(Coming soon!)

ONE

In the dead of night

I pray for your arrival

and dream of your smile

yearning for your scent.

By the light of day

I am left alone

beside myself

and entirely distraught.

To know your father

is to know your potential

to hear Bridget’s plans

and to see them in action

with hopes

they soon

come to

pass.

Ithica (b. 413). “By Dusk’s Light, Awaiting Dawn,” journaled Year 433.

I

Year 442

Loathsome winds howled their bitter protests as I shouldered my way up the slope, still slick with ice and hard-packed snow. Last storm was days past, but the early Winter freeze still clung to the lands beyond the few places my patron had protected since the world was young. Lands that belonged to the Old God enjoyed green fields and warm air; or, in the case of the Village in the Shins, which I once called home, brown fields crusted with hoarfrost and frigid air slinging a sharp but manageable bite. But ‘twas a far cry from the horrors to be found everywhere else through the mountains. Back then, I oft wondered what benevolent force sustained us through the Wystran highland’s harsh winters.

Some questions ain’t meant to be answered, so I’ve long ceased askin’.

With the one hand I still possessed, I clutched a thin wrist, brittle as an icicle hanging desperately from a frozen twig, the dark maw of the hard earth below eagerly awaiting its shattered demise. The boy stared ahead with bloodshot eyes, for fear he might gaze upon my incongruent, lopsided form. He had screamed, for a time, when I pulled him from the forest track, but the cold fangs of the wind soon closed on his throat, and only a gurgling wheeze now hissed between his shivering teeth as I dragged him along. ‘Twas better this way, really, for the boy to remain silent. His blonde locks reminded me of Hod and his lassie, Sergi, who’d just given birth to twins, last I knew them.

I struck down the thought where it stood, and pondered naught else on the subject.

For the life of one child, I gave myself over to the Old God’s will. For the life of one child, I am bound to deliver countless others into the hands of my gluttonous host.

We came upon the cave before nightfall, the wind carrying the frantic calls of the boy’s parents and those helping to search for him. Descending into the darkling cavern, their distant voices guttered and distorted, taking on the guise of a wolf’s howling. Down and down, we trod, the boy never once asking for reassurance. I’d never offer it, anyhow. You’d think my heart cold as the stone entombing us; I don’t know. I cannot feel it any longer. Perhaps, I gave more than my arm that black night I pulled the girl from the frozen pond.

The Old God awaited us in the central chamber, a vast rotunda like an arena of the Old Empire. The chamber had no ceiling; it stood open to the world above, though ‘twas protected from the elements by some invisible, divine force. He’d taken his proper form, standing upon two legs, which were all I could stomach to look at when he chose to appear so. His face, or lack thereof, was too much to bear. The mere thought wracked my essence, and I was overcome by a fit of trembling. How the child, whose wrist I still clutched to the point of bruising, withheld his composure was beyond me. But then, what can dead eyes see?

Small shadowed figures gathered on the fringes of the chamber as they were wont to do, about to welcome the newest member of their ranks. Their glowing cerulean eyes coalesced in the gloom like so many stars in the night sky, flickering each time they blinked.

“Welcome, Tóki,” slithered the Old God’s hissing voice into our minds. He never bothered speaking with his mouth, though his manifestation suggested he was fully capable. “My attendant has brought you far and for a great purpose.”

Tóki looked up at me, a desperate pleading reaching up from within the dried, blackened wells of his eyes.

I did not meet his gaze. I could not.

“Would you like to see your brother, Tóki? He is with us now.”

Tóki’s gaze snapped to the Old God, his face growing ashen and slack.

“But there is something you must do for me, that you two may finally be together, after all these winters apart.”

“What is it?” The boy’s voice was a hypnotic drone.

“Come to me, and I shall tell you.”

Tóki pulled his wrist free from my grasp. I’d have pinned him in place, if I could, hauled him kicking and screaming out that vile place and to his parents, urging them to lash the boy for his wandering off in the big bad wood; there be mean, bloody bastards in the bid bad wood. Worse than any strider, anthropophagi or lycanthrope, both. But I was powerless in the presence of my patron, of the Old God.

For the life of one child, and the lengthening of mine own, I traded my will to choose.

The boy was gone in a heartbeat. The Old God’s terrible, ghostly jaw unhinged and swallowed him whole. It seemed more like walking through a doorway than slipping down the God’s gullet. Snapping shut his jaws, the earth trembled with anticipation for what was to come, and the walls shuddered, as if lungs deep in the blackest depths of the Old God’s cave breathed life after eons comatose.

The Old God sighed relief, his eldritch bipedal body quivering—which I shall never look upon willingly—displacing, then morphing into his preferred form; that of a glorious stag with jagged, gilded antlers. For all things, he looked like a stag, lush tawny fur with a belly the color of egg shells, save for his eyes, which were a man’s. Whether the Old God wore those eyes in his terrible, true form, I’ll never know.

Then the Old God bleated like a goat in heat, his knobby cervine legs tremulous as if in the midst of climax. Bowing his head, he gingerly pierced the earth with the sharp point of his longest antler and spun round to draw a circle, before scribbling yet more incomprehensible characters in the soil.

The incantation took naught more than ten minutes. I watched on, lugubrious in my complicity. Skalds oft told uglier tales of black magic, but most skalds had not seen half the horrors I lay with, each and every day of my sorry existence.

* * *

As the sun crested the Guardian, the great mountain which forever stood vigil over the quaint Village in the Shins, Ithica breathed deep and reveled in the brisk chill nipping at her cheeks. Autumn was on her way out the door for Winter to settle by the hearth.

Unlike the others, Ithica held no grudge against the cold—only respect. Unlike the others she welcomed Winter into her home, savored the long, dark mornings. But unlike the others, Ithica could keep her crops during Winter’s long stay. Her garden still boasted wide spade-shaped leaves of healthy squash, still enjoyed the fiery blooms of dense marigold bushes. Her soil was rich and moist, full of worms and nutritious detritus. Even as the Solstice loomed in the weeks to come, she filled her Ma’s wicker basket three times over each morning.

Ithica never understood why her garden was so uniquely bountiful. Folks gossiped about her, speculating on her seemingly preternatural gift to bring about harvest, day after day, season after season. Some said she was gifted by the gods; others claimed she must have colluded with a devil. Ithica had little time for gods or devils, and merely credited the land, the rich soil littering the bounds of her home. But what land she possessed! For such gifts, given so rarely in the Shins, were a marvel to behold. Elder Hama had once told her of another woman, who had lived on this land long ago, and she too bore these gifts.

As she made her rounds, hunting for dreaded squash bugs and vine borers, and showering her plants with rainwater from the green glazed watering jug her husband had made for her last nameday, Ithica came upon a bulbous yellow-striped zucchini hanging over the pinewood rim of a raised bed.

How on earth have I missed you?

The zucchini had grown too large to chop up and roast; the taste would be bland, the flesh filled with seeds, but she could dry the seeds and shred the flesh to put into a loaf of sweet bread.

Drawing a small, hawkbill knife, Ithica cut free the zucchini from the vine and dropped it into her basket. As she did, she felt a sting on her thumb, accompanied by a sick twinge in her stomach. She knelt and examined the plant, expecting to see a horsefly or a brown recluse poised for battle on the stem.

But there was nothing of the sort, ‘twas too cold for such creatures. No, just a wicked thorn, its tip budding with her blood. It was not like the prickly hairs that caused a rash, but an actual thorn, twice as large as a hawthorn’s spines. The tiny puncture began to weep crimson. She pressed her lips to the wound, tasting salt and dirt.

Ach... I had no idea they’d grow like that.

A storm of squealing shrieks came wailing up the hill like some ravaging horde, checked only by the wooden rampart of the garden gate. Ithica rose, sucked the blood off her thumb, and crossed the mulched pathway to greet the bairns who oft visited her garden. Theirs was always a welcome arrival.

“Miss Ithica!” hollered young Shelka Morn, waving her short thin arms about, as if Ithica had not known she was there. “Can we play today? Please!”

The others echoed their leader’s plea, nodding their heads and bobbing up and down. Shelka stood half a head taller than even the oldest boy among her retinue. Though she was not the oldest child in the Village, Shelka’s red face bore an air of wisdom, well beyond her years. Something behind her eyes was alight, as if the girl were a newly erected lighthouse, tended by an ancient keeper.

Ithica crossed her arms. “I don’t think wise. I’ve just discovered my zucchini has thorns!”

Murmurs of amazement rumbled through the posse. Gertrude, one of Sergi’s blonde twins, whispered something in Shelka’s ear.

Shelka nodded, her expression that of deep contemplation. “We’ve discussed it, and we’re willing to take the risk.”

“It’s my garden, lassie.” Ithica tittered, “Shouldnae I be consulted in your deliberations?”

“I’m not sure what deliberate-nations are, but my council is a closed one.”

“Aye.” Laughing, Ithica opened the gate. Warmth spread across her chest as she watched the bairn’s faces brighten. “But take care.” She presented her thumb, smeared with crimson. “Lest my plants bleed you dry!”

Shelka and her retinue charged into the garden, shouting half-forgotten “thank yous” as Ithica trod down the hill toward home.

With the bairns out of sight, the warmth in Ithica’s chest cooled to a bittersweet ambivalence. When will you bless me, Bridget? How many years must I wait? Her knees ached by the time she made it to the dooryard. That had only begun last winter. I’ve not much youth left for it...

Hromgir sat working on the covered porch, pumping the pedal of his potter’s wheel. Engrossed in his work, he did not notice her approach. What looked like a wash basin, big enough to bathe a trio of chickens, made of pallid gray mud took shape beneath his massive hands. Thick black patches of hair, tangled with specks of clay, sprouted between his knuckles and the backs of his hands, running up his arms to join with his thick black beard and the bed of chest hair hidden beneath his green tunic.

Years ago, when they had wed just a season after they had met, Hromgir had been built like a bear; covered with padded muscles and a big, hairy belly full of mead. Yet over the passage of the last few winters, the Village struggled to feed itself and her husband had shrunk into a lanky echo of the warrior he had once been.

Ithica leaned on the porch railing. “Who’s this one for?”

“Helgi. She’s been asking about it every time I’m in town.” Hromgir turned and looked at her with brown, loving eyes, continuing to throw his clay blind. “Ye’re back a bit early, eh?”

