Since she’d have to travel to Tineroth on foot, she packed light, stuffing only the basic supplies into her knapsack – a wool blanket to keep her warm at night, dried rations to keep her fed, and two flasks of waters in case she traveled far from a water source. She tucked a small coin purse in her bodice and a strapped a skinning knife to the belt at her waist. Niamh’s journal found safe haven in a pocket of her cloak. The cloak would be a hindrance as she traveled through the forest, but Imogen never went without it if she ventured from the safety of their plot of land. It concealed her from head to toe in faded black, and without Niamh’s protective illusion spells, she needed it now more than ever. With her wide-brimmed, veiled hat, a sturdy walking stick in her hand and an affected hobble, she looked like an old widowed crone. Poor, sickly, and of no interest to anyone. Or so Imogen hoped.
The gold light running from her feet to some unknown, distant place beckoned her. She shrugged the knapsack over her shoulder, grabbed the rowan walking stick from the corner and shut the cottage door behind her. “Let’s get this over with,” she said and set off toward the glade, following the path that took her from everything familiar.
She made one brief stop at Niamh’s grave. The daffodils she’d left yesterday still looked freshly picked, and clusters of new grass blades peeked out between the crevices made by the stacked stone. By summer, the mound would be covered, a low green hill that housed the bones of the witch whose magic originated from the earth.
Imogen pulled back her veil, grateful for the cool breeze drifting across her too-warm skin. “A prayer to the gods for me, Mother, that your indebted king will remember your kindness to him.” She blew a kiss at the stones and set off for Tineroth.
After three days of trekking through the dense wood as she followed a path she suspected had doubled back on itself at least twice, she finally reached a deep gorge. The late afternoon sun sank below the trees behind her, casting sentinel shadows that stretched to the edge of the cliffs. Even this high up, Imogen heard the dull roar of water rushing below. She peered over the edge of the rock on which she stood to see the rope of a river snaking along the bottom of the gorge.
A powerful wind roared up from the yawning space, snapping her heavy braid like a whip. The gold path that had led her through dense woods and across fallow fields now stretched across the divide, cleaving a spectral road in thin air to the other side. A gathering darkness waited there, shaped by tall silhouettes rising out of ground fog that seemed to swirl with odd purpose.
Too tired to be frightened, Imogen groaned and rubbed the dull ache at her lower back. “Please tell me I don’t have to climb down this cliff to stay on the path.” Vertigo made her back away from her precarious perch, and she stared at the illuminated road, vexed by this sudden dilemma. “A key, a map and a road.” Her fingers traced the raised scars on her neck. “Can you be a bridge now? Or maybe a bird?”
As if in answer, a ripple of movement flowed down the golden path, rising in shimmers like summer heat off hot stone. Imogen squinted and stared harder, hoping what she saw was not a trick of the fading light but one of the pendant’s magic.
A bridge formed, stone by stone and stretched across the abyss like a giant’s broken ribcage, choked by weeds and climbing vines. A series of arches perforated by spandrels at its ends, the bridge looked as if it grew from the cliff face itself, a living anchor that bound the earth together and trapped the river below it. The bridge deck, constructed of pavers, looked wide enough to accommodate a heavy flow of carts and foot traffic. Parapets lined its edges, decorated at intervals with statues that stood watch over crowds and visitors who had long since disappeared.
Still wary of the pendant’s power and her altered eyesight, Imogen tapped the edge of the bridge with her walking stick. The crack of wood on stone sounded solid enough, and she took one cautious step onto the deck, praying fervently she wasn’t about to step out into clear space and a very long fall to her death.
The moment her feet touched the bridge surface, her ears popped, and the vertigo that plagued her a moment earlier struck full force. She staggered sideway, coming up hard against a parapet. Her vision swirled before clearing at the same time her roiling stomach lurched to a merciful stop. An ivy leaf tickled her nose, and she swatted it away.
The bridge hadn’t changed—still abandoned, and decrepit, and beautiful despite its flaws. Imogen leaned between two parapets to glimpse the river so far below. Were she not given the Blessed Sight by the pendant—“Blessed, my arse,” she muttered sourly—she’d die from the fright of finding herself floating in midair.
