Rhiannon sat in the refectory with Irik. The midday meal was potato soup and a hunk of tangy bread that was so delicious it almost made up for the soup’s blandness. The room hummed with conversation. The day before, Mother Constance had declared that Llorn was coming to Thicket with several druins and that the abbey would grant them shelter. While the message was for everyone, she’d glared at Rhiannon while saying it.
Rhiannon sipped her cider, then quietly said, “Do you think Brother Mayhew will be with them?”
“Dunno”—Irik stuffed the last of his bread into his mouth and chased it with pine milk—“but I bet Sister Dereka will.”
Rhiannon shivered at the very thought—she could still see the archdruin’s piercing, awestruck gaze when Rhiannon had spoken to the wisp—but her mind soon drifted to Brother Mayhew and his fate. The abbey had been alive with all sorts of rumors since he left more than a week ago. Most of the aspirants agreed he’d gone with Aarik and Llorn to Ancris to help with some sort of ritual. Where they disagreed was what happened next. Some of them said Aarik and Llorn had been killed by the empire. Others said only Aarik had died. Others still said Aarik and Llorn escaped after a fierce battle with an indurium dragon. Few cared to venture what had become of Brother Mayhew, perhaps for fear of what Brother Mayhew might do when he learned of their gossip. Rhiannon hoped he wasn’t dead. He was prickly sometimes—actually, most of the time—but he didn’t deserve to die.
The clergy on the far side of the room suddenly turned their heads toward the door. The room went silent as Sister Dereka entered the refectory with two male druins dressed in brown habits and green cloaks. All three had shaved heads, runic tattoos around their left eyes, and gnarled wooden staves. As they leaned their staves against the wall and hung their canvas packs, Llorn strode in.
Llorn’s eyes were pinched, and his sun-marked brow was furrowed, as if he were in pain. He had a leather satchel slung over one shoulder, which he hung near the druins’ packs. He surveyed the room and stopped on seeing Rhiannon. He spoke something too soft to hear, and Sister Dereka swung her gaze toward Rhiannon as well. Suddenly, the entire room was focused on Rhiannon. She felt her ears burning red. It was all she could do not to hide beneath the table.
Mother Constance pushed herself to a stand and motioned to the newcomers. “We welcome to our house Sister Dereka, Brothers Freyne and Andar, and Llorn Bloodhaven.”
A great weight was lifted as everyone’s attention shifted back to the newcomers. Like everyone else, Rhiannon pressed the fingertips of her right hand to her forehead and said, “Alra’s bounty be upon you.”
Llorn and the druins sat at Mother Constance’s table and ate.
As the sounds of conversation returned to normal, Irik widened his eyes at Rhiannon, but Rhiannon shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about Llorn, not with so many people listening. Irik nodded, then nattered on about the trip he’d taken to Andalingr that morning to fetch a box of candle wicks.
They finished their food, and thankfully, Llorn seemed lost in conversation with Mother Constance. Sister Dereka, meanwhile, kept glancing Rhiannon’s way while speaking with Sister Merida. As Rhiannon stood, ready to head to the kitchen to help clean up, Sister Dereka sat up straight and spoke loudly, “You’re making a mistake if you think you have some claim over her.”
All conversation stopped except Sister Merida, who said softly, “She is my cousin’s daughter.”
“And Llorn is her uncle,” Sister Dereka replied. “He has requested to speak with her.”
Llorn watched the exchange silently, as if he were perfectly content to have Sister Dereka speak for him.
“He’s barely visited her since Morraine’s death,” Sister Merida went on. “What right does he have to demand anything of her, or us for that matter?”
“Rhiannon is of House Bloodhaven,” Dereka nearly shouted. “Her uncle will speak with her. What happens then is between them and them alone.”
Sister Merida’s cheeks went rosy. She peered over at Rhiannon. “She’s just a child . . .”
“Be that as it may,” Sister Dereka said.
“Aarik wouldn’t have approved.”
“Aarik is dead,” Dereka spat. “His approval no longer matters.”
Mother Constance tugged on Sister Merida’s sleeve. Sister Merida’s nostrils flared, but then she blinked, stared down at Mother Constance, and sat. A hushed conversation followed. Mother Constance seemed mid-sentence when Sister Merida stood in a rush and fled the refectory through the kitchen.
Llorn, finished with his food, stood from the table and motioned Rhiannon to the front door. Mother Constance caught Rhiannon’s eye and nodded, effectively giving her permission. Irik gaped at her, his eyes round as a stickleback’s.
