That night we camped by a burbling stream. It cut its way under the roots of one of the lording trees, its waters glistening like polished glass in the dim light. There was no sunset, no clear transition between overcast day and overcast night—just an inexorable descent into thick, impenetrable blackness.
I crouched by the stream, trailing my fingers in the cold water and letting my face dry from a half-hearted wash. What I truly needed was to strip and immerse myself, scrub away the sweat and dirt and the memory of the limp rabbit dangling from the mouth of an innocent-eyed doe.
“Yske,” Berin called.
I looked up to find Berin and Ursk nearby, the newcomer standing a little behind my brother. The departure of daylight and the long day of walking had left the man looking more sickly, and my conscience twinged.
“Ursk is feeling worse. Will you see to him?” Berin said in a way that wasn’t really a question. Despite the fact that we were all settling down for the night, he still wore his weapons and I could clearly see his lynx-painted shield, resting at the ready atop his pack nearby. The horn Father had given him was beside it, its silver edging glistening in the firelight.
I nodded and unfolded, pushing the sleeves of my undertunic back down to my wrists. The sweat-caked fabric immediately chafed my clean skin, but I ignored it.
“Of course,” I said, conjuring a small, practiced smile.
We sat by the fire as the rest of our companions went through their nightly routines, cleaning clothes and gear, checking weapons, and adjusting their bedrolls and boots within their claimed spaces. Bara bent over the cookpot, where a stew of smoked meat and foraged vegetables simmered. Ittrid set grains to soak for morning. Nui had her head in Esan’s lap, where he sat staring into the trees. Every so often his fingers scratched behind her ears, and she pressed her head into the touch with half-lidded eyes.
I brought my pack over to the fire. Ursk sat patiently on a blanket I recognized as Berin’s and offered me a small, almost nervous smile.
“I appreciate this,” he told me in his low voice. “I never thought to meet a healer out here, but perhaps I should not be surprised.” He smiled wryly.
“I suppose so.” I regarded him with what I hoped was professional detachment. “You truly came all this way because of a vision?”
He nodded, his smile becoming more knowing. “I understand why you are cautious, Yske. Even some of my own people still distrust my priesthood. But I promise you, I am only here to help, and I will prove myself however I can.”
I simply nodded and moved on. “How are you feeling tonight?”
“Weary,” he admitted. “I feel as though my blood is too thick in my veins, and I’ve no appetite. My head aches.”
“How badly?”
He seemed unsure how to answer. “Not as bad as some days.”
A flutter of compassion moved in my chest and my unease loosened another knot. It probably wasn’t his fault he’d come into our company under the worst of circumstances or that I’d happened to see a carnivorous doe earlier that day. He was sick, and had been for some time.
I smiled again, and this time it felt genuine. “I can make you a tea to help you sleep and ease your headache. As to the lack of hunger, I’d encourage you to eat, regardless, but not so much that you strain your stomach.”
The man smiled in gratitude.
I set about choosing my herbs and grinding them as Bara and Ittrid distributed supper. Nui watched Esan eat with doleful eyes, her chin still firmly planted on his thigh. I ate as I worked, and Ursk slowly made his way through his portion of meat, mushroom, and wild carrot stew.
Finally, the company settled down to sleep. Ursk drank his tea and curled up with his borrowed blanket near the periphery of the camp. Soft breathing turned to snores, and Berin met my gaze.
“Thank you,” he said. “I know you don’t like him.”
“That’s not it.” I sighed and looked at my herbs and jars, laid out on a piece of leather before me. I was running low on many things, and would need to forage more consistently as we traveled—no matter how weary and footsore I was. “I just worry why Fate might have sent him. And I think of Ovir. And the creatures. I can’t forget how the High Halls above us are… thinning, the further east we go. Then there’s Aita’s gift, whatever it’s done to me. And today I saw…”
His brows twitched together in sudden interest. “Saw what?”
I described the unsettling scene, and he cringed.
“I’d agree, it feels like an omen,” he admitted, blowing out his cheeks and squinting at the night, reminded that we were sitting watch. “But perhaps the deer in the east simply have a taste for blood. Perhaps the doe was a bit… off. Diseased.”
“It seems too much, in combination with the river creatures.”
“You still won’t call them rivermen.”
“They weren’t rivermen.”
“You know better than Askir?”
My pride rose. “In this, yes. He had never physically been to the High Halls before Mother took us through, do you realize that? Standard priests only travel in spirit, and even then only rarely.”
