CHAPTER 17

People didn’t just disappear, but somehow, her brother had managed it. For the past few days, Vex had scoured every inch of the hills and the valleys around Jorenn. She’d asked Trinket to help sniff him out. She’d followed every track and trail she could find—at least twice. And nothing. She might as well have been walking in circles, something she hadn’t done since she was a little girl.

Every time the colors around her changed to the bloodred of dusk, she knew she’d lost him for another day.

Every night when she returned to Jorenn, Derowen was there, waiting for her. To ask her how her day went and if she found anything new. To invite her to dinner with her and Aswin, and occasionally Wick. Derowen insisted she keep her room in the Shade Hall, so Vex learned to find her way around. She’d expected a lack of welcome, and instead she was given an abundance of it, and no matter how uncomfortable it was, no matter how much she distrusted it, she could not escape it. When she tried, Aswin would inevitably find her. Or Derowen would check in, to see if she was doing all right. Or Wick would simply wander by. So Vex spent her evenings in the Shademaster’s sitting room, reading her books and poring over old maps of the hills to find a route for the following morning.

She knew it was because they’d hoped she’d find something the Shadewatch scouts had missed. But she spent her days aching with loneliness, and at night, they refused to let her be alone.

Earlier, Aswin had tugged at her cloak, eyes wide and brimming. She’d handed Vex a drawing she’d made while at her lessons with Wick. She’d drawn Vex, hand in hand with Trinket, and another Vex, carrying a sword instead of a bow, hand in hand with a grinning ash walker. Vex wanted to tear the drawing apart, but all she could do was give Aswin a hug as the living nightmare that she fought to keep at bay washed over her once more.

After a handful of days of riding out into the hills with no real clues, Vex realized she was going about her search the wrong way. She returned to the location of the encampment, with Derowen in tow, and stared at the only real tracks she’d found so far. They were marred by time and weather, but she’d be able to retrace them even if no sign of them was left. She took one of Derowen’s maps and sketched in the tracks. She added the other set of footprints she’d seen and the direction of the various trails around the campsite and deeper in the hills.

Derowen looked over her shoulder with curiosity. “We know of old mines there, there, and there,” she said, pointing. “We’ve sent in guards before, but all the entrances were caved in.”

“Do you know how far down the mines go?” Vex asked. She added notes of the other tracks she found.

“The systems spread out for miles,” the Shademaster admitted. She wore a red uniform, her sword by her side, and she unconsciously ran her fingers over the hilt. She didn’t suppress the anger in her voice. She’d come without question when Vex told her she might have an idea. “Mining used to be a family business in Jorenn, and knowledge of the mines a closely kept family secret. Those outlaws may be the only ones who know their way around underground, which makes it so hard to fight them and the ash walkers both. We should never have let them escape.”

Derowen glanced in the direction of the hills. “We won’t make that mistake again, Vex. I believe you can find them. And any member of the Shadewatch worth their salt knows to hunt down any outlaw who shows their face aboveground.” When Vex raised an eyebrow, the Shademaster’s eyes flashed. “It’s a standing order, and I won’t apologize for it. They’re a threat to my town and to my daughter. I can understand and even forgive many things, but not that. Never that.”

Vex nodded. Over these past few days, she’d come to know Derowen as an exacting but fair commander, and as someone who would tear down the hills for her daughter. The anger and worry that fueled Derowen now Vex recognized all too well. And there was only one thing to do about it.

“If they live underground, there have to be ways for them to get to the surface for supplies,” she said. “We may not have exact tracks, but we have directions. Traces and mistakes they’ve made. None of them led anywhere individually, but all of them combined …” She took the pencil and extended the lines until they all intersected. It showed an area near where she’d found the last disappearing tracks that angled away from the known mines. “Here. It’s the only place that still makes sense.”

Derowen considered it for a long moment. “What do you want to do?”

“Scour every inch of this area.” Vex raised her chin. While she kept her voice level, her stomach churned. If this didn’t work out, she didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t even contemplate that. “Follow every cave and every stream. Find out if there’s anything you’ve—anything we’ve missed.”

