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Aethren couldn’t help it. They cried out wordlessly – in shock, in horror, in hope. But Arketh showed no sign of moving. Her body was perfectly preserved, not what Aethren would expect from a corpse of almost three months. The light gave her face and hair an unearthly glow, allowing Aethren to pick out the faint traces of her veins. Were they imagining it, or was her chest rising slightly?
Thrigg’s hand closed around Aethren’s wrist. They jerked, startled to find themself on the very edge of the pool, about to jump.
“Get her out of there.” Aethren turned on Thrigg.
Thrigg shook her head sadly. “Aethren—”
“She’s alive, isn’t she? She should be with her family, not here in this – this pit.” Aethren twisted their hand out of Thrigg’s hold. “What’s she doing here anyway?”
No answer. Thrigg lowered her eyes, shamefaced.
No, of course. Thrigg couldn’t answer their questions; Ylla had made sure of that. Aethren drew in some calming breaths, resting their hands on Thrigg’s shoulders. She looked up at them with wide, startled eyes.
“If I undo this . . . weave thing, if I can undo it – will you help me?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Aethren sidestepped so they were no longer in any danger of falling into the pool, not taking their hands off Thrigg. “Okay, so I’ll . . . I don’t know, what? How does this work?”
“You’ve got the ability to manipulate the wyrdness, even if you don’t have the wyrdsight. It’s here—” Thrigg put one hand on Aethren’s stomach. “And it’s here.” The fingers of her other hand were reassuringly cool against their temple. “You’ve used it before, haven’t you?”
Aethren’s mouth went dry. They nodded. “Accidentally.”
“Focus on how that felt.”
Ravens laughing. Kristan, his eyes wide. Their hand stinging from impact with the tabletop.
Too dangerous.
“I can’t.” Aethren’s stomach clenched under the pressure of Thrigg's hand. Thrigg turned their face so they were looking at Arketh; her fingers were still pressing into the hollow of Aethren’s temple, boring through bone and brain to something buried deep inside.
There was a blanket spread on the rock at Arketh’s feet. Aethren recognised the objects laid out on it – had seen them all in Arketh’s possession at one point or another. A worship totem on a leather string; her tiny boots, yellow mittens, yellow scarf; a ragwork doll and a teething toy that Arketh still carried like a charm. A teething toy that Marken had made for her as a second birth’s day gift.
Anger and nostalgia twisted together in Aethren’s gut.
They closed their eyes – maybe I need to be dangerous now – and reached for the tangle of power in the back of their head.
Aethren remembered Marken’s hand on their back and the firmness of the wall against their spine; the rush of relief that came with letting go. One hand moved from Thrigg’s shoulder to cup her jaw, feeling for something that couldn’t be touched.
There.
Aethren got the sense they’d just snagged on something – a thorn in fine threads of their awareness – and they held on to it. The snag was cold, drenched in Ylla’s fear and venom. A metallic taste coated Aethren’s tongue. They could smell blood. But that was okay; it didn’t matter. This was wrong, and by all the stars, they were going to put it right.
Instead of pain, Aethren felt a curious warmth flood their insides. The darkness behind their eyes turned white, then red, as if a bright light were shining down on them. Now that Aethren wasn’t running on fumes of fear and pain, they could feel every thread and sinew of magic in the air. Just like archery. Like breathing.
Aethren found the right string – and let it snap.
Thrigg gasped. She jerked like a puppet, then slumped forwards into Aethren’s arms and hid her face in their shoulder. They could feel her heart beating madly, her shoulders shaking – from effort, or relief? Aethren couldn’t tell.
“Did it work?” They couldn’t keep the giddy excitement out of their voice as they opened their eyes. Because that had felt natural, clean, like water flowing into a parched riverbed.
Thrigg drew in a sharp breath – and the words came pouring out of her. “We’ve lost contact with Ysaïn. No birds have flown in or out, and the wraiths and piskies that dwell there have gone silent. When we heard Arketh’s cry through the wyrdness, Ylla flew to rescue her. I thought it was a strange thing for Ylla to do, even if the child were wyrdsaer, but I quickly realised the truth. Arketh’s sensitivity to the wyrdness runs deep, and Ylla wanted to use it. But Arketh resisted. Her soul has fled high into the eðir and she won’t come back, and so Ylla keeps her here.
