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Dominic entered the dense shadows of the forest with a profound sense of relief, his chest loosening immediately at the familiar scents of moss and damp earth, his breathing slowing at the slumbering forest’s blissful hush. Only a sliver of moon waned overhead, but the thin trickle of silvery light that managed to break through the leafy canopy overhead was all he needed to see as he passed swiftly through the trees. His steps did not so much as disturb the fallen twigs and tall grasses he moved through, his presence in the forest undetected and unrecognized even by its nocturnal inhabitants. Occasionally he saw the bright flash of eyes catching the moonlight from his periphery, but those eyes either did not see him or instinctively knew better than to approach him.
It was an instinct he’d seen mirrored many times in the people he encountered. It was if they could sense the continual tension in him, the feeling of held breath he had when he was in their midst, caged as it was with buildings, rife with noise, and hemmed in on every side by people. People who stared, who avoided, who whispered demonkin at his back when they thought he could not hear.
But there was very little he didn’t hear. It seemed to him that others were always shouting and that he always had to shout back to even be heard. He’d learned the hard way to raise his voice, to make noise when he moved, to slow his movements—to do everything, in other words, that went against his nature.
At the end of the day, his limbs always ached and his ears always rang, only to be met the following morning with more distrustful stares, more startled gasps, more horrified whispers. Demonkin.
Here, there was none of that. Here, he was only Dominic, and he was at peace, even with the urgency of the mission he was carrying out. He was making his way through the mountainous woods that walled off the northern part of the Southern Province’s border from Lyntara as he had once before at the behest of his lord and the Lord of the entire Southern Province of Kelemir, Sebastien.
Sebastien was the one who had come across him as a young man and given him a chance to prove himself when no one else would. Sebastien was still the only one who seemed to accept Dominic as he was...though even after all these years, he still betrayed moments of unease around him. Dominic was certain that even this fluctuating acceptance was the best he’d ever have from anyone and he didn’t begrudge his lord for it. Fortunately, Dominic’s oddities, the ones he couldn’t seem to hide or entirely repress, didn’t seem to matter as long as he was loyal.
And Dominic was nothing if not loyal. He knew one chance was all he would ever have, and he’d grasped it immediately with both hands. He’d risen all the way to Sebastien’s second-in-command that way, a fact he still couldn’t quite believe, but there was still nothing he wouldn’t do for the man. His life before he had met the then-warlord had been unbearable, and he could not bring himself to recall it willingly even now.
So when Lyntara had starting showing signs of unrest and presented the mystery of the secret settlement right over her border, populated by men dressed as Raiders yet not answering to their Emperor, Dominic had begun his campaign to cross over and investigate. While he could blend into forest surroundings without any effort at all, he knew without question that he could never do the same anywhere else; with his obvious peculiarities, infiltrating their government or their army was out of the question.
But learning more about the settlement and the goings-on in other parts of Lyntara as he passed through on his way to the Union? That much he was certain he could do. The Union was comprised of the cluster of countries on the other side of Lyntara, and because they were completely blocked off from Kelemir by both land and sea, thanks to Lyntara standing between them, they had no contact at all with that part of the world. But any kind of alliance outside of Kelemir could make all the difference if Lyntara did indeed erupt into a civil war.
After several weeks of more-or-less ceaseless petitioning in manners both subtle and blatant, he had at last obtained his lord’s blessing. Sebastien’s newest military adviser and, if rumors and Dominic’s own eyes were to be trusted, lover, Carys, had tried to drill into him Lyntaran customs and mannerisms before he’d left, but while the former Lyntaran’s intentions had undoubtedly been good, they were also misguided.
Dominic would be lucky if he were mistaken for being fully human, never mind Lyntaran.
