Bluebell closed the door, shutting out the daylight. Eldra’s hut had only one narrow window, tightly shuttered, and a dirt floor under the rushes. The hearthpit was literally a pit dug into the ground. Bluebell had to duck under a low beam to get into the room. Eldra stood to greet her, and Bluebell saw straightaway that the older woman was crippled: Her hips didn’t align, and one of her feet was twisted outward. She would never be able to travel.
Eldra held out her hand to Thrymm. “Ah, lovely girl,” she said. Thrymm licked her hand gingerly. “You sit by the fire,” Eldra said, rubbing her head, “while I talk to your master.”
Thrymm sat back and watched carefully while Eldra turned her attention to Bluebell.
“So you are my niece?” Eldra said.
“I am Bluebell.”
“You didn’t know you had an aunt, did you?” She had very clear blue eyes and pale skin that was remarkably unlined. Her hair was gray at the temples, but otherwise brown.
“No, I didn’t.”
“But your sister knew.”
“Rose said you had spoken to her. In a sending.”
“I did.” Eldra spread her hands. “Not that she listened to me.” She moved toward Bluebell, her leg dragging behind her. Bluebell stood very still as Eldra stopped in front of her. The older woman stood only as high as Bluebell’s breastbone. She looked up at Bluebell with her piercing gaze, and her nostrils flared slightly.
“You’re the image of your father.”
Bluebell felt the corner of her lip twitch into a smile. The comparison had been made so often, by so many, and still she found it pleasing. But then she realized Eldra’s mouth was turned down.
“You and Father…” she started.
“There isn’t much love there,” Eldra said. “You must have guessed that. Did he ever mention me?”
Bluebell shook her head.
Eldra’s eyebrows lifted. “Not once, eh?”
“No.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“Knowing my father to be noble in thought and action, I would guess it was to protect you in some way.”
“Protect me?”
Bluebell nodded. “Blood is important to him.”
Eldra snorted. “Spilling it, perhaps.” She limped back to the hearthpit to poke the coals. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to eat.”
Bluebell’s stomach grumbled. “I have food in my pack.”
“There’s cold salted rabbit under the cloth on the bench. Bread there. Cheese there.” Eldra waved her hands vaguely and sat down.
Bluebell realized if she wanted to eat she had to fix it for herself, so she went to the bench and uncovered the food, assembling it on a plate. “Is there anywhere for my horse to stay?”
“There’s a shelter, down the hill toward the stream. You can take him down there later. But sit with me now. Tell me why you are here.”
Bluebell glanced over her shoulder. Eldra’s back was turned to her. “Don’t you already know?”
“Your other sister, the poisoned one, had an idea in her head about your father. I couldn’t grasp it with both my hands. Besides, reading minds isn’t my skill. Thankfully. I can’t imagine anything worse than being privy to the nonsense that plays out in most people’s heads.”
Bluebell brought her plate and sat opposite Eldra, with the fire between them. The firelight made her aunt’s pale skin warm.
Her aunt. Bluebell tilted her head slightly and considered Eldra. She could see a lot of Willow in her aunt’s face: the distinct widow’s peak, the wide flat cheekbones.
“What are you looking at?” Eldra grunted.
Bluebell set to her food. “Family resemblance to my sister Willow,” she said through a mouthful. “Rose and Ash look like my mother. Ivy is fair like me, but…pretty.”
“You might have been pretty if you’d chosen a different path.”
“How do you know what path I’ve chosen, if you can’t read minds?”
“I may live alone, but I still travel and trade. I could hardly escape your fame. Besides,” she added grudgingly, “you are family, and I have found out what I can about you all.”
The rabbit meat was salty and sweet. Bluebell relished it, licking the bones clean. Then she wiped her fingers on her tunic and put the plate aside. “Father is sick, elf-shot. You will heal him.”
Eldra’s face was passive. “Will I?”
“Yes. Because you are an undermagician and he is your brother.”
“What if I can’t heal him?”
“You can try.”
“What if I don’t want to heal him?”
The question made no sense to Bluebell. “He is family. He is the king of Almissia. For the love of your own blood, and for the sake of peace in Thyrsland, surely you would try.”
Eldra took a deep breath, then let out a huff. “Well, then.”
“You are lame. Can you travel? I can try to get a cart from—”
“I can travel. Don’t you mind about that. I can travel fast and well. Faster than you.”
Bluebell frowned, not sure what she meant. “If that’s so, then we can leave tomorrow.”
