4

THE FIRST
DREAM

The dream. Again. The one where I have a heavy, heart-beating chest.

The dream where I’m not myself but Varia. I see through her eyes, her dark bangs on the edges of my—our—vision.

But where my head is full of the hunger, full of the yawning void of hunger, hers is screaming. Again. Always.

DESTROY.

It burns against my mind, like sticking my hand into a pile of embers. Like the witchfire that killed me in Vetris—Lucien’s. It sears, it melts, it obliterates. I can just barely hold on to my thoughts, and it’s not even my body. I’m just a visitor.

How am I visiting? How am I having this dream again, seeing through her again?

I try not to think about that as Varia turns her head, unbelievably overcoming the mind-bending screaming with sheer willpower. Enough to blink, enough to move.

We’re standing in grass, the flowing grasslands of central Cavanos. The night wind ripples through it, caressing it peacefully. The only peace we can see, can sense. Everything above the grass is fire—all we can see is fire. This place has been on fire before, many times. Innumerable people have died here. Will die here.

DESTROY IT ALL.

Varia looks up, holds out her night-hued wooden fingers. I can’t feel the spell, even though I’m in her body. But I can see what it does—shimmering the air just before her, a low, soundless hum, and then a violent popping noise as someone materializes from the wavering air. Someone with long white hair, with ice eyes once cruel, now hollow, and dressed in a gray robe that covers his head.

Gavik. Fione’s uncle, Varia’s first Heartless, and the man who tried to kill her so long ago. Who drove her out of Vetris because he feared her, feared the Bone Tree that called to her in her sleep. He’s the man who tried to kill Lucien, too, and who succeeded in drowning hundreds, if not thousands, of witches. He was once the most powerful man in Vetris, in Cavanos, one of the most powerful people on perhaps the whole Mist Continent.

But now his expression crumbles to nothing more than dust when he sees Varia.

“Y-You? How did you— I was in Vetris. Did you… No.” His ice eyes widen. “The Crimson Lady wouldn’t let you spell me away—”

“No one lets me do anything anymore,” Varia says softly. “Least of all a little tower stuffed with your precious white mercury.”

His eyes dart to Varia’s neck, our neck, to the Bone Tree choker that I know is there. Made of valkerax fangs. Made of pure magic, pure power. I recoil at the terror that flashes across the former archduke’s face.

“New God above. You’ve done it. That foolish girl helped you, didn’t she? You have it now, and now—” His throat bobs, and a strange calmness comes over him. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

She doesn’t even grace him with a yes or a no.

A genocidal maniac. A religious fanatic. A fearful man, whose fear hurt and destroyed the lives of so many.

DESTROY.

Varia’s hate burns cold. Burns like winter, like Breych in the dead of night, like putting a hand to a block of ice and leaving it for eternity. Our hand pulls out a velvet bag, embroidered with the word leech.

“No—I can help. You need me—”

He doesn’t even get the chance to beg.

She denies him the chance, like he denied so many witches.

Her wooden fingers collapse, fisting around the bag. A second of resistance, of Gavik clutching his chest frantically, eyes bugging out of his skull, and then the give.

The squelch, the blood running down her fingers, the velvet soaking wet and dripping onto the waving grass.

I’ve never seen it. I’ve heard of it, feared it like a nebulous reaper far off, but I’ve never seen it happen in front of my eyes.

But it does.

Gavik’s chest implodes—ribs and flesh exploding, painting the grass with viscera in every direction. Wet splatters on Varia’s face—our face—but she never flinches. Not for a second. She watches every slow moment as Gavik’s knees buckle and his corpse falls into the grass face first. Horrified face first. No grave marker. No pyre. Nothing.

And the screaming in our head lessens. The fire, the images of death—they start to fade. Like someone ushering the horrible orchestra into another room and closing the door. It’s all muted. I—we—can think again, clearer.

We’ve destroyed.

We’ve obeyed.

And the screaming rewards us.

I feel Varia’s face smile. A delighted grin as she wipes pieces of Gavik off her cheekbone with slow ease, as her fear of the screaming turns to calculation. As she realizes the rules of it, the requirements.

“We don’t need anyone anymore,” she murmurs. “Least of all a maggot like you.”

She turns. Gavik’s gone. I don’t mourn him—he was no one worthy of mourning. But Varia’s words, the coldness and calmness in them, I mourn that. I feel it, deep down. I feel her sense of betrayal, her wounded trust, her aching love. All of it. All of it sadness like thorns, pointed out at the world.

And on the horizon of her mind, a roar. A roar, as the screaming comes back quickly, furiously, ravaging every thought in its path.

DESTROY IT ALL.

The morning breaks cold and snappish over Breych’s three ridges. Lucien wakes me, and I mumble my surprise.

“You’re still here.”

“For as long as you’ll have me.” He laughs. “Come now. It’s far past sunrise.”