As he entered the heart of the woods, he was stirred from his thoughts by the whisper of the trees among themselves. A wild impulse to sit at their roots and lose himself in their hushed murmuring ran through him, but he forced it back with a shudder. Part of him wondered, as it always did, what would become of him if he ever succumbed to that call. He wasn’t sure if he could break out of it, or if he would even want to. So little drew him in his daily life the way the trees did. Sometimes it alarmed him how little he actually felt on a daily basis, but even that alarm was a muted thing, a scream smothered by a heavy hand on his soul he couldn’t seem to lift.
Though he would have preferred to think that volunteering himself for the mission at hand was entirely born of a selfless desire to repay the man to whom he owed so much, the truth was that lately, a restlessness had begun to creep into him. It was hard to sleep, hard to be still, and harder than usual to even tolerate the others around him. He could have sworn his sense of smell, already keen, had sharpened even more, leaving him spending most of his time vaguely nauseated and unable to eat.
He couldn’t explain it, and like so much else in his life, he had little interest in learning any more of it. Perhaps he was ill. Perhaps creatures like him didn’t live as long as men did, and he was dying. He likely wouldn’t survive his task, but he thought uneasily that he likely wouldn’t have survived staying in Kelemir, either. Even the woods were unable to completely soothe the sudden gnawing need to search, for that is exactly what it felt like.
He felt like he had lost something and needed to look for it. Maybe it’s just my mind that’s ill, he thought.
Soon the trees began to grow farther apart, alienated from one another by the increasingly rocky soil as the ground sloped upward, forest yielding to mountain. Dominic slowed his pace, growing ever more cautious in his approach as he recognized the area. Now he focused purposefully on maintaining silence, even his breathing slowing in response as he navigated the increasingly rocky terrain. Dawn was hinting its way onto the horizon, shedding the first trickle of pale light through the widening gaps in the canopy of leaves overhead, and he hastened his steps, hoping to reach the outskirts of the settlement before the darkness failed him entirely. It would be risky entering while it was daylight, but he had the best chance of learning something this way. He wore plain clothing and a cloak and had very little on his person, nothing that could readily identify him as being Kelemiran in the event of his capture. His intention was to live off the land as he traveled, and his only weapon was his long knife, hidden in a sheath under his boot.
Soon the trees’ whispering faded, then was drowned out entirely by the first sounds of habitation. Even with the day barely begun, he could hear the first rumblings of the cacophony that was village life breaking into the dying hush of night, hooves impatiently stamping against the ground as cows awaited milking and horses feeding, the first creaking rumbles of carts going to market, a hungry infant’s high, thin wail.
This last surprised him. He had seen women in the village the last time he had been there but had noticed no children. They must be settling into some kind of permanence, Dominic mused, surprised in spite of himself. Whatever they’re trying to accomplish here, they must be fairly confident they will succeed. Or else wildly reckless in seeking it.
Dominic would not have put the latter past anyone, save maybe his lord.
He crept closer, the tension inside him predictably returning as he drew the hood of his cloak low around his face. He hugged close to the outsides of the buildings and clung to the dwindling shadows as he made his way inside. The air stank of food and animals, offal and wood-smoke, making him feel like every facet of himself was being invaded. He tried to ignore his churning stomach.
It was harder to blend in here, now that trees were replaced by structures made of everything from heavy canvas to wattle and daub to the occasional structure made of salvaged wood. There was not yet anything made of stone, even though there was an abundance of it. Perhaps this place is not meant to be that permanent yet, he thought, or perhaps they’ve not yet had enough time.
Whatever the case, the settlement still resembled the same odd hodgepodge of the makeshift and the more enduring that he recalled from his last visit. There were no roads as yet, only rocky paths worn into the dirt that snaked their way circuitously around the various homes and buildings. Simple pens held the animals, and the biggest gap in the conglomeration served as the settlement’s main square or market. People were beginning to emerge from their dwellings, none of them taking notice of the shape slipping from shadow to shadow.
Dominic’s aim this day was to find a safe place to listen in to some of the conversations of the pretend Raiders and see what he could learn. If the information was important enough, he would return to Sebastien with it before trying to enter Lyntara any deeper.
