Sixteenth full moon
That evening, I sheltered at the edge of a gray lake, praying my brothers would find me.
The storm had abated a little, but I couldn’t see the middle of the lake. The wind roared through the trees endlessly, making it impossible to distinguish the wind that heralded my brothers’ change—if they were even here.
Finally, when the world was a sweep of gray, I saw six black shapes approach the shore. My swan-brothers pulled themselves onto the bank, trumpeting protests. I quickly set out their already-soaking clothes and stepped back into a copse of nearby trees.
One moment, my brothers were swans, huddled against the storm. The next, they were ghostly figures nearly hidden by the rain as they scrambled to gather their wet clothes.
I beat my cudgel against a stone so they would know I was there—and follow the sound to find me.
“What happened?” demanded an already-soaked Mael. “Why aren’t we at the hut?”
I motioned as if pulling back a bowstring.
“A bow?” asked Owain.
“Hunters, you fool,” hissed Cadan. “Even I know that.”
“Why would hunters make you run?” asked Gavyn. “I’m sure they’d move on soon enough.”
I saw the moment when my brothers realized that it was the Queen’s men doing the hunting.
“How near?” asked Mael, already peering out into the darkness.
I shook my head.
Declan caught my chin and turned the cheek I’d been trying to hide. “They were close once, at least.”
Cadan’s sigh was more a hiss than anything.
“We need to find shelter,” said Aiden. “And then you’ll tell us everything.”
It would have been hard to see through such heavy rain during the day, but to search for shelter in the dark with no fire or moonlight?
We ended up huddled at the base of a small bluff, where sheets of slate reached out into the night to cover us. There was no getting away from the rain, but the bluff protected us from some of the wind.
Nothing protected us from the cold. We crowded together, my brothers in a circle around me and Owain-the-hen cowering on my lap in her burlap sack.
“I never thought I’d be this close to a hen,” muttered Cadan.
I put a hand over Owain’s head and scowled at Cadan. I’d never admit it, but it felt good to argue with him. It was the only normal thing on that wretched day.
“It was the Queen, wasn’t it?” said Aiden.
I nodded.
He cursed.
“How do you know, Ryn?” asked Mael.
It was difficult enough to communicate with my brothers when I had dirt to write in, but that night, with the rain streaming down, I had only my hands. I was hungry and tired and if it hadn’t been for Owain sitting on my lap, the rain’s cold would have settled bone-deep.
It took a full five minutes for one of my brothers to understand that there had been a black swan decoy.
“Black feathers on the decoy?” confirmed Gavyn.
I nodded.
“Only the Queen would know about black swans,” said Aiden.
Mael nodded. “Then what, Ryn?”
The rest was pantomime. Cadan especially liked how I’d used the cudgel. “Well done! He won’t walk straight for a few days, I’ll wager!”
But Aiden remained grim, the rain running in small rivers down his temples and into his beard. “Now she knows you didn’t die at Roden.”
“How did you lose the wild men?” asked Gavyn. “They would have been faster than you, better trackers.”
I pantomimed a nettle patch—and me running into it.
Owain whistled. “You ran into a nettle patch?”
Yes.
“That wouldn’t stop them.” Mael said.
It would if the Queen hated nettles.
“You still think nettles will save us,” said Declan.
I know it.
Why didn’t they believe me? Escaping the Hunters was proof that the nettles would work.
Gavyn squinted, trying to understand. “Even if nettles would hold her wild men at bay, how did you get out of the nettle patch? Why weren’t they waiting for you?”
I’d pondered that as I slogged through the creek, and I thought I knew. If I was right, we were safe.
The sound I’d heard before the storm hadn’t been thunder. It had been the horn calling the Hunters back to the Great Hunt in the Otherworld.
But before I could answer, Aiden asked, “You’ve been harvesting nettles all this time?”
This was my chance. I’d show them all I’d done.
I scooped up Owain and plopped her in Cadan’s lap. Before he could protest, I pulled out the nettle fiber, the hackle, the spindle, and the yarn I’d spun. I’d come so far in this year!
I knew my brothers wouldn’t exclaim over the handiwork. But I thought they’d at least look at it.
“Where did you get this?” asked Mael.
I motioned that the spindle had come from the old woman.
“And that?” he asked, pointing to the hackle. I signed that it had come from Etten.
“You traveled into Etten? Did anyone see you?” asked Aiden.
He saw the answer on my face before I could hide it. “Her men saw you there, didn’t they?”
I clenched my fists. Why couldn’t they see the entire story? That I’d found a way to save them? Hadn’t I proved it today when the Hunters couldn’t follow me into the nettle patch?
But Aiden’s face was set. “They saw you there?”
I nodded.
“So the Queen knows that you’re alive . . . and her wild men know where we are . . . because a crazy woman told you to make us clothes out of stinging nettles?”
I stood silent.
He waved an arm out to the storm. “Her men are out there, and we can’t protect you once the sun rises!”
I tried to sign that I was safe, that I was sure this storm meant that the Hunters had been called back to the Otherworld, but Aiden wouldn’t look at me.
“No more,” he said in a low voice. “I want you to stay safe.”
Stay safe? I had stayed safe in the wilds for over a year. A year after I’d stolen the Queen’s Kingstone and escaped the destruction of Roden.
Since then, I’d grown a few inches taller—not that they had noticed. I’d learned to handle a woman’s monthly flow without a breath of help from anyone. And I’d done it all while surviving winter and summer in a hut. While feeding myself and watching over my swan-brothers.
But I didn’t sign any of that to them. I wasn’t the child I’d been a year ago. If they couldn’t see that, I wouldn’t try to change their minds.
So I simply tilted my head at Aiden. Anything else?
“Nettles will not fix this, Andaryn. You will not endanger yourself.” He picked up the hackle and swept the rest of the nettle goods into his arms. Then he strode away into the rain.
I lunged after him, but Declan held me back.
“It’s for the best, Ryn.” Declan pulled me closer as I beat against him. “We didn’t know the hold it had on you. We can’t let you hurt yourself.”
And then I was crying, tears mixing with the rain on my cheeks. Aiden was throwing away the only things that would save them! A year’s worth of work!
“It’s not just you, Ryn,” said Gavyn softly. “There’s no breaking the spell if something happens to you. We need you.”
Cadan put a hand on my shoulder. “He doesn’t want you to hurt yourself for us.”
I shrugged his hand away.
I pulled Owain-the-hen into my lap and ignored my brothers. After a while, they stopped trying to talk to me or explain what they’d done.
When Aiden returned an hour before dawn, his arms were empty.