“Aye.” Ithica showed him her thumb. “Did you know zucchini grow thorns?”

Hromgir squinted at the puncture. “I ain’t ever heard of that. We’ve still got some tobacco left in the pantry.” He let his foot off the pedal and let the wheel slow to a gradual stop. “I’ll mash up a poultice.”

They retreated into the cottage. It had been a bloody mess, the cottage, when they first arrived those short, few years ago. Together, they had made it a home.

Wreaths of dried flowers, herbs, and colorful woolen nålbound hangings hung from every wall. Lining half of their shelves, both free-standing and mounted, were myriad pieces of pottery varying in states of completion. Many were finished; cups and plates and bowls which they used daily—among other trinkets—glazed with countless colors and patterns. There were also several that had been thrown and fired, but had yet to be colored. ‘I’m waiting for the vision to arrive,’ Hromgir would always say, when Ithica asked him to clear out some space for her things.

The other half of the shelving was filled with jars of seeds and dried herbs, poultices and oils, among other mixtures fermenting for diverse purposes. In the last few seasons, it had fallen mostly upon Ithica to provide the harvest to the community. That included providing not only food, but medicine as well.

Hromgir made the dishes, Ithica, the potions. They both cooked when they could, and regardless of who prepared the food, Ithica always laced their meals with a few drops of something to ease their guts. These were the things that her mother had taught her, the knowledge that had been passed down the line of unnamed women for generations.

Gardening, growing something from nothing, was in her blood.

And yet, I’ll have no one to pass my knowledge to...

They sat at their small dining table, which doubled as a prep table and a writing desk. Hromgir retrieved a jar of dried Ionian tobacco leaves they had traded for last summer. He set the jar beside a stone mortar on the table. “Remind me what else I need?”

Ithica sighed. “Water, dearheart. Crush the leaves with water.”

“I know, I know!”

The pungent paste that Hromgir mashed served its purpose, but he was as green as they came when it came to herbalism. His mixture was too wet to cling to a more serious wound, especially after a bandage was applied. But Ithica loved that he was willing to try, and gladly accepted his doting attentions. It did not matter in the slightest that she could have just rinsed the puncture with boiled water—the true healing was in his affectations, which she selfishly absorbed with every chance she got.

“Collin stopped by,” Hromgir said. “We’ve a couple newcomers moving in. He asked us to help with the welcome feast tomorrow night.”

“Really?” Ithica’s eyes went wide as a tremor of excitement shot through her fingers. No others had come to the Shins since she and Hromgir. “Who?”

“Nobles from Valencia, of all places.”

“Valencia? What in the world would bring them all the way up here?”

Hromgir shrugged. “Seems they’ve fallen on hard times.”

Haven’t we all?

For a time, they sat in companionable silence, sometimes looking into one another’s eyes, sometimes not. They prepared dinner together and went out to the porch where they watched the sun go down. Hromgir placed a strong hand on her inner thigh and gently squeezed.

“I cannae take more disappointment,” Ithica whispered. But his warm touch summoned stirrings she could hardly resist.

“We’ll never know if we don’t try.”

His expression was so calm, resolute. Did he feel the same pain as she? If so, did he feel it every day, as she did? His dependable confidence, his willingness to charge blind into uncharted territory, suggested not.

Then again, he surprises me every day...

* * *

Ain’t no thorns would scare off Shelka Morn. That’s what she had wanted to say to old Miss Ithica. After the woman left them, Shelka made damn sure she said it many times over for her followers to hear. Can’t risk looking weak, can I?

If even a hair of vulnerability fell from Shelka’s head, one of the boys would usurp her leadership over the children of the Village in the Shins. She would burn in Grahtz before allowing some hairless milk-drinker to take her place.

“Listen up!” she proclaimed, swinging about to walk backwards up the hill. “If Miss Ithica says there are thorns—then we need to find ‘em! Don’t even think of playing it safe in the cabbage patch!”

“Ithica don’t grow no cabbages,” said Jorn, the oldest of the boys. He wiped his tiny red nose with the sleeve of his tunic. “I think she grows watermelons.”

“You ever seen a pissin’ watermelon, Jorn? That’s southern fruit—and we ain’t no softie southerners!”

That earned a cascade of laughter from the others. Shelka beamed.

“I’ve a question!” cried Gertrude, one of the golden haired twins that only followed Shelka around to get close to the boys.

“Question away.”

“Why do we got to look for thorns? Bad enough we come here anyways, being so close to the woods! Ma don’t like it. She says they’re haunted!”

“Because I said so! Besides, ain’t no bloody ghosts in the woods. I go in there all the time, and I’m still here, leading this sorry rat-pack!”

“And,” added Jorn, “so we know where the thorns are.”

“Right,” Shelka said. “Then we won’t get stuck.”

That seemed to satisfy Gertrude and, by proxy, her echo, Angelika. Gertrude, being fifteen minutes older, was always the worrywort. Angelika slavishly followed her sister’s example, especially when their elder brother was off working in the wood with the colliers. Part of being a leader that no one understands is that you need to present different masks to different followers. It eases them, makes them trust you. For the golden twins, Shelka insisted she was the authority on any given topic, even if she was wrong.

Not that Shelka was ever wrong. She was a bloody genius.

Thus the pack of village children bounded up the hill, through the second wooden gate, still sticky with newly applied linseed oil, and tumbled like tiny avalanches into Miss Ithica’s garden, where mysteries lurked round every bend, and shadows gathered beneath every leaf. It wasn’t so much the garden itself that made for the excitement, but the magic that surely made everything grow, even though no one else could keep a bloody onion alive. As far as Shelka was concerned, growing anything in the Shins was nothing short of miraculous. Even the garden at home that her Ma obsessively tended since Da died, barely yielded a head of lettuce for a salad. Yet Miss Ithica could feed the whole town.

Ma swore that Miss Ithica was a witch, that she had cursed the village so that everyone was forced to rely only on her. But Shelka didn’t think that was true; it’s something Shelka would do, if she had the means, and Miss Ithica wasn’t much like Shelka. Miss Ithica was too kind, too vulnerable. And in the Shins, such traits are weakness. And weakness meant death. If there was anything she had learned from her Da, who had been the strongest man in all the village, it was that a moment of weakness could get you got.

’Twas just how things were.

Besides, Ma was a paranoid fool. She had been even before Da left them, always rambling about evil schemes and plots: The byfoged had been paid off by the king to see the village starve; Collin was secretly an Olarhan lord fleeing his war crimes; Miss Ithica sacrifices goats beneath the full moon to cast blights upon every garden but her own. Shelka ain’t ever seen nobody plot nothing in the Shins—that was against the very nature of the place. The Village, and its people, were sincere and honest to a fault. An idiot could see that. When she voiced it as such to Ma, Shelka earned herself a slap across the face.

And Shelka didn’t much like being slapped.

Shelka stood on a rock and oversaw a game of tag, turned shoving match, between Jorn and Vander—who was a full two years younger than Jorn. And two years shorter. Soon the golden twins joined the fray, instead striking with gentle taps on the shoulder before they ran giggling away, their long golden tresses billowing in the wind like sorry flags of surrender.

“Come on, Shelka!” Angelika called to her. “I’m it—let me try to catch you!”

“You all go on—I’ll make sure no one cheats,” Shelka said, glowering down at the girl.

Shelka hadn’t the taste for play. She was a warrior, like her Da. She was also a strategist, which was why she had taken it upon herself to organize the other children and facilitate their play. She had long since learned that to get what you want, you had to give others what they want. So that’s what she did. And there was much to be gained by watching such things. She had each of her followers solved; none of them held secrets from her.

“Don’t be a coward, Shelka!” Jorn curled his pink, pouty lips in a mischievous smirk. “Ye’re just scared you’ll lose.”

Something curdled in her chest. “I ain’t no coward.”

Jorn balled his fists. His hands were so soft, Shelka couldn’t tell if he even had knuckles. “Then come down and play with us.”

“Yeah!” shrieked Vander. “Yellow craven!”

“Craven, eh? Callin’ me a coward!” Shelka leapt off her rock and stomped over to Jorn. “I’ll show you a bloody coward!” With both hands, Shelka palmed Jorn’s chest. Spittle flew from his mouth as he stumbled back a few steps, then tripped over a vine.

Jorn let out an ear-splitting cry. He’d fallen right into a bed full of the vile, thorned zucchinis Miss Ithica had warmed about. He writhed and squirmed, unable to find purchase to pick himself up off the ground.

Shelka rushed to him and knelt beside him. “Gods, Jorn! Hang on, stay still—yer making it worse.”

“Hell on Earth, Shelka,” Gertrude whispered. “You didn’t need to hit him.”

“It hurts!” Jorn screamed, tears streaming down his face, etched with red scratches. He was interred in thorny vines, as if the plant sought to pull him into the ground to fertilize its roots. “It hurts, Shelka, it hurts!”

“Of course it bloody hurts!” Shelka fought frantically to untangle the flailing boy. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him, only to prove a point. “Calm down, Jorn! Vander, stand on his other side—good—Jorn, give us your hands.”

Shelka and Vander heaved. Something ripped. Whether it was Jorn’s tunic or flesh, Shelka couldn’t know. At first, the boy wouldn’t budge. She gave one more pull with all her strength, and all at once Jorn launched to his feet, sending Shelka and Vander tumbling to their asses on the mulched path.

Shelka scrambled to her feet and pulled up Vander, who had scraped up his elbows something fierce.

Gertrude and Angelika harmonized with a horrified scream. Shelka turned, her jaw dropping as she laid eyes on Jorn. The boy was painted crimson, as if he’d bathed in blood. He stood in an awkward standing-squat, his arms outstretched and dangling at the elbows like one who’d accidentally gotten a handful of manure. Hands red, face blanched, he looked like he might faint.

“Time to move, everyone! Help me get Jorn to safety!”

Together, the pack took turns shouldering Jorn’s arms. Ambling down the hill, they were confronted by the dusky silhouette of the village, crowned by the craggy chapel where lived grumpy Father John. He’ll be having words with me for this. Shelka shivered; she hated the priest. That sour, malodorous stench clung to him, the same which had followed her Da to his grave. By the time they’d made it down the hill and back home, all their tunics were stained.

Jorn’s mother must have heard his cries, or watched their approach from the window. When she stomped out of the house, her face was already twisted with rage. “You good-for-nothing misfits!” the woman growled, sweeping her wailing son in her arms. “Yer mothers will be hearing all about this!”