But as he navigated his way through the settlement, he was finding it difficult to discover anything that might pass for barracks or even just a meeting place. The men dressed as Raiders seemed well-dispersed among the rest of the population; for all he knew, all the men present took turns playing at Raider and possibly the women did as well. Perhaps Carys was not the anomaly she had first appeared to be in that respect.
In any event, progress was slow, and when he finally found a promising open window to huddle by, out of view of the main path that threaded past and immersed in the shadow cast by the large hut it belonged to, the day was well under way, the rising sun lending a more brutal edge to the once-pleasant warmth in the air.
Dominic heard voices from within, and he immediately focused his attention on them, straining to hear them clearly over all the other noise surrounding him as the settlement awakened. It sounded like two men were making the usual bland commentary about the weather. A third masculine voice soon joined them in a bitter complaint about the heat.
“It’s started earlier than usual this year,” the voice groaned. “It’s going to be one hell of a summer. ”
“You’d think this far north and this high up, it would be cooler,” one of the other men agreed. “This dratted armor’s going to roast us alive if this keeps up. I don’t know how the Beast’s little lapdogs handle it. ”
Dominic quirked a brow at that. If there was ever any doubt about these Raiders’ veracity, there wouldn’t be now, he thought.
Carys had told him that the Emperor was revered among his citizens as both their ruler and high priest.
“All the same,” the first man went on, “I hope this is all over by midsummer. ”
“Well, I wouldn’t hold my breath. The Beast is one stubborn piece of work, and there are only so many mages to go around. ”
“When do you think we’ll get to ride out there? Surely they’ll-”
His next words were drowned out by the sudden barking. Dominic turned his head just in time to see a large dog barreling towards him, barking fiercely with every step.
He scrambled back away from the hut, his ears buzzing with the noise. He was well aware that the inhabitants of the hut would be likely to look out of the very window he had been hiding by to see what was causing the commotion, and it would be impossible to remain hidden, particularly if the dog attacked him there.
But it was to Dominic’s misfortune that a cart full of hay was coming down the path at the same time that he was trying to cross it to put distance between himself and the noisy animal. He narrowly dodged it as its driver shouted at him, but the dog continued to pursue, undeterred by the cart, the shouting, or Dominic’s own hasty retreat. Bloody hell, I don’t remember seeing any dogs around here last time, he thought unhappily, his face heating. This one’s determined to run me down, too.
He could hardly believe he’d been here once before with the inhabitants none the wiser. He didn’t believe in luck, but he was certainly edging closer to belief. And as usual, something’s off with mine.
Dominic wove his way back around the huts, and at some point, the barking ceased as he heard a stern voice admonishing the animal, apparently halting it in its pursuit.
He stifled a sigh. I’ll return to the woods until dusk, he decided. If I can find a rabbit or something, I can use it as a distraction if this happens again. He hated to leave the area when the most telling discussions would likely be taking place among the “Raiders,” but he couldn’t risk getting caught so soon. He’d only just crossed the border.
Getting back to the forest was significantly more difficult than entering the settlement had been. The sun was higher, the shadows fewer, and people were everywhere. In a matter of weeks, it looked as though the population had doubled, a curious fact that Dominic tucked away for future reflection. He was forced to take to the path and head as casually as possible towards the village outskirts, forcing his movements to slow and his posture to look relaxed when every muscle in his body was rigid with tension. It was impossible to pick out any single strand of conversation as he passed by chattering groups and open windows, voices merging into an unintelligible buzz all around him, amply punctuated by wagon wheels, horses’ hooves, and the sounds of restless animals and children.
His drab brown cloak didn’t stand out among them, but he knew it would only take one look beneath his hood, one question asked of the figure they couldn’t quite identify, and there would be no doubt that he didn’t belong there.
He made it about three-quarters of the way back before a voice bellowed at his back, “Ho there! Where are you off to, lad? Come help me with this cart! ”
At first, Dominic kept walking, hoping the order had been directed at someone else.