Because if there was one thing Derowen had made clear to Vex over the past few days, it was this: this wasn’t only Vex’s fight. This was all of Jorenn’s. Whether Vex liked it or not, she was part of a community of people fighting for their lives and trying to protect themselves and one another from ash walkers created by greed. So they fought together.

“We’ve tried combing through the hills before, around the mines’ entrances. Perhaps it’s time to try again.”

The Shademaster relaxed her grip on her hilt. She took in the map and smiled a smile full of sharp edges. “You’ll need more guards. Map out the exact area, and I’ll assign scouting parties. You’re welcome to join or oversee them, whichever you prefer.”

Derowen rested a hand on Vex’s arm, her ring glimmering in the pale sunlight. “I regret that you came here under hard circumstances, Vex. But your presence is a boon to our town. Thank you.”

Vex’s shoulder sagged with something akin to relief. This plan was the closest she’d felt to hope since the fight where she’d lost Vax. During these past few days, no one had pointed out to her that the chances slimmed with every passing hour, and she was thankful for that. The reality of time passing was hard to ignore. None of the people they’d met the night the ash walkers attacked remained in town. The dwarves had returned to the Turst Fields, and the bickering duo had apparently found a guide that would bring them into the Grey Valley, despite the potential for further danger. They’d left not long after Shademaster Derowen and Wick visited the inn to talk to the survivors. Only she and Trinket remained.

Vex dreamed of these hills. She could walk them in her sleep, feel the crunch of the shadegrass beneath her feet, hear the whispers of the wind that rushed down the slopes. She kept constantly listening for one voice. She cast her own whispers into the wind and hoped he would hear them. Come home.

Still, her search meant she could do something. When Derowen returned to Jorenn, she followed the edges of the area she’d drawn out and mapped them closely, noting every hillside and stream, every rockslide and path of shadegrass. The smallest details of the nature around her that usually helped her to find her way—the slightest twist of blades of grass, the disturbance of grains of sand, broken and bruised leaves—still mocked her, but for once it didn’t make her feel spectacularly useless.

Her determination wavered only slightly when she realized the area she marked was one of several square miles of rough terrain. It would take the guards days to investigate it, and at the edge of day and night, ash walkers prowled in the distance.

Before the sun had fully set, the wind tossed up dust and sand, and it gave the hills an eerie, macabre atmosphere.

“It isn’t ash,” she snapped at one of the guards by her side, who skittishly avoided the swirls of dust and darkness.

The guard—a middle-aged woman called Beven, with short-cropped blond hair and piercing green eyes—leveled a hard look at her. “I’m glad you’re the expert.”

She gnashed her teeth, and Beven continued, “I’ve spent enough time in these hills to see those damned walkers appear seemingly out of nowhere. We follow the Shademaster’s orders, but we don’t court unreasonable danger.”

Vex didn’t challenge her, even though she wanted to. She didn’t tell her she’d be happy to court any type of danger to get to her brother.

She kept her eyes on the hills around her as though she could stare straight through the rock to what had to lie beneath.

WHEN THE GATES OF JORENN Village came into view again, the guard sighed their relief, while Vex marked down another day. Lost to necessary plans, but lost all the same.

At the gate, Wick towered over a dwarven guard and appeared to be in the midst of a conversation that looked rather unpleasant for the guard—but when Vex rode up to them, Wick held up his hand.

Wick pointed and snapped at the guard once more before he turned to the riders.

He held his hand out to Vex. “May I borrow you?” He grimaced, as if he’d only realized how it must have sounded when the words tumbled out of his mouth. “I have no word from your brother, but I do have something else I’d like to show you.”

One of Vex’s guards laughed at the poor bastard being scolded, though she immediately sobered when Wick zeroed in on her. “Take care of our guest’s horse, please.” Though his words were phrased as a request, his tone was rich with command.

“Of course, Wick.”