Shelka watched from the road as Jorn disappeared into the house, his cries muffled behind the door as it slammed shut. The others dispersed without another word.

“I’m sorry,” Shelka whispered, her eyes hot. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. She never meant to hurt anyone, and yet it seemed she couldn’t stop herself from doing it.

Shelka Morn didn’t go home that night. She knew Ma would have already heard whatever lies Jorn’s mother spread round the village and knew she’d only find Da’s belt laid out on the table when she arrived. Shelka bloody hated that belt—more than she bloody hated the cold. Though she couldn’t stop the beating, no more than she could stop herself from beating on others, she could prolong it. So Shelka went off to the center of town, behind Collin’s place, where Da used to spend all his time, and sat on the ground, leaning back against the rough timber walls.

A dizzy spell came over her then, and Shelka closed her eyes for a moment. She must have fallen asleep, because when she opened them again she was shivering and it was dark, a crescent moon hanging heavy in the starry night sky, the night air heady with the smell of chimney smoke.

Shelka shivered, but not from the cold. Had it been winter, she’d have died just like Da.

She picked herself up and started home, staring at her feet the whole way. The air grew heavier, warmth pulsing and radiating from the square and she stopped in her tracks before the chapel. Behind the stained glass windows, bright light coruscated, black smoke billowing out an open window on a high wall, as if it were a chimney above a hearth.

Shelka ran back to Collin’s place screaming warnings of fire.

* * *

Father John Rivers had always tried to be a good man, a good priest. Yet, he never quite lived up even to his own middling expectations. He never lived up to anyone’s expectations, at least, not in a good way. By the time his wife and sons had had their fill of him, he supposed he had fulfilled their expectations tenfold.

He quaffed his last mouthful of brandy, rather, the last of his good Wystran brandy, seven years off his old neighbor’s still. That was one thing for which he thanked the Trinity: he could still drink.

Father John breathed deep, reveling in that woody, spicy aroma of resin suffusing the air in every room of the empty chapel. The place had been constructed ahead of his arrival using the surrounding pines, chopped down and left to cure for fifteen Winters, then fitted together with expert joinery and finished with pine tar to keep out the rot. The people of the Shins still joined wood and cut stone with the same mastery of the Old Country. The Old Country… he smiled at the thought as he sat by the fireplace, staring at the guttering flames in the hearth, their tongues licking at the pinewood walls beyond the limestone mantle. The people of the Shins were the spitting image of the Skjöldrúnnar ancestors, their spirits still burned with that old fire.

I dinnae deserve this place.

He sighed, rubbed his weary eyes. Father John had long lost touch with that side of his blood. He was a proper Kaldean, through and through. Always had been.

’Twas why he took up the cloth after his woman threw him out. ‘Twas how he ended up giving sermons to an empty chapel at the edge of the world, preaching the Gospel of the Trinity—the Dusk and the Dawn, the High Noon, who the people of the Shins still called Morgana and Bridget, conflating the faith with the old gods, long dead.

The job that Bishop Hansen had given John was simple—teach the villagers to use the correct names and say the correct prayers. Seven years toiling away, and he’d failed at that, too, it seemed. Just as he failed his wife, his sons; with a drink in his hand, his judgement muddied with ale.

Recently, he’d taken to smoking, since the Ionian traders began making their way up the Guardian the last few summers, peddling their geometrically patterned silks and ground tobacco. Yet another vice of which he was still permitted to partake. Father John yawned and withdrew his last cigar from a musty, oaken box sitting by the chair on a small pine stool of old Kuzolovii make. His supply should have lasted the year, but he’d have to wait two more seasons before he could snag another box. If the Ionians ever came back, that is, as it was never guaranteed.

Leaning back in his chair, Father John propped up his feet on a prie-dieu, the oaken veneer cracked and dry from lack of regular varnish, one of many, which had gone largely unused since he arrived in the Shins. Brandy swilled in his gut as his eyes began to drift through the hazy room. He puffed on the cigar, letting the smoke drift out his nose, fancying himself an Elder Dragon of myth, rather than an old layabout, and a sorry excuse for a priest.

The sun set, dimming the usually glowing stained glass windows, which depicted the Dusk and Dawn in all their angelic resplendence. Storm clouds gathered, and a crepuscular whirlwind blew open the porthole at the peak of his chambers. Drowsy and swimming in bliss, Father John cared not for the disturbance and persisted puffing and puffing, blowing smoke through his nostrils, giggling through waking dreams of sweeping through the air on reptilian wings.

“Sleep, dear John. Rest now.”

“I’m so... bloody tired...” Father John’s arms fell to his sides, his lit cigar falling to the resinous pinewood floor and rolling to the dried-up prie-dieu. He lulled into a sweet slumber, enjoying the smell of a distant campfire, somewhere far, far away....

II

The wagon had a worn axel. Every root and pebble sent painful jolts ripping through the planks. Fortunately for Baptiste Fournier, such things had long since lost their niggling snags at his patience. He was immune to nearly every mortal frustration known to man—at least, that’s what he liked to think. But the hypothesis seemed to hold water, considering he and his young apprentice had been shut away with the cheeses and grains day in and day out the whole way up the mountain.

He’d nearly finished reading his third book since they left Wystra. He was itching to move on to the fourth when the wagon shuddered to halt.

As the driver opened the door, bright moonlight flowed in, illuminating the dark cabin like seawater through a broken hull. Baptiste watched the alabaster beams glitter in his apprentice’s maroon-colored eyes, her fair skinned face seeming to glow in the twilight.

How far we have come, my child...

“We’re making camp—need your eyes for one more night,” said the driver. “You sure you don’t want to take shifts? You must be mighty tired by now.”

Baptiste offered a wry smile, careful to keep his mouth closed. “We are up to the task, good man, I assure you. Rest well, we have nearly reached the summit.”

The driver grunted, nodding, then went off to help the other caravaners make camp. They grumbled amongst themselves, complaining of the hard, dangerous return journey that lay yet ahead of them. Oft, it seemed, descending the mountain was just as perilous as ascending it.

“I can’t wrap my head round it!” the driver said, striking iron across a shard of flint over the firepit he had dug in the snow. “Why they insist we make this trip every fortnight! These mountainfolk are broke!”

“Not to mention these bloody woods,” said one of the guards.

“What’s wrong with the woods?” one of the new recruits asked, shrill in his still-deepening timbre.

“Haunted as Morgana’s bed chamber, lad! Poor sods in the village can’t keep their bairns from wanderin’ to their graves.”

Some ways down the track, Baptiste and his apprentice set out a couple stools and made their own camp. He preferred to read by the moonlight rather than the guttering of a campfire, and they both deemed the cold a nonissue. Besides, the farther north they went, the higher up they climbed, the more majestic the night sky. How is it that in all my years, I’ve never ventured to the Great North?

“Tell me, Baps,” his acolyte said, incredulous, “why haven’t these folks questioned our presence on this trip?”

“Wizards, my dear Armelia,” Baptiste tittered, stretching out his arms in open air, “are known for their eccentricities.”

She scoffed, shook her head. “Wizards...”

Not a one had questioned their odd behaviors, their strange habits. A full night’s rest on the road was not a boon to be questioned—an unspoken truth that Baptiste was wont to exploit.

Dusk’s Moon basked the wilds in her divine glow and, captivated, Baptiste took in her vivid paintings. He sat on his stool, staring into the trees for an hour or two before he even considered opening that fourth book. He nearly forgot about it, his eyes darting this way and that, tracing faraway families of deer crossing invisible avenues, chubby chipmunks leaping fir to fir, cheeks hoarded tongue-to-palette with pine nuts.

His apprentice sighed and tapped her foot against a log. Patience was a skill she had yet to attain—and likely, would not attain for many years. The young are so eager to charge into the shadows of their futures. Nothing but time and experience can change that. Fortunately, for Baptiste and his dear, young apprentice, those of their unique condition need not worry about squandering their youth the way common folk oft did.

Take your time, my child, Baptiste thought, admiring Armelia’s watchful attention to her surroundings. For the nights are long, and meant to be savored.

That was his favorite scripture, mildly adjusted to fit his specific worldview, of course. It was one of the first things he had uttered to his apprentice, when first she opened her maroon eyes to view the world as Baptiste saw it.

How far we have come... he thought again, this time accompanied by a note of mourning. How far, indeed.

Fatigued by contemplation, Baptiste turned his attention to his book entitled The Encyclopaedia Monstronum, and penned by none other than the enigmatic—and long since perished—Lord Byron Martikov before the eruption of Mount Vragognev wiped out the Eastern Kingdom of Kuzolova. The tome was intended as a very serious and very well-researched guide to the uncanny world of spirits and fae and demons.

Baptiste read it with much enthusiasm, and a hint of spite, as an absurdist comedy.

He long ago lost interest in non-fiction. Over the years, so much of it just seemed to regurgitate the same contradictory propaganda, the same misguided notions of nationalistic heroism and ponderings of a static moral good. No, Baptiste preferred to read drama and poetry. He preferred to write it, too.

That was what had taken him to the Golden City, in the first. Dreams of grandeur, reforging himself anew. He was rather proud of his time there. Of the eight pseudonyms under which he had managed to publish, two of them had gone on to gain recognition worth celebrating. Of course, by that point he’d had to stop using those pseudonyms. Valentine writers were expected to maintain fruitful social lives, which clearly Baptiste was unable, and uninterested, in doing.

Had he known everything was about to go to shit, he might have made an appearance as Julio de la Peña. Perhaps, he would have taken Julio’s—his—writing career to heights known only by the Valentine nobility, trained from birth to speak in iambic pentameter, who write only with the most lyrical of rhetoric.

But how could he have known? Baptiste Fournier was many things... but he was no oracle. Oh well, Baptiste thought, expelling a weary sigh whistling through his teeth. Whatever happens will happen, and we can do naught but carry on.

“What is it?” The girl’s ears had perked up, as if she could hear Baptiste’s slight discomfort.

“Oh, nothing, dear Armelia. Just reflecting. It has been a long road—and I am ready to finally settle down.”

Armelia only nodded. Though she never said it aloud, Baptiste knew she was less than thrilled about their exodus to the north. And why not? She was so young, had a whole, fruitful life ahead of her. To have all that ripped out by the roots... it was almost too much for Baptiste to bear.