Then a very large and meaty hand descended on his shoulder more quickly than he would have thought possible. He half-turned, swallowing hard against the renewed lurching of his stomach. He kept his head bowed and his eyes, at least for the moment, hidden. He dared not raise them to take in the man’s face, but he could plainly see that the man’s body matched his hands perfectly.
“Sir? ” Dominic asked meekly, mimicking Carys’ pronunciation as closely as he could. As long as I keep my answers short, maybe I can still get past him.
But his stomach rumbled a low threat.
“I told you, lad, I need your help with that cart. Don’t be thinking you’re going to go off and fart around somewhere when there’s work to be done. I know you’re not needed down the hill, or you’d be in the black suit,” the man told him impatiently, his thick fingers giving Dominic’s shoulder a savage squeeze.
He thinks I’m younger than I am, Dominic realized. Dominic was tall but wiry, and his leanness coupled with his smooth jaw must have given the impression of adolescence. Maybe I can use this to my advantage.
“But sir,” he tried, keeping his voice low. “My da-”
“Never mind your da,” the man snapped. “I haven’t got time for this. Help me get that wheel on, or so help me, I’ll whip your hide for him. ”
Dominic ducked his head still lower and allowed himself to be pulled towards the cart, putting up no resistance. It was a rickety thing stacked full of wooden crates that sat just off the main path, and it was indeed missing a wheel. The replacement sat propped up against a rock nearby, and Dominic went to it wearing a veneer of docility the moment the man released him.
Just get the wheel on, and then I’ll slip away, Dominic thought, swallowing again as his mouth watered with nausea. Every moment forced into interaction with this bear of a man was marching him that much closer to discovery, yet he was sure the cart’s owner would raise an almighty roar if he tried to run off now.
The man grunted as Dominic brought over the wheel. “Surprised you can lift that on your own,” he said, sounding not surprised at all.
Dominic pretended to wince at what was presumably meant to be an insult. The wheel was awkward to carry, but it wasn’t particularly heavy.
“Stick it here, son,” the man told him, motioning next to the cart. “And for the pain lord’s sake, put down that damned hood! It’s not even raining! ”
As if time itself had slowed to allow Dominic to fully appreciate the disaster unfolding before him, he saw a big paw come down and swipe at his head before he could fully dodge it, causing him to miss the actual blow but not the dislodging of his cloak’s hood. His startled eyes met the man’s for the first time as the cloth fell away, and that other pair of eyes went huge, the man’s large body recoiling as if he had just uncovered a serpent rather than a man.
They stared at each other for a moment in frozen silence, then the almighty roar filled the air as predicted.
“Men, to me! Monster! Demon! ”
Dominic took off, no longer troubling to hide the quickness of his movements or the strangeness of his face. It was too late for that.
But it was also too late for flight. Unexpectedly, the man threw the wheel at him, and large though it was, it flew far enough to strike Dominic in the lower legs and knock him to the ground. By the time he scrambled back onto his feet, the man had cleared the distance between them and was pummeling him with giant fists, driving him back to his knees.
Before Dominic could take another full breath, he was descended upon, swarmed and flattened to the ground beneath an avalanche of fists, feet, and farming implements.
The last thing he heard before he blacked out was the barking of an incoming dog.
Gwyn couldn’t imagine a worse afternoon for herb gathering. She had been combing through the forest since dawn and had yet to find even half of what she needed to restock, but her blouse was soaked through with sweat and clung to her back, the sun glaring down punishment that the leaves overhead did little to allay. There weren’t many places where it was safe to gather the plants she needed, and she didn’t look forward to pushing her search even farther out.
A nice wind had picked up, affording some relief from the unseasonable heat, but she quickly realized it wasn’t anything to welcome. The sky was rapidly darkening, black clouds blotting out the sun. A distant rumble of thunder confirmed her new suspicion, and it was all she could do not to throw her basket in frustration.