Past sunrise. How long was that dream? It was a dream, right? No—it was reality. I saw Gavik die. Just like I saw Varia crawl out of the valkerax pile, alive and whole.

Do I even tell Lucien? His wound over his sister is no doubt still raw. And how can I tell him when I don’t even know why it’s happening? How do I tell him of the pain his sister is feeling, the betrayal?

One thing at a time, Zera. We’re in a warm bed now, with a warm boy.

enjoy this ease while it lasts, the hunger taunts. for it will not last long.

I push out the lingering dregs of the dream and sit up with a groan. “Why did you wake me?”

“Don’t we have something to do?” he asks.

“Yes. But I’ll have you know I’ve plucked out men’s eyeballs for far lesser crimes than this.”

Whichever romantic poet forgot to mention how exceedingly impossible it is to get out of a bed with your lover in it owes me, and I take my payments in gold and endless praise, thank you very much. I manage to dress as he does, our backs turned to each other.

“Is the prince of Cavanos trying to sneak a peek?” I tease. His fluster is immediate.

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Likewise,” I chime.

When we make it outside, the pure, fresh snow crunches underfoot like particularly stiff glaze on a sweetround. It’s my turn to lead—I pull Lucien gregariously around the early-morning stalls selling fabrics, beads, wire. A handful of little iron bells, in the Cavanos tradition. Red ribbon. White wood. It won’t be the usual pyre and metal orb carved with an eye placed in the mouth. It’s not the New God’s way. But it can’t be; I don’t have the bodies to burn. Only the memories. Only their faces, pressed like flowers in the pages of my mind.

This is the old way to do things. The non-denominational way, the unfashionable way. The only way I know how, from reading the inscriptions on the mass graves near the Bone Road. The war graves. This is the only way left to me. I won’t be Varia. I won’t be Gavik.

I will make graves for those I’ve killed.

In a little teahouse, over steaming cups of chocolate, Lucien helps me, pulling the bundles of white wood sticks tight, wrapping them with red ribbon, and attaching a single bell to each silken strand. Fourteen bundles for fourteen men. Fourteen bundles for the years I didn’t know any better. Fourteen mistakes. Fourteen ignorances. Fourteen things I’ve done and can’t undo.

Life. Life as equally important as death.

And a Heartless, who took far too long to figure out that particular detail.

Someday, someone will see the fourteen bundles of white wood wrapped with red ribbon, adorned with iron bells, set deep and well into the snow on the top of a distant ridge, accessible only by teleportation magic or flight, and they will wonder. They won’t see the girl setting them, one by one, but maybe, just maybe, they’ll hear her tears, echoing beyond the stone and out over the world.

…

“What took you two so long?” Malachite looks up when Lucien and I enter the sage’s tower. My steps feel the smallest bit lighter as I half skip over to a chair beside Fione and settle in.

“Icicles,” I chirp. “All over our noses. You should’ve seen it—one sneeze and we were practically wielding swords on our upper lip.”

Fione makes a catlike smile beside me, sipping her licorice tea. “Inventive as always.”

“And this is before I’ve had my morning tea,” I agree, and take a sip of my own drink. Sitting beside her feels right, still. The dream lingers, still. Gavik’s dead. I know she had no love for her uncle, but I can’t bring myself to tell her. In doing so, I’d have to tell her I can see things from Varia’s eyes. And I know Fione would ask me to reason with Varia, to beg her to stop it all. I know she would.

It would be giving her false hope, after I’ve given her real hope.

“Greshoir étta.” The old sage croaks the Helkyrisian greeting as he enters, little arms full of books that Lucien instantly lunges to help him with. “Your Highness, I can—”

“Just Lucien, please,” the prince insists, piling the books on the table.

The sage sighs. “Very well. I hope you all slept decently.”

“As well as can be, Elder.” I smile. “Any news?”

“Unfortunately.” He nods, settling in an armchair by the fire and cupping his chocolate eagerly with knotty fingers. “I’ve contacted the Court of Five Violets with the news of Princess Varia’s decision. They’re moving to post the western armada along our shared border to monitor the situation. The rest of the fleet is mustering in Silvanitas, and every trade caravan from Braal to Trinito has been rerouted there.”

“Translation?” Malachite looks to Fione and Lucien in turn.

“Helkyris’s airship armada is the only one of its kind in the world,” Fione says, voice even. “Limited by the fact their engines fail over seawater. The unrefined white mercury they run on doesn’t react well to large amounts of salt vapor. But their intercontinental prowess is tremendous.”

“Translation for the translation, anyone?” I ask.

“They’re gearing up for war,” Lucien says. “Consolidating their resources over the capital city. Pulling the armada in from all over the country communicates they aren’t even considering being open to negotiations. And that they’re viewing Cavanos as the only threat worth their attention.” He frowns. “All of their attention.”