“I know that Ýgren would never have wanted this and I argued against Ylla’s decision, but I’m no match for her power or ability. None of us are. When the ravens said that you had left Erdansten and were coming in this direction, I knew Ylla would take you. I tried to warn you when you left Erdansten before and again when Ylla came to hunt you, but I couldn’t get to you. I’m sorry. I tried, and I wish I’d been able to try harder, but then maybe I’d never have met you and remembered what it’s like to be alive.”
Aethren stared at Thrigg, who managed a faint smile before collapsing. They barely caught her before she fell completely, guiding her down into a sitting position.
“But Arketh’s okay?”
“She’s . . . safe.” Thrigg looked furtively at Arketh’s – sleeping? soulless? – body and bit her lower lip. “Ylla surrounded her flesh in weaves to keep it intact, reminding her lungs to breathe and her heart to beat. None of us could have done that, so we dared not interfere.”
“So, what? Ylla wants to use her, and so she’ll do anything to keep her alive,” Aethren said flatly. Thrigg winced but didn’t try to contradict them. “Do you think I could wake her?”
“No.” Thrigg offered up a sad smile. “Perhaps she would come back for her family – her mother is wyrdsaer, too – but she will be hard to reach, even for them. It has to be her choice now.”
“Then I’ll find her family,” Aethren said. “Do you know where Ylla sent Isha?”
“Not for sure.” Thrigg fiddled nervously with the clay plug in her left earlobe. “Perhaps Deothwicc. Wait—”
Aethren, halfway to their feet, paused. “What?”
“Take this.” From under her cloak, Thrigg produced a delicate knife. Unlike the ones Aethren usually used, it was thin-bladed and lightweight, made for stabbing. The leather handle was well worn, but the blade had been kept in excellent condition. “We’re not allowed weapons, but . . . Ýgren let me keep it. As a reminder.”
“A—” Understanding dawned as Aethren took the handle. “The knife you used to kill that trader?”
“Yes.” Thrigg closed Aethren’s fingers around the grip. “You can get out through the waterfall. There are steps, and then a tunnel. You’ll need this knife once you get out into the marsh. It’s iron.”
Something in Thrigg’s voice set alarm-drums pounding in Aethren’s head. “Why?”
“There’s no weaves there. We’ve never needed any.” Thrigg held Aethren’s hand a little tighter. “It’s where the slycraed dwells. She might not smell you – your scent is close to ours, after all – but if she does, you fight.”
“I can do that.” Carefully, reluctantly, Aethren pulled away from Thrigg’s touch. Her hands fluttered in the air a moment before she folded them together over her abdomen.
“Come with me?” Aethren asked. Then, realising how that sounded, they winced. “Not because of any slithering monsters in the marshes, but I can find Rostfar and Isha and return them to Erdansten with Arketh, and make it known that you’re the reason for her safety. You can have your life back.”
Thrigg lurched forwards. Aethren braced themself to catch her, thinking she was about to fall again, and was unprepared for the press of her lips against their cheek. Although her skin was inhumanely cool, her breath was warm.
“What was that for?” Aethren asked stiffly, tense under her touch. Thrigg laughed sadly.
“Thank you,” she said. “But I don’t think I can.”
Aethren tried not to think about the sharp sinking feeling in their stomach. “Be safe,” they said, and set off around the pool towards the exit.
The tunnel that led out of the caverns was long and gloomy. Aethren had never been afraid of the dark, but alone without anyone to distract them, the oppressive sense of underground was crushing. It was with a deep sigh of relief that Aethren clambered through the exit and skidded down a brief slope of dark, damp earth.
In the eternal Bloom twilight, the Wyccmarshes looked unreal. They spooled out ahead of Aethren, humming with bloodflies and salamanders and other, stranger creatures. Fog coiled lazily through the stunted trees that grew in tight clusters across the landscape; it blurred the edges of rocks and turned the long grasses into disembodied fingers. Aethren turned to look at Hrafnholm one last time but saw only more fog.
In the absence of stars, Aethren had to rely on Sylvrast’s sunlit ghost as a guide. The sky above them was a washed-out, pearly hue, and the silver moon stood out like an eye. Unblinking. Glaring. Aethren squinted up and tried to ignore the crawling sensation that crept down their spine.
Feeling watched was a natural reaction to a place like this.