A hare jumped out from a snow drift a ways down a slope. They both snapped their heads around, eyes fixed on the critter. Armelia’s teeth chattered, as if she were shivering.

“We are nearly to the village,” Baptiste said slowly, annunciating every word. “One more night, my apprentice. One more night.”

Armelia breathed deep through her nose, let it back out her lips, devoid of the plume that should have come with the chill of night. “One more night.”

* * *

Ithica oft laid awake after she and her husband made love. As Hromgir fell into the embrace of sweet, relieved dreams, she stared at the ceiling, fixated on the rumblings in her tummy and wondering if her body was working as it should.

She whispered a prayer to Bridget, as she did every such night. “Bless us, Great Mother, and let this babe take shape.”

But prayers were fickle things, blind admissions to forces beyond her ken. And though she had uttered the same words for nearly a decade, Bridget had yet seen fit to answer. Any semblance of one came in the way of an intrusive voice of a stranger, murmuring in tones born of nightmares, speaking of her worst fears. Ithica oft wondered if Great Mother Birth’s plan only demanded further patience, or if she simply ignored Ithica’s pleas as the stranger claimed.

There was no way to know.

Ithica breathed deep, inhaling the cold, musty air, humid with their sweat and their passions. Her legs were sore and her insides roiled as if they had just begun assembling all which was needed to sow a seed. She fought the urge to speculate upon the rumblings. Such things only led to disappointment, of which Ithica could withstand little more.

She turned on her side, touching her husband’s hair, tracing his receding hairline. He had always kept it tied up, and thus his hair retreated further up his forehead than it might otherwise have done. Even so, he remained just as handsome as the day they met, if not more so. Letting her head fall upon his shoulder, Ithica’s eyelids grew heavy, images of that day flashed before her eyes.

Hromgir had just shown up on Da’s farm. Ithica was pruning the blueberry bushes, and she was terrified to see an armed stranger wearing blood-stained armor and a dented helm limp through the gate with a Fenris arrow lodged in his leg like a broken fang. Crossing the threshold of Da’s land, he had collapsed at the edge of the garden.

“He’s one of them striders,” her father told her after dragging Hromgir into the house, stripping off his armor and treating his many wounds. “He cannae be trusted.”

Trusted or no, custom dedicated they give him salt, bread, and water. A fortnight passed, and Hromgir rose one morning of his own accord to feed the chickens and split logs for the fire.

Until then, Da was of a mind to send him off—a strider’s absence was more valuable than his repayment. But seeing Hromgir’s practiced swing of the axe, his tender handling of the livestock, his willingness to work without being asked... Da had silently acquiesced to the young man’s wordless request to remain, eager to spend more time by the fire in his old age.

Ithica did not think much of Hromgir at the time. Though ruggedly handsome, he was savagely stoic, reserving his words only for the necessary thanks and greetings. She had always imagined herself with a boastful man, like one of the travelling Skalds who oft visited the farm. This man is far too brooding, she had thought.

Come the following spring, Ithica’s father had asked her to teach Hromgir to sow wheat. Together they hitched a yoke upon the old ox and drove the beast tilling through the fields. It was only when they bent down into the soil to drop the seeds into the earth’s infinite womb that Hromgir’s large, callused hand brushed atop hers, and Ithica looked up into his wide brown eyes for the first time.

“I see your heart,” Hromgir had whispered, his eyes glittering in the Mourning Sun.

“I see yours...”

Ithica’s heart clutched as she dreamed, and she began to weep in her sleep. Hromgir stirred, wordlessly wrapping his arms round her, tenderly rubbing her tummy and pressing his lips against the back of her neck, his warm breath easing the tension in her shoulders.

Please, Ithica cast into the ether, the words ringing behind her memories. Let his seed take hold.

* * *

They arrived at the village the next morning. As expected, the cloud cover suppressed the blinding rays of the sun, making the day tolerable to Baptiste’s sensitive flesh. The Wystran caravaners that had taken them up the mountain kindly began to unload their few luggage crates.

A throng of townsfolk had gathered in the square and stood arguing amid the ruins of a building that must have burned down in the night. A few men rummaged through the scorched ruin, searching for any surviving valuables or the charred remains of their fellows.

Baptiste winced, watching the ordeal as the caravaners worked, a rare shiver rolling down his back. “Take care with the hearth, my apprentice,” he said over his shoulder as Armelia was thanking the driver for his hospitality with a silver coin. “Strong winds might throw embers, and this whole place is made of logs and thatch!”

Armelia shrugged. “May well keep it cold, then.”

Their temporary quarters at the inn had already been prepared; two beds made with simple fur blankets, a reading chair, a writing desk, candles, stationery, and heavy wool curtains that would keep the room dark at all hours of the day. The efficiency of messenger ravens rivals even that of sorcerous communications. Even more magical, an innkeep who listens to directions.

Despite his fatigue, he unpacked and arranged his few dozen books into tidy stacks on the floor beside the desk, while his apprentice did much the same, hanging her half-dozen gowns in different configurations on the curtain rods. His books and her garments were all they salvaged from the blaze that had claimed the Cordoba estate back in Valencia.

Trying as their road thus far had been, it was a relief to have an apprentice, a child of his own, even, in a way. He had spent most of his over long life alone. Now he savored every moment shaping her ever-expanding mind.

Yet joy begets worries, and his worries were twofold—keeping Armelia safe and preventing himself from pushing her into the world prematurely with his doting, as the elderly are wont to do. Those of their ilk are solitary by nature, after all.

Baptiste was finally lulling to sleep when someone knocked at the door. Armelia, who was still wide awake, cast a questioning glance at him. Baptiste kept a straight face, silently wishing ease upon her.

He rose, yawned, and opened the door.

A squat, chubby man sporting a red moustache on his lip stood at the threshold. He wore a fine, embroidered tunic over a thick, padded jerkin. “Hello!” he said, much too loud for the ungodly hour. “You must be Monsieur Baptiste Fournier, and...” he craned his neck, looking past Baptiste’s shoulders to Armelia lounging on her bed.

Baptiste conjured a closed-lipped smile. “My apprentice.”

“Armelia Cordoba,” she said, rising elegantly and gliding over to shake the man’s hand in a single motion.

“My...” he said, wincing at her touch. “Must have been mighty cold on the road! I’m Collin—wanted to officially welcome you both to our little village. We’ve got a pot going at all hours and I ensure there’s always something on tap. So tell me if you need anything!”

“Thank you, good man,” Baptiste said, folding his hands behind his back. “I must say, I was impressed when we arrived. I have much respect for proactive planners.”

Collin chortled, his cheeks suddenly flushed. “I can’t take that much credit, sir. Fact is, we’ve got scant little to do and there’s always open rooms. We don’t get many travelers up here. Once the caravan embarks tomorrow morning, we’ll likely be empty till they return.”

Armelia tilted her head, her maroon eyes fixed on the man’s warm, red face. “If not from rooms... how do you make your profits?” Her teeth chattered, as if she were shivering.

Baptiste shifted, barring her path to the kindly innkeep.

“Ain’t about profits, lass. I’ve left that life long behind.”

“An admirable venture.” Baptiste took hold of the door. “I fear we must continue this discussion another time. It has been a long journey, and we have kept watch most of the night.”

“Rest well, sir and madame,” said the innkeep, unwitting of his dire imposition. He turned to leave, then stopped. “Oh—I almost forgot. We have a tradition here in the Shins, we always welcome newcomers with a feast. Join us tonight?”

Baptiste cringed, anticipation clotting in his chest. “Yes, we will be there. Now, if you will excuse me.”

“Oh. Of course—”

Baptiste swiftly, as politely as possible, shut the door.

Armelia exhaled as a tremor wracked her frame, then retreated into the room and crumpled onto the bed. She looked as though on the verge of tears. “I’m starving, Baps. When can we...”

“Midnight,” Baptiste snapped. “Then we may hunt.”

“I’m not sure I can wait...”

“You will. Now try to get some rest, my dear. The worst is behind us.”

Without another word, Baptiste retrieved The Encyclopaedia Monstronum and sat in his reading chair across from Armelia’s bed. He gestured for her to lay down. She did so.

I’ll not again allow harm to befall you, my child, Baptiste thought as he watched her wrap herself with furs and force her eyes shut. He did not allow his own rest to take him until he saw a fitful, jolting slumber take hold of his young apprentice.

You will live a long, fruitful existence. I promise you that.

* * *

When Ithica woke, the sun long since risen, Hromgir had already hitched the horses to the wagon loaded with that week’s harvest. He had also packed a few crates filled with dishes to help the newcomers settle into their new home.

She dressed swiftly and ran a bone comb through her tangled, sandy hair, tying it into a simple braid. Outside, she filled the kettle from the rainwater bucket—which somehow wouldn’t freeze, even in the harshest of winters—and hung it over the roaring hearth to boil. They sat on the porch and drank in silence their morning pine needle tea touched with honey.

As they set off towards town, the air was toasty, as if a funeral pyre had been burning all night. The wagon creaked down the hill, the old rusty axles groaning under the added weight of Hromgir’s creations, and the air took on an acrid bite, grew heavy with the scent of charred timbers.

“Something’s happened,” Hromgir muttered. “Hope everyone’s alright.”

Ithica felt ill, thinking of the bairns yesterday. Gods, please, ensure they’re safe.

They had been on the main road of the Village for no more than a moment or two when a tall, strongly built woman with ash blonde hair hollered, waving about her thick arms. Hromgir yanked on the reins and slowed the wagon to a whining stop.

“Good morning, Helgi! I placed your washbasin in the kiln this morning—”

“’Tis not my concern.” Helgi’s long, pockmarked face scrunched up. She leveled her dark eyes at Ithica, knitting her bushy, blonde brows so they appeared as one. “My boy is a bloody mess after mucking about in your garden!”

“Oh gods...” Ithica said, a sickening twinge coiling in her chest. “What’s happened?”

“He fell in a bed of brambles! Yer bloody yard ain’t no place for bairns to be. Those woods are of the Deceiver. It’s yer job to keep those gates closed!”

Hromgir sighed, “Helgi, it’s yer job to keep the lad reined in. Not ours.”

“You two are part of this village—act like it!” With that, Helgi stormed off back to her cabin.

Ithica tightened her fists, her fingernails digging painfully into her palms, heat burgeoning behind her eyes. “What’s her bloody issue with me?”