Berin, to my increasing irritation, rolled his eyes. “Yske, you’re the greatest human healer in generations, but you’re not a priestess. Don’t assume you know better simply because you spent a few years clinging to Aita’s skirts.”
Protests clotted my throat. To push back would not only be childish but risk my secrets. Still, I couldn’t keep the bitterness from my tone as I said, “Of course. I’m just your sister, here to bandage your wounds, do your bidding and try not to get in the way.”
Berin snorted, unyielding. “Everyone has their role.”
I blinked at him, taken aback. “So my opinion on everything other than cuts and bruises is irrelevant?”
My brother appeared to consider this for a moment. I could see his guard coming up, the shadows that had haunted him since Ovir’s death chasing away any restfulness or good humor. “Not irrelevant, just unnecessary.”
Anger sparked in my belly. I knew I should quell it, but my will was slow to comply. “Isa complained about this, you know. The way you disregard others. That’s not leadership, Berin. That’s arrogance.”
Mention of his wife made Berin’s whole body stiffen. He glared at me, and as familiar as the planes of his face were, at that moment he looked a stranger. Shadows carved his handsome features in angles of callousness and resentment, and brooding, jagged hurt.
Without a word he rose to his feet and went over to Esan, whom he nudged with a boot. His friend evidently hadn’t been asleep, because he sat up without a hint of startlement and listened to something Berin said in a low voice, then he came back to the fire with my brother.
“Esan will sit watch with me,” Berin said. He added without kindness, “Get some rest.”
“Berin,” I started, looking from him to Esan.
Esan didn’t look at either of us, too tired to be discomfited by the conflict.
“Sleep, Yske,” Berin said with a flat, humorless smile. “Goodnight.”
* * *
Sleep refused to come, or rather, I refused to let it. I lay on my back on my bedroll, pack beneath my head, and glared up at the blackness of the forest canopy high above. All around me my companions breathed softly. Nui slept at my feet and by the fire Esan and Berin murmured in low voices. I could hear the frustration in Berin’s tone and Esan’s answers were short, little more than agreements between my brother’s rantings.
I waved away a buzzing mosquito and stretched my jaw, trying not to clench it. Berin was mourning. Dealing with mourners was one aspect of my occupation, and I’d seen grief come in all forms. I shouldn’t begrudge Berin the way he was dealing with Ovir’s death, but I did. It hurt. I hurt.
I shifted down in my blanket, more to keep the mosquitoes off my skin than to keep warm, and buried my toes in Nui’s back. She let out a sleepy breath.
The attack in the cave came back to me, some details stark and clear, others blurred. For the first time since, I let my mind linger on it, stretching and exploring the memory.
I caught at the moment I’d poured Aita’s strange magic into Ovir, the way his wound had knit and the feeling of intense surety I’d had when I enacted it. The blood on my fingers. What were the parameters of this magic, and could I replenish it?
I ran a thumb over the fingers of my opposite hand. It would be simple to find out. Just one cut, one marking. A test.
But that action meant so much more than a knife on skin. It would be blood intentionally shed for a Miri, payment for a magic I shouldn’t have.
No. As much as I respected Aita, even cared for her, I could not do that. Aita was no goddess. I was no priestess. My blood was my own, my allegiance to Thvynder.
My resolve felt strong then, hard and solid. Then my imagination churned up an image of Berin dying beneath my hands, and I wavered. If Aita’s magic could save him, would I truly turn my back on it?
Was there anything I wouldn’t do for him?
I touched the ends of my fingers together, imagining I could feel the whorls of my fingerprints. I wished I could speak with Aita, sort out her motives and what I should do. My runework was strong, but an inquiry—a prayer—from this distance would not be received. If I was able to reach the High Halls, though…
I stared at the dark canopy. There might not be any doors to the High Halls in the east, but as I’d seen with Ovir, the upper realm was still accessible in spirit. For now.
By the time dawn came, creeping under the trees on a golden mist, I’d collected myself. I smiled when Sedi handed me my portion of breakfast. I readied my pack early and used the spare moments to forage by the creek for widow root, wandering back up its length and eyeing the canopy, looking for places where water met sunlight and more undergrowth appeared. Mist hung about me as I went, fine and tinted with captured gold that had nothing to do with my Sight.
The beauty of it cleansed and calmed me.
Then, as I stood and watched the mist drift between the trees, I saw the skull.