“What a hell of a day,” she muttered, wiping an arm over her damp forehead and swatting stray strands of pale blond hair out of her face. “Good lord. I’ll never get back before the rain. ”
She stood a moment, peering down at her mostly-empty basket and pondering whether she ought to just carry on or if she should turn back and call it a day. There was so much more that she needed; she supplied the remedies for several different villages, and it had been a hard winter.
I should go a little farther in before I turn back. It’s such a waste of a day if I don’t find anything else. I won’t be out of the forest before the storm hits even if I left right now anyway.
So decided, she pressed on, scrutinizing the vegetation around her as she traveled. Soon the thunder grew louder, and then all at once, rain began to fall as though a floodgate had been flung open, sheeting down so hard that she could barely see through it. Unlike the air, it was cold, and what was at first refreshing all too quickly turned into shivering misery.
“Good lord,” she mumbled again, rain leaking into her mouth. “I’ll never find anything this way. ”
She turned back. But the rain was hard, and though she thought she was simply retracing her steps back out of the forest, she soon realized when she saw the same misshapen tree for the third time in a row that she was going in circles. She squinted through the rain, holding up an arm to shield her face as she tried again. Now she seemed to have moved past the loop she had been in, but nothing was looking familiar.
So intent was she on trying to find her way back that she tripped over something and landed with a hard thud on hands and knees, mud spluttering up her dress and arms.
It was beyond bearing. She sat up, pushing her hair out of her face with the back of her arm, and cursed the rain, the mud, and tree roots everywhere for all she was worth. When she ran out of air, she cast a reproachful glare at the tree roots in question while she refilled her lungs, then suddenly drew up short.
It wasn’t a tree she had tripped over; it was a man, or what had once been one. He was lying on his side in an ungainly heap, but it was clear even through the rain that he had been badly beaten. The dark stains of bruises mottled his skin, and the arm pinned beneath him was twisted at some unnatural angle.
Gwyn’s heart started pounding as she went over to him, still on her knees, checking his neck for a pulse with an unsteady hand.
He was alive. She brushed wet strands of dark hair out of his bloody face.
“Oh, no, you poor man,” she murmured, shaking her head, but her stomach felt sick.
Gwyn had heard the rumors of Raiders attacking their own villages, Lyntaran villages. She hadn’t wanted to believe them, but looking at this broken man, plainly abandoned there to die, for the first time, she began to seriously wonder if they might not actually be true. But why would they do this to him? If he were a criminal, wouldn’t they take him to one of the prisons? This is just cruel. I can’t just leave him here like this, but he’s so badly hurt...moving him might kill him. And yet...maybe not leaving him here would be crueler.
She looked around, straining to see through the rain, but it looked like they were alone. She felt a thrill of fear run through her as she looked down at him, but she was already gathering her magic inside of herself, anchoring it to the surge of fear that was speeding her pulse and drying her mouth. She tried not to think about the dire warnings that had been drilled into her all of her life about the possible consequences...particularly when it came to using her magic on a stranger. All she would let herself think now about now was the man bleeding on the ground before her. He could have a wife, children who would miss him, she thought, nerving up her resolve. But it can’t hurt...or if he does, he’s no worse off than before. Dead is dead.
She reached out with her magic, letting it seep gently into him as her father had once taught her, seeking out the disruptions in his body that would evidence injury. The magic flowed like tepid water, a silent and ceaseless river, and in the “cracks” where it pooled, she knew he was hurt.
And he was hurt everywhere. Ribs were broken, not just the arm, though that was the most obvious. He was a mass of wounds that bled inside and out, and her fear grew stronger. I don’t know if I can help him. If only Emily were here. She was always so much better at this than me.
It had been a long time since she’d thought of her older sister, but now she felt desperate for her. She tried to tamp down the irrational longing and focus instead on which injury was the most likely to kill him if she tried to move him.