“She’s always been one to hold a grudge,” Hromgir said with a shrug, whipping the horses back to a canter, “even whilst you were close.”

“Aye,” Ithica growled, focusing on her breath to forget Helgi’s spiteful, unending frown. “I think she resents me for wasting my youth. Ain’t my fault I’m all dried up.”

“Dearest...” Hromgir whispered, rubbing her shoulder.

Ithica brushed it off. “I’m fine. Keep driving.”

Hromgir tightened his lips, looked ever forward.

Immediately, Ithica felt guilty, but sometimes it was best just to move on from unpleasantries, rather than mire in them. I can’t keep lashing out.

A droplet of water fell onto Ithica’s forehead, the first of a mid-morning drizzle. Hromgir cracked the reins and hastened over to Collin’s stable to unload, before the rains soaked their cargo.

On the way, they passed the byfoged and his three sons talking with a crowd of villagers. There was a blackened, smoldering ruin where once stood the chapel none of them bothered to attend.

Hromgir slowed the cart to halt once more. “Ho! Byfoged Jukil, is everyone alright?”

The king’s emissary shook his head and pushed away from the crowd to lean on their wagon. Jukil was heavy set, his belly sagging with the years and ale, his umber crown revealing the back of his bald pate. “Father John was inside when it went ablaze. We’ve found his bones, and naught else. It’s been an awful night, Hromgir, an awful night! I’m up to my ears in nagging questions, all lookin’ to me for bloody answers!”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“The fire is the least of my concern. Kartha just arrived from the collier’s camp, brought news that Hod lost his laddie to the wood. Another thorn in mine side!”

Ithica leaned forward. “Are there men searching? Bairns don’t just vanish!”

“Calm yer lassie, Hromgir.” The byfoged spat. “I’ve enough rats in my hair without her blabbin’.”

“Bloody bastard,” Ithica hissed. “You wouldn’t have rats if you did yer duty.”

The byfoged seethed, gripping the polished hilt of the new sword hanging at his belt.

Hromgir clamped a massive hand round the man’s arm. “Threaten my wife, sir, and I’ll ensure you join the good Father in Morgana’s bed. We’re a long way from Wystra.”

Without another word, Byfoged Jukil stomped back to the throng of concerned townsfolk, his oldest son scrambling too late to his father’s aid. Jukil barked an order and shoved away the lad with an open palm. The cowed townsfolk ceased their questioning and dispersed.

When finally they pulled into Collin’s stable, Hromgir began to rise, but Ithica stopped him, clutching his arm in hers. He looked at her with his big eyes that saw everything beneath her flesh. She wanted to say something, anything. Instead, she fell into his arms and wept.

* * *
Collin could not have been more relieved to have a door slammed in his face. He disgorged a ragged sigh turned belch and pulled out his handkerchief, the only thing he had left of his lord father, dabbing the sweat beading his brow. That lass looked upon me with a hunger I’ve only seen gnawing at soldiers in a whorehouse. Clearly, he had misread the situation. There was no reason a bonnie lassie would have eyes for a coot like him. Not without knowing who he was, who he had once been.

He shook his head, a shiver rolling down his aching spine, then hurried across the gallery and leaned against the railing to catch his breath, to collect his thoughts.

‘Twas not often folks came to the Village in the Shins. Even less often, they stayed. Collin had been over the moon when he received word from Wystra’s Chief Falconer, Baird Vorksson, which was why he was all the more troubled when the uncanny strangers appeared in his inn like noon phantoms, disappearing into their quarters without so much as saying hello. Especially after last night, with all its woes. He made a point never to judge folks on first impressions alone, but the village’s first impressions may have killed the newcomers’ tenure before it even started. In a village with less than thirty residents, they needed every willing and able body they could find.

There were countless explanations for the cascade of unease these strangers poured upon him like boiling oil. Foremost, they too were unnerved. Our chapel just collapsed into a pile of ash and now young Tóki may be missing. I’d be out of sorts, too, had I just arrived here after weeks on the road to find all this mess.

In Vorksson’s letter, the seething gossip had speculated that Monsieur Fournier and his young apprentice had been exiled from their home. It seemed that Fournier had made some bitter enemies in high places. And the entire province of Wystra would be jarring to anyone not native to the harsh land, let alone those accustomed to the decadence of nobility, forced from their beds in the night to flee for their lives.

Collin was unfamiliar with the Valentine social canon—so too was he with that of his own homeland, being so far removed now—but he had already constructed his best guess as to what had brought the newcomers to the village: The young and beautiful Armelia Cordoba, having just reached an age to marry, had been betrothed to some rich noble brat. Instead of securing her family’s financial security, she was taken with the pursuit of knowledge and went off to study sorcery with Monsieur Fournier. Her lord father, whoever he may be, chased them out of the city, enraged at his daughter’s betrayal.

What better place to escape the wrath of Valentines, and to focus on studying the esoteric, than the haunted woods high in the Withershins? They’ll get on. They’ll have to.

Collin made his way downstairs, where he was met by a late autumn gust sweeping through an open window, carrying with it the redolence of fresh baked bread and salted, fried eggs. He stopped on the stairwell, closing his eyes, savoring the aroma that always dispelled his nerves. An involuntary smile rose and simmered on his face as he made his way to the kitchen, where his own apprentice had nearly finished preparing breakfast.

“You can take more if you like,” Collin said. “I don’t think the newcomers will be eating with us this morning.”

Ignar said nothing, his focus entirely on whipping the eggs into a scramble before they burned on the cast-iron skillet. A wood-oven had been a costly installation, and Collin was happy to see it put to use. A couple minutes passed and, with the eggs fully cooked, Ignar scooped them into a serving bowl.

“That’s a shame,” the lad finally said, staring down at his craftsmanship, which would soon go cold this time of year, even right out of the pan. “Frankly, I was looking forward to cookin’ for the good lady.”

Collin beamed, charmed by Ignar’s youth. The boy was nearly a man, his youthful padding giving way to hard muscles from chopping wood and vegetables, hands callused from slaughtering chickens and milking cows. He even had a dark stubble poking through his previously smooth chin, now chiseled to resemble carved stone.

“Let’s set the table for breakfast, nonetheless,” Collin said, grabbing the cutting board, which bore a fresh loaf of sourdough. “There’s still plenty of other mouths to feed—nothing’s for naught!”

If there was one point of sumptuous vanity that Collin still held onto, it was the grand dining room adjacent to the common area. Unlike economies of excess in the city of his birth, coin had a way of lingering in one’s pocket in the Shins. So Collin had hired the carpenters and craftsmen and hunters of the Village to build a grand long table, where Collin always placed three dozen sets of dishes and cutlery, each time he sat himself down for a meal. Above the table hung an intricate chandelier, crafted of joined, polished antlers. The walls were lined with varnished walnut panels, adorned with various trophies and colorful nålbound hangings. The beechwood floor gleamed with regular, obsessive polish, which made it all the more solemn, as ‘twas only he and Ignar at the table more times than not. You’d think more folk ought to come by for a meal, what with Winter approaching and all.

As Collin set the last plate, the door blew open. Ithica and Hromgir stumbled into the foyer, both carrying goods meant for the newcomers. Hromgir’s face burned red, hefting enough dishes to supply two kitchens as his wife followed, falling forward atop her canvas sacks bulging with produce.

“Ho!” Collin leapt to his feet to help Hromgir set down the crate without shattering his treasures, then stole one of Ithica’s sacks. “Come on, you two—food is still warm!”

“Mighty fine, thank you!” Hromgir bellowed and clapped Collin on the shoulder with a meaty hand, nearly sending him sprawling to the ground. Since he met the strider three years ago, Hromigir had never appeared to know his own strength, nor hear his own volume.

Ithica lingered by the open door, fussing over the troublesome latch, her tangled sandy locks whipping about her face.

“Everything alright, Miss Ithica?” Collin whispered. “You seem… glum.”

“I am glum, Collin,” she said tersely, her attention fixed upon the troublesome door.

Collin touched her shoulder. “Go eat, my dear—and I’ll get some batter going for scones, just for you.” Then he wrapped round her and latched the door with a practiced flick of his wrist.

Ithica turned, her emerald eyes wet and shining. “I’d really like that... thank you.”

“Ain’t no trouble, lass,” Collin said. “Ain’t ever no trouble...”

* * *

Baptiste stared out the cloudy window of his rented room as the Mourning Sun crested the Guardian. He had not slept much with all the racket going on below. His eyes ached just peering at the pale gloom of the northern haze, but they did not burst into flame. He had spent much of his prolonged life fleeing the oppression of the sun, and it seemed the extreme climate of the Withershins finally, and unexpectedly, granted the wish of his long-perished liege.

Oh, Guillaume, my father and my king, how misguided you were.

Remembering his lord’s face, which had once been so gentle and stern, beckoned an all-too-familiar throb in Baptiste’s obsolescent heart. The memory of his easy smile morphed into that maddened ululation as the lord fell, performing his long-delayed dance with Great Mother Death.

Baptiste sighed, clutching the quill he had used to pen his treasonous plea against his lord, who had, in the first, betrayed Baptiste and the rest of the lord’s Chosen, thus setting in motion an era of countless horrors. He muttered under his breath in his native language—which had long ago died on the tongues of the living—and swore to himself that he would not fail as his progenitor had failed him.

I promise you, my dear apprentice, I will teach you to transmute curse into boon; I will see to it that you help repair this broken world, rather than feed upon it.

Though Armelia had gone out to explore the village, he still felt her presence, knew her aura, somewhere outside, beyond the protection of the inn’s walls and roof. He imagined her strolling through the woods, watching the glitter of sunlight on the powdery snow, listening intently for the chitter of chipmunks and the shrill squawks of bluejays. He envied her fearless infiltration into the day. Although he felt her presence, witnessed irrefutable proof that she was safe, Baptiste was still too afraid to follow her.

Was it an unreasonable fear? Perhaps, but so too was it etched in his mind, like the static shadows of those devoured by the all consuming rage of Worldfire. He had seen too many of his kind crumple to piles of ash and bones. Dawn and Her Holy Brother, if not the entire Trinity, surely still sought their vengeance, and would claim it the moment he presented himself in their domains. He had committed too many sins, back then, to deliver his people into the Vale Betwixt.