With one hand on the hilt of Thrigg’s knife, Aethren kept up a brisk pace through swarms of bloodflies and watery mud. Stride by stride, the mud gave way to stinking, brackish water. Fish and salamanders moved unseen through the sagebrush and hemlock trees, the splash of their bodies unnaturally loud.
Aethren thought they must have been walking for hours, but the silhouette of the Harra Mountains never got any closer. The water grew deeper and the fog dense, forcing Aethren to slow down. They couldn’t afford to fall out here. Isha and Rostfar were out there somewhere in the wilds, looking for answers that only Aethren could give.
Answers that Ylla could have given if she wasn’t such a rotten-hearted salamander. She had known she was sending Isha on a wild ghost chase, and she’d done it anyway. Aethren jabbed at the ground in front of them with a stick, testing for sink-mud and imagining it was Ylla’s face.
Before long, Aethren had to step from root to root, clinging to the hemlocks and dead spruces to keep out of the water. Swimming wasn’t high on their list of skills, but the trees were sparse and their options few. All they could see ahead was marshland, pockmarked by clumps of sagebrush and waterweed. No path. And still, still, the mountains hadn’t gotten any nearer.
Nothing about this felt right. Had Thrigg been wrong? Had she lied?
No. Aethren gave the slick ground a particularly savage jab. The skin of Aethren’s cheek tingled with the memory of her lips. Thrigg had thought she was telling the truth; Aethren could trust her.
Hrafnholm doesn’t like to be abandoned, Ylla had said. Aethren had sneered at her, assumed she was talking about herself – and maybe she had been. But apparently there was truth in those words, too.
Aethren turned back towards Hrafnholm, cupped their hands to their mouth, and yelled, “I won’t stick around here, so you may as well let me go!”
Their voice fell dead in the water. Aethren kept walking.
They must have fallen asleep on their feet at some point, because they jerked awake and found themself waist-deep in thick, stagnant water. A splash – or another splash? Was that what had woken them? – burst from the fog. As Aethren looked around, desperate for some sign of life, they saw a sleek, black back break the water’s surface not ten feet away.
Aethren went still, but they could do nothing to stop the chattering of their teeth. Thrigg’s knife was sheathed at their waist, but their hands were too numb and their clothes so heavy with water. Would it be so bad, asked a small voice in their mind, to just sink and let all of this end?
“Aethren!”
A voice distorted by the water and mist but no less familiar. Aethren, deep in a sluggish sort of delirium, was certain they had imagined it. Then—
“Aethren!” Marken shouted again.
“I’m here!” Water washed into Aethren’s mouth as they shouted. When it gotten so deep?
A light flickered in and out of view. The nearer it got, the clearer Aethren’s thoughts became. They recognised the outline of a boat – and the small figure sitting at its stern.
No. No.
Not Marken. This person was too small, too slender, and they didn’t appear to be rowing. Aethren’s heart sank.
“I’m not going back with you!” Aethren recoiled as Ylla drew up alongside them. Ylla scoffed and threw out a length of rope. It hit the water with a dull, resounding smack.
“Look around you, hrafaïn,” Ylla said. “You don’t have any choice.”
Aethren stared at the rope in defeat. They were exhausted; they couldn’t stay here, treading water, for much longer.
Aethren took the rope. They didn’t like this, but Ylla was right – they didn’t have another choice. But that didn’t mean they had to do what Ylla expected.
The boat remained unnaturally steady as Aethren used one hand to climb in, the other down by their side. Ylla helped them in, taking the cloak from their shoulders, picking up a blanket from a box by the prow.
“I’m impressed, hrafaïn, I’ll give you that.” Ylla said, her voice too light and flippant as she shook out Aethren’s soaked cloak.
Aethren made their voice small, tremulous. “Ylla?”
Ylla turned around, her expression softening.
Aethren lashed out.
The blade passed through thin air. Carried on by their momentum, Aethren lurched forwards, the side of the boat rushing towards them. Claw-like fingers dug into their shoulders and hauled them back, and Aethren turned again. But Ylla wasn’t there.
A hand closed around Aethren’s wrist. They tried to twist free, but a sudden, white-hot pain exploded in the tendons of their wrist. Bent by a will other than their own, Aethren’s fingers opened. They dropped the knife over the side.
“No more games,” Ylla said, her face more inhuman than ever in the harsh, grey light. Aethren’s knees buckled. Their vision swam. “You’re done.”
Her fingers pressed into Aethren’s forehead, and the world vanished.