When she had made her best guess, she set to work, using her magic to staunch the bleeding and mend what felt to her senses like tears in his body’s organs. It was a difficult, delicate process and it consumed her entirely; nothing existed now for her except bone and blood and the warm-yet-cool rush of magic between them. That magic felt like a barely-tamed horse, continually struggling to throw off her control as she tried to guide it where she wanted, and soon she began to feel light-headed. Exhaustion quickly started rolling over her in waves, her pulse pounding loud enough in her ears to rival the thunder, her body shuddering with fatigue as she was forced to withdraw her magic.
She couldn’t be sure how long had passed, but the rain had finally stopped even though the thunder hadn’t. It sounded quieter against the backdrop of her racing heartbeat, and she fought to catch her breath.
I don’t know if it was good enough, or if I made the right call. And it will be a long while before I’ll be able to try again if I was wrong...too long. Gwyn could barely keep her eyes open, every fiber of her being pleading with her to lay down, just for a moment, just for a quick rest.
Instead she hauled herself to her feet on quaking legs and tried as gently as she could to hook her arms under the man’s. He made no sound, his head rolling back as she started to half-lift, half-drag him back the way she’d come. She was immensely grateful that he was unconscious; he would have been in unendurable pain otherwise, particularly given the state of his arm.
By the time she got him out of the forest and to her little one-room cottage, it was well into the night. She kept having to stop to rest, but though her ears strained and her eyes squinted, she heard and saw no one else, nor any signs of whoever it was who had abandoned the man there. The thunder had long since faded away entirely, and the clouds had cleared enough to allow thin slivers of moonlight to pierce air that still felt heavy from the recent rain.
Gwyn was exhausted and aching and dismally sure that she would never be dry again, the humidity in the air keeping her clothing and hair damp. Only her doubts and anxiety over the man she was trying to get to safety kept her misery on the fringes of her thoughts instead of front and center. It was still very warm, even though the air had cooled somewhat after the rain and the setting of the sun, and she began to speculate wildly about omens in an effort to make it the final laborious steps into her home.
But made it she did, and then the real work started. She was dizzy with fatigue by the time she got the man stripped down and moved, with great effort, onto her bed. The first ominous feelings prickled at her when she found the long knife strapped to his calf. She supposed he must not have been able to grab it in time to defend himself, given the state he was in. It was a wicked-looking blade, very sharp and slightly curved, and it turned her stomach to see it; she couldn’t imagine why he had it. She put the knife to the side and bound his ribs and broken arm, wrenching it back into place and wincing apologetically at his hoarse cry, uttered even though he hadn’t awakened. She cleaned the blood from his face and bandaged the wounds that had bled with hands that shook so badly, the job took twice as long as it ought to have.
Gwyn couldn’t help but notice how muscular he was, entirely at odds with his lanky appearance which suggested no such thing when he was clothed, and her feelings of foreboding intensified. He did not have the body of a field worker or farmer. Between that and the knife, she realized uneasily he must do something else, and she didn’t even want to guess at what that might be. The hair on his body was also very sparse, his arms and legs and chest nearly as smooth as his face. Even in her bleary state, Gwyn was unnerved. He looked far too...mature...in other ways to be anywhere near childhood.
How strange! Surely he doesn’t shave his body the way some other men shave their faces? Why would anyone do that? I suppose it’s none of my business, but still...it’s very odd.
Foreboding twisted her insides with a sickening, icy grasp, but whatever the explanation for his...oddities...she knew there was nothing she could do about it now. He was already there in her bed, and moving him again was physically impossible for her now when it was all she could do just to stay on her feet.
She checked him one last time for fever and, satisfied that she’d done all she could for him, she hid the knife in the wooden chest where she kept her clothing and linens, changed into a blessedly dry shift, and collapsed on a blanket in front of the empty fireplace. All fears of the man’s unexpected strangeness overpowered by her exhaustion, she was asleep the moment her head touched her outstretched arm, her last flicker of conscious thought the image of the strange, curved blade only a few feet from where she was lying.