So why, Great Mother Death, have you taken mercy on me? Or is your denial of my decrepit soul to your restored kingdom punishment enough?

Potential radiated behind him, tingling the exposed flesh at the back of Baptiste’s neck. He swung about, all his stress and worry diluting like sugar in water as Armelia came through the door.

Face dripping with melting snowflakes, radiating jubilation, her smile was spiced with all the wonder and whimsy of a child. As it should be... She was barely a woman before I came crashing into her life. She giggled and spun in a circle, the skirt of her dress fluttering before she fell back onto her bed.

“We’ve made it. It’s just as we thought!” Armelia said, staring up at the ceiling. “Stop worrying, Baps. It’s wonderful.”

“Yes,” Baptiste murmured, returning his troubled gaze to the snowy, cloudy day beyond the glass. She had gone hunting by light of day, against his wishes. “The clouds, the fog, the shadow of the Guardian, the shortening days—had I known the stories of the Great North rang true...”

Armelia sat up. “Don’t languish in the past. You’ve said it yourself, it’s time that we look forward. It’s time to focus on the future.”

Baptiste shrank from the window, seeking the succor of his chair. Offering his apprentice a weak smile, he sat, saying, “You are right, my dear. But festering wounds do not cease to burn once a poultice is applied. Time... Time is what I need.”

“It’s gorgeous here, Baps. We’re safe, from the sun, and whatever else.”

“We do not know this.”

Armelia sighed and unlaced her boots. “Take your time, then. You’ll see for yourself.”

“I hope you are correct, my apprentice,” Baptiste said as he stretched and picked up Lord Martikov’s comedy, the pages damp after having been left open on the side table on an exterior wall, “for both our sakes.”

III

The inn was alight with activity all through the afternoon and into the evening. ‘Twas a welcome break from the squatting and kneeling and crouching that Ithica subjected herself to while tending to her garden each day, though it had taken her some time to clear away the fog which the morning had set upon her. But such hazes always lingered close behind, never far from sight, like shadows pooling at the forest floor bordering the village. After breaking their fast, they had spent the day preparing for the welcome feast.

Ignar toiled over a massive supper in the kitchen, his face red, brow beaded with sweat, frantically rushing about to tinker with a scattering of half-made platters perched on every counter. Ithica leaned against the wall in the corridor, admiring the boy’s devotion to his craft. In the kitchen, Ignar was something of a painter, or perhaps even a poet; every cut of his honed knife placed as intentionally as a terse pause in the middle of a phrase, every dash of spice a stroke of neatly blended pigment. Not that Ithica had seen many paintings—only those brushed upon the rolled canvases brought by the Wystran caravan, seemingly always by mistake; one had been left crumpled at the bottom of a sack, another refused by the bóndi who lived in a fortress down the mountain.

But she had met many poets. Traveling skalds oft rode in with winter’s gales, seeking succor against the cold. Attracted like moths to a flame, the villagers congregated round the skalds, absorbing their strange tales and reveling in the familiar ones. For days afterward, the children raved about the stories they heard round the bonfire in the square. ‘Twas always a magical night when a poet came about.

In his furious haste, Ignar flung a mixing bowl, and all its batter, off the counter to shatter upon the floor. Wordlessly, Ithica left and returned with a besom and swept up the potsherds into an empty sack. Her husband was adamant that no ceramic go to waste. With the floor clean, she began chopping the vegetables she brought, which had yet to be touched. By his redhot countenance, Ignar was shamed by her intervention, though he issued no complaint.

Just as Ignar’s face began to cool, they saw the front door open as an unfamiliar young woman stepped inside. Ignar blanched, then his skin reignited as if he had bathed in poison oak. In a word, the girl was gorgeous. She wore an easy, satisfied smile and boasted the fair skin of a Wystran combined with the slender nose and thick black hair of a southerner, making the girl appear unlike anyone Ithica had ever seen.

Ithica admired the youthful love in the boy’s vigorous eyes, his longing gaze cast toward a perfect stranger. Ithica had encountered men with the opposite stare, one filled with nothing but hunger, a distant island farther from well-intentioned shores than any other. Ignar’s face remained relaxed and reserved, as though it were only a matter of time before the subject of his desire noticed him back and the rest of their lives could begin.

“You should speak with her,” Ithica whispered, only once the stranger jogged up the stairs and disappeared into her rented room.

Ignar groaned, belying any notion of stoic confidence.

Ithica laughed. “What’s the problem?”

“I wouldn’t know what to say...”

“Then don’t say nothing.” Ithica planted her palms on the counter next to him. “Show.” She gestured about the room, redolent with the myriad smells of the impending feast.

* * *
"That ain’t nothing I can’t fix,” Hromgir said, examining the exterior door to Collin’s wine cellar. He dropped his wooden tool box, letting it crash into the slush at his feet. “Just need to straighten the hinge!”

Collin stood behind him, arms crossed. “Aye, but what’s bent it?”

“Probably the bairns, looking for a place to hide. Like young Shelka Morn, fleeing her Ma’s wrath.”

Collin nodded, but he was not so sure, when he stumbled upon the damage a few days ago. Seemed more like something a bear might do, were it hungry enough. Besides, he dared not think ill of the Morn girl. ‘Twas his fault, after all, what happened to her Da. Hard times we be in—the girl’s just trying to make do with what she has, like the rest of us.

“Whoever did it,” Collin said, “I appreciate you offering to take a look. My hammering arm ain’t what it used to be.”

Hromgir laughed. “You ever touch a hammer ‘fore you came here?”

“No, sir,” Collin answered honestly. “But now I’m loath to put it down.”

“Truth, my brother,” the once-strider murmured. “Truth.”

There was something about simplicity that had always attracted Collin. His old life knew nothing of it. Every word uttered among the nobility was slant. Every slash of a sword was a feint. Nothing could be simply said or simply done. Everything must be presented, depicted.

Collin would never forget the day the late Byfoged Starkad—Morgana rest his soul—handed him the rusty iron key to the inn. Collin never looked back, not a single time.

“Did Ithica say anything to you?” Hromgir asked, raising his voice amid his brutal hammering upon the bent iron hinge. He held his cross-peen hammer like a warhammer, his massive arms, marked by sweeping tattoos, bulged and flexed with every swing. “I’ve worried these last few moons.”

“Nothing specific,” Collin said. “But these things are only natural. Ain’t nothing wrong with being upset every now and again. Sometimes things just ain’t alright.”

“I catch her staring into the abyss, as if she’s not even there. She wakes up in terrible moods... I’ve never known her to be so ireful.” Hromgir struck the hinge harder with every word, which only made the damage worse.

Collin placed a hand on his shoulder. “Give it rest, son, and look at me.”

Hromgir’s hammer hovered above his head. He sighed and let fall to this side.

“You want to be a father,” Collin said.

“Aye.” Hromgir’s face was hard, though his eyes glittered. “More than anything.”

“Ithica wants to mother your child.”

He nodded.

“And tell me, son, how long have you two been praying to Bridget?”

Suddenly, Hromgir was stricken, as if Collin had thrust a lance right through his chest. The once-strider swallowed. “Nine years.”

Collin’s heart broke for them. He had only known them for three, since they came to live in the village. “Nine years...” Collin’s head reeled as he searched for the fatherly wisdom he had hoped to impart upon his friend. “Before you go bellyaching to me, son, I want you to consider that your wife wants this just as much as you do—except it ain’t your womb that’s been empty for nine years. Got it?”

Hromgir nodded, looking away, ashamed to show such vulnerability to another man. The image that came to Collin’s mind: a demigod chained to a slab in the depths of Pandemonium and forced to drink from a slow drip of serpent’s venom. He slapped a hand on Hromgir’s shoulder and the two men embraced.

* * *

Ithica and Hromgir had been sitting at Collin’s long table, staring at Ignar’s steaming masterpiece but not daring to eat. Aside from Byfoged Jukil, the bloody rat, his wife Gunhild and their three lads, Torin, Garrick, and young Edric, no one had bothered to show—not even the newcomers the feast was intended for.

When Ithica and Hromgir first arrived, the whole village had come to Collin’s Place to welcome them, to celebrate new life, and new blood, which would bolster the dwindling population of the Village in the Shins. But now, a mere fraction of Collin’s long table had been seated, and Ithica could not help but feel that it was somehow her fault.

We’d represented hope when we arrived... and I’ve not delivered on my promise.

Though her conscience whispered rational reassurances—no one’s come because they’re out searching for Sergi’s boy!—the invisible fog floating above Ithica’s head reviled any hope for reason.

Ithica exchanged a worried glance with Hromgir. He regarded her wide-eyed, almost salivating at the smell of the roasted boar still baking in the yard. The bowls of stew in front of each of them had likely gone lukewarm.

Collin, seated at the head of the table next to Jukil, cleared his throat and stood. He had opened his mouth to speak, presumably to grant permission to the table to finally break their fast, when the gorgeous stranger, dressed in an elegant emerald gown, descended the stairs, followed by a middle-aged man.

The lass lingered in the shadows of the corridor as the man stepped past and spoke. “I apologize for the delay,” he said, his voice a rasp uttered from a spirit’s lips. “I am Baptiste Fournier, and this,” he gestured to the woman behind him, “is Armelia Cordoba, my apprentice.”

Everyone sighed in relief and rose from their seats, lining up to exchange hands with the first new residents in over three years.

Baptiste Fournier seemed to Ithica more like a ghost than a man, an apparition conjured by some black necromancy. His long, wispy black hair straddled his high hairline. His eyes, their irises the color of dried blood, were bloodshot and sunken, as if he had not slept in weeks.

“Apprentice!” huffed Byfoged Jukil. “I thought her to be yer daughter.”

“I am his daughter,” Armelia said, her voice a gentle breeze on an autumn eve, “in a way.”

Jukil and Gunhild exchanged wary glances. Collin chuckled.

“I was married to her mother,” Baptiste explained. “Thus, I am both her guardian and her mentor.”

The line went on clasping the strangers’ hands. First was the byfoged’s family, then Ithica and Hromgir, followed by Collin. Ignar, who had positioned himself last in line, paled as he offered his callused hand to Armelia, who took it with ease. Ithica watched from the table, smiling at the girl’s failure to notice the boy’s admiration—or rather, concealing her notice. There might just be a bit of hunger in that gaze... Keep your footing, Ignar!