“You are not my commander, young woman.” As Eldra said this, a shadow crossed her brow and a swirl of embers lifted from the hearthpit, then settled again.
Bluebell realized her heart was beating a little faster.
“You are wrong about Athelrick. He hasn’t hidden me to protect me.” Eldra shook her head, working her lips against each other as though she had tasted something bad.
Bluebell kept quiet, not wanting to ask. Not wanting to know.
“How old do you think I am?” Eldra asked.
“I know not.”
“Sixty winters.”
Bluebell shrugged. “Happy birthday?”
“Your father is fifty-eight winters, is he not?”
“I don’t see what…” But then she did see what Eldra was trying to say.
Eldra was firstborn.
“Ah, yes,” Eldra said, wagging a crooked finger. “Now you understand. I am a woman, and Athelrick is a man. I had first claim on the throne of Almissia, but he took it from me.” She closed her fist, made a snatching gesture. “He doesn’t believe women can rule.”
Bluebell scrambled for a way to make sense of this. “The king of Almissia must be a warrior. Your father was a great swordsman, and Athelrick has no peer. Perhaps they believed it was not safe to have a king who couldn’t lead an army into battle.”
“A queen, Bluebell. Try as you might, you’ll never have a prick.” Eldra’s lips curled into a smile. “A battle-ready warrior queen, who trained as hard as any man, who understood the strategies of war, who could charge herself with supernatural energy…” Eldra trailed off, her eyes turning to the fire.
“You?” Bluebell asked.
Eldra indicated her hip. “It was in a skirmish with those dogs of Nettlechester. Your friend Wengest’s uncle knocked me off my horse, speared me through the pelvis, and kicked me down a ravine. I lay there six days, my body shattered, then finally dragged myself to help when I realized nobody was coming for me. When I got home, they had already crowned Athelrick king.”
“They would have thought you dead.”
“I wasn’t when I turned up. Obviously.”
“By then it was too late, surely. For the stability of the kingdom.” Bluebell’s mind worked, trying to make sense of it. “He would have known himself the better protector, the better warrior because he was whole.”
“Believe what you like. You know in your heart what is fair.”
Bluebell stared at Eldra in the dim, smoky firelight. The fire popped softly. She could hear the thrum of her pulse in her ears. Finally, she said, “Will you come?”
Eldra raised her gaze to meet Bluebell’s. “I won’t do it for love.”
“Then do it for money. I can pay you well.”
Eldra gestured around. “I live simply.”
“Then do it for curiosity.”
Eldra shrugged.
“What can I offer you?”
“Why do you want to save him? When he dies, you will be queen.”
“My father’s life is more important to me than my own ambitions.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
A pause. “I am impressed.” Eldra smiled mischievously. “I presume, though, that you don’t intend to hand the kingdom over to me now that you know the truth.”
Bluebell trod carefully. “Nobody in Almissia would know you or trust you. But you would be welcome to live with us in Blickstow and be part of the family, and use your skills to help keep the peace in Thyrsland.”
“And you would let me do that?”
“Yes. Of course.”
Eldra’s eyes grew dark, birdlike. “It’s more than your father ever offered. Why do you think that is?”
He was ashamed at how he treated his sister, but also terrified that if she was too close she could gather enough support to challenge him. “You will have to come with me, make him well again, and ask him yourself.”
Eldra nodded. “Well, then. I suppose I will.”
Relief spread warmly behind Bluebell’s eyes. “We can leave in the morning.”
“No, we can’t. We must travel at night.”
Bluebell sat forward, shaking her head. “My horse can’t travel at night.”
“He will, and so will I. Only at night.” Eldra smoothed her skirt over her legs. “I will pull the strength of the Earth Mother herself from the ground tomorrow during the day, and we will leave once the sun has disappeared behind the world. We will travel nearly twice as fast as you could travel. The horses won’t tire, though you may.” Eldra smiled, a little cruelly. “You’ll have to guard me during the day while I renew myself, and we’ll travel all night while my body is at its strongest.”
“Are you saying you can overcome your lameness with magic?”
“Well enough to travel. But most important, I can enchant the horses for speed and night vision. Ah, I see it in your eyes. How useful that would be in battle. But Athelrick thought not.”
Bluebell ignored this, saying instead, “It’s night. Can we leave now?”
“I need to renew myself. In the daytime. When the sun’s warmth is in the ground.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will come to understand. Where is your father? Back in Blickstow?”