Vex’s heart leaped and fell at Wick’s words. She let him help her dismount. The guard immediately stepped in to grab her horse’s reins, and Trinket walked up to nudge her in the shoulder. She stretched, scratched Trinket’s hair, and pulled herself back together.

“What is it?”

“Walk with me? I’d offer you my arm, but I don’t think that’d be comfortable for you.” He pulled up one shoulder in a half shrug.

“Don’t worry about it.” She wasn’t a lady who needed an arm, she was a sister who needed her brother.

Wick observed her quietly. While she’d gotten used to his presence, he still cut a strange figure here. He was the only half-giant in town, and wherever he went, people stopped to greet him. He wasn’t a member of the Shadewatch though all the guards treated him with the same respect they otherwise reserved for Derowen. And while the warhammer he wielded was the same size as Aswin, on those few occasions Vex had observed them sitting around a table for Aswin’s lessons, he had at least as much patience as he did strength.

“Derowen told me you marked an area for the guard to investigate,” he said eventually, softly, when he guided her toward a long street that ran parallel to the town square and stretched all the way toward the other end of town, with narrow shops scattered on either side between regular houses, with strong wooden façades and colorful awnings that waved like banners in the breeze, cheerful against the drab colors of town. Though most doors were locked for the night, the shopping windows were not boarded up and the lights inside shone boldly. Wick dragged her along with a purpose.

“It’s the only thing that still makes sense,” she said. She refused to acknowledge that after a long day of riding, her voice sounded thin and tired and far less convincing then when she’d spoken with Derowen.

Trinket nudged her and walked closer, his ambling pace comfortingly close. He smelled of mud and ashes and home.

“It’s a good plan,” Wick said, all calm reassurance. “Derowen has faith in you, which means I do. And it’s not just the two of us either.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“You’ll see.” He smiled, and the boyish mischief tore through her.

He waited for a carriage to pass them by, dusting up the stamped dirt road, then he guided her to a brightly lit building across the road, where the shingle above the door read, in spidery writing, BINDS AND DOLLS. Blue curtains danced in front of the windows, and tiny eyes stared out through the glass. When Vex stepped closer, she realized half a dozen dolls sat on a shelf, their backs toward the shop and curious faces turned toward the street. They were meticulously crafted in all sorts of ways. Some were sewn from colorful swaths of fabric, others built from sticks and pieces of metal. They all had tiny gemstones for eyes. Fragments of ruby and sapphire, an emerald that reminded Vex too much of Aswin.

If Wick hadn’t been there, Vex would’ve turned straight around. But he pushed the door open and stooped to get into the shop. The chimes on the door still pealed when Vex swiftly ducked in behind him, while Trinket stood watch outside.

In the middle of the shop, surrounded by rows upon rows of dolls in all shapes and sizes, all colors, and all states between barely constructed and beautifully polished, sat a young woman with stone-gray skin, darker than Wick’s silver gray, and rougher too. She wore a double set of glasses, and though she looked up when the two of them entered, she didn’t meet Wick’s or Vex’s eyes. Instead she stared at her hands and smiled at the half-finished doll in front of her, the newest creature built out of swaths of leather and brightly colored thread.

Beyond the workbench and the doll collection, the dolls slowly made way for books that were neatly stacked on the extended shelves. Small notecards with the same spidery handwriting noted the languages in which the books were written, and they were all structured accordingly.

“Hey, Beryl,” Wick said gently. “This is Vex.” He continued—hesitatingly—in a guttural language that Vex didn’t understand.

Beryl nodded along and replied in the same language, her voice lower and resonant. She glanced at Vex through her eyelashes before nodding toward a book that balanced on the corner of the workbench. A thin volume, its cover mended with the same care shown to the dolls.

Wick picked it up and leafed through. “Beryl makes dolls for collectors and for the children in town, including Aswin. She’s also somewhat of a book lover, and so she handles both. When Derowen came in here yesterday to pick up a mended doll for Aswin, she was reminded that you asked her if she had any books about dragons in her study.”