Then the feast, such as it was, was in full swing. All in attendance ate with little conversation, as hungry people were wont to do. Such events grew scarcer with every season, the land proving bitter towards every garden but Ithica’s. As the frenzy slowed, it became apparent that the newcomers had not eaten much, if at all.

“Was the food not to your liking, Monsieur Fournier?” Collin asked, as polite as one could be when rich southern snobs disdained traditions not imposed by themselves.

Ignar swallowed, casting a worried glance at Ithica. She smiled, hoping to reassure him. And yet, another promise I’ve broken...

“Oh, no, good man, the food is excellent! It is only...”

“We’ve a condition.” Armelia said, startling her mentor.

“Child, I hardly think now’s the time to—”

“Morgana’s Pestilence,” Armelia said, matter-of-fact. “Our entire household had fallen ill... The disease claimed my mother, the staff...”

Gunhild flattened her lips, placing a hand upon her breast. “Oh, you poor lass.”

“Yet Morgana has spared us,” Baptiste said, his pallid face grim. “The lasting effects are many, I fear. For one thing, we can only eat fresh, plain meat.”

“I apologize if I’ve offended thee,” Ignar stammered, his attempt at propriety forced and clumsy. “I didn’t know.”

“You have offended no one, good man,” Baptiste said, offering a fleeting smile. “I should have been more communicative with you all—and I apologize for any offense we have caused. We both grow quite fatigued and must rest more often than not. The journey up the mountain was particularly wearisome.”

“I see,” Collin said, thoughtful. “I apologize for doubting your intentions, sir. You see, we’ve a way about us, here in the Shins. That, and it’s been a trying couple of days. Seems you’ve come at an inopportune time.”

“We cannot foresee the future, nor the tragedies the Trinity have in store for us. It is a wonderful way you folk have. Though my apprentice and I will almost surely upset the norms with our uncanny presence, I assure you that we are entirely grateful for the accommodations.”

“I’ll ensure Kartha and Bjorn bring you fresh game,” declared the byfoged, his mouth full and his thin arm wrapped proudly against his wife’s shoulders. “My lads will have your house ready in a few days.”

“That is very kind. But worry not for us—we are accustomed to hunting and setting snares. It was a necessity on the road.”

“Take care in those woods, sir,” Gunhild said. “Evil things happen there. Half the town is out looking for a laddie who went missing before you arrived.”

“Folks say the woods are haunted,” Collin added. “They say spiteful apparitions or tricksy fae steal our babes.”

“Superstitious nonsense...” Jukil grumbled, his mouth still full. “Cold is cold.”

“I’ve an arrangement of herbal remedies,” Ithica said, beaming at Baptiste. “Anything you can think of really, if you ever need a tonic to ease your symptoms.”

The ghostlike man blinked as he looked into Ithica’s eyes. “Thank you—but that will not be necessary.”

And so the dinner went. People round the table offered a kindness and the Valentine noble turned up his nose, hearing none of it. Though the lordly Valentine was cordial and spoke with a pleasant cadence, Ithica could see worry in his lugubrious eyes, as if every offer of hospitality carried with it a hidden blade, poised to thrust from the shadows at any moment.

Perhaps, Ithica mused, that is what Baptiste Fournier saw in the good people of the Shins. That is, after all, exactly how travelers claimed the Golden City was. Every word is another, every promise conditional and easily circumvented.

They’ll learn. At least, Ithica hoped they would.

* * *
It had taken intense restraint on Baptiste’s part not to react to the troubling nature of the entity calling herself Ithica, so much so that Baptiste struggled to even think of her as a woman; the word woman implied some measure of humanity.

Ithica carried an overwhelming aura. Her mere presence in the dining room cast a deathly cloud over the party. She reeked of ancient, and dark, sorcery. How nobody in the village had yet caught on to the Ancient’s ruse astounded him. I must be the only sorcerously attuned person here!

Distraught as he was, Baptiste shook his head to every question and denied every offer. He had thought—hoped—they would be safe in the Village in the Shins. Yet before him, seamlessly intermingled with the good folk, was an Ancient he had failed not only to detect upon their approach, but to identify upon gazing into her eyes.

Yes, everything about this Ithica was an enigma, anathema to understanding. Strange and eldritch, her very presence was horrifying, even to one as ancient as he, for she may be more ancient yet. Knowing that she had likely identified him and his apprentice, long before they met tonight, only made things worse.

What she would do with the knowledge of what Baptiste and Armelia really were, was an altogether troubling question he wished not to ask. Better to assume the worst and run. Yes... that is what they would have to do. They could not stay in a place haunted by another. Though it pained him to admit, the Village in the Shins had already been claimed.

“Excuse me.” Baptiste stood, quelling the fragmented conversations around the table. He cringed as Ithica cast her compassionate, sincere gaze upon him. “I am feeling faint and I must retire. Thank you.” His heart grimaced as the good folk gaped at his breach of tradition, which remained so very important to the people of the Shins. “This has been a wonderful welcome. I apologize, but I am unwell. Good night.”

He tugged at Armelia’s shoulder reluctantly. She had been getting a rise out of the young cook. “I’m having a good time,” she said, knitting her brows. “I’ll join you later.”

“I need your help,” Baptiste said. “It is dire.”

Armelia sighed and curtsied to the table, her eyes lingering on the pale boy, whose face burned red. Together they ascended the stairs and disappeared into their rented room.

“What the hell, Baps?” Armelia snarled, as her guardian shut and locked the door behind him.

“We have to leave. Tonight.”

“What? Why? We’ve only just arrived! I told you, this place is—”

“It is not safe!” Baptiste sweltered.

Armelia’s mouth hung open.

It was the first time he had raised his voice at her—the first time in centuries he had felt the need to raise his voice about anything. Baptiste panted, as if his admission of panic had stolen from him all the air in his lungs.

Armelia’s face hardened. For the first time, Baptiste felt as though she were looking down upon him, grown willful, frustrated with their senile grandsire.

“What,” she said slowly, annunciating every word that followed, “could possibly have disturbed you? These are good, welcoming folks.”

Now that he was confronted, Baptiste began to doubt his instincts. Perhaps, I’m not as sharp as I had thought... I should have felt an Ancient’s presence long before we arrived here. No. Even if my senses have dulled, that I could not identify her from afar, I am not so decrepit as to mistake an Ancient sitting before me! Quelling his uncertainty, he said, “Things here are not as they seem.”

“We’re at the ends of the Earth as is, Baps! Tell me what you saw!”

“The woman, she is an Ancient,” he whispered. “Ithica...” He again felt the fool the moment her name skittered off his lips. He remembered the overwhelming penumbra looming over the dining table—but in picturing the woman’s melancholy smile, her easy compassion, retrospect once more cast doubt upon his judgement.

Armelia’s lip curled. She shook her head. “You’re joking.”

“I wish I was. There was a shadow in that room, cast by her.”

“I felt nothing of the sort.”

“You lack experience, my apprentice—”

“Stop.” Armelia turned, hand on the doorknob. “I’ve forgiven your eccentricities, Baptiste. But I will not allow paranoia. I do not doubt your powers, I do not doubt your experience, but I trust in what you’ve taught me thus far, and I have divined no such presence.”

“You are young! You do not know all that lurks in the darkness! And this... it is not like anything I have ever felt.”

“Think about your argument. You’ve been around a long time; you claim to have seen the Great Mother Death in the flesh and lived. How could there possibly be something greater in a little place like this?”

“I felt it—”

“Do you feel it now?”

Baptiste exhaled, his mouth sagging with worry. “I do not,” he admitted. Ithica’s aura disappeared the moment he crossed his threshold, perhaps even before.

Armelia sighed. “It’s been a long journey. I know you’re afraid, and that you feel guilty for what happened to mother and me. But you must give that burden to the Trinity. There’s a reason the Great Mother has left you here. We both made our own decisions. Mine was made with trust. Trust in you, and trust in the future.”

Baptiste collapsed onto his bed, resting his face in shaky hands. His flesh was hot to the touch—he had a fever. Yes... that might explain...

“I need rest, my apprentice,” Baptiste said, forlorn. “I am road-weary as you say, and it has been weeks since I have fed. You are right. I am frozen with apprehension. The risk we took, passing through Wystra...”

His apprentice sat beside him, enfolding him in a warm hug, though she was cold as snow. Had he the faculties, Baptiste could have wept. He wished to... Oh, Sylvia—why did you refuse me? You could have lived forevermore!

Armelia rose, lingered by the edge of the bed. Her expression implied she knew where Baptiste’s thoughts had travelled, and that simple recognition, credence paid to a flicker of grief, had summoned her own, if only for an instant.

“One of the first lessons you imparted upon me,” Armelia said, eyes fixed on the door, “was that our gift becomes a curse the moment we grant our love to a mortal. I hope I never learn your pain, Baps. I wish things had been different.”

“Go on,” Baptiste said, shifting beneath the covers, not bothering to shed his coat. “We shall hunt tomorrow night. Now, I must rest.”

Armelia opened the door and disappeared through the portal, as if she were a Phrygian sorcerer enacting the art of transposition. Baptiste fell into a fitful slumber, listening to the warm voices reverberating through the walls, like the heat of a heart radiates through stone.

IV

The rest of the feast was a bust. All conversation had simmered down to naught but nervous whispers and uncomfortable laughs. The byfoged’s family soon left after the eccentric lord retired, forcefully withdrawing his reluctant apprentice. They’re not long for this place, Ithica thought, as the strange pair disappeared into the gloom of the stairwell. They’re running from their own problems but have only found more hardship here.

After those who remained washed, Ignar stared at the spread of untouched platters of food gone cold. “Mighty shame for all this to go to waste.” He sighed. “Used to be we all turned up to welcome newcomers—now we can’t even entice the newcomers to eat!”

“Let’s get to work, then, lad!” Collin said, ever the font of cheer. “We’ll bring the feast to the town.”

Together, they all portioned the remaining food, splitting up the remaining boar and sauteed vegetables.Muffled shouts rattled the walls as they worked. As they were about to depart the sound of a door not-quite-slamming spun all their heads, eyes shooting towards the stairwell to see the young Armelia Cordoba emerging from her room.

Being a noble’s daughter, Armelia must have been accustomed to those beneath her staring. Her sumptuous gown, more fit for a grand ball than a feast in the Shins, confessed to this. Unbothered, she stared back at them, reforging her troubled expression into a half-smile. “Might I help with anything?”