“At a flower farm, outside of Stonemantel.”
“We can be with him within a week.”
Bluebell’s heart leapt. “Really?” Then a darker thought. Was he even still alive?
“It depends on how much magic I can draw out of the ground. But I think it should be an easy and fast trip. You must rest tonight, though, because there won’t be much rest for the next week.”
“My horse,” Bluebell said.
“You go on. I’ll get myself ready.”
When Bluebell returned, Eldra had cleared a space for her to unroll her blankets on the floor. She stretched out her long frame while Eldra continued to potter about, gathering things and placing them in an embroidered pack. She closed her eyes and told herself to sleep, but it was much later, when Eldra had taken herself to her little bed under the lowest roof beam and the fire in the hearth had grown low, that she finally drifted off into a dream where Father wasn’t really Father at all, but a gray-haired stranger who said one thing, but meant something quite different.
Bluebell woke to the smell of dirt and ash, light pressing on her closed eyelids. She opened her eyes. The shutter was open and letting in a dazzling beam of bright morning light. Bluebell sat up.
In the beam of light, Eldra had cleared the rushes next to her bed and was digging. With her fingers.
“What are you doing?” Bluebell asked, her voice catching on sleep.
Eldra looked up. “The soil is very loose. Don’t worry. I’ve done this before.”
“But why are you digging?”
“This is how I renew myself with the Earth Mother’s magic.”
Bluebell’s memory twitched. She had heard of such a practice, whispered with suspicion by those who opposed undermagic. They bury themselves alive.
“Can I…help?”
“I am quite capable of doing this myself, as I have done many times before.”
As Bluebell watched, Eldra climbed into the pit she had dug and, sitting up, began to cover her legs and lower body.
“How do you breathe?”
“Don’t believe all you’ve heard. I don’t bury my face or arms.” She packed the soil down hard and continued to scoop more in. “The sun will sit on this spot for an hour and warm the ground, and I will be in here, renewing, until nightfall.”
“Renewing?”
“It is a kind of deep sleep, so I won’t hear or see anything until I wake. In here I am safe; on the open road, I am prey to every undermagician in Bradsey.”
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Eldra harrumphed. “And well you shouldn’t. I’m doing you a very great favor.”
“You are doing your brother a favor.”
Eldra stopped for a moment, fixing her in a glare. “Oh no, I am not.” Then she kept working, filling in her pit, finally lying down and scooping the last of the dirt onto her chest. “Make yourself food, and get the horses ready in the afternoon. Try to get some more rest yourself, if you can. I have to go under now.”
“All right.”
She closed her eyes and soon grew very still.
Bluebell stood and went to the pit, looking down at Eldra. Her pale face was relaxed. In the bright sunlight, Bluebell could see the little imperfections in her face. Fine wrinkles, little pale hairs growing on her chin. Bluebell watched her for a few minutes. She knew that, if somebody watched her with this intensity while she was sleeping, she would wake up. But Eldra didn’t stir.
The little house was very quiet. She could hear birdsong from outside, far away in the woods. She glanced around, went to the bench, made food, ate it. Still the house was dark and quiet. She thought about going outside to chop wood, or find water, or…something. Anything rather than waiting in here with the deathly quiet.
She sat heavily by the cold hearthpit. It wasn’t the quiet that bothered her; it was her thoughts. Her father had displaced Eldra as the heir to Almissia’s rule. She tried to tell herself that it might have been the same had Eldra been a brother, crippled by battle, unable to lead an army. But she knew with sinking certainty that this wasn’t the case. Eldra’s other talents more than made up for an infirmity of the body. And then, rather than having her near so he could take her counsel and honor her, he had allowed her to slip into undermagician exile. He had allowed her to slip beyond the edge of his family’s memory. And as much as she loved her father, Bluebell knew that was wrong.
Well, when Eldra cured him, she would ask him about it. The thought cheered her a little, and she sat back to wait in the soft quiet morning.
Bluebell saddled and packed both horses before sunset, then went back inside to find Eldra awake and risen, brushing dirt out of her hair.
“Ah, there you are,” the older woman said.
“The horses are ready.”
“Very well. Now, where have I put my pack?”
Bluebell reached for the embroidered bag, which had leaned beside the bench all day. Eldra moved to take it from her, her gait easy and fluid.
“You can walk.”