The intense vertigo left her sweating, and with a profound sense that, while the bridge hadn’t changed, her sense of place—of being—certainly had. Every instinct she possessed sounded an internal warning. There was magery here, old and powerful. She didn’t need such obvious visual proof or Niamh’s sorcerous talents to feel the almost suffocating weight of enchantment in the air.
The twilight deepened, turning the sky lavender, then indigo as night fell fast. Imogen didn’t want to risk losing the bridge if she stayed on this side of it until morning, and she had no intention of camping on the deck. She inhaled a breath, clutched her stick in a white-knuckled grip and strode across the span. The feeling of otherness strengthened as she traversed the deck and was soon accompanied by the certainty that something watched her. Her scalp prickled. She held the walking stick with both hands, turning it from journey aid to weapon.
Only her footsteps echoed back to her ears. No calls of nightbirds or the buzzing chorus of insects broke the silence that swallowed the bridge. Even the wind that almost blasted her off her spot on the rock had died. The ivy strangling the bridge beneath its entwining hold rustled, as if commanded by a different, softer breeze. An unpleasant smell drifted to Imogen’s nose: rotted vegetation and stagnant water.
The statues she’d glimpsed earlier stood sentry as she passed. Her curiosity overrode her fear of the bridge disappearing beneath her feet, and she paused at a few of the carved images that were still whole and unbroken. Men and women were represented, some crowned, others not, their haughty, aristocratic faces captured forever in ageless stone. Imogen wondered if these were long dead rulers of Tineroth, their graven forms set to stand guard over the entrance to a forgotten city.
One statue made her pause. It differed from the others in that its visage had been chipped away, scored and blunted until the features were no longer distinguishable. Violence, not weathering, had obscured the face, as if those who had defaced the statue had left it standing as a message—and a warning.
Drawn by invisible cords, Imogen approached the statue for a closer look. A man by the look of the sculpture, slim but powerful. She smiled at such vanity. “More like a gut from too much roast chicken and good wine. But who would want to be remembered that way, eh?” She winked at the faceless statue.
He loomed above her, raised on a square pedestal like his compatriots. Chiseled inscriptions decorated the base, ancient runes and symbols she couldn’t read. She reached out to trace them and just as quickly yanked her hand back as sharp pinpoints of pain penetrated her gloves and snapped against her fingers. Whatever sorcery cloaked this bridge, it didn’t want anyone touching the statues.
Still feeling as if she were being watched and afraid she’d committed a major offense, Imogen bowed to the statue. “My apologies,” she said and backed away. Niamh’s childhood reprimand of “keep your hands to yourself,” had far more layers of wisdom to it than safeguarding others from Imogen’s curse.
She resumed her journey across the bridge, picking up the pace until she reached the other side. Her relief at stepping on natural earth was short-lived. The luminescent path guiding her way dimmed beneath the fog she’d seen from the other side of the gorge. White tendrils hugged her ankles and slipped over her knees, like ghostly hands of a crowd of children. The notion made her shiver, and she pushed the miasma away with Niamh’s walking stick.
“Stop that,” she admonished, and to her astonishment, the mist obeyed, rolling far enough away so that she could once more see open ground and the brightness of the enchanted road.
Imogen glanced behind her and forgot to breathe. The bridge faded, losing solidity until it was no more substantial than the fog before disappearing altogether. Fear threatened to overwhelm her hard-won calm. She crushed it down. Too late to turn back now. She gripped the walking stick, put her back to the gorge and followed the lit path, traveling deeper into vegetation that was more jungle than forest. The vines smothering the bridge grew here as well, carpeting the understory in a damp mat of tangled strands and leaves turned black with rot.
The trees themselves were far different and infinitely stranger than those across the gorge. Massive trunks and exposed root systems created crevasses the size of small caves, and they dripped a constant stream of moisture in air suddenly warm and saturated with water. Imogen’s cloak hung on her in a sodden shroud.
The exhaustion that had kept her fear at bay vanished, and she gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering as she struggled through the dense undergrowth to reach the silhouettes of buildings in the closing distance. The wood’s unnatural silence unnerved her. Even at night, forests came alive with evening predators. Those she was familiar with kept away, their instincts naturally warning them away from a human who carried Death under her skin, but she didn’t detect even the distant hooting of an owl or see the glow of small eyes from burrowing rodents in the shelter of the great trees.