Ignar stammered.

“Aye, lass!” Collin interjected, “Help us deliver these bundles—it’ll be a good chance for you to acquaint yourself with our people. Though, you may wish to dress for the weather.”

“I have a cloak, thank you.”

So, they stole into the night, with bundles of food in hand. Aside from Collin, who went off whistling into the dark on his own, the others divided into pairs.

Ithica watched as Ignar and Armelia struck up conversation and departed on their leg of the short walk round the village. The lass was so easygoing, it was cause for concern—considering the stick up her master’s arse. Ithica could not help but wonder if Armelia was sincerely enthused by Ignar’s presence, or if she was simply being cordial to achieve other ends.

Ithica had never been to a city, but with so many people packed in a small space, it was not a stretch to assume they mingled widely, with no intention of allowing acquaintances to blossom into anything deeper. But this was not how things were in the tiny Village in the Shins. Interest meant something more than dalliance when you were the only woman of an age with the man to whom you were speaking.

In the Shins, interest itself was almost something of a promise. Life in the Shins was short and hard—you either got on or you moved on. Ithica was not convinced that this Armelia Cordoba yet understood that.

“You ready, Ith?” Hromgir murmured, rubbing the cold from her shoulders with his strong potter’s thumbs. “Everything’s packed.”

“A minute, please,” she said, reveling in the newfound freedom from her tightly wound muscles. He worked the knots from her neck in no time, and left her with a warm tingling that almost felt like hot water flowing down her back.

They took to the southern edge of the village. The air was crisp, their breath billowing plumes rising overhead. Above, the sky was clear and the waxing moon was nearly full. It may be the last clear night they would know until the solstice, when Winter fought Spring for supremacy over the sky, launching spiteful volleys of thunderstorms and retaliatory blizzards. Winter had just begun, lingering on the village’s stoop, awaiting a quiet moment to blow over the threshold, whether the villagers welcomed her or no.

“This Fournier fellow,” Hromgir said, after they had visited a few houses, and it was clear no one fancied a chat on such a brisk night, “do you know him?”

Ithica squinted. “Not beyond this mess of a night. Why?”

“He was staring at you. I didn’t wish to be rude, but it was noticeable.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“It almost seemed,” Hromgir went on, “as though he were—hungry? That’s not quite the right word, given he wouldn’t bloody eat, but there was a glint in his eyes as he gazed upon you. If not recognition, perhaps desire?”

“Ye’re overthinking this, husband,” Ithica said, wishing for the conversation to be over. “He’s naught but a strange man from a strange place.”

In truth, she had caught Monsieur Fournier staring—more than once—but then again, he was an eccentric noble. And nobles have no sense of common manners, do they? She had not thought much of his strange behavior nor did she wish to. She had had her fill of antagonism with Helgi and wished not to invite still more conflict.

The last house on their route was the derelict cottage where lived the Morns. Not many of those in the village held on to their earned names nor their clans—some such as Ithica, had never been bestowed a name beyond her given one—but the Morns held fierce to theirs. At least, young Shelka did, who seemed to take much pride in her late father, who had passed before Ithica and Hromgir came to live in the Village.

Hromgir knocked on the door as Ithica set down the bundle of food on the porch. The door shuddered open just as they were about to turn around. In the ghost-light cast by the moon, Gerdur Morn appeared in the doorway like an apparition, her white face floating in the narrow opening between door and frame.

“You here about my daughter?” Gerdur asked, her voice a strained rasp.

“No—just some food for you both!” Hromgir said, his full-bellied warrior’s boom a whetstone against Ithica’s weary ears. “How is your Shelka?”

“She don’t come home at night.”

“What?” Ithica said, dumbfounded. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“I’ve seen her through the window when the sun was up, but she ain’t come through the door in some time.”

“That’s mighty troublesome,” Hromgir said. “Do you know why?”

“She’s much like her father,” Gerdur said, her gaze cast beyond Ithica and Hromgir, fixed on the treeline. “If you see her, tell her to come home.”

“Of course we will.” Ithica moved to take Gerdur’s hand in hers, but the older woman recoiled, sinking deeper into the protective shadows. Ithica sighed. “We’ll keep an eye, she can’t be far.”

Hromgir picked up the bundle, thrusting it through the narrow slit in the doorway. “In the meantime, eat something.”

Silently, Gerdur accepted the gift and closed the door. And that was that.

“Should we look for Shelka?” Ithica asked, once they had gone halfway back to Collin’s place.

“Sounds like she don’t wish to be found,” Hromgir said, his hard face devoid of worry. “She’ll turn up when she’s ready. Likely, she’s already curled up for bed with another family—we don’t let our own freeze.”

Hromgir oft spoke of the village as if he had grown up there. Three years was not enough time for Ithica to think of a place as home—she had lived with her Da her whole life, until he passed on, and she and Hromgir decided to move on somewhere else. But Hromgir was a strider. I suppose this place is the closest thing to a home he’s ever known.

Ithica had a home with her Da, and that home passed on with him into the Great Beyond. Their village had long been abandoned, and they were forced to subsist alone on the farmstead for years. Da had been too old for another journey, so they had to make do. If not for Hromgir showing up out of the blind one day... Ithica shuddered at the thought.

This place could be a home, if only I could bring a babe into it.

“Let’s at least tell Collin to watch for Shelka,” Ithica said. “I want someone to know she’s out and about.”

* * *

Shelka Morn kept to the shadows as the mysterious woman emerged again from Collin’s place. After seeing her run off into the dark woods earlier that day, Shelka had wanted to ask the innkeep about her, but she lacked the courage—the prospect of accidentally running into her mark was too daunting. Cowardice that only I know about, Shelka justified to herself, over and over, ain’t ever hurt nobody.

This time, however, the woman was not alone. Ignar, the inn’s cook, came out with her. They walked down the road towards the square, the woman strummed her enchanting giggle each time Ignar spoke.

Shelka curled her freezing fingers into brittle fists, clenched her chattering teeth. It was a bloody disgusting sight, made worse by the woman’s strange, unseemly attire. He’s supposed to be mine! Though she was only eleven, and Ignar, seventeen, she was the closest to him in age—other than Jorn, of course, but who would want a whelp like him? Ma had always said Shelka would marry Ignar after she bled. She and Collin had already discussed it.

Stubborn and driven, Shelka was always prone to fancies, and she quite fancied the notion of spending her life with Ignar. The young girl admired the cut of his jaw, his easy, simple smile, even his artistry in the kitchen. She had always been more of a hunter than a cook, much to her Ma’s chagrin, which made her the perfect match. Rare were the good things which Shelka Morn had to look forward to in life, but Ignar was one such rarity.

Alright then, now it’s personal, Shelka thought, scuttling through the snow, weaving between buildings as she followed the sounds of two young lovers through the night. She would follow this stranger and find out what it was she did in the woods, assuming she went out again. But if she did, and Shelka saw, then she would reveal the strange woman’s villainy to the whole village.

Yes... They’ll chase her out once I discover her secret.

And so, Shelka Morn watched Ignar fall in love with this devil in a woman’s skin, listened to her stories of childhood, how Valencia—wherever the hell that is—is so different to the Great North; The witch’s cursed prattle brought fire to Shelka’s ears. It took everything she had not to jump out of the bushes to break up their little courtship, once and for all.

But Shelka knew better than that. Subtlety, among the countless others, was one of her strongest skills, after all.

An hour shivering finally summoned a yawn from Ignar as he rubbed his shoulders with bloodless hands. The temperature fast approached freezing. “We’d best make our way back,” he said. The stranger agreed, though she looked neither tired nor chilled. They returned to Collin’s Place and bid each other good night. Though they shared a tense, silent gaze, neither moved in for a first kiss, which was good—that would make Shelka’s job a whole lot harder come morning.

Though she had only seen the stranger head into the woods once, Shelka’s gut told her to wait by the door to see what happened next. Sure enough, her gut was correct. Just as the waxing moon illuminated the sky like a signal fire in the heavens, Shelka nearly leapt from her hiding place in the evergreen hedges between Helgi’s cottage and Kartha’s hut. The stranger slipped out the door, now dressed in more appropriate garments—furs and boots and a real tunic—and started down the path to the forest.

Shelka followed at a safe distance, wary of losing her mark after she crossed the treeline. But Shelka Morn was nothing if not a master tracker. She still remembered those days she had spent with her Da by the pond, where he had taught her all the methods of survival that she had since perfected. The stranger began running once beneath the canopy. Shelka fought to keep a close distance, now that they were immersed in total darkness, proved troublesome. The stranger stalked through the woods like a wolf on the prowl, as if the night did not darken her perception.

Truly, and though it was hard to admit, this stranger might give Shelka a run for her coin. ‘Twas only to be expected from someone with an eldritch secret. She must be a witch! She’s called upon her black god to see in the dark!

Then, Shelka lost her mark. For a moment, Shelka was afraid she had bitten off more than she could chew, charging off into the woods alone, at night, Winter lurking round the bend. She could hardly feel her fingers, and her feet were aching with chill. Shaking off doubt, and pain, she forged onward and soon came upon the stranger who was bent over something in a moonlit clearing.

Gods in hell, is she... But Shelka had no explanation at all for what she saw.

The stranger had somehow felled a deer in the short time she was beyond Shelka’s senses, though she wore no knife on her belt nor held a bow. Not even an empty quiver hung on the small of her back. She, who had so enthralled Shelka’s man-to-be, was hunched over the poor creature, burying her face in its neck. The stranger pulled back, gasping for a breath, crimson caking her mouth and rilling down her chin.

Shelka gasped when she noticed the woman had fangs.

The stranger’s head snapped towards Shelka, inhuman eyes dilating as they fixed on her. For the first time she could remember, Shelka came face-to-face with terror—and ran.

“Wait!” the she-devil cried, taking chase. “Let me explain!”

But Shelka would hear none of it. She had seen the creature drink blood. She knew what this woman was; she had heard the skald’s tales about the Scarlet Chair.

“Come back!”

Blinded by tears, Shelka pumped her legs, weaving through paths known only to her body from treading these woods o’er countless days. Across every stone and root, her muscle memory took over, guiding her to safety.

The stranger’s cries faded behind her. Then the wind swept up a great gale, and Shelka saw only white. Her legs became stumps. Her numb foot caught a newly upturned root and she fell, tasting ice and salt.

(Coming soon!)