“Which leaves the cities on the western coast almost completely defenseless to Qessen pirates,” the sage mutters. “Not to mention the Feralstorm.”

“All this for the valkerax—”

“This is the bare minimum preparation for the valkerax,” the sage interrupts, waving his hand at the books. “I’ve pulled every Old Vetrisian tome on the subject I could find. There is, unsurprisingly, very little humans can do to prepare for a valkerax attack.”

“You’re not badly defended here in Breych,” Malachite grunts. “Sheer mountain faces on all sides, no paths up. It’s not like the valkerax can hitch a ride on the airships.”

The sage traces a book cover. “The tomes say they can fly.”

The room goes deathly quiet, the fire crackling as he looks up at us with his wrinkled eyes.

“Is this true? Have you seen it?”

“One of them can,” I admit. “I know that for sure. Most of Vetris knows it, too. But that one isn’t on Varia’s side.”

“If the princess has the Bone Tree, they are all on her side.”

“How do you know that?” I narrow my eyes.

“Unlike Cavanos, Helkyris does not burn books it doesn’t agree with.” His eyes twinkle back at me. I raise my chin.

“Right. Regardless, this valkerax isn’t on her side, Elder. I’d stake my immortal life on it.”

“Why?”

“I taught it to Weep. It’s free of the Bone Tree’s command.”

“Ah.” He nods, chin in his hand. “Weeping. I’ve read of it in the rare Sunless War record. You are…capable of it?”

“I’d do a casual demonstration, but that’s against the spirit of the thing.”

“Can you teach any number of the other valkerax to do it, too?” he presses.

My laugh bursts out, and I just barely cover my mouth.

“S-Sorry. No. Not without a lot of drugging, underground dungeons, and dying on my part. It’s a frankly awful time. And a lengthy one.”

“Not feasible, then,” Fione muses, pulling out a notebook and a quill. She scratches something out.

“You thought of that already?” I tilt my head.

“Obviously.” She taps her quill on another sentence. “What about the Bone Tree? Can we go back to the mountaintop and destroy it, strip her of her source of power?”

She’s the Duchess Himintell right now. Strong spine, unblinking periwinkle eyes. Apple-cheeked, blushing-in-love Fione is nowhere to be seen. Malachite and I share a look as Lucien shakes his head.

“The Bone Tree’s gone,” Lucien muses. “That thing on top of the mountain is a shell—the entirety of its magic is inside her now.”

“In that choker around her neck,” I say. “Right?”

Lucien shrugs. “I can’t say. But it’s a physical symbol of her new power, certainly.”

“It’s feeding off her,” Fione says. “Her magic. Which means we don’t have much time to stop her.”

“There is a time limit either way, Your Grace,” the sage says. “When one takes into consideration the imminent loss of life from a valkerax invasion.”

My stomach turns uneasily. The dream last night…Varia was close to Vetris; she was in the grasslands. But she wouldn’t—her parents, the king and queen, are there. She wouldn’t kill them. She’s still Varia, and the Varia I know treasures the people she loves.

Even if they’ve betrayed her.

But her parents haven’t. She loves them. Vetris is safe. I’m not sure about anywhere else, but I’m sure Vetris, at least, is safe.

“How do you stop someone with the most powerful weapon in the world?” Malachite muses.

“Calvary-General Rodituller proposes two theories in his Recitations of Field Warfare,” Lucien says. “You either amass an equally powerful weapon of your own or you destroy theirs.”

An idea comes to me. Not a great one, but at this point I’ll take anything.

“It’s like the hunger,” I say. “The hunger binds me to Lucien. There’s a voice—I think it’s the same hunger—connecting the valkerax to the Bone Tree. If we could weaken that bond somehow, like white mercury does—not Weeping but a spell, or…something. I don’t know.”

“Yes,” Fione agrees dryly. “If we could undo an immensely powerful Old Vetrisian artifact with a spell, it’d solve many problems.”

“But there’s gotta be something, right? There was the Hymn of the Forest, and the Elder here has read books about valkerax and their connection to the Bone Tree. It’s recorded. Someone has to know something.”

“Elder?” Lucien looks at the sage. “Any ideas?”

He shakes his old, wispy head. “The books I spoke of said nothing of weakening such a bond. That is knowledge the world of Arathess hasn’t seen in a very long time—from the time of Old Vetris. I can think of only one entity who would know what you seek. The High Witches of Cavanos.”

“You really think they’d help us?” Malachite scoffs.

“Three enemies means two of them are friends,” the sage says. “Princess Varia is using magic against the world. Surely they’d want less of that.”

“The High Witches haven’t been seen in decades. Do you not have Helkyrisian witches who’d know something?” Lucien asks.