She finally stumbled into a clearing and exhaled a huge sigh. Here, the air was still humid but not so suffocating. Her gladness at being out of the trees died as she got her first look at Tineroth.
A vast courtyard surrounded by palaces and temples of breathtaking height and grace stretched before her. They were feats of architectural mastery, and Imogen doubted anything built in the Berberi kingdom surpassed them. Berberi, however, wasn’t a dead kingdom.
The majesty of Tineroth lay in ruin, its edifices crumbling derelicts of an age only remembered in legend, its very existence doubted by more jaded folk. The slim, delicate spires that had beckoned her from the far side of the gorge were nothing more than hollow relics. Tineroth reminded Imogen of Niamh—a once beautiful woman diminished by an insidious sickness.
“Welcome to Tineroth.” Her voice fell flat in the thick air.
There were none to greet her or give her a tour, and for that, Imogen was heartily thankful. Tineroth didn’t feel haunted, but that sense of being observed refused to fade, and she eyed her surroundings closely.
The city offered numerous places to shelter, places with a roof and likely a dry floor, but she was hesitant to explore them. Who knew how sound they were? The thought of being buried under a pile of timber and stone that collapsed on her while she slept made her shudder. Death came to everyone, but she didn’t want to die here.
She journeyed deeper into the city, suddenly glad for the light that refused to leave her and now circled her feet in a glowing corona. She felt like a walking oil lamp, but it was better than groping her way through the dark with only a weak torch and limited fuel to light her way.
The courtyard led to a line of roofless cloisters, and she followed their outer walls until she reached a much smaller garden surrounded by low-roofed structures that might have been private temples. The windows of each building looked toward the courtyard with an eyeless stare, and she tried not to imagine what might be following her progress from those black recesses.
The garden sported a fountain in the center, dry except for a small, stagnant puddle that gathered in the shallow bowl. A new worry joined an ever growing list in Imogen’s mind. She had a good supply of fresh water in the two flasks stored in her sack, but she’d have to be careful not to waste it. She’d seen no clear pools or streams in the dark wood or the city so far.
The fountain was not the only statuary in the garden. Straight paths cut from the same stone that paved the bridge spread like the spokes of a wheel in the garden. They led to a center hub on which sat a catafalque of white marble stained green with lichen.
The effigy of a crowned monarch, also carved of marble, lay supine atop the bier. A Tineroth king, forever bound in stone, rested in eternal state. The light at Imogen’s feet cast a golden glow across the marble, and for a moment the stone shimmered in the garden’s darkness, illuminating the king’s features.
Imogen gasped and took an involuntary step back, signing a protective ward with a gloved hand. The marble visage held an unearthly beauty. Either this king had been blessed with looks that made stars weep with envy, or the sculptor had chiseled the face of a god on a man. No one feature stood out. All came together in perfect synchronicity—finely carved cheekbones, a sharp jaw and long aristocratic nose, a sensual mouth set in sleep. The closed eyes were tilted at the outer corners, and a marble crown bound hair that fell across wide shoulders.
These things didn’t make her recoil. For all that divine beauty, there was a cruelty as well. If the sculptor had been unduly kind in carving features so exquisite, he’d also been unduly harsh in capturing a malice that ran deep and corrupted the very stone into which it was carved.
She turned away, unable to look any longer at the king’s profane beauty. Instead, she focused her gaze on the arcane inscriptions chiseled on the side of the catafalque. Like those of the statue on the bridge, they were written in a language she’d not studied under Niamh and doubted existed any longer outside Tineroth.
“My gods, Mother,” she murmured. “What is this cursed place?”
The sudden icy splash of fear against her spine was her only warning of attack before the cold kiss of metal touched her. She froze in a half-crouch, her eyes nearly crossed as she looked down at her warped reflection in the flat of an ax blade. Its razor edge rested steady against her throat, promising a quick and bloody end if she so much as breathed the wrong way.
To her left, a voice—male, soft with an icy humor—spoke. “I think the more important question is: who are you?”