“Yes, of course.” She put her pack over her shoulder. “But only if I’ve spent hours buried in warm ground. It’s not worth it most days.”
Bluebell couldn’t imagine it. If her body wasn’t whole and healthy, she would do anything to make it so. Her hand unconsciously went to her side, where the Horse God had healed her.
Eldra saw the movement, and her nostrils twitched. “Ah, that’s where the smell is coming from.”
“Smell?”
“Horse God magic. Raw and gamy. The smell of a frightened weasel or distant pig shit. Faint, but there.”
“The day before I came to you, I was attacked by four raiders,” Bluebell explained. “They wounded me mortally. But the Horse God came, in the guise of your father.”
She snorted. “That old fool. I suppose you should count yourself lucky then.” Then, to her surprise, Eldra softened. “I’m glad you didn’t die.”
“So am I,” Bluebell said with a laugh.
“But you can be sure every undermagician in every direction will be able to smell you. And that will make some of them angry.”
“Why?”
“Because we spend endless hours and moments of delicate and finely balanced work gently coercing the Earth Mother to bless us with her magic. Then the Horse God bestows his instantly and with baffling partiality.” She pointed to Bluebell. “Of course he loves you. You send him many souls.”
Bluebell raised her hands. “I tire of magic, Eldra. I can’t see it and I don’t understand it. Are you ready to leave?”
Eldra tipped back her head and laughed loudly, way down into her belly. “Well, then. Let’s be on our way.”
Outside, the long afternoon shadows were dissolving into night. Isern looked at Bluebell uncertainly, and she rubbed his cheek. “All will be well, my friend,” she said to him.
Eldra had her hands on the flank of her horse, muttering something under her breath. Then she approached Isern and Thrymm to do the same.
“Come,” she said, climbing into her saddle with ease.
Bluebell patted Isern and mounted. She gently touched her heels to Isern’s sides and the horse moved forward, as sure-footed as he was in full daylight.
Eldra smiled across at Bluebell, then shouted, “Go!”
And the horses began to gallop, flying over uneven ground as though it were smooth and flat. Soon they were galloping out across the plains, Thrymm fluid in their wake. Isern showed no signs of being tired or unsure of where he was going, and Bluebell relaxed into her saddle and let her aunt lead the way.
Eldra took her by a different route than she had come. She skirted the edge of the darkened woods Unweder had led them through, cutting instead across plains bracketed by trees and punctuated by standing stones. The waning moon was bright in a cloudless night sky, lending its uncanny silver light to the scene. As they skimmed along, Bluebell had time to take in only quick impressions. The broken tooth of a giant’s tower glowing white in the moonlight; a huge black tree spreading its branches like a magician calling down magic from the sky; a small enclave of lime-washed huts like Eldra’s built in the shelter of a crumbled ruin. The air smelled of damp earth, approaching rain, and the sweet-sour scent of night-blooming flowers.
It felt to Bluebell as if she traveled in a dream through this landscape of undermagic. She let her mind drift: to Ash, to her father, to Rose. Were they well and happy, so far out of the circle of her influence? She glanced ahead at Eldra, whose riding cape was streaking in the wake behind her, her plump behind bouncing in the saddle. Bluebell smiled. She liked Eldra, despite the fact she was an undermagician. Perhaps it was the effect of shared blood. In any case, Bluebell intended to ask her to come to Blickstow when Father was well again. She would do her best to make them settle their differences, even if it meant Father had to concede a little land to Eldra. It wasn’t right for the king’s sister to be living in a mud hut in the middle of the wild wasteland.
After a few hours, weariness crept into Bluebell’s limbs. She didn’t need much sleep: perhaps only an hour or two, but Eldra refused. “If we stop or slow down now, I have to cast the spell again and it takes up more energy. We’ll be slower, I’ll need longer to renew tomorrow, and my hip will start to ache. You must keep going.”
So Bluebell kept going. Past midnight when the silver-gray landscape was so deserted it seemed as though she and Eldra were the only two people left in the world; through the hours when the grass grew slippery with dew and the night wind settled and sank. By the time the sky began to lighten, Bluebell’s eyes were flaky with sleep, and the wheels in her mind had slowed to a grinding pace.
“We can stop here,” Eldra said. “Have a little rest while I dig the pit.”
Bluebell dismounted. They were in a quiet valley dotted with gray rocks and a few broken saplings. The sun slanted down on them, illuminating Eldra’s gray hairs.