“As I’m sure you’re aware, Your Highness, Cavanos has always been the seat of magic. Witches in the rest of the world have not perfected magic as they have, through regrettably constant strife. Ildolia on the Star Continent is perhaps the only rival to Cavanos, but even their magic falls short, and you would find the journey too long, too allowing of Princess Varia’s destruction. Cavanos was the seat of Old Vetris, the very heart that beat outward the blood, and that legacy lingers in your witches.”

The sage leans back, smacking his chocolaty lips with an air of certainty.

“Yes. Yes, I’m quite sure. There is no better place to learn of the magic binding the valkerax than Windonhigh.”

“The last witch enclave in Cavanos?” Fione asks. “The one no human has ever found?”

“Precisely,” the sage asserts.

“My sister’s been there,” Lucien says.

“Then surely,” the sage leads, “you must hurry. If Windonhigh does know how to stop the valkerax, it will be the first place she destroys.”

“Uh, hello?” Malachite frowns. “Breaking the valkeraxes’ bond with the Bone Tree means they’d be let loose on the world. You know, the whole reason Old Vetris banded together in the first place?”

“We hold on to it, until we have a better plan,” Lucien says.

Malachite shifts uncomfortably on the wall. Fione stares down at her notebook intensely, her still quill blotting an ever-expanding dot of ink in the center of the page. My dream bubbles up—the fevered one I had when I blacked out from the fall, the one this morning. I’d been Varia. I had her hands, her arms. Her body. I was in her body, seeing through her eyes. And the voice in my head, worse than the hunger, wanted to destroy everything. But it wasn’t hers. They weren’t her thoughts. Fione was superimposed on the destruction. Fione was the only thought she still had that was her own. And if the rest wasn’t hers, then…

“The Bone Tree wants this.” I break the quiet. “It’s urging her to destroy.”

“How would you know that?” Fione’s voice is instant and biting. Understandably so. How dare I presume to know what Varia’s thinking, feeling? I’m not the one in a relationship with her. It’s time to tell them. No more secrets. Secrets are what drove us apart in Vetris.

“When we fell, I blacked out,” I admit. “And I had this dream. I was with her. I saw through her eyes. And this morning, I had the same dream. She was—”

“She’s alive,” Lucien says, an assertion, not a question.

I nod. “The valkerax fell on her, but she cut through them. I could hear something screaming in her head, like the hunger screams in mine. But hers was louder. Untempered by witch magic. It wanted ruin indiscriminate. It was fury and fear and pain, all at once. And the only way she was keeping sane was by holding on to the idea of—”

My eyes skitter over to Fione, and I feel suddenly raw with the awareness of what wounds I’m testing the stitches of. I clear my throat.

“She killed Gavik.”

Fione has the same reaction her love did—she doesn’t flinch. Lucien exhales, just barely, and Malachite rolls his eyes.

“Fuckin’ finally,” Mal says. “Good riddance.”

I inhale sharply. “The Bone Tree wants her to destroy. Anything. Everything. But she’s fighting it. She’s trying to keep it in check so she can accomplish her goals. It got softer when she killed Gavik, but it didn’t go away. It’s so godsdamn powerful, like nature itself—”

“She can,” Fione interrupts me. “She will.”

Lucien glances over at me, then her. “Of course she will.”

Their faith in her is ironclad. Or maybe they just want it to be. Belief is sometimes the only thing you can hold on to. But I’ve felt it. By some arsed-up twist of dream-magic, some echo of Varia being my witch once, I’ve felt what she’s feeling. What she’s going through. And no mortal would be able to keep strong against something like that for long. Worry runs taut threads through the room, between Malachite and Fione, between Fione and Lucien most of all.

Windonhigh. If the sage is right, the High Witches have to know something. Some spell, some information to help us separate the valkerax from the Bone Tree. But no human’s ever found Windonhigh—not even Nightsinger ever mentioned it to me.

And then it hits me: the letter. The one Y’shennria sent me while I was still Varia’s Heartless. I scramble in my pockets, pulling it out from the little bag I keep the fragments of Father’s sword in—blade and hilt, disassembled. The bag made for me by Lucien.

“Here,” I chirp, flattening the letter on the table as everyone bends over it. “Y’shennria sent me this when I was in Vetris. She said to come to Ravenshaunt when I got my heart back.”

“And?” The old sage wrinkles his nose. “How does this help you young ones find Windonhigh?”

“Y’shennria is an Old God family,” Fione interjects. “She conspired with the witches to steal Prince Lucien’s heart, but when she failed, she fled.”

“She was confident she’d be safe,” I say. “On the night of the Hunt, when she sent me off to take Lucien’s heart, she assured me she’d be fine, that the witches would give her asylum.”

“And the only place left that’s safe for witches is…” Lucien murmurs, eyes sparking as he looks up at me.

“So.” I clap my hands together, standing and dusting my garish skirt off. “How long should I book our vacation to Windonhigh for?”