“Take my bowl up?” Rhiannon asked as she stood.
Irik nodded, and Rhiannon headed toward the door. Llorn waited for her to join him, then retrieved his satchel and accompanied her outside, into the bright sunlight. They headed past the garden and the beehives. They strode past the brewery. When they’d gained the footpath beyond, Llorn said, “Sister Dereka spoke out of turn. I wanted to tell you about Aarik myself.”
“It’s true, then?” Rhiannon asked as they rounded a citadel and headed toward the deeper forest. “He’s dead?”
“Yes. He was taken by the Church and burned.”
“And Brother Mayhew?”
“He’s still in Ancris. He may be burned as well. We don’t know yet.”
“I’m sorry. About Aarik, I mean.” Rhiannon had no siblings, but she had Irik, who’d been like a brother to her. She’d be devastated if he was suddenly gone.
“I am, too,” Llorn said, “but he went to Ancris for a reason. It’s why I’ve come to speak with you.” He reached into the satchel and pulled out a wisplight. Within the glass globe, the blue light shimmered and twisted, and it was brighter than any wisp Rhiannon had ever seen. It meant one of three things: that it was freshly risen, that the soul had been powerful in life, or that it had a deep desire to return to the land of the living.
Rhiannon stopped on the footpath and stared at it. “What is that?”
“Your mother’s wisp.”
Aarik’s words in the brewery returned to her. He’d asked Rhiannon if Llorn had mentioned her mother. He’d been worried about Llorn’s purpose in having Rhiannon speak to the dead. He’d known Rhiannon’s mother was involved in some way. “What do you want me to do with it?”
“I want you to help raise her.”
A keen ringing in Rhiannon’s ears drowned out the birdsong around them. “Raise her?”
“Yes, Rhiannon. We need her to—”
“You want me to help you create a draugr?”
“Yes—”
“They’re abominations. They go against Alra’s teachings. Even Brother Mayhew says so.”
Llorn frowned. “Your mother had a purpose before she died. She wanted to help us liberate the Holt.”
“Aarik didn’t want to.” She pointed to the brewery behind them. “He told me so.”
“I don’t doubt it, but Aarik was being naive. We spoke about it, and he came around to my way of thinking. He saw that the empire was leaving us no choice but to fight back.”
Rhiannon backed away from him. “You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not. Why do you think he came with me to Ancris? He wanted to speak to the Hissing Man face to face so we could plan our next steps together.” His frown turned into a scowl when Rhiannon said nothing, deepened as she took two steps back. “Rhiannon, your mother needs your help.”
“I won’t do it.”
“You will, or I’ll hand you over to Sister Dereka until she beats some sense into you.”
Rhiannon turned and sprinted into the forest. “I won’t do it!” she shouted over her shoulder. “Ever!”
“Rhiannon, stop!”
“I won’t raise my mother!” She ran until her legs burned and her lungs ached. When she reached Dovetail Creek, she pounded along the footpath beside it for about a mile and staggered to a stop at the Vagabond River. There she stepped into a stand of cattails, crouched, and stared over the noisy river at the citadels along the opposite shore. She thought about diving into the water and floating downriver somewhere, anywhere, as long as it took her away from Llorn. She could board a ship along the sea. Travel to Olgasus or the Sapphire Coast or even beyond. The world would be hers.
But then she thought of Irik. Goddess, how she’d miss him. Sister Merida, too, and Lexie and the other aspirants. She’d even miss Mother Constance. They were the only family she’d ever known. Besides my mother, and Aarik and Llorn. But she barely remembered her mother. And Aarik had visited her only a handful of times at the abbey and barely spoke to her. Llorn was even worse. He’d always stood apart, like he hated the abbey, Thicket, and every last person in them.
She heard footsteps approaching and spotted Llorn pushing through the cattails, the leather satchel over one shoulder. He barely looked winded.
He crushed down some cattails and sat cross-legged, staring out over the water, just like she was. He grimaced and pressed a hand to his forehead, clenched his teeth and closed his eyes so tight his face wrinkled. She didn’t want to talk to him, but he looked so pained she started to worry.
“Are you not well?” she asked.
“It’s only a headache,” he said, eyes still closed.
“Woundwort helps headaches.”
“It will pass.” He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. “Tell me, do you know much about your grandmother?”
“I know she was a druin. And that she knew how to tap into the trees and unlock their secrets.”