Bluebell spread out her blanket and fell gratefully into sleep, only to be woken up prematurely by Eldra. She opened her eyes. The sun was up, so perhaps it had been two hours, but she felt as though she had only blinked.
“Already?” she said.
“I have to get into the ground while the sun’s first light is on it.” Eldra’s face grew serious. “You will stay awake, won’t you? I can’t defend myself.”
“Of course.” Bluebell climbed to her feet, shaking herself awake. “Do what you have to.”
While Eldra buried herself, Bluebell went to her pack and pulled out her byrnie and her helm. She armed herself and sat on a rock near Eldra, who had already become smooth and quiet.
She watched birds fly over. She watched the wind move in sunlit patterns across the long grass. She heard a stream in the distance and grew thirsty. She found her water bottle and drank deeply. She wondered if it would be safe to leave Eldra for a few minutes to refill it; she decided it wasn’t. She went through Eldra’s pack, instead, and drank some of her water. Then she looked through the objects in Eldra’s pack, and couldn’t make sense of most of them. A rabbit’s paw, a piece of round glass, a string of amber beads with dried blood smeared across them in a pattern, a dozen tiny cotton bags filled with dry herbs, a strip of parchment that smelled odd and familiar at the same time, and twigs and stones that looked as if they couldn’t have been deliberately kept.
Bluebell returned to her rock. Eldra was motionless. Birds, wind, stream. Nothing had changed. Her eyes grew heavy, so she stood and began to pace. Isern and Eldra’s horse were sleeping, Thrymm was sleeping, Eldra was sleeping. Only Bluebell was awake, pacing and pacing, waiting for the day to end.
Bluebell was eager for night to fall. But of course, with night came more travel, and no rest. She let Isern carry her, following in Eldra’s supernatural train, but couldn’t sleep for fear she would fall off. Besides, Eldra sounded a cautionary note before they began to move.
“The next two days take us through dangerous territory.”
“Raiders?”
“Undermagicians.”
“You’re an undermagician.”
“We are nearing the sea. The west coast of Thyrsland is a wild place, and those most interested in wild magic have gathered here. We are passing through a cluster of spiderwebs. We are surrounded on all sides, so there is no point in trying to go unnoticed. They will sense us.”
“I have little defense against magic, Eldra. My sword appears to mean nothing to them.”
“Between your sword and my magic, we can survive. Perhaps they will leave us alone. Come. To the sea.”
They turned to the west. The headwind was strong, gusting through Bluebell’s hair and shaking the branches on the bent trees that lined the gravel road down toward the ocean. The prevailing winds in Thyrsland came from the west, from the Great Ocean that raged for thousands of miles uninterrupted by land. In winter, the wind sometimes swept right across the country, bringing freezing rain to the calmer seas of the east coast. In summer, the wind came laden with balmy warmth from unseen southern lands. Tonight it was brisk, rank with seaweed, jumping down her throat when she opened her mouth to yawn. From time to time, a brief shower of rain passed over them, leaving a clean cold odor in its wake.
Around the middle of the night, Bluebell spotted a dark figure standing very still ahead of them.
“Ignore anyone you see!” Eldra called back to her, her voice made weightless by the wind.
They galloped toward the figure—a small child—and he raised his arm as they drew close. “Hey, now! Stop! Stop!”
Bluebell leaned forward in her saddle.
“I am dying! You must help me!” he called.
“It’s a trap,” Eldra shouted to her.
“Hey, now! Hey, now!”
They were drawing level with him and Bluebell risked a look to her right to see him more closely. She could make out no facial features, only a smooth gray surface. Her skin crawled.
“Hey, now!” he called again, and the voice came not from him directly, but from around him. Then, as they galloped past, his face lit up brilliant white, flashing once like lightning. He fell to the ground and was revealed to be only a creation of sticks and cloth. The flash stayed on Bluebell’s eyes as they moved on.
They saw two more thralls on the road—lures for the unwary who would slow to stop and talk and be drawn into dangerous magic. Bluebell kept her eyes on the road, ignoring their questions or their pleading. Eventually they rounded down toward the cliff path, and the ocean came into view. Wild and green-black in the moonlight. Far, far out to sea, she thought she could see a tiny light, tossed this way and that, but when she looked upon it directly, it was gone.
The roar of the waves on the shore was deafening as they traveled south down the cliff path. Bluebell hung tight to Isern’s reins, longing for the night to be over so she could sleep, knowing it would not be enough to purge the weariness from her limbs.