Had she? It was probably true. Vex didn’t remember. She might have asked. Most evenings she’d spent in a haze of restlessness and discomfort. The books provided her with a sense of focus, and it was the only thing that kept her from clawing at her own skin. She forced herself to think and not to feel, because if she did, she might shatter completely.

Wick held out the book to her. “Beryl found it for you, gathering dust on a bottom shelf.”

Vex hesitated. “How much is it?”

“No, no payment,” Beryl said. She ducked her head and flapped her fingers when Vex turned to her.

Wick drew Vex’s attention back to him. “She wants you to have it. She knows you stood on those palisades besides the Shademaster, and it’s her way of saying thanks.”

Vex bit her lip. In her periphery, Beryl swayed in her chair, and she smiled gently. Vex wondered what it was that made these people help her without demanding anything in return.

She held the book and pressed it against her chest. She didn’t look directly at Beryl. “Thank you.”

“WHY?” SHE ASKED WICK WHEN they stood outside. She pushed the book into the pocket of her coat, where it bounced gently against her hip, and for once the idea of a night in Derowen’s sitting room appealed to her beyond the opportunity for distraction. For once, the emptiness inside her did not feel wholly overwhelming, and it terrified her.

“Why did she help you?” Wick considered that. “Because she could. Because you helped us and she knows you’re still helping us, and that goes a long way in Jorenn.” He smiled and toyed with the leather band around his neck. “Many think of Jorenn as a harsh place, and it is. We’ve armed ourselves against the dangers coming down from the hills and up through the mines, and that changes a town. You may find cruelty here. But you’ll find kindness too. We take care of one another. We try to make this as fair a town as it can be for all who live here.”

He made it sound so simple. She appreciated the words in theory, but she had a hard time believing them. Fairness was for those with the money to buy it. Kindness was reserved for the lucky few, and she’d learned to brace herself for cruelty.

“If nothing else,” Wick continued, recognizing her skepticism, “we have a shared foe. Ever since the miners disturbed the ash, we’ve learned it’s far better to fight side by side. Everyone here knows what it’s like to lose a loved one. Almost everyone knows what it’s like to lose a home. If we don’t stand together, what’s to stop us from shattering completely?”

With darkness slowly blanketing the city, the streets around them quieted further. But in one of the houses someone picked out a tune on a fiddle. A few doors down, a brusque dwarf shouted out of a window for his daughters to come home for dinner.

“What happened? What were the initial attacks like?” Although she’d been in the midst of their savagery only days ago, it had seemed to her that between the archers and Derowen’s barrier, Jorenn had managed to fend them off easily.

Wick rubbed his hand over his face. “Brutal. Jorenn has always suffered from attacks from creatures coming down the hills. When Derowen and I got here, it was no different. We had no way to fend them off, and too few people in Jorenn were trained to fight. I didn’t want to stay. Aswin was still a baby, and I was terrified for her safety. Derowen was always the one with vision. She found a corner of the world that she loved and she didn’t want to leave it. She saw how Jorenn could become a better place, a safer place. And for a while, it was. Until the ash walkers came up from the mines, and nothing could have prepared us for that.”

“She didn’t have that magical ring of hers?” Vex asked. That cursed piece of jewelry that had brought her and her brother here in the first place. This was no simple heist anymore, if it had ever been. If Vex didn’t know the ring’s significance, she would’ve considered stealing it for the pleasure of destroying it, for coming between the two of them.

Wick smiled. “No, not at first. But she had a purpose. She’d started training guard members long before the dead crawled through the streets. She formed the Shadewatch. And when the walkers did come, she helped build the palisades. She gave the people of Jorenn the chance to defend themselves and their loved ones. It wasn’t flawless, but it gave hope to people who felt besieged. The ring didn’t come until a year later. And even when she did have it, for a while the attacks only increased, like the Umbra Hills themselves were resisting us trying to create a peaceful home here. We had to take control of the mines because the dangers were too many.”

“Despite all that, the ash walkers never left?”

“It’s made us wonder if the outlaws simply kept on mining. That’s also why it matters so much that you are helping us.”