Llorn nodded. “During the Talon Wars, the empire decimated our dragon legions and our soldiers, but that was only half the war. They wanted to eradicate the things we knew at least as much as our military, so they targeted our druins. They slew our soothsayers, our wisemen and wisewomen. They slaughtered our dragon singers, our eyrie masters, our herbalists. They burned our books, outlawed our practices, all in hopes of stamping out what we knew, the things that could undo them. The Covenant drafted at the end of the war led to peace of a sort, but by then the damage had been done. We’d all but forgotten how to attract dragons and bond with them. The druins forgot many of their rituals and their spells. The trick of using lucertae all but vanished.”
Rhiannon knew where this was headed. “Grandma Rygmora helped them remember.”
“That’s right. She communed with the trees and retaught some small amount of our heritage to us, but even that was too much for the empire. They came for her, and she fled deep into the Holt. The Red Knives sheltered her. I was only four at the time. Aarik was seven, your mother nine. We stayed with the Knives for many years, but then came Lucretio Solvina.”
Rhiannon hadn’t heard many stories about Rygmora, but she’d heard the one about Lucretio Solvina, the former quintarch of Ancris. “Grandmother had him killed.”
Llorn seemed annoyed by the remark. “No, Rhiannon. Your grandmother was always more dove than hawk. But a few months earlier, she’d taught the Red Knives how to use onyx lucertae to draw shadows around themselves like a cloak. One of the Knives’ assassins used the knowledge to enter Highreach and kill Lucretio. Lucran became quintarch and waged a furious reprisal. Hundreds of Knives were hung. They found your grandmother and took her to Ancris.” Llorn stared absently out over the churning water. “They chained her to the Anvil and burned her. Your mother, Aarik, and I, stayed in the Deepwood. There was nothing we could do. We were still so young.”
A fisherman launched a flat-bottomed boat on the far bank and cast a net into the water. Llorn glanced at him and continued.
“Morraine dedicated herself to learning the ways of the druins, but did so with a purpose. While my mother merely wanted to reawaken the old ways, Morraine wanted to burn the empire to cinders.”
Llorn reached into his satchel. Rhiannon expected him to pull out the wisplight, but he drew a long narrow object wrapped in linen. He unfolded the cloth to reveal a crystal shard shaped like a knife blade. It shone like the sky at cant.
Llorn held it out to her. “Take it.”
The crystal made her fingertips tingle. She squeezed it, and her knuckles vibrated like she was holding a lever on some infernal machine.
“It’s part of an ancient artifact,” Llorn said, “Alra’s Heartstone.”
“Like the ones in the shrines?”
“Just so.”
“But how did you get it?”
“I didn’t. Morraine did. She’d wanted it for many years. She’d only just begun unlocking its secrets when she died.”
Realizing her hand was starting to warm, like an infection setting in, Rhiannon handed the crystal back to Llorn. “How did my mother die?”
Llorn wrapped the shard in the linen and put it back in his satchel. “She went to Caldoras to find an old text that might shed light on the crystal and how to use it. She was spotted leaving. She fled for the Holt but two dracorae grabbed her in Glaeyand. Aarik was King of the Wood by then. I told him we should attack Glaeyand, but Aarik had been bribing Marstan Lyndenfell for years and said he could negotiate with them.”
“It didn’t work?”
“No, it didn’t. I tried to rescue her when it became clear they meant to follow through on her execution, but it was too late. The dracorae in Glaeyand cut us off at the lower bank of the Diamondflow. The next morning, they hung her for heresy.” Llorn reached into the satchel and, at last, drew out the wisplight, and stared at it. “Their shepherds used a ritual, one they’d twisted from our own, to quicken her wisp. They gave it to the commander of the men who spotted her. I thought it lost forever, but we found out a few months ago it was on display, like a bauble, in a gallery.”
A prolonged silence ensued. Rhiannon listened to the lapping of the water along the riverbanks, the call of a distant loon. She felt sad for her mother. She felt angry, too, about what had happened to her family, but the anger was indistinct, directionless—she’d hardly known her mother, and she hadn’t known her grandmother at all.
“Why would you speak to the Hissing Man at all? Isn’t he our enemy?”
“Yes, but we mean to use him.”
She pointed to the wisp. “And you need my mother to do it.”
“We do.”
He held it out for her to take, but she refused to touch it. She couldn’t bear seeing her mother’s life, sensing her emotions. “You want to use her like you’re using the Hissing Man.”
“Use her . . . ?” Llorn laughed. “Rhiannon, she made the plan. I merely want to give her the chance to see it done.”
“Will it lead to war?”