As dawn light began to stain the sky, Bluebell found herself galloping down a steep road where the cliffs melted into a wide gray beach. The smell was thick and rancid. Black seaweed formed long mounds, with rotting fish tangled inside it. The bones of some large sea creature—bleached ribs and a skull caved-in and unrecognizable—lay half buried in sand. A great stone arch rose out of the cold currents, and the blue-black waves sucked and swirled through it loudly. Eldra had slowed, and Bluebell reined Isern in next to her.
“Is it time to rest?” she asked.
Eldra nodded. “I think I’ll use the sand.”
Bluebell’s gut clenched. It wouldn’t take long for Eldra to dig a hole in the sand. “I need at least two hours’ sleep,” she said.
Eldra fixed her in her piercing gaze. “The cycle must not be broken or slowed.”
“But if you were digging in hard ground, I’d have two hours. Are you trying to punish me deliberately?”
Eldra pointed to the ground. “Lie down. Sleep.”
Bluebell slept. For what seemed like a minute. Then Eldra was waking her again. “Come, I have to get into the ground. Wake, Bluebell. And beware of undermagicians.”
“What should I do if one comes to speak to me?”
“Don’t answer. Say nothing.” Eldra was pulling sand over her legs and lying down. “And don’t let them touch me. They’ll try to steal my magic, and then you’ll be stuck in the middle of nowhere with a lame woman who has no way to heal your father.”
Bluebell fed and watered the horses, who then drooped their heads to sleep. For a while Thrymm was awake, too, but gradually she nodded off in Bluebell’s lap. Gusts of wind picked up fine sand and blasted her face and hands. Her lips were dry and salty. The waves gathered and released, over and over. A flock of seabirds arrowed through the stone arch.
Bluebell watched them, mesmerized, alone at the gray edge of the world.
The slide into grainy sleep and out again was probably only momentary, but when she opened her eyes, she found herself looking at two bare feet in the sand in front of her. She jerked her head up, her eyes lighting on a tall, plump man with a wild black beard and two small black eyes.
She jumped to her feet, hand at her hip. Thrymm was up with a growl. Sleep fell away, but everything seemed too bright, the ocean’s lonely roar too loud.
“Who are you?” the man said, in a gruff voice. He wore a necklace of seashells and bones that clattered softly when he moved. His ragged, filthy clothes smelled like stale sweat and piss. A large pink-white blister sat on his bottom lip, and his teeth were brown.
Don’t answer them. Say nothing. Instead, she drew her sword and gestured that he should leave.
He lifted his head and sniffed the wind. “You smell like horse magic.”
“Fuck off,” she said, frustrated that he wasn’t afraid of her.
He ignored her and turned toward Eldra, hand outstretched. Bluebell leapt in front of him and brought her sword down sharply, stopping short of his wrist. He looked at her, the wind picking up a long strand of his black hair. Then he sniffed again, and his eyes went to her ribs.
Bluebell’s skin prickled.
He edged back toward Eldra. Bluebell drew her mouth down hard. If he was determined to die, then there was little she could do to stop him. She lunged, running him through his heart, and he crashed to the ground. Sand stuck to his blood, congealing into gory clumps.
He raised his hand, almost as though he was reaching out for Bluebell’s help. She took a step back, too late. He pointed his finger and poked the air hard and Bluebell’s side roared with pain. Then he collapsed to the ground and the pain eased to a dull, throbbing ache.
She tore off her byrnie and pulled up her tunic. There was no longer whole, white flesh over the wound the Horse God had healed. Rather, there was a long red mark. Bluebell poked it gingerly and then winced with the sharp pain. She ran her hand over it. Still smooth. Not open or bleeding as it had been that night. Gingerly, she smoothed her tunic over it again and shrugged into her byrnie.
The body in front of her couldn’t stay here. She bent and grasped the undermagician’s wrists, and dragged him down to the sea. Her side throbbed lightly. She waded in up to her thighs. The water was cold and the sand shifted under her feet. His blood smoked into the water, and she gave him a heave so the tide would catch him and carry him out to sea. She watched for a few moments, gulls screeching above her, the gray sky heavy and the sea licking her knees. He drifted out, resembling nothing more than a tangle of black seaweed.
Bluebell returned to the beach, kicked over the bloody scuff the undermagician’s body had made, and sat down to wait for Eldra, her wound a dim, warm, inescapable ache at the edge of her consciousness.