Vex mulled it over. Derowen’s orders to hunt the outlaws down kept coming back to her, and with every new piece of information she learned they made more sense. It was a matter of survival. If they didn’t find a way to stop the outlaws, they’d keep endangering Jorenn. And they would endanger Vax.

“How did Derowen get the ring?” she asked carefully. She’d avoided the subject so far, as focused as she was on finding her brother, but the job still existed in the back of her mind. With every new day lost she couldn’t help but wonder what the Clasp thought. She couldn’t care less about what they wanted, but perhaps uncovering the information they needed was another way for her to be closer to Vax.

Wick turned them back in the direction of the town square, raising a hand in greeting at a group of dwarves. “Her brother Culwen—you met him on your first day here, and he visits often—he uncovered it. He’s a collector of strange and obscure objects. He simply showed up one day after we settled here, and demanded to see his sister. He offered her the ring in return for his own work space tucked away on the third floor of the Shade Hall, now filled to the brim with clutter. Derowen hates it, but no one can deny he occasionally comes up with useful items.”

Vex shook her head. Brothers and their trinkets.

“Culwen never quite shares where he finds his curiosities. He procured the ring on his travels,” Wick continued. “He said the stone came from these hills, so it was only right his sister had it. Derowen wasn’t fond of it at first, but once she had a chance to study it, once she understood what it did, she realized how much it would add to the protection of the town. Jorenn wouldn’t be what it is without that ring.”

Vex winced. “So how does it work?”

“I’ve never used it myself.” Something flicked across Wick’s face, and his words were begrudging. “The way Derowen explains it, it creates a barrier that holds the dead at bay. Those cursed corpses found their way up and over the palisades before, and it was far more difficult to hold them back. Now only a few get through at best, and we can deal with those.” He patted the handle of his warhammer. “Unfortunately we haven’t yet found a way to make the roads safer. One day, we will.”

“One day.” Vex leaned against her bear and scratched his ear. She wanted to pry into the background of the ring, what it did exactly, but there was no way she could do that without raising suspicions, so instead, she let the quiet of the town wash over her.

There was an ease of comfort to Jorenn, in this liminal space between day and night, when the streets were emptying and not filling back up yet, when the last red streaks of the day reflected in the windows and night still held off its definitive cover. In another time and place, she would’ve heard birdsong now. There was little of that in Jorenn.

But there was joy and defiance, those little corners and cubbies where the townspeople carved sense into the world. Inside one of the houses, a young dwarven woman sang a lewd song that escaped through the open window and echoed through the street. Someone else grumbled at her to shut up, and she laughed loudly. An off-duty guard who passed Wick and Vex rolled his eyes and tipped his hat at both of them. If this was what it was like to live in a city—tearing down your own walls to rebuild them in the structures around you—she could grow used to it. If this is what Vax saw when they spent time in the cities, she understood it.

Wick cleared his throat. “You’ve asked me so many questions, let me ask you one of mine.” His eyes lingered on her, and she shifted uncomfortably, prepared to draw up her defenses again. She was always prepared for that.

Wick scratched his head. “So why dragons?”

Oh.

She tapped against the book in her pocket. She hadn’t expected that question. She never answered that question. She’d grown adept at skirting around it and many others like it. Where are you from? Why are you traveling? Who’s waiting for you back home? Even Aswin’s innocent question about her mother she’d managed to avoid, though that was luck as much as skill.

Her brother and she had kept to themselves for the better part of five years. They were fine on their own, and outside of Trinket, they didn’t need anyone else. She didn’t want to share her pain with anyone else, because it could only be used to hurt her more.

But this ridiculous town did something to her. Wick’s solemn confidence gave her hope that some people might be willing to listen. For the first time in a long time, she wanted to answer.

She opened her mouth and closed it, and tried again until she found the right words. “Because I also know what it’s like to lose a home.”

Wick sighed. “I hoped that wasn’t the answer. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” He held out his large hand to her and placed it on her shoulder. “You have a home here, now. For as long as you need it.”