Llorn stared into the wisplight’s wavering glass. “Peace with the empire can only be achieved through war.”
“But the empire is so powerful. How can we stand against them, even if we learn how to use that relic from Alra’s Heartstone?”
“The relic is but a key that will unlock something greater.”
“And what is that?”
“I can’t reveal that. Not yet.”
He offered her the wisplight again, and this time she took it. The glass felt cool to the touch. It seemed to drain the very warmth from her fingertips. There were many nights when she wished her mother hadn’t died, when she wished Morraine would come back and they could live their days happily and in peace. With the wisp, Llorn was giving Rhiannon a chance for her to grant her own wish.
Rhiannon was no fool. She knew her mother wouldn’t be whole, but that made her realize it wasn’t only her decision. It was her mother’s, too. “I want to ask her,” she said. “I need to.”
Llorn nodded, then reached into the satchel again. He took out a golden locket on a long chain and handed it to Rhiannon. “A gift.”
She held it in her palm and flipped it over. On one side was a setting of milky quartz; on the other, black agate. Feeling like she was disobeying every rule Brother Mayhew had ever taught her, she pulled the chain over her head and opened the side with the milky quartz, finding, as she expected, a reservoir filled with glittering white auris. She took a small pinch of the rosemary-scented powder—the same amount Brother Mayhew had instructed her to use at the swamp—and inhaled it with a sharp sniff. Then she rubbed her fingers over her gums and squeezed the locket shut.
Her nose burned like she’d inhaled flames, but it faded quickly. Then she felt lightheaded. The feeling passed as she cupped the globe in both hands and bent her will on the soul within. For long moments she felt nothing, then she saw herself as a child stacking painted wooden blocks on a red carpet.
“I need to ask you something,” Rhiannon said.
In the vision, her mother said, “Yes, dear, please do.”
Rhiannon remembered that day. She’d been eager to go frog hunting by the nearby pond and had asked whether she should put the blocks away, but her mother was using it to speak to her. She took a deep breath and said, “I need to know if you wish to return to the land of the living. I need to know if you want to finish what you began with Uncle Llorn.”
The vision of her tossing blocks into a basket faded. Suddenly, she was being slammed onto a hard wooden table in a dim room that stank of piss and shit. Her wrists and ankles were placed in iron cuffs. A man wearing the white uniform of an inquisitor shouted questions at her. Red-hot pokers were pressed against the soles of her feet. Her throat went raw from screaming.
Rhiannon shook her head, hoping to banish the memories of torture, but all it did was shift the scene. She was being led to a gallows in the trees. A noose slipped over her head and cinched tight. Blood pounded in her ears. The hangman yanked the lever. She felt a painful tug on her neck. Felt her limbs flail as her breath was stolen from her. Just when Rhiannon thought she might die, the image evaporated.
She coughed hard and pressed one hand to her stomach, waiting for the intense feelings to pass. When she could think again, she realized the torture her mother had endured might be interpreted as an answer to her question, but it might also be that the memories had been summoned by the mere mention of her desire to destroy the empire.
“Please,” Rhiannon said, “I need to know for certain whether you wish to return.”
A long pause followed, then she was standing in a forest, holding a knife. Ten yards ahead was a soldier in imperial armor. At his feet was a pretty, middle-aged woman with a cut lip and an angry welt over one eye. Her skirt and the white slip beneath were dirty and pulled up around her knees. Rhiannon charged over the forest floor while screaming, and the man spun to face her. Eyes wide, he drew his sword back. Rhiannon’s left forearm glowed as she lifted it to deflect the coming blow. The sword blurred and struck her forearm, but clanged like it had struck iron. Rhiannon drove forward. Punched the knife up and into the man’s skull. They fell together and struck the ground hard. She felt the man’s body twitch as a death rattle escaped his parted lips.
Rhiannon tossed the wisplight onto the matted cattails and the vision vanished. She hugged her chest and rocked back and forth but couldn’t shake the soldier’s bloodshot eyes and fetid breath, the way his body convulsed beneath her.
Llorn picked up the wisp and stared at her. “I take it she gave you an answer?”
Rhiannon nodded numbly, and Llorn tucked the wisp back into the satchel.
She watched the sun glitter off the Vagabond, listened to the rush of the water. She had her answer but was terrified over what came next, because whatever happened, she would be at least partly to blame. Turning away from the river, she looked up at Llorn and found he no longer seemed brutish or scary. He was determined, like her mother. “Very well. I make no promises, but I’ll try.”
Llorn smiled. “That’